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‘Yes?’ Reluctantly
she looked at him, and saw his eyes were like grey clouds.
‘We’re having an engagement party at the end of this week. It’s a chance to introduce you to society here, and there will be some international guests.’
Immediately nerves assailed Leila. She was a perfumer, a shop manager—not someone who walked confidently among the moneyed classes. Royalty!
But she needed space from Alix to process everything that had happened so she just nodded nonchalantly and said, ‘Okay—fine.’
And then she slipped into her room and leant back against the door, letting out a long, shuddering breath.
She was in love with a man who had admitted to her that he was averse to love—based on the fact that he’d suffered so much pain due to losing his beloved brother. She could understand his trauma—and he would have felt it that much more keenly, being young and impressionable. But who was she to say to him that he wouldn’t be able to control who or how he loved?
And yet he was willing to do his best for the sake of their child. Clearly that would have to be enough—and it should be. Everything Leila did now was for the sake of this baby. Her own personal needs and desires were not important.
Yes, they are, you’ll wither and die in this environment with no love, whispered a rogue voice.
Leila pushed herself fiercely off the door and ignored the voice. As much as she longed for a different life from the one she’d had with her mother, she’d be an absolute fool to hope, even briefly, that some kind of fairy tale might be out there.
She stripped off her clothes and stepped into a hot shower and tried not to think of how it had felt to have Alix surging between her legs, touching her so deeply that it had made a mockery of the words she’d spouted at him.
Sex is never just sex, crowed the same rogue voice.
She shut it out and blinked back the prickle of weak tears.
* * *
On the evening of the engagement party Leila was a bag of nerves. It didn’t help that she’d barely seen Alix since their last conversation. But she’d welcomed the space—especially in light of what had happened. She’d been having lurid erotic dreams of the harem all week.
Alix had sent her messages and notes, explaining that he was caught up with political meetings and getting everything prepared for the wedding.
And Leila had been kept busy with lessons about the history of the island, along with etiquette classes, instruction on how she would be expected to behave as Queen. And with wedding dress fittings.
The magnitude of how radically her life was changing was overwhelming.
The last thing she needed was to see Alix and have him guess just how brittle she was feeling.
Her personal maid, Amalie, was just finishing dressing her now, and Leila winced a little at the increased sensitivity of her breasts—which only made her think of how it had felt to have Alix’s mouth on her there.
Amalie obviously misread Leila’s discomfort. ‘Are you too hot, mademoiselle? Shall I open the doors?’
Leila shook her head quickly. ‘No, I’m fine—honestly.’
She forced a smile and looked at herself in the mirror, not really recognising the sleekly coiffed woman in front of her and feeling a moment of insecurity that Alix would take one look at her and feel nothing but disappointment with his inconvenient bride.
Alix stood in the doorway, unnoticed for the past few minutes, and watched as Leila was transformed from beautiful to stunning. His breath caught in his throat. She wore a cream strapless dress with a ruched bodice that clung to her full breasts before falling in delicate chiffon layers to the floor. Her dark hair was coiled into a complicated-looking chignon at the back of her head. Make-up subtly enhanced her eyes and that lush mouth.
Alix’s body reacted with predictable force. A force he’d spent the week avoiding by keeping busy at all costs. Like some kind of yellow-bellied coward. He’d stood face to face this week with one of the men who had shot his parents and his brother, and he hadn’t felt half the maelstrom he was feeling now.
As if sensing his regard, Leila turned her head and saw him. Her cheeks flushed and Alix gritted his jaw to stop his body reacting even more rampantly. He felt like a Neanderthal. He wanted to throw her over his shoulder and carry her back to the heart of that harem, to sink himself so deep he’d never have to feel or think again. He wanted to lock them in there for a month.
He stepped into the room with a velvet box in his hand, vaguely aware of the young maid curtseying and disappearing.
Leila looked from the box to him. ‘More jewellery?’
She said it as if it was a poisoned chalice, and bleakly he had to realise that perhaps that was what this marriage was for her.
Alix curbed his irritation. ‘Yes, more jewellery.’
