by Jane Porter
But she was beginning to realize that her upbringing, so isolated from society, had not prepared her for dealing with complex relationships, and she suddenly doubted herself. She’d always thought she was a good judge of character, but apparently she wasn’t. It seemed that she knew too much about science and too little about human beings. Which was why she’d told Alexander on arriving in Aargau that she’d include him in their child’s life, even share parental responsibilities with him—because that was the fair thing to do—but he’d refused to even consider co-parenting. Their baby would live with him in the palace. Their baby required both mother and father, and they’d do it together. Married. And that would never ever happen. She’d never agree to marrying him, not after he’d revealed his true colors.
The door swung open and Prince Alexander Julius Alberici stood on the threshold, tall, broad shouldered, and impeccably groomed. His thick black hair was ruthlessly combed back, hiding the fact that it had an inclination to curl. His blue eyes focused on her with that laser focus that always made her feel as if he could see straight through her.
She sat up taller, her own shoulders squaring, chin lifting defiantly. She’d been told on first arriving in Roche that she should curtsy before him, and she’d laughed. Laughed. “I’d sooner have a lobotomy,” she’d snapped.
Prince Alexander had heard and his lips had tightened.
His mouth—which she’d once thought so lovely—tightened now, but she no longer cared. Right now she didn’t care what he thought, and right now she didn’t care what he did, as long as he let her return to Khronos. It felt as if every good and tender feeling had been smashed, and it was his fault. He’d done this to her. To them.
“Can I help you?” she asked coolly.
Alexander entered the tower bedroom, unsurprised to find her where he’d last seen her, in the middle of her bed with a pile of books around her, her expression hard and shuttered. Her sketchbook was open next to her, a charcoal pencil against white paper, but the page was blank.
“How are you this morning?” he asked, stepping into the room, the door closing and locking behind him.
He saw her head turn, her honey hair scraped back from her face, pulled into a severe knot at her nape. Her green gaze focused on the door, her lips compressing with displeasure as the lock scraped closed. He knew she hated being locked in, and he hated locking her in. But he wasn’t about to run the risk of her leaving Aargau in the dark of night, not when she was pregnant with his child.
“I am as tired of this as you,” he said flatly, approaching the bed. “I just want a resolution. I want us to move forward.”
Her head jerked up, eyes flashing with contempt. Even with her hair drawn back and not a bit of makeup to enhance her features, she was strikingly beautiful. He’d wondered when he first returned from Greece if he’d imagined her and her breathtaking beauty. He hadn’t. If anything, she was more ethereal, and even lovelier than he’d remembered.
But her delicate beauty belied her strength. Josephine was livid, and she was not about to be strong-armed into marriage. “I don’t like this any more than you,” he added. “Marry me so we can be done with this. We were friends once—”
“Not friends.”
“On Khronos you told me you loved me, Josephine. You said the words.”
Color flooded her cheeks, making her eyes brighter. “I had no idea you weren’t free. I had no idea you were...you.”
“Neither did I.”
“For your information, I liked the other you better, the one with amnesia. The one that didn’t know his name, because at least he knew how to be kind. What you’re doing now is unforgivable. You can’t lock women in towers. It’s medieval. Machiavellian.” Her chin lifted, her gaze locking with his. “Even you must know that it’s not done.”
“I’m not happy about this, bella. I would prefer you to have a normal guest suite. I would prefer to be able to introduce you to my family and friends—”
“And your fiancée, Princess Danielle Roulet? What about her? Or have you not given her any thought or consideration?”
“You know I ended my engagement to her the moment we had confirmation of your pregnancy.” He leaned against one of the enormous wooden posters on the antique bed. “There is nothing standing in the way of our marriage now.”
“Nothing but my objections, but apparently that doesn’t signify in your world. You’re a prince, and I’m just an ordinary American girl.”
“Who will one day be queen.”
“I don’t want to be queen. I’m not marrying you.”
“Josephine, I’m trying to make this work—”
“Locking me in a tower is not making it work, Alexander!”
“You shouldn’t have tried to run away.”
“I wasn’t running away. I was simply leaving the castle.”
“With the intention to take a ferry to Italy and then disappear into Europe.” He gave her a sympathetic look. “Next time, don’t admit so much to a taxi driver, especially when he’s a member of palace security.”
“I did think it strange that you had a taxi just waiting outside.”
“He wasn’t there for you, if that’s any consolation.”
“It’s not.”
“Can we agree that you’re not going to run away anymore? Because if you can give me your word—”
“I’m not sure I can, Alexander. I’m sorry.”
“I am, too, because the baby you carry is my heir and thus the heir to the Aargau throne, which gives you two choices—marry me, or grant me sole custody of our child.”
He saw her lips press and pain shadow her eyes. “You know I’d never give up my child. You’re not giving me a choice.”
“Most women would jump at the opportunity to become Aargau’s queen.”
“I’m not one of them.”
“You’re offended because it’s not a romantic proposal.”
“I’m offended because you’re arrogant and rude, and baffled by what you call a proposal. You’ve flung the word marriage at me as if I’m a dog being dangled a bone. But the bone, Your Highness, isn’t remotely appealing.”
Alexander was torn between amusement and outrage. He wondered what his old self would have thought of her response. He’d been told by his friends that his old self lacked a sense of humor. That was interesting because sometimes Josephine made him want to laugh. Or shake her. Or make fierce, hot love to her.
“I’m phrasing things badly,” he said. “But we have a wedding to plan, cara. We can’t keep arguing and wasting time. We have to marry soon. It’s essential we avoid scandal.”
“You mean it’s essential to you. I don’t care about the scandal.”
“That’s because you live on an uninhabited rock, apart from society. The rest of us, I’m afraid, are not so lucky.”
“You’re not serious.”
“About the marriage, or being determined to avoid scandal?”
“Both.”
“We don’t do scandals in Aargau. There has never been a divorce in the Alberici family.”
“Just unhappily married, is that it?”
“My parents and grandparents and great-grandparents all knew better then to air dirty laundry. If there is strife, it’s dealt with privately, behind closed doors. As we are doing now.”
“So women are routinely locked in chambers and towers here?”
“You failed to mention the dungeons.”
“I suppose if you have a historic castle, one should use all the rooms.”
His lips twisted faintly. She amused him, and yet their current situation was anything but laughable. The palace was in an uproar. His father wasn’t speaking to him. His mother was quietly frantic. The public couldn’t understand what had happened to their prince.
“I want out of this room,” Josephine said clearly, firmly.
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br /> “And I want you out of this room. I’d like it to become my retreat again. It used to be one of my favorite rooms, but holding you hostage here has diminished my pleasure in it.”
“Poor Prince Alexander. How you suffer!”
He had to smash the laughter. “You are in such a foul mood. Perhaps I should kiss you—”
“No!” She scooted back on the bed. “You come near me and I’ll throw every book I have at your head. And I’ve a good arm. Believe me.”
“I do. That’s why I want to move forward. It’s why I want to introduce you to my kingdom and my people, but I can’t do that until we’ve come to an understanding.”
“We can raise our child together without being married.” She paused, her winged eyebrows arching even higher. “Or resorting to locking me away as if I’m a dangerous criminal. You must know your strong-arm tactics only make me dislike you and mistrust you more.”
“Trust goes both ways.”
“Absolutely, and when have I ever let you down? Or betrayed you in any way?”
“You left me on Khronos. You disappeared without a word. And then you tried to run away from here after we saw the doctor. Josephine, I accept that I haven’t been the model prince, but you have a poor track record when it comes to staying in place.”
“Fine. Next time I’ll put up a few signs to advertise that I’m leaving so there won’t be any mixed signals,” she flashed, hiding how much he continued to hurt her. She told herself she didn’t care about him anymore, but if that was true, why did his every word wound? Why did he have such power over her? Worse, how could this be the man she’d loved so passionately on Khronos? He was nothing but cold and hard and calculating. How had she not seen his true nature before?
“Give me your word that you will not run, and I’ll move you from the tower to a proper suite in the palace. Better yet, accept my proposal and let us plan the wedding together so that our baby will be born without any shame or scandal surrounding his or her birth.”
If only it were that easy, she thought, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs, trying to anchor herself, craving safety and stability. Ever since she’d arrived in Roche, she’d felt rootless. Lost. She desperately missed her life on Khronos, needing her work to give her days structure and purpose. “I want to return to Khronos,” she whispered. “I want to go home.”
“Not until after the baby is born, but then yes, you could go for a visit.”
“A visit,” she said, her voice trembling.
He said nothing and she glanced around the room, taking in the thick stone walls, the narrow windows, the heavy beamed ceiling. “You’re punishing me.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I was a virgin when I met you and now I’m pregnant. Doesn’t seem fair at all.”
“You wanted to be with me.”
“Because I thought you were free. I thought you cared about me.”
“I do care about you, which is why I’m marrying you, not Danielle.”
“You’re only marrying me because I’m pregnant!”
“Do you want me to deny it? No, it’s true. I’m marrying you because you’re carrying my child, but that doesn’t invalidate my offer—”
“Oh, it does. It most certainly does, Your Highness.”
He sighed. “You’re being childish.”
“You’re being hideous.”
“We can’t go back, Josephine. We can only go forward.”
“And we will,” she agreed huskily, “but not together. We might have created a baby together, but that doesn’t mean we must punish ourselves for eternity—”
“Marriage is not hell.”
“So says the man who had a girlfriend and a fiancée.”
“I broke up with my girlfriend months before my engagement was announced.”
“But you were privately engaged to the princess, weren’t you?”
“We’ve had an understanding for years, yes, but Danielle also dated. She had relationships—”
“That still changes nothing. I’m not about to have my heart broken by a man who only cares for himself.”
“But why would it be broken if you don’t care for me? This isn’t a love marriage, Josephine. It’s a business deal, an arrangement to protect our child, who will inherit the Alberici wealth and title.”
She blinked, hard. “So I don’t matter.”
His sigh was deep, heavy. “Of course you matter.”
Her head dipped, her gaze dropped. “Please leave.”
“It’s time to put our child first. Stop with the selfishness—”
“Me? Selfish? Clearly, you don’t remember Khronos or what happened there. But I do. And I was never selfish, never unkind, not toward you.”
He left her then, and as the door closed behind him, she put her head down on her knees and fought tears.
She was exhausted and nauseous and sick of emotion. She wasn’t used to feeling this much, and certainly not used to so little physical activity. For a girl who’d grown up outside, so close to nature that she felt she was an extension of the mountains and sea, being cooped up in a tower, in a castle, in a city, was a terrible punishment indeed.
* * *
Alexander descended the tower staircase to his office on the second floor, aware that Josephine wasn’t wrong. He was different here. He had to be different here. On Khronos he’d been just a man. In Aargau he was the future king. He’d rather enjoyed being just a man. There had been freedom, and an ease he didn’t know in his world here.
Aimee, his secretary, was at her desk when he entered the room and she glanced up at him, a troubled crease between her brows. “Her Highness has requested you join her in her rooms immediately.” Aimee glanced at her watch. “That was nearly an hour ago. Her staff has followed up with me twice since, worried I haven’t passed on the message.”
“You knew where I was.”
She gave a faint smile. “Yes, but you said not to bother you, and so I didn’t.”
Alexander crossed the Alberici castle grounds, heading for the pale yellow eighteenth-century palace that travel guidebooks always falsely claimed had been inspired by the architecture of Versailles but in reality drew its inspiration from the Royal Palace at Caserta, which was just fifty years older and much closer geographically.
Alexander climbed the grand pink and yellow marble staircase to the second floor and headed back down the long corridor to the set of rooms that were his mother’s. There was no need for him to knock as her butler opened the door, announcing him.
Queen Serena waved him to a chair near hers. “You kept me waiting long enough,” she said as he sat down and stretched out his legs.
“I came to you the moment I was free.”
“I’m hearing things, worrying things.” She gave him a long look. “Do you have any news for me? News that would ease some of my anxiety, because your father grows weaker. He slept most of today. We’re running short on time, particularly if you hope to have him present at your wedding. Or perhaps you intend to marry after he’s gone?” His mother’s tone was cool and distant. But then, it was the tone he knew best. She was beautiful and regal, elegant and refined, always cognizant of her power and responsibility as the queen of Aargau.
“Of course I want him there.”
“Then the wedding needs to be sooner, not later.”
“I understand.”
“Then what is the problem, Alexander?”
“Josephine isn’t...ready...to marry.”
“Excuse me? She’s carrying your child, the heir to the kingdom.”
“I understand.”
“The longer you wait, the more difficult it becomes from a PR standpoint. You understand that, don’t you? We’re trying to do damage control, Alexander, and all we need is a small, private service in the palace chapel—”
“Unless she wants the formal service in the cathedral.”
“We don’t have time to plan a formal wedding, and she doesn’t need a big, formal wedding. Your father is very unhappy that she’s trapped you.”
“I trapped her, not the other way around.”
“You’re a prince. She is no one.”
He knew his mother well enough to know that she wasn’t trying to be cruel or rude, just honest. “She didn’t care that I was a prince, and she is most definitely someone.”
The queen sat back in her chair, her jaw dropping slightly. “You love her.”
“I want her, yes. But love? I don’t know about that. I was once teased for being so emotional. Now I’m criticized for not having feelings. Having feelings would make all of this easier.”
“I didn’t have...feelings when I married your father. But they developed over time. Yours will develop, too.” Her head tilted. She studied him intently. “Are you completely recovered from your accident?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You haven’t been the same since you returned home. You are less...you.”
He gave her a half bow. “Apologies. I shall try to be more...me.”
“I don’t appreciate the sarcasm, Alexander. It’s very tense here, not simply because your father slips away from us a little more every day, but King Marcel Roulet is livid that his daughter has been profoundly embarrassed just a week before her wedding. And I’ve just been informed that you are keeping your American locked in your tower—”
“I did lock her in the first night. But she hasn’t been locked in since.”
“But she believes she’s locked in.”
He shrugged. “She has a tendency to run away. I need her to remain.”