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His mouth twisted. Their intense mutual chemistry had told him that there would be no issues in the bedroom.
For someone who had always known that his choice of bride would be strategic above all else, it had felt like a very logical choice. A beautiful bride...a queen he would have no hardship creating a family with.
Until she’d rejected his offer outright.
And now she was pregnant with his child and he had no choice but to make her his wife. He was being mocked by the gods for his initial complacency.
Alix willed down the heat in his body and the darkness in his gut. He’d believed that Leila was falling for him when evidently she hadn’t been.
He ignored the intensifying of the tightness in his chest and told himself that this would only make things easier. No emotion on either side. No illusions. This was about the baby and the future of Isle Saint Croix, and while Leila was not the bride Alix would choose if he had a choice right now, he would make this work. For the sake of his people and for the sake of his legacy into the future.
* * *
When they arrived in Isle Saint Croix it was after midnight. Too late for any kind of formal reception, much to Leila’s relief. She was still feeling a little hollowed out and overwhelmed. Her sleep on the plane had been populated with scary dreams of her running and a tall, menacing figure trying to catch her. She didn’t have to be a genius to figure that one out.
Her first impressions of the island were of warm, damp heat. Warmer than she’d expected. Stars populated the clear night sky. There was the zesty sea-salt freshness of the ocean nearby. And something much more exotic and intriguing.
On the journey to the castle Leila caught glimpses of small pretty villages and a bigger town down near the sea, lights twinkling in the harbour. Then they rounded a bend, and there on a hilltop in the distance stood the floodlit castle.
She couldn’t hold in a gasp of pure awe. On the TV it had looked like a toy...now she could see just how massive and imposing it was. As if it had been hewn directly out of the rock of the mountainside.
Its influence was clearly Moorish, with its flat roofs and long walls and what looked like lots of quadrangular buildings. Something about it called to Leila—something in its stark beauty.
‘That’s the castle. Our home.’
Our home. It was surreal. Leila felt overwhelmed again and said, ‘I don’t even know what language you speak...’
Alix turned his head. ‘It’s a colloquial mixture of Spanish and French and Arabic. But the official language is French, thanks to the fact that the French were our longest colonisers until the mid-eighteenth century.’
‘There’s so much I don’t know.’
‘I’ll arrange for Andres to find a tutor for you.’
The car was descending now, down winding steep roads into a sort of valley. Leila could see the lights of a town nearby—presumably the capital. And then they were bypassing it and climbing again, up towards the castle, in through ornate gates and up a long driveway.
When they arrived in a huge stone courtyard with a bubbling fountain in the centre the car drew to a stop. Leila could see through the tinted windows to where a large handsome woman was waiting for them.
When they were out of the vehicle Alix led Leila over to her and said, with evident fondness in his voice, ‘This is Marie-Louise, the castle manager. She and her husband risked their lives to protect some of my family’s oldest artefacts, including the Crown Jewels.’
Leila’s engagement ring winked at her in the moonlit night. ‘That was very brave of you.’
The woman beamed and then ushered them inside to where the castle spread out into what seemed to be a warren of imposing stone corridors and inner courtyards.
Alix spoke to the woman in his own seductive tongue. He was obviously telling her goodnight, because she walked away from them.
He let Leila’s hand go and indicated for her to precede him down a long corridor. It was lit by small flaming lanterns and for a moment Leila had the sen
sation that they might have slipped back in time and nothing would have changed.
They were approaching a wall that held a huge wooden door, ornately carved. The guard there stood aside and bowed as Alix opened the door and led them through.
‘These are the royal family’s private apartments.’ He stopped outside another door and opened it. ‘And these are your rooms.’
Leila felt a kind of giddy relief mixed with disappointment. She looked at Alix. ‘We won’t have to share a room?’
Alix saw that vaguely hopeful look on Leila’s face and it made him feel rebellious. He desisted from telling her that his own parents had not shared rooms. That it would be considered perfectly normal if they had their own suites.
He shook his head. ‘This is just until we’re married—to observe propriety.’
