Free The Prince She Had to Marry by Christine Rimmer Page A

because I’m a doting husband who cares for his wife’s well-being.”
    “Not after the show we just put on out there. They all think we came down here to...do what honeymooners do. If you go now, it will look as though we had a falling-out. Or we were faking it.”
    He peeled the orange, revealing the red fruit within.
    She said with a sad little smile, “I always loved Montedorans. The best blood orange in the world. Once, when I was little, I ate ten of them in one sitting.”
    He split the sections in the middle, offered her half. She took it and ate it, section by section. He made short work of his half. “Another?”
    She blew out a weary breath. “No, not now.”
    He suggested, “Lie down, why don’t you? Have a nap.”
    She folded her hands in her lap. Her lower lip quivered.
    “What?” he demanded. He had that sinking feeling, that trapped, guilty feeling. “Lily. Please. Don’t cry.”
    There were a large number of bronze and gold pillows tossed artfully at the head of the wide bed. She grabbed one and fired it at him. He deflected it neatly as she fired another. “Of course I won’t cry, you big, bloody...ass. Why in heaven’s name would I cry over you?” More pillows came at him.
    He batted them away. “Lili, get hold of yourself.”
    She fired more pillows. “You lied to me, Alex. I hate that you lied.”
    He knocked two more pillows aside. “Lili, stop.”
    Miraculously, she did stop throwing pillows. But the accusations kept coming. “You lied and you tricked me.”
    He picked up the pillows and tossed them back toward the head of the bed. “Haven’t we been through this?”
    “Yes, we have, if being ‘through’ it means you agree that you lied and you tricked me—and as far as you’re concerned, that’s perfectly acceptable.”
    He dropped to the chair again. “How many ways can I tell you? The marriage needed to happen. You were going to dig in your heels and blather on endlessly about love and relationships and communication and feelings and...God knows what all.”
    “See?” She pointed a shaking hand. “That. That is exactly what I am talking about. You think I blather .”
    “Well, Lili, you do.”
    She made a series of sputtering noises and then threw up both hands. “You don’t respect me. You never did. Never—and I don’t have any idea why I’m even talking to you. I might as well be talking to the wall.”
    He realized he really needed to get ahead of her fury at him, somehow. So he went for the painful truth. “I was wrong, all right? I was completely in the wrong.”
    She sat very still. And then she swallowed and spoke in a small voice. “Would you say that again, please?”
    Twice wasn’t enough? Apparently not. He forged ahead. “I was wrong. I should never have lied to you. That was wrong. I had no right to make an agreement I didn’t intend to keep.” Even if I needed to do it to get you to marry me .
    “You were wrong,” she said again, slowly and much too deliberately.
    “Yes, I believe I said that. More than twice.”
    “But still, in your heart, you feel that you had to do it.”
    “I didn’t say that,” he hedged.
    “No, but you were thinking it. I know you were. I know you, Alex. I know you all too well.”
    That news hit him rather hard, because she happened to be right that he was thinking it. And if she was right about that, was she right that she knew him?
    Couldn’t be. Nobody knew him. Not really.
    He made his apology outright. “I’m sorry that I tricked you.”
    She made a humphing sound. “But you would do it again if you felt that you had to.”
    He considered strangling her, but it wouldn’t be right. There was the child to think of, after all. “Look at it this way. You wanted more time with me. Now you’re going to get it. We’re joined at the hip for weeks to come.”
    “Yes, and now you’ve ruined everything. Now even I don’t want to try to make a real marriage of this mess we’re in together.”
    Strangely,