by Maisey Yates
It had been when he said they would not have children.
He wondered if that was related strictly to practicality, or if for some sort of emotional attachment to the idea of having children herself.
He supposed it wasn’t that surprising, given the fact that many women seemed to want children. Most women, he would have thought, would consider a prince enough of a consolation prize. Though, Latika seemed bound and determined to punish him.
She had been avoiding him since the night of the ball. Throwing herself into the melee of planning the wedding.
Meanwhile, Gunnar had been concentrating on the media component.
“There’s the groom to be.”
He looked up and saw Astrid standing there. She was dressed immaculately, her red hair pulled back into a tight bun.
“Yes. Here I am.”
He had been avoiding her since the announcement. Mostly because he didn’t want to get into a discussion. He didn’t want her questioning him.
She did so, out of habit. A feeling that she was the oldest, and therefore the protector.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” she pointed out.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I have definitely been avoiding you.”
“Why?”
“Related to the impending lecture.”
“How did you know?” She asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
“Oh, just a feeling I had. I was right, wasn’t I?”
“I want to be sure that you don’t hurt her.”
“Interesting,” he said. “A different lecture to the one I expected to receive.”
“Oh, you expected me to say that you should be on guard in case Latika hurts you? We both know that is impossible.”
And he was left to wonder how the whole world seemed to think of him as heartless. Even by a sister he’d worked so hard to save.
“I’ve no designs on hurting her. She seems a nice woman.”
“You’re attracted to her. She’s attracted to you. But you need to understand that she’s inexperienced and...”
“How do you know?”
“Well, I don’t really. But, the things that she said seem to imply as much.”
He thought of what Latika had said to him. That she had not been with a man in her whole twenty-four years of life.
That, combined with what Astrid said, made him wonder if it was true. “It may surprise you to learn that Latika has already laid out her ground rules. Which, include staying out of my bed.”
Astrid frowned. “Really?”
“We are not a love match, Astrid, as you well know. We can barely tolerate being in the same room as each other.”
“But she... Yes. But as you so eloquently put it earlier, you... You’re attracted to each other.”
“It’s obvious, I’d think. But, she would happily slit my throat in bed after. Believe me.”
“She turned to you when she needed help.”
“A person will take their chances with the pavement below when they’re trapped in a high-rise building during a fire.” He repeated Latika’s words back to his sister.
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry, you don’t need to interfere. The both of us can handle ourselves.”
Astrid sighed. “Yes. My concern is that you won’t be able to handle each other.”
“Dear sister, I make it my business to handle women.”
“But Latika is not like your other women. And you will be stuck with her. So whatever you do, you will have to face the aftermath of it. You’re not good with consequences, Gunnar.”
Just like that, he heard his father’s voice echoing in his head. And he was flooded by memories. Days spent in the dungeon of the palace.
Day after day. Spent in isolation, in starvation.
There will be consequences, Gunnar. If you cannot take on board my lessons.
And there had been. Painful consequences.
“No,” he said, grinning. “I’m absolutely terrible with consequences. In that I tend not to acknowledge them”
“What about children?”
A poignant question, considering what was on his mind. “There won’t be children.”
“Why not?”
“Astrid, you know what our childhood was like. I have no desire to father children.”
“I love being a mother,” she said.
“We lived different childhoods,” he said.
“Yes,” Astrid said. “I know. Father distrusted me. Mother supported me. She ignored you. But father...”
“You think that I enjoyed getting attention from a man who despised my sister?”
Astrid blinked. “I didn’t... I didn’t think that might be a problem.”
“Of course it is,” he said. “You are like a part of me. You are my twin. We are blood in a way few other people on this earth are. Whatever father wanted from me, he was not going to get it.”
“That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have children.”
“Oh, there are many reasons I shouldn’t have children. That’s only one of them.”
“That breaks my heart,” she said.
“It doesn’t break mine. I am perfectly happy watching you with your life. Latika and I have come to an agreement. We will live separate lives. I will protect her, she will enrich my reputation. There is nothing to dislike about it.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. You might rule the country, Astrid, but in my own life, my word is law.”
“Of course. I have never thought differently.” What he didn’t tell his sister was that he wasn’t content with the idea of keeping their lives separate. Not completely.
Because he was not a man given to taking commands. Was not a man who bowed to the will of others.
No.
His father had tried. He had tried and tried to break him. But it had forged Gunnar into the strongest steel imaginable.
As his new bride would soon discover.
Yes. Latika would discover it soon enough.
Latika was carried away on the tide of the farce she was currently engaged in. Completely overwhelmed by her role as bride, and retreating as often as possible into the role of planner. It was easy to make decisions when she divorced herself from the narrative. When she thought of it as planning a royal wedding in the generic sense. Rather than her own.
Not that it mattered what her own personal preference was. Not in the context of this arrangement. What mattered was the spectacle. What mattered, was that she took herself out of harm’s way. Whether or not she enjoyed the look of the wedding didn’t come into it at all.
But there was one piece of it that she found impossible to divorce her emotions, and indeed her body from. And that was the acquisition of a wedding gown.
She asked Astrid to be there when she made her selection. In part because Astrid was acting as her maid of honor. A farce it might be, but it was a real wedding. And Astrid was her real friend. Much more than Gunnar could ever be considered a real fiancé.
Well, he was real in the sense that she was going to marry him.
She supposed that was the only sense that mattered.
“That one’s pretty,” Astrid said, but her tone said she did not think it was all that pretty.
Latika looked at herself critically in the mirror. The dress was not to her taste at all, and didn’t look particularly flattering on her. For that reason alone, part of her wanted to choose it.
But there would also be pictures, and she was vain enough to not want photographs of her looking anything less than beautiful circulating the world.
But then, maybe she could still find something that didn’t feel too personal.
“What I think doesn’t matter,” Astrid said. “It should be about you.”
“It shouldn’t be,” Latika said. “It
is about the spectacle of the royal wedding. It’s about putting out into the world what we must.”
“And you don’t have feelings for my brother.” Astrid said, her tone incisive. “Not at all?”
Latika’s neck prickled. “It’s complicated.”
“Is it? It all seems very straightforward to me. Ragnar was at the palace. And I’m very sorry that we failed you in that way.”
“Don’t apologize to me,” Latika said. “The fact of the matter is, I was never going to escape him forever. And I knew it.”
“But I said that we would protect you...”
“And you did. You have. And now the crown is protecting me further.”
“He told me that you... That you want the marriage to be in name only.”
Latika’s face flamed. “Why would he tell you that?”
“You may have noticed that my brother doesn’t keep secrets.”
“Well, it would’ve been nice of him to keep that to himself,” Latika grumbled.
“Why won’t you make it a real marriage?”
Latika swallowed. “He doesn’t want children. He also said that there was no reason for us to be faithful to one another. If he intends that we sleep with other people, and the two of us don’t even have to produce a child, then why bother with each other at all?”
“He said that to you?” Astrid asked, incredulous.
“Yes.”
“He’s an idiot. And I think that he has feelings for you.”
Latika laughed. “The only feelings we have for each other are antagonistic. Whatever narrative you’ve made up in your mind about the two of us... It isn’t real. And I appreciate so much that you care about me. About him. You are better than either of us deserve, Astrid. You have been so wonderful to us. But he and I have never had interaction beyond what you’ve seen. There is nothing secret happening.”
“I believe you,” Astrid said.
“Your tone says you think I’m telling the truth, but that you don’t think I know my own mind.”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Believe me. My options are such that I don’t fear any pain from Gunnar.” Latika paused for a moment. “You were asking me for advice.”
“Well,” Astrid said. “I’m married now.”
“And I’m still a woman running from overbearing parents and an abusive former fiancé. No offense meant, Astrid, but your relationship with Mauro does not make you an expert on the feelings of every person.”
“None taken at all,” Astrid said.
But Latika could tell that Astrid still didn’t believe her, and she thought it best to say nothing at all. Instead, they continued to rifle through the racks of gowns that had been given to them.
“You should try this,” Astrid said, holding up a devastatingly beautiful gown, deceptively simple, and made from the finest white satin. It had long, flowing sleeves and a square neck, a fitted bodice and a skirt that flared out at the bottom.
It was perfect. Sophisticated and sleek, and absolutely something she would’ve chosen for a wedding to a man she had chosen.
“This one,” Astrid said, decisively.
Latika decided she would try it on. But she wasn’t certain if she could bring herself to choose it.
* * *
The day of the wedding was ominous. Clouds hung thick and low over the mountains, a dramatic effect, the dark green trees piercing through the mist, making it look as if the hills had teeth.
Truly, not an auspicious day for a wedding. But Gunnar did not believe in such things.
He had never been given cause to believe in love at all.
And this was no different. It was not luck that had brought him here. It was simply a twist of fate, one that he was fine enough to lean into.
He had allowed Latika to continue to evade him up until today. But tonight, tonight he would launch an all-out seduction of her senses.
Why? To prove that you can manipulate her? How does that make you any different than him?
He ignored that inner voice.
He didn’t want to manipulate her. He wanted to seduce her. He wanted her. And they were going to be married. The idea that they would only sleep with other people seemed foolish to him, and he had been prepared to offer his wife his fidelity.
He had only said those things to her to get to her, and in many ways, he imagined she had done the same with him. He sincerely doubted that she was actually going to hold to her missish cries anyway. Just as he sincerely doubted she was actually a virgin. The more he thought about it, the more he thought that conversation was designed to give her a power position.
Of course, she would remember that he had said he didn’t want a virgin bride. And for whatever reason, she was attempting to prove to him that she was unsuitable in some way.
And again, he felt that had to be about power, rather than any kind of sincere desire to put him off. She needed him to marry her. And given that truth, he didn’t actually take any of her nonsense terribly seriously.
He turned and looked in the mirror.
A black suit.
The very thing she told him he didn’t require help with for the ball.
He imagined that at that point she had no idea that the next place she would be seeing him in a suit was their wedding.
He certainly hadn’t.
With the decisiveness of a predator, Gunnar turned and walked out of the room, prowling down the halls, making his way to the chapel that was on the grounds of the palace.
Theirs was not a wedding with quite as much fanfare as his sister’s. After all, the wedding of the Queen, particularly to someone as famous and outrageous as Mauro, had been an insane spectacle. But, there had been a bit of something as well. The paparazzi was fascinated by her, and of course, a profile had been released about her in the media. Information about her family. They had interviewed her parents, who’d had nothing but good things to say about their daughter.
And he knew that they had contacted the palace and asked for an invitation.
It was a decision that Gunnar had been hard-pressed to make. Because, on the one hand, her parents had clearly tormented her by putting her in the path of Ragnar. But on the other, this marriage solved all of their issues. And keeping her parents away from the wedding might only cause tension, and give Ragnar a foothold.
Indeed, it might also make her parents into problems that he didn’t want to deal with. So with regret, he had given them an invite.
He could only hope he didn’t regret it. The church was filled already, hundreds of guests in attendance, and millions tuning in on television, and on the computer. And Astrid met him outside the sanctuary.
“Why aren’t you already seated?”
“We walk together,” she said. She looked up at him, her green eyes filled with emotion. “I noticed you did not have a best man. Well, I am your twin. And there is no one on this earth who has ever been closer to you than me. So I will walk with you.”
His sister’s sentimentality hit him hard. At the same time, made great tendrils of acidic emotion churn through his stomach. Because she thought they were close. She thought they shared a bond he wasn’t entirely certain they did. She thought she knew him. When he had kept so much back from her. For her own protection.
And yet, she was standing with him. And that mattered. He would let the other things fall from his mind. They walked to the front of the sanctuary together, whispers filling the air, heads turning as they moved. And then he took his position at the head of the altar.
Astrid nodded her head regally, and then went and took her seat by her husband.
Gunnar was very accomplished at not paying attention in church, and he handily tuned out the exhortation given by the priest, and the hymn that went up after. And then, it was time for the bride to walk down the aisle.
T
he music shifted, swelled, and after a few moments, Latika appeared. Her long black hair was swept up in a bun, her gown made of lace and glimmering beads, the skirt heavy and full, rising and falling elegantly with each step she took. She was an uncommon beauty. And as she walked toward him, his plan became blurry.
Because it was difficult to think straight with Latika there.
Difficult to have a clear-eyed view of his plan. In fact he forgot his plan. Forgot there was anything other than this stark, physical need igniting a fire inside of him. He was in a church, but his thoughts were decidedly less than pure.
In fact, he would not have been surprised to burst into flame at any moment. And when she joined him at the head of the altar, looking all stiff and uncomfortable, he wanted to kiss away those grim lines around her mouth. Wanted to crush her up against his body and kiss her until neither of them could breathe. He already knew how intoxicating a kiss between them could be. How could she deny them? Both of them? They wanted each other, and she was intent on...playing games. Well, it would not stand. She was using him, and he could fully respect that. But that didn’t mean she got to be the only one with a say in how their marriage would be conducted.
She turned to face him, wordless. And they both stayed silent until the part came for them to repeat their vows.
It was easy for him, because he had never taken much of anything to heart, or treated anything with reverence, so he didn’t know why this should be any different.
Latika, for her part, seemed stilted.
Then she looked over, and he could see the exact moment her eyes came to rest on her parents.
Her face went scarlet, her eyes widening with shock.
She finished out her vows tightlipped.
And when time came for the kiss, he determined that he would do his part in loosening that terse expression.
She might not want to desire him, but the fact of the matter was, she did. And he was going to use that.
He lowered his head, capturing her in his arms and holding her firmly against his body. Then he lowered his head and kissed her.
It was nothing like the other two kisses they had shared. For now, they had an audience, it was true. But he was fully in command of the situation.