Wedded For His Royal Duty. SUSAN MEIER
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said nothing, just held his gaze.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
“You’ll absolutely be damned,” Dom said as he reached them. He held out his hand and Princess Eva presented her hand to him. He kissed the knuckles. “Princess Eva. It’s nice to see you. I’m so sorry we’re meeting again under awkward circumstance.”
Like a champ, she slid her arm beneath Alex’s and stepped closer to him. “There’s no reason to be concerned. We’ve barely spoken to each other. Besides, I was lucky enough to meet Alex this afternoon at the stables.”
Alex winked at her. “Love at first sight.”
Dom said, “Really?”
Alex laughed. “All right. Maybe lust at first sight.”
Eva shifted her attention to Ginny. “And you must be the woman who stole Dom’s heart.” She smiled. “You have lovely taste in clothes.”
Alex had trouble stifling a laugh. Still, from the way she’d put him in his place for not recognizing her, he should have expected she could hold her own. She’d simply needed help getting over the awkwardness of seeing Dom.
Ginny laughed and glanced down at her gown. “You have good taste too. Maybe better. That red is divine.”
“Alex told me I looked like a devil in this dress.”
“And that you looked like an angel,” Alex said to Ginny. He kissed Eva’s cheek. “But you know I’d always rather have the devil.”
“So,” Dom said, looking from Alex to Eva, appearing not quite convinced. “Things worked out for the best?”
Alex tightened his arm around her waist. “We think so.”
A servant quietly shuffled into the room and whispered something in King Ronaldo’s ear. He nodded once. When the servant was gone, the king faced the two couples at the bar.
“Dinner is served. If you’ll all follow me to the dining room.”
Dom and Ginny immediately got in line behind his father, but Eva caught Alex’s arm to hold him back. When the room was empty she said, “I owe you.”
He couldn’t help it. He grinned. She might be able to hold her own, but she’d needed him to get over that awkward introduction. “Yes, you do. I just saved you months of embarrassment—maybe years if the press decided to make an issue of Dom marrying someone else—and I have the perfect way for you to pay me back.”
EVA’S HEART CHUGGED in her chest. After Alex’s good guess about her virginity, she couldn’t imagine what he had in mind as payback, but she did know she owed him. So when he asked her to meet him at the stables at midnight, she hadn’t argued. She’d simply enjoyed the dinner, keeping up Alex’s pretense that their chance meeting that afternoon had sparked an instant attraction. Then she’d said polite goodbyes to the king and his new wife and Dom and his wife, before she walked her mom back to their quarters, changed into jeans and a lightweight sweater and headed for the stable.
The moon rose high in the sky. A faint ocean breeze lured her down the cobblestone path. An island in the Mediterranean, Xaviera had January temps that were much warmer than the climate of her country, which was nestled between Finland and Russia. If she were home right now, she’d be wearing boots and a parka and battling a winter wind to get to her stables.
She reached the big stone-and-wood building and entered through a door on the side. Though the stable was the cleanest she’d ever seen, the earthy scents of horse, hay and leather hit her. She glanced down the long row of stalls and saw Alex standing in front of the last one, petting the nose of his Arabian, Thor.
She strode down the aisle.
Alex heard her and smiled. “So you’ve come to dicker.”
“I didn’t come to negotiate anything. I came to see what my payback will be for you saving me tonight.”
He laughed. “It’s odd to hear somebody say that. Usually I’m the one who has to make amends.”
“Quite a reputation my future husband has.”
“Actually, that’s the point. The best way you can pay me back is to not marry me.”
She gasped. “I have to marry you!”
He bobbed his head, as if thinking through her comment, then said, “Not really.”
“We have a treaty!”
“Made decades ago.” He caught her gaze. “Were you mature enough at age four to commit to someone?”
He knew the answer to that so she said nothing.
“Of course, you weren’t. And then we pulled the rug out from under you. The prince you were supposed to marry is now married to someone else. You’re not getting the prince who was promised to you. You’re not even getting the good prince, the one who will someday be king. You’re getting second-best.”
She looked at him, wearing a T-shirt with the front tucked into nice-fitting jeans, with his dark curly hair casually messed, and those intriguing brown eyes. For a beat of time, she wondered if she really was getting second-best. Dominic was handsome in the perfect, straitlaced way. This guy? Alex? He was rough-around-the-edges gorgeous. A sexy bad boy. And all hers in a few months—
She swallowed hard as strange tingling sensations cruised through her.
She ignored them. When all was said and done, this was about duty. Oil and safe passage for their tankers trumped which prince she would actually marry. And needing to make herself look strong and loyal to her country trumped both of those.
“I don’t have a choice.”
He walked toward her. “Actually, I read the agreement and the treaty. You might not have a choice. I might not have a choice. But we have a choice. If both of us decide not to marry, we can nullify it.”
She gaped at him. “Nullify a treaty? Just because you don’t want to marry me?”
“I don’t want to get married at all. And we wouldn’t be nullifying the whole treaty, just that one clause.” He sighed. “Look, I rescued you tonight because it’s not right that somebody as pretty as you are should be perceived as an also-ran, the woman who didn’t make the cut.”
Her pulse slowed, then speeded up again. Forget all about Dominic dumping her. Forget about the treaty. Alex thought she was pretty? He was one of the most eligible bachelors in the world and she was a woman whose dad had tossed their family into an unfathomable scandal. Alex should be running from her as fast as his feet would take him. Instead, he thought she was pretty? Too pretty to be known as the princess who didn’t make the cut.
“But I’m not anybody’s knight in shining armor.”
He hadn’t mentioned her father’s betrayal, or the fact that she’d soon become a queen, but she was well aware of both and the consequences. Alex might not want to rescue her, but he was her only option to show her subjects that her family still remembered their call to service.
She lifted her chin. “Like it or not, you have to be mine. Or your country is in violation of our treaty.”
“I told you we can—”
“No! My father disgraced us enough! I have to prove I will do my duties!”
His eyes narrowed. His full lips pursed. “You’re refusing my plan.”
“Yes.”
He stepped closer. Instinct told her to step back. Common sense told her he’d see that as a sign of weakness. So she held her ground, looked him in the eyes, as he circled her, inspecting her as if she were his next purchase. Waves and waves of chill bumps trickled