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       CHAPTER ONE

      ALESSANDRO DIOMEDI, KING of Maldinia, opened the door to the opulent reception room and gazed resolutely upon the woman intended to be his bride. Liana Aterno, the daughter of the duke of Abruzzo, stood in the centre of the room, her body elegant and straight, her gaze clear and steady and even cold. She looked remarkably composed, considering the situation.

      Carefully Sandro closed the door, the final click seeming to sound the end of his freedom. But no, that was being fanciful, for his freedom had surely ended six months ago, when he’d left his life in California to return to Maldinia and accept his place as first in line to the throne. Any tattered remnant of it had gone when he’d buried his father and taken his place as king.

      ‘Good afternoon.’ His voice seemed to echo through the large room with its gilt walls and frescoed ceilings, the only furniture a few ornate tables of gold and marble set against the walls. Not exactly the most welcoming of spaces, and for a moment Sandro wished he’d specified to put Lady Liana into a more comfortable chamber.

      Although, he acknowledged cynically, considering the nature of their imminent discussion—and probable relationship—perhaps this room was appropriate.

      ‘Good afternoon, Your Highness.’ She didn’t curtsey, which he was glad of, because he hated all the ostentatious trappings of royalty and obeisance, but she did bend her head in a gesture of respect so for a moment he could see the bare, vulnerable nape of her neck. It almost made him soften. Then she lifted her head and pinned him with that cold, clear-eyed gaze and he felt his heart harden once more. He didn’t want this. He never would. But she obviously did.

      ‘You had a pleasant journey?’

      ‘Yes, thank you.’

      He took a step into the room, studying her. He supposed she was pretty, if you liked women who were colourless. Her hair was so blonde it appeared almost white, and she wore it pulled back in a tight chignon, a few wispy tendrils coming to curl about her small, pearl-studded ears.

      She was slight, petite, and yet she carried herself with both pride and grace, and wore a modest, high-necked, long-sleeved dress of pale blue silk belted tightly at the waist, an understated strand of pearls at her throat. She had folded her hands at her waist like some pious nun and stood calmly under his obvious scrutiny, accepting his inspection with a cool and even haughty confidence. All of it made him angry.

      ‘You know why you’re here.’

      ‘Yes, Your Highness.’

      ‘You can dispense with the titles. Since we are considering marriage, you may call me Alessandro, or Sandro, whichever you prefer.’

      ‘And which do you prefer?’

      ‘You may call me Sandro.’ Her composed compliance annoyed him, although he knew such a reaction was unreasonable, even unjust. Yet he still felt it, felt the deep-seated desire to wipe that cool little smile off her face and replace it with something real. To feel something real himself.

      But he’d left real emotions—honesty, understanding, all of it—behind in California. There was no place for them here, even when discussing his marriage.

      ‘Very well,’ she answered evenly, yet she didn’t call him anything; she simply waited. Annoyance warred with reluctant amusement and even admiration. Did she have more personality than he’d initially assumed, or was she simply that assured of their possible nuptials?

      Their marriage was virtually a sealed deal. He’d invited her to Maldinia to begin negotiations, and she’d agreed with an alacrity he’d found far too telling. So the duke’s daughter wanted to be a queen. What a surprise. Another woman on a cold-hearted quest for money, power, and fame.

      Love, of course, wouldn’t enter into it. It never did; he’d learned that lesson too many times already.

      Sandro strode farther into the room, his hands shoved into the pockets of his suit trousers. He walked to the window that looked out on the palace’s front courtyard, the gold-tipped spikes of the twelve-foot-high fence that surrounded the entire grounds making his throat tighten. Such a prison. And one he’d reentered willingly. One he’d returned to with a faint, frail hope in his heart that had blown to so much cold ash when he’d actually seen his father again, after fifteen years.

      I had no choice. If I could have, I’d have left you to rot in California, or, better yet, in hell.

      Sandro swallowed and turned away.

      ‘Tell me why you’re here, Lady Liana.’ He wanted to hear it from her own mouth, those tightly pursed lips.

      A slight pause, and then she answered, her voice low and steady. ‘To discuss the possibility of a marriage between us.’

      ‘Such a possibility does not distress or concern you, considering we have never even met before?’

      Another pause, even slighter, but Sandro still felt it. ‘We have met before, Your Highness. When I was twelve.’

      ‘Twelve.’ He turned around to inspect her once again, but her cold blonde beauty didn’t trigger any memories. Had she possessed such icy composure, as well as a resolute determination to be queen, at twelve years old? It seemed likely. ‘You are to call me Sandro, remember.’

      ‘Of course.’

      He almost smiled at that. Was she provoking him on purpose? He’d rather that than the icy, emotionless composure. Any emotion was better than none.

      ‘Where did we meet?’

      ‘At a birthday party for my father in Milan.’

      He didn’t remember the event, but that didn’t really surprise him. If she’d been twelve, he would have been twenty, and about to walk away from his inheritance, his very self, only to return six months ago, when duty demanded he reclaim his soul—or sell it. He still wasn’t sure which he’d done. ‘And you remembered me?’

      For a second, no more, she looked...not disconcerted, but something close to it. Something distressing. Shadows flickered in her eyes, which, now that he’d taken a step closer to her, he saw were a rather startling shade of lavender. She wasn’t so colourless, after all. Then she blinked it back and nodded. ‘Yes, I did.’

      ‘I’m sorry to say СКАЧАТЬ