Their Royal Wedding Bargain

by Michelle Conder

  Oh, dear. Lord Richton. She had completely forgotten about him. If the floor were to open up and swallow her whole right now, she wouldn’t mind.

  ‘Lord Richton is no longer in the picture,’ the Prince declared, his hard-packed body lethally tense beside her.

  Alexa frowned at the way he took control of the situation, at the way he took control of her, as if he had every right to do so.

  Just then a flutter of movement caught her eye and Alexa was appalled to note that they were no longer alone. Some of the King’s other overnight guests had also come out to the terrace to view the stunning gardens.

  ‘Why don’t we take this discussion inside?’ King Jaeger offered smoothly. ‘The terrace is hardly the place to discuss something of this magnitude.’

  Her father looked like he wanted to argue but gave a curt nod.

  Rafe settled his hand in the small of her back, causing a jolt of fresh awareness to race through her.

  ‘After you,’ he said politely.

  Hanging back from her father and his brother, Alexa glanced up at him from beneath the fringe of her lashes. ‘Why on earth did you tell them we were betrothed?’ she whispered hoarsely, absently noting that Rafe had matched his stride to hers.

  ‘Because I could hardly tell your father that I wanted to take you to bed, and that you wanted to be there. I do value my life,’ he countered.

  Not nearly enough, she fumed silently at his cavalier answer.

  ‘Just because I kissed you does not mean that I want to sleep with you!’ she hissed, wondering if she would have had the wherewithal to deny him this time if it had come to that.

  ‘My apologies, Princess. I assumed you wouldn’t want a scandal any more than I do, and you did ask me to marry you. I thought it was what you wanted.’

  It had been. Last night. Last night, before he had kissed her and brought forth a whole host of emotions she didn’t want to feel. Before she had dreamt about the two of them in bed together. Naked.

  Easing out a choked breath, Alexa nodded at King Jaeger as he held a door open. She reluctantly followed her father inside, with Rafe so close behind her she could feel his body heat through her clothing.

  At least she understood his thinking now. He’d promised his brother that he wouldn’t create a scandal and so he’d improvised by taking up her proposal. Something she should feel much better about, given that it was her idea and it had been what she wanted.

  Only the purpose of asking the Prince to marry her was to gain control of her life, and she somehow felt that she was about to lose it altogether.

  She surreptitiously placed a finger against her temple, which had started to throb. She supposed there was no other option but to go along with it now because Rafe was right; she didn’t want to marry Lord Richton, and she had always viewed a fake engagement as a better option.

  King Jaeger offered her father a seat but he refused, choosing to stand beside an oak dresser, his arms folded across his corpulent chest.

  Rafe planted himself in the middle of the room, his legs braced wide on the silk rug, facing his brother. Not wanting to be the only person in the room seated, Alexa chose to remain beside him, even though her legs felt as capable of holding her up as matchsticks.

  ‘Well, now that we’re all standing,’ King Jaeger began with a resigned note in his voice, ‘would someone mind explaining what’s going on here?’

  ‘There’s nothing to explain,’ Rafe began. ‘Alexa and I share a certain chemistry, and have decided to take things further.’

  Wondering why he hadn’t led with the political advantages their union would bring, Alexa was only grateful that he hadn’t chosen to reveal how she had approached him the night before.

  ‘When did this happen?’ her father asked suspiciously.

  ‘We spoke about it last night,’ Rafe answered, throwing her a heated glance that told her exactly which part of last night he was thinking about. ‘At length.’

  ‘If you spoke about it last night, Alexa—’ her father’s gaze pierced hers ‘—why did you agree to marry Lord Richton during the meeting this morning?’

  ‘Last night I got cold feet,’ Rafe interjected smoothly, placing his arm around her waist. ‘It put Alexa in an awkward position. After thinking things through however, I now know what I want. Do you think we could ring for coffee? I’m parched.’

  ‘I was addressing my daughter,’ her father snapped impatiently. ‘Alexa can speak for herself.’

  Yes, but nowhere near as eloquently. She was almost in awe of how the Prince could reveal so much and yet so little at the same time.

  ‘Prince Rafaele is correct, Father,’ she said, trying to ignore the heavy warmth of Rafe’s hand against her hip. ‘We did speak about it last night and I’m... I’m still coming to terms with his change of heart.’ She glanced at the Prince with a look just short of panic, hoping that King Jaeger had indeed rung for coffee—or perhaps something stronger.

  ‘Sometimes a man doesn’t know what’s important until it’s about to be taken away.’ Prince Rafaele gave her an indulgent smile. ‘When Alexa informed me of your plan to marry her off to Lord Richton, I couldn’t let that happen. If Alexa marries anyone, she’ll marry me.’

  Alexa swallowed at the possessive note in his voice. What would it be like if he truly meant those words? If he actually wanted to marry her for real? And why had that thought even entered her head? She wasn’t looking to turn this into a love story. No matter how well he could kiss, Prince Rafaele was completely the wrong kind of man for her.

  ‘This is all very surprising,’ King Jaeger said reasonably. ‘Why don’t we take some time to think about it and agree to meet next week to—?’

  ‘No.’ Her father cut the King’s offer off before it was fully formed. ‘If your brother wants to marry my daughter then the wedding will be held at the end of the month.’

  In three weeks!

  Her father’s words sounded like a death knell in the quiet room. Alexa swallowed hard. This was only meant to be a temporary engagement, not an actual marriage.

  ‘That’s not possible,’ she choked out. ‘I...that is to say, we...’

  ‘This isn’t a game, Alexa,’ her father interrupted tersely. ‘Of his own admission, Prince Rafaele has already experienced cold feet and I will not have another Santarian royal make a fool of you by pulling out at the last minute.’ He turned to square off against the Prince. ‘If you want my daughter, those are the terms.’

  Fully expecting Rafe to run from the room like a man with the devil after him, Alexa wasn’t surprised to hear him say, ‘The end of the month doesn’t work for me. I have a new club opening on that weekend and I have to be there.’

  ‘There you go,’ she said, breathing a sigh of relief. ‘Now why don’t we—?’

  ‘The weekend before then,’ her father challenged.

  Alexa felt Rafe go dangerously still beside her. Her father didn’t move either; his chin jutted out at an angle she knew meant that nothing would get him to back down. They were like two stags facing off against each other over unclaimed territory. Only she was the piece of precious veld they were fighting over.

  Deciding she had to do something to defuse the tension in the room, Alexa stepped towards her father, only to have Rafe’s hand firm on her hip to hold her in place beside him.

  ‘Tight,’ he murmured, his hard gaze flicking from her father’s to hers. ‘But so be it.’

  * * *

  ‘So be it? So be it?’

  Somehow Alexa had convinced her father that she needed a moment alone with her fiancé. She moved out of his arms now, and rounded on him.

  ‘Are you completely mad? Why did you say that to him? Why did you agree with his terms?’

  ‘Breathe, Princess,’ the Prince ordered curtly, ‘before you pass out.’

  She wasn’t going to pass out. She w
as going to... Alexa groped for the edge of the sofa behind her and all but fell onto the cushioned seat. She was going to pass out.

  ‘Here.’ A glass with amber liquid in it, not unlike the horrible Scotch she’d sipped the night before, was thrust in front of her face. ‘Drink this.’

  ‘It’s too early for alcohol.’

  ‘It’s five o clock somewhere in the world. If you don’t drink it, I will.’

  ‘Have it.’ Alexa took a deep breath, her palms against her belly to settle the pitching sensation inside. ‘I’m too much in shock to drink it.’

  ‘Why are you so shocked? You’re the one who asked me to marry you in the first place.’

  ‘I asked you to cooperate in a fake engagement, not enter into a real marriage.’

  ‘And why was that?’ His eyes were like blue granite when they met hers. ‘You weren’t surprised when your father initially disapproved of you marrying me. Was this just an act of rebellion on your part? The perfect, pampered little princess, lashing out against authority by becoming engaged to the Rebel Prince?’

  ‘No!’

  Rafe gave a mocking stare. ‘Your face gives you away, Princess. Don’t ever play poker. You’ll lose the bank.’

  ‘Okay, yes, in some small way I was rebelling, but not because I’m perfect, or pampered. Far from it. I don’t want to marry anyone right now, and because I knew my father didn’t approve of you I never imagined he would push us both to the altar the way that he has.’

  ‘Appears you were wrong.’ He paced away from her to stare out of the window. ‘It seems the bad brother is just as good for his Princess as the good one.’

  Alexa frowned. ‘You mean King Jaeger?’

  He turned back, his brow lifted in a cynical arch. ‘I do only have one brother.’

  ‘I... I’ve never compared the two of you like that.’

  ‘Like I said, don’t play poker.’

  ‘Okay, fine,’ Alexa conceded. ‘But you can’t deny that you’re totally different from each other. By your own admission you’re not interested in duty and commitment, and you don’t care about Santara or politics. Honestly, your life is completely alien to me.’

  ‘Because it’s based on pleasure?’

  ‘Because it’s hedonistic.’ Her face flamed as his eyebrow arched again. ‘What I mean is, you do what you want, whenever you want, regardless of what others think of you. You live by your own rules, and I don’t know anyone else who does that. Frankly, I envy it.’

  For a moment he didn’t say anything. Then he sighed and dragged a hand through his overlong hair. Alexa didn’t want to remember how thick and soft it had felt beneath her fingertips but she couldn’t help it. Her gaze drifted over his unshaven jaw and paused on his well-shaped lips. Lips that were skilled and warm.

  Suddenly aware that he was watching her just as closely, she lifted her chin and forced her gaze to remain steady even though she was quaking inside.

  ‘Well, regardless of how this all came about, your father has effectively checkmated us both.’

  ‘So it would seem.’ Unable to sit still with so much energy coursing through her body, Alexa rose from the sofa, her mind in a whirl. ‘And now we have to un-checkmate ourselves.’ Not that she had any idea how to do that. Her father was more stubborn than a mule when he chose to be.

  ‘That won’t be possible.’

  Alexa frowned as the Prince stared moodily into the glass he was holding.

  ‘It has to be.’

  ‘Not without seriously angering and embarrassing both our Kings.’

  Feeling trapped, Alexa absently reached for the glass in his hand, taking a fortifying gulp before handing it back with a grimace. ‘So what do we do now?’

  ‘We do what your father wants. We marry. You get to appease your father and help your country and, if you’re right, the violence between our countries ceases. I get to pay off a long-standing debt I owe to my brother and ease his load.’ He tossed back the remaining contents of the glass and placed it on a low table. ‘But nothing else changes. You live in Berenia. I live in London. At a time that is convenient to us both we’ll agree that the marriage isn’t working and end it.’ His gaze sharpened. ‘Six months should be long enough.’

  ‘I don’t know if that will work. My people will expect you to move to Berenia.’

  ‘I expect billion-dollar deals to fall into my lap every day but unfortunately that doesn’t happen either.’

  Ignoring his sarcasm, Alexa paced away from him. ‘You really think this will work?’

  ‘Why not? I have stories written about me that aren’t true all the time. Only this time I’ll be the one in charge of creating the story. I find I quite like the idea.’

  Alexa gnawed on the inside of her lip in consternation. ‘I still think we can find a way out of this if we try.’

  ‘Fine. If you find one, you let me know. As long as it doesn’t make things worse for my brother I’ll be all over it.’

  ‘And what if six months isn’t long enough to convince everyone that this is real?’

  ‘Six months will be plenty. But if you’re worried you can just gaze at me adoringly from time to time.’

  ‘That would only feed your ego.’

  ‘Something I’m all for.’ His gaze settled on her lips, and heat spiked deep inside her. Suddenly she was thinking about kissing him again and, as if he knew exactly where her mind had gone, his gaze lifted to hers, amusement highlighting the dark blue depths.

  Embarrassed, and not a little disconcerted by the strength of her reaction to him, Alexa lifted her chin. ‘It will be expected that we’re seen together at some point, you know.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ His eyes were a hot and watchful brand as they locked with hers. ‘But let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, hmm?’

  * * *

  If Alexa had wondered over the course of the last two weeks how Prince Rafaele felt about their impending nuptials, all doubt evaporated when she caught sight of his grim expression at the end of the aisle.

  He hated it.

  Something Alexa would probably have been more aware of had they not delegated every aspect of the wedding planning to their respective assistants.

  Not that she’d wanted to plan it. The thought of it had been so challenging she’d deliberately thrown herself into horrendously long working days so that she’d be too exhausted by the end of the day to think about anything at all, least of all the wedding.

  The down side to having been so busy was that the time had seemed to rush by. And now she was about to trust her future to a man who liked to be in charge, and whom she hardly knew.

  One she was incredibly attracted to.

  The unwanted thought entered her head entirely without her permission. For two weeks she’d been trying to avoid thinking about the way he had kissed her and touched her and the way she had responded, but she hadn’t been completely successful, her dreams often so erotic she had woken sweaty and embarrassingly aroused on more than one occasion.

  Because sex with Prince Rafaele would be unforgettable.

  And thinking that way would lead to trouble. They had struck a marriage bargain with each other for political purposes. It was nothing more than a marriage of convenience; the Prince might kiss like a dream but she couldn’t have sex with him. Not only would it not serve any long-term purpose but she was very afraid that she’d like it too much. That she’d like him too much. And if he were to find her lacking... If he were to find her inadequate... A horrible queasiness settled in the pit of her stomach before she swallowed it down.

  No. As tempting as the Prince was the key to making their temporary marriage work was to focus on her objectives—freedom to make her own marriage match in the future, as well as the restoration of political peace between their nations. The latter of which already seemed to be working.

  The people of
both Berenia and Santara had greeted the announcement of her impending marriage to the Prince with unmistakable enthusiasm, treating it as the love story of the age. That was thanks, mainly, to a photo that had been taken of the two of them dancing at the charity ball. In the photo the Prince was holding her far too close, the smile on his face shockingly sexual, while her own expression was one of stunned stupefaction. At least that was how it looked to her!

  But their respective PR departments had loved the photo, adding it to their marriage announcement for the entire world to see.

  Alexa eased out a steadying breath as she came to a halt in front of the Prince, her long white gown settling around her ankles in a rustle of silk. If ever there had been a stony-faced groom, he was it.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. If she’d been hoping for some other reaction from him, and maybe deep down she could admit that she had been, then she would have to get over it.

  Gone was the devil-may-care seducer she had met at the Santarian Summer Palace just over two weeks ago. Gone was the charming rebel who didn’t let anything bother him. This version of the Prince couldn’t be more bothered if he was being swarmed by angry wasps, his face carved in stone, his muscles taut as if he were fighting the urge to run.

  Join the club, she thought as the celebrant spoke the first words of the service.

  As if in a dream state, Alexa barely followed the proceedings, her senses leaping with surprise when the Prince placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her towards him, his fingers sure and strong, his expression unreadable.

  Before Alexa fully understood that they had reached the end of the service his head bent to hers, his lips covering her own in a searing kiss. She didn’t mean to close her eyes at the contact but she did, and it only heightened the riot of sensations inside of her.

  A tremor went through her as his fingertips brushed the nape of her neck in a feather-light caress and Alexa swayed, barely catching herself at the last moment before she completely melted against him.