by Anne Fraser
“Of course I don’t want anyone to lose his job or go hungry,” she snapped. “What kind of person do you think I am?”
“The sort who will do the right thing.”
The enormity of the situation struck her and she rubbed the back of her neck. “This day cannot be happening,” she muttered. “It can’t. First Bill, and now this. It’s all a dream.”
“I assure you it isn’t,” Ruark said.
She met his gaze. “The idea of using marriage as a diplomatic measure is so medieval!”
“Medieval or not, the practice isn’t unheard of. Wars have been started over the very issue standing between Avelogne and Marestonia.”
“Not in this day and age.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Really? Tell that to all the countries who believe another has slighted them for whatever reason.”
“Oh, great. You’re going to hold me responsible for starting a war?”
“Matters won’t go to that extreme, but strained relations won’t do either country any good.”
She shook her head. “No, but I can’t believe a sane person actually proposed this as a solution or that two entire families gave it merit.”
“I can assure you the Queen Mother of Avelogne is perfectly sane. As for the idea having merit, desperate times call for desperate measures.”
Desperate times, desperate measures. She understood the concept.
“Look,” she began, “I’m flattered you think I can help. I’m flattered that you, as a prince, would seriously consider marrying me sight unseen, but no one will believe we’re sincere. Things are moving much too fast to be believable, unless you’re thinking of a platonic marriage which we’ll annul in a year or so.” She raised an eyebrow.
“No annulment. No platonic marriage. This is for real.”
So much for that idea. “Marriage is a big step to a couple who know each other, much less between two people who don’t. The fact we’re complete strangers may be a small, insignificant detail to you, but it isn’t to me and I doubt if it is to everyone else. The people of both countries will see it as a ploy to manipulate them and they’ll be right.”
“Not if we convince everyone otherwise.”
“I’m a physician, not an actress,” she reminded him.
“Exactly.” He sounded pleased. “No one will question a romantic relationship between two people who share the same career and work in the same facility.”
The pieces fell into place—delivering the letter from her grandmother had only been a small part of the overall scheme. “You’d planned this all along, didn’t you?”
His gaze locked on hers. “Of course. A marriage with the two of us on opposite sides of the country would draw suspicion.”
“No one can pack up and move overnight. Job openings don’t appear because you want them either.”
“They don’t,” he agreed. “I began making inquiries several months ago.”
Several months ago? “Don’t tell me you had Bill Nevins fired so you could take his place.” She didn’t want to think of the sort of power Ruark might hold if he’d accomplished that feat.
“According to what I was told, Bill’s management style had concerned Administration for some time. They’d been biding their time and quietly looking for a replacement so when I approached them about a position here, they were ready to act. It was the perfect opportunity for all of us. Except Nevins, of course.”
Now she understood how a game piece token felt as the player moved it along according to the roll of the dice. Arranging the events that had brought the two of them to this point must have been as precisely orchestrated as a military campaign.
“Aren’t you going out on a limb?” she asked, certain she’d found an ace up her sleeve. “What if I walk out that door and don’t come back? You’ll be stuck here, I’ll be gone, and your grand scheme will fall apart.”
“You won’t leave.”
She snorted at his confidence. “Don’t be too sure.”
“Oh, I’m sure, Gina.” His dark gaze grew more intent and she sensed he would be a formidable opponent. “You see, you need this job because you’re as proud as your father. As a matter of principle, he didn’t use the funds the royal family provided when he left Avelogne and you haven’t either, even though it would have made it completely unnecessary to borrow money to finance medical school. In fact, you and your father have already planned to leave the money to charity should anything happen to you. Half to an orphanage in Avelogne and the other half to—”
She was amazed by his unerring accuracy. “How do you know that?”
“You would be surprised what I know, but I can safely say you won’t run away.” He ticked off his points on his fingers. “One, you need a job, so you either must keep this one or find another. Two, you won’t find another without a reference and guess who currently is responsible for writing one on your behalf?
“Three,” he continued, “your contract states you must give ninety days’ written notice. If you fail to honor those terms, we’re back to reason number two. So, your argument about marrying a stranger is inconsequential because, one way or another, we’ll be together for the next three months. We won’t be strangers for long.”
Darn the man, he was right!
“And if I refuse your gracious proposal?”
He raised one eyebrow. “I’m known to be quite persuasive.”
She didn’t doubt that a bit. Having met him less than twelve hours ago, she’d already seen evidence of his dogged determination to succeed at any cost. Plus, she was on his turf, without any form of transportation other than her own two feet, which meant he could hold her here for hours. Clearly, the odds of standing her ground weren’t in her favor.
“Why are you accepting arrangements made without your consent?” she wanted to know. “It isn’t as if you’re the heir apparent. If you can choose your own career, you can surely choose your own wife.”
As she spoke, she wondered what sort of woman he would have married if given the choice. Irrationally, the thought that she might not have attracted his attention under normal circumstances pricked her self-esteem.
“I can,” he assured her. “For me, though, this is a matter of family honor and duty.”
How could she argue with something so intangible, yet so powerful? “Just what every woman wants to hear,” she said dryly. “A proposal offered out of duty.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Would you rather I had pursued you for several weeks, professed enduring love and then rushed you to the altar? Eventually, you would have learned the truth and hated me for my dishonesty, which wouldn’t have boded well for any marriage.”
Once again, he was right, and she found his uncanny perception as irritating as his impersonal proposal. “What if I already have a fiancé?” she blustered.
CHAPTER FIVE
RUARK smiled, as if he knew she was grasping for an excuse. “You don’t. You haven’t dated anyone seriously for a number of months.”
At least he hadn’t pointed out her last date had been for the previous year’s hospital Christmas party. Even so, he didn’t need to sound so pleased with himself for pointing it out.
“I know more about you, Gina,” he continued, “than you think I do.”
What a scary thought. “There has to be an alternative,” she said, desperately trying to think of one and failing miserably.
“If you think of one that our diplomats and scholars have overlooked, I’m willing to listen.”
She had nothing, at least at the moment. “Look,” she began, “for your plan to work, you’re assuming we’re compatible. What if we’re not?”
“What if we are?” he countered. “We’ll never know if we don’t put in an effort.”
She argued her case from another angle. “Why don’t you issue a press release announcing that you proposed but I refused? You can claim you tried to do the right thing, but I didn’t co-operate.”
“Do you think my countrymen will be satisfied
once they hear you’ve rejected their prince without cause, after knowing him less than twenty-four hours? They’ll take it as a personal insult.”
“Better to feel insulted than manipulated,” she pointed out. “Knowing you proposed less than a day after meeting me isn’t going to promote good public relations either. Neither is inventing a story to fool millions of people. Two wrongs don’t make a right and being anything less than perfectly honest is a prescription for disaster.”
“Stretching the truth goes against the grain with me, too,” he admitted, “but we simply state the barest of facts and allow the press to draw their own conclusions. As luck would have it, we both attended the emergency medicine conference in Los Angeles six months ago. Registration records from both the conference and the hotel will prove it to anyone who questions us. People will logically believe we met and struck up a long-distance romance that led to me relocating to Belmont.”
“You were at the conference?” Granted, there had been thousands in attendance, but how could she have missed him?
“All five days,” he assured her.
This whole situation was spiraling more and more out of control. “Am I the only one who sees the inherent failure in this so-called plan?”
“We won’t allow it to fail. It’s the best solution, as far as I can see.”
The man had to be blind, she thought, exasperated by his calm acceptance of the situation. “I don’t know the first thing about being a princess. And in case you haven’t noticed, things like this just aren’t done these days!”
“Being a princess won’t be any different than being a countess. You’ll wake up every morning, go to work, and come home at night to your family.”
Family. The term implied a husband, children, and everything associated with them—piano recitals, ball games, school events. She’d wished for relatives after her mother had died in a car accident and she’d had no one left except her father, but the demands of medical school and her career had pushed those dreams to the back of her mind. Realizing they could now be within reach, that they now fell in the realm of probability rather than possibility, was almost more than she dared to imagine. More importantly, the prospect of Ruark playing a prominent role in that scenario caused her toes to curl.
Yet, she’d learned a few lessons over the years. Few situations were as simple as they initially appeared.
“You’ve clearly forgotten how I was raised. My royal background was simply historical information, like having an ancestor who served in the First World War. It didn’t factor into who I am today.”
“Perhaps not entirely,” he agreed. “We chose medicine as our profession and I doubt if either of us will give it up, so the major part of our lives won’t change. Oh, we may have to appear at a diplomatic event every now and then but, I can assure you, those instances are rare. Probably a few times a year.”
He was entirely too agreeable to a scenario that could end in a lifetime of disaster. She narrowed her gaze. “What’s in this for you? Is someone giving you the keys to the national treasury, or what?”
His eyes reflected his gentle smile. “I had my doubts, too,” he admitted, “but when I considered the repercussions if I refused to put the needs of my people before my own, my worries seemed insignificant in comparison.”
While she hadn’t expected him to swear undying love after a few hours and wouldn’t have believed him if he had, she would like to think she was more than another obligation he had to fulfill. And yet it was silly to wish for that—they’d only met ten hours ago.
“I realize this idea is difficult to consider, much less accept,” he said kindly. “But your father worked tirelessly to prevent what you saw from happening thirty years ago. Are you willing to let it happen today, when you have the power to prevent it?”
People matter, Gina, not things.
Knowing how much her father had loved Avelogne, she found herself actually giving Ruark’s proposal serious thought…
“I don’t want my father’s efforts to have been in vain,” she admitted, “but marriage should be based on more than politics, especially if it’s supposed to endure through good times as well as bad.”
“Ours will be,” he assured her. “We have enough common interests to form a foundation for a satisfying life together.”
Common interests. A satisfying life. It sounded as exciting as a bland diet. “When have you and your cronies planned this happy event, provided I agree, of course?”
“As soon as it can be arranged.”
“As soon as…?” She didn’t attempt to hide her shock. Marrying Ruark at some distant point in the future was a difficult enough concept to wrap her head around, but doing so as soon as possible? A shiver went down her spine, but she couldn’t decide if fear or some twisted sense of anticipation caused her reaction.
“Why the rush? Why not, say, six months?” Surely in that length of time the crisis would resolve itself or she would find a another solution.
“Six months? Impossible. Time is of the essence. Discontent grows with every day we delay.”
She’d seen the newscast, so she couldn’t argue his point. “Yes, but rushing to the altar will only raise more questions.” She eyed him closely. “I do hope you aren’t going to hint a royal baby’s involved.”
He grinned. “That’s an idea no one’s considered. I’m sure we’ll make beautiful babies.”
A mental picture of a long, lean masculine form tangled in sheets, his whisker-rough face relaxed in sleep as he spooned his body against hers created a sudden and unsettling ache in her core. She rubbed her forehead with an unsteady hand to dispel the image, and it instantly changed. A boy with Ruark’s dark hair and impish smile appeared, followed by a little girl who resembled Gina in her childhood photos. They were definitely beautiful children, but this wasn’t the time to think about offspring.
She drew a cleansing breath as she blinked away the vision. “Whether we will or won’t isn’t the issue,” she stated firmly. “The point is, don’t you dare suggest I’m pregnant because I can guarantee your story will backfire.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Will it?”
Something in his eyes suggested that he wouldn’t mind making a baby a reality. As for her, the notion of sharing a bed, feeling his intimate touch on her bare skin, was enough to send another wave of heat coursing through her. Marrying a man out of duty—a man she’d just met—wasn’t supposed to cause such an intense reaction, was it?
She struggled to rein in her thoughts. “We aren’t going to muddy the waters any more than they already are,” she ordered, hoping he hadn’t noticed how breathless she sounded.
He paused. “Perhaps it’s for the best,” he mused, “but, as I said before, time is our enemy. Parliament will vote at the end of October to sever diplomatic ties, so the sooner we act, the better.”
“Maybe everyone will be satisfied with an engagement announcement,” she suggested hopefully.
He shook his head. “If we don’t follow through with a wedding, the whole plan will seem contrived and we’ll have worse problems. There’s truly no sense in prolonging the inevitable.”
Reluctantly, she saw his point. Better to rip off the adhesive bandage rather than tear it off in tiny, painful increments. “Tell me how this is going to work,” she said tiredly, hoping he hadn’t noticed how she’d slipped and used the present tense.
“I’ll arrange for a civil ceremony as soon as possible. Once our union is official, my father will announce our marriage and we’ll begin our life as a couple.”
A civil ceremony. Not quite the wedding she’d imagined but, then, she’d never dreamed about marrying a man she didn’t love in a business arrangement.
“How do you explain why we’re not having an official state wedding?”
“You want to be married in the US because it’s been your home,” he said simply. “With your father deceased, you preferred a private gathering with only your closest friends. No one will question your decision
.”
“Other than we’re rushing into this.”
“Rushing only adds to the romanticism,” he assured her. “Especially if we hint at our impatience to be together after I moved to Belmont.”
He’d thought of everything, which irritated her. “Am I allowed to choose my own dress, or have you organized that, too?”
He went on as if he hadn’t noticed the sarcasm in her voice.
“After the ceremony, we act as any married couple. A few photos and a couple of carefully screened interviews should convince everyone in Marestonia and Avelogne to put the past behind them.”
“And if we fight like cats and dogs?”
His now-familiar half-smile appeared. “We won’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Gut feeling.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not.”
“But if you are?” she persisted.
He leaned forward. “We’re both adults and know what’s at stake. We have to make this work, Gina. We can make it work.”
He sounded so certain, but was he trying to convince himself or her?
She couldn’t deny her physical attraction to him, but she’d always imagined experiencing a grand passion. Considering how her father had sacrificed everything to marry the woman he’d loved, how could she do any less, no matter how handsome or charming the man was? And yet how could she ignore the repercussions if she didn’t do something to calm the troubled waters?
“You may not find me as distasteful as you imagine.”
He’d spoken lightly, but she sensed his hurt. He’d argued his case in such coolly logical terms that she’d forgotten her lack of co-operation was as much a rejection of him as it was for the plan he’d presented.
Her face warmed and she tried to minimize the damage. “I’m sorry, Ruark. My objections aren’t directed toward you personally. I’d always imagined I’d have a marriage like my parents’, not one borne out of convenience or duty. And certainly not one that was forced upon me to solve a national crisis.”
