CHAPTER NINE

      ALYSE SAT ON the jet across from Leo. In the seven hours since they’d left St Cristos he hadn’t spoken to her once. They’d flown overnight, sleeping in separate beds, and now it was morning with the sky hard and bright around them, and cups of coffee, a platter of croissants and fresh fruit set on the coffee table between them.

      Leo was scanning some papers, his expression calm and so very collected, while she felt as if she’d swallowed a stone, her insides heavy and leaden, her eyes gritty with exhaustion, both emotional and physical.

      They hadn’t spoken since that awful exchange in their hut, when Leo had told her they were returning to Maldinia. She had no illusions about what would happen there; in a huge palace, with all of his royal duty beckoning, he would find it entirely easy to ignore her. They would see each other only for royal functions and occasions, and live separate lives the rest of the time.

      Just like their engagement.

      She swallowed, a hot lump of misery lodging in her throat. She couldn’t go back to that. She couldn’t live like that, not in Averne, where she wouldn’t even have the comfort of her studies and her own circle of friends to bolster her, the way she’d had in Durham—a little bit, at least.

      She supposed, like Leo, she could focus on her royal duty. She had a service to perform as a princess of Maldinia, a duty to the country’s people, and she’d enjoyed and looked forward to that aspect of her royal life. Yet the thought of making it her entire purpose depressed her beyond measure.

      She wanted more.

      You’ve always wanted more. You gambled on this engagement, this marriage, in the hope of more—and now it looks like you’ll never have it.

      She felt a hot rush behind her lids and blinked hard. She would not cry. There had to be some way to salvage this, some way to reach Leo again, to make him understand and open up to her once more. But how?

      Closing her eyes, she pictured his unyielding face, the grim set of his mouth and eyes as he’d spoken to her that morning. He’d seemed colder than he ever had before, almost as if he hated her.

      How had it all gone so disastrously wrong so quickly? They’d been making steps—baby steps, true, but still progress: drawing closer to each other, enjoying each other’s company. And then in one terrible moment everything had splintered apart. Everything had become worse than before because, instead of being merely indifferent to her, Leo was now angry.

      Emotional.

      Alyse stilled, realisation and hope trickling slowly, faintly through her. Why would Leo be so angry, so emotional, unless...?

      Unless he cared?

      Thoughts tumbled through her mind, a kaleidoscope of emotions and hopes. Maybe he’d enjoyed their brief time together more than he wanted to admit. Perhaps he was angry because he’d been hurt—and of course he wouldn’t like that. He’d hate it.

      Knowing Leo—and she was knowing him more and more every day—he’d fight against feeling anything for her. She didn’t understand exactly why he resisted emotion and denied love so vehemently, but she knew there had to be a deep-seated reason, something most likely to do with his family and upbringing. And, when things got sticky, difficult and painful, of course he would revert back to his cold, haughty self. His protective persona, his only armour.

      So how could she slip underneath it, touch the heart hidden beneath? How could she breach his defences, crack open his shell?

      Sighing, Alyse opened her eyes and stared at the man across from her, his focus still solely on the papers in front of him.

      ‘Leo,’ she said, and reluctantly he lifted his gaze from the papers, his expression chillingly remote.

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘Are you really going to ignore me for the rest of this flight? For our entire lives?’

      His mouth tightened and his gaze swept over her in unflinching assessment. ‘Not ignore, precisely,’ he answered coolly. ‘I don’t, for example, intend to ignore you tonight.’

      Shock blazed through her, white-hot. ‘Are you saying,’ she asked in a low voice, ‘that you intend to—to consummate our marriage tonight?’

      Leo’s expression didn’t change at all. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

      Alyse licked her dry lips. Even now she could not keep a tide of longing from washing over her. She still wanted him, cold and angry as he was. She would always want him. ‘Even though you can barely summon the will to speak to me?’ she observed and he arched an eyebrow.

      ‘Speaking won’t be involved.’

      She flinched. ‘Don’t be crass. No matter how cold this business arrangement is, we both deserve more than that.’

      An emotion—she couldn’t quite tell what—flickered across his face and he glanced away. ‘As long as you realise that’s exactly what this is,’ he answered. ‘A business arrangement.’

      ‘Trust me,’ she replied. ‘I’m not likely to forget.’

      Nodding in apparent satisfaction, Leo returned to his papers. Alyse sank against the sumptuous sofa, closing her eyes once more. So, she thought with a swamping sense of desolation, the only thing he wanted from her now was her body.

      But what if, along with her body, she gave him her heart?

      She stilled, opened her eyes and gazed blindly ahead. She’d just realised herself that she’d never actually loved him; her feelings for him had been part schoolgirl infatuation, part desperately wishful thinking. So how could she now offer this cold, proud, hurting man her heart?

      Because that’s what I want for my marriage. Because even if she hadn’t loved him all of these years, she knew she could love him now. She could fall in love with him if he let her, if she got to know him as she had done over the last few days.

      And that could begin tonight.

      * * *

      Five silent hours later they had landed in Maldinia on a balmy summer morning and returned by royal motorcade to the palace, unspeaking all the while.

      The reporters had managed to get word of their early arrival and were waiting both at the airport and in front of the palace. They posed for photographs in both places, smiling and waving, Leo’s arm snug around her waist. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and saw that, despite the white flash of his smile and his seemingly relaxed pose, his body was rigid next to her, his eyes flinty. He might be willing to pretend, but he certainly wasn’t enjoying it. And neither was she.

      Once they were back in the palace, Leo disappeared to his study and Alyse was shown to the bedroom she would have as her own—and it was clearly her own, not hers and Leo’s; it was a feminine room in pale blues and greys, gorgeous and utterly impersonal.

      She sank onto the bed, feeling lonely, lost and completely miserable. A few minutes later, still lost in her own unhappy thoughts, a knock sounded on the door and, without waiting for a response, Queen Sophia swept in.

      Alyse stood up, a wary surprise