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‘What choice do we have?’ He kept his back to her and thrust his hands into his pockets. He was looking out at the city, staring at the view, and his voice had a bleakness to it that reached inside her and filled Frankie with despair.
She followed his gaze; nothing seemed to shine now.
‘What choice do I have?’ he repeated. ‘I have a son. He is a prince, and the fate of my country is on his shoulders. I must bring him home. I owe it... I owe it to my people,’ he said firmly. He moved one hand from his pocket to his head, driving his fingers through his dark hair, then turning to face her again. ‘And you owe it to Leo, Frankie.’ His eyes held hers and there was earnestness and honesty in his expression. ‘You want to raise him with me, don’t you?’
Her chest tightened because he was right. ‘I want to raise a son who is happy and well-adjusted,’ she said finally. ‘Who has two parents who love him. That doesn’t mean we have to marry...’
‘When we were together, back then, you told me of your upbringing,’ he said with a soft strength in his voice. ‘You told me of weekends spent hiking in the summer and playing board games in the winter, reading around the fire, cooking together. You told me how you’d longed for a sister or brother because you wanted a bigger family—lots of noise and happiness. You told me your family meant everything to you. Would you deprive our son of that?’
She stared at him, aghast and hurting, because, damn him, he was right. Everything he’d repeated was exactly as she felt, as she’d always felt, ever since she’d known the first sting of rejection. Since she’d understood that adoption often went hand in hand with abandonment—for the two parents who had chosen to raise her, there were two who had chosen to lose her, to give her away.
She’d seen everything through a prism of that abandonment, never taking family time for granted, seeing it with gratitude because she had feared her adoptive parents’ love, once given, might also be taken away again.
Her eyes swept shut and, instead of speaking, she made a strangled noise, deep in her throat.
His eyes swept over her beautiful face and, seeing her surrender, he pushed home his advantage. ‘Marry me because our son deserves that of us. You and I slept together, we made a baby together. From the moment of his conception, this stopped being about you and me, and what we both want. We have an obligation to act in his best interests.’
More sense. More words that she agreed with, and suddenly the pull towards marriage was an inevitable force. She knew she would agree—she had to—but she wasn’t ready to show him that just yet.
‘It’s too much,’ she whispered, lifting her eyelids and staring at him with confusion and uncertainty. ‘Marrying you, even if you were just a normal man, would be...ridiculous. But you’re a king and I’m the last person on earth who wants to be...who’s suitable to be... I wouldn’t be any good at it.’
‘First and
foremost, you will be my wife, and the mother to my children. Your duties as Queen will not need to be onerous.’ He softened his expression. ‘In any event, I think you are underselling yourself.’
But she heard nothing after one simple word. ‘Children? As in, plural?’
‘Of course. One is not enough.’ The words were staccato, like little nails being slammed into her sides. Something deep rumbled in his features, a worry that seemed to arrest him deep inside.
But she shook her head, unable to imagine having more children with this man. ‘I don’t want more children.’
‘You do not like being a mother?’ he prompted.
‘Of course I do. I love Leo. And if I could lay an egg and have four more children, then I would. But, unfortunately, to give you more precious heirs I’d need to...we’d need to...’
‘Yes?’ he drawled, and she had the distinct impression he was enjoying her discomfort.
‘Oh, shut up,’ she snapped, lifting her fingertips to her temples and massaging them.
‘We are getting married,’ he said, and apparently her acquiescence was now a point of fact. ‘Do you think the question of sex is one we won’t need to address?’
His ability to be so calm in the face of such an intimate conversation infuriated her.
‘If I were to marry you,’ she snapped, resenting his confidence as to her agreement, ‘sex wouldn’t be a part of our arrangement.’
He laughed. ‘Oh, really?’
‘Yes, really. And it’s not funny! Sex should mean something, just like marriage should mean something. You’re laughing like I’m saying something stupid and I’m not—the way I feel is perfectly normal.’
‘You are naïve,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘Like the innocent virgin you were three years ago. Sex is a biological function—two bodies enjoying one another: pleasure for pleasure’s sake. Marriage is an alliance—a mutually beneficial arrangement. Even those who dress it up as “soulmates” and “love” know it for what it really is, deep down.’
‘And what’s that?’ she demanded.
‘Convenience. Companionship. Sex.’
Her cheeks flamed pink. ‘How in the hell did you get to be so cynical?’ she demanded.
‘I am more realist than cynic.’ He shrugged insouciantly. ‘You will grow up and see things as they really are one day, Frankie.’
