A Queen for the Taking?. Кейт Хьюит

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      CHAPTER TWO

      ALESSANDRO GAZED DISPASSIONATELY at his reflection as he twitched his black tie into place. This afternoon’s meeting with Lady Liana had gone about as well as he could have expected, and yet it still left him dissatisfied. Restless, as everything about his royal life did.

      This palace held too many painful memories, too many hard lessons. Don’t trust. Don’t love. Don’t believe that anyone loves you back.

      Every one drilled into him over years of neglect, indifference, and anger.

      Sighing, he thrust the thought aside. He might hate returning to the palace, but he’d done it of his own free will. Returned to face his father and take up his kingship because he’d known it was the right thing to do. It was his duty.

      And because you, ever naive, thought your father might actually forgive you. Finally love you.

      What a blind fool he was.

      He wouldn’t, Sandro thought as he fastened his cufflinks, be blind about his wife. He knew exactly what he was getting into, just what he was getting from the lovely Lady Liana.

      Yet for a moment, when he’d seen Liana coming through the French windows, her hair streaming over her shoulders like pale satin, the fading sunlight touching it with gold, he’d felt his heart lighten rather ridiculously.

      She’d looked so different from the coldly composed woman he’d encountered in the formal receiving room. She’d looked alive and vibrant and beautiful, her lavender eyes sparkling, her cheeks pink from the wind.

      He’d felt a leap of hope then that she might not be the cold, ambitious queen-in-waiting she’d seemed just hours ago, but then he’d seen that icy self-possession enter her eyes, she’d jerked back when he had, unthinkingly, touched her, and disappointment had settled in him once more, a leaden weight.

      It was too late to wish for something else for his marriage, Sandro knew. For his life. When he’d received the phone call from his father—after fifteen years of stony silence on both sides—he’d given up his right to strive or even wish for anything different. He’d been living for himself, freely, selfishly, for too long already. He’d always known, even if he’d acted as if he hadn’t, that it couldn’t last. Shouldn’t.

      And so he’d returned and taken up his kingship and all it required...such as a wife. An ambitious, appropriate, perfect wife.

      His expression hardening, he turned from his reflection and went in search of the woman who fitted all those soulless requirements.

      He found her already waiting in the private dining room he’d requested be prepared for their meal. She stood by the window, straight and proud, dressed in an evening gown of champagne-coloured silk.

      Her face went blank as she caught sight of him, and after a second’s pause she nodded regally as he closed the door behind him.

      Sandro let his gaze sweep over her; the dress was by no means immodest and yet it still clung to her slight curves. It had a vaguely Grecian style, with pearl-and-diamond clips at each shoulder and a matching pearl-and-diamond pendant nestled in the V between her breasts.

      The dress clung to those small yet shapely breasts, nipping in at her waist before swirling out around her legs and ending in a silken puddle at her feet. She looked both innocent and made of ivory, everything about her so cold and perfect, making Sandro want to add a streak of colour to her cheeks or her lips—would her cheeks turn pink as they’d been before if he touched her again?

      What if he kissed her?

      Was she aware of his thoughts? Did she feel that sudden tension inside her as well? He couldn’t tell anything from her blank face, her veiled eyes.

      She’d pulled her hair back in a tight coil, emphasising her high cheekbones and delicate bone structure, and he had a mad impulse to jerk the diamond-tipped pins from her hair and see it spill over her shoulders in all of its moon-coloured glory. What would she do, he wondered, if he acted on that urge? How would this ice princess in all her white, silken haughtiness respond if he pulled her into his arms and kissed her quite senseless?

      Almost as if she could sense the nature of his thoughts she lifted her chin, her eyes sparking violet challenge. Good. Sandro wanted to see emotion crack that icy demeanour; he wanted to sense something real from her, whether it was uncertainty or nervousness, humour or passion.