Free Princess from the Shadows Maisey Yates by Maisey Yates

if you cannot keep it on a topic I approve of, we can be finished here.”
    More questions followed, about the wedding date, how they met. All of which he glossed over with practiced ease.
    “I think that’s enough for one morning,” he said.
    “Pictures?” A photographer stood up in back.
    Rodriguez nodded his head once in affirmation and drew Carlotta to his side, his arm wrapped around her waist. She felt cold. The fire in his chest kindled again. He leaned in, his lips touching her ear. “Try to smile.”
    She turned to him, her mouth only a whisper from his, her full lips looking soft and more tempting than he could remember lips ever looking. He wanted to kiss her. And his mind was going no further than that. The need for a simple kiss. he couldn’t remember ever wanting that.
    But this wasn’t the time.
    He turned to the photographers and offered a smile. Carlotta did the same, her head angled just perfectly toward him, almost as though she were deferring to him. They made quite a picture. A royal couple who looked better than his parents ever had, for the short amount of time they’d been a couple.
    At least in pictures they looked like all Santa Christobel would expect of a ruler and his queen. Maybe these images would blot out the ones they’d looked at for years. Pictures of him with leggy blondes in tight skirts, driving fast cars, leaving notorious nightclubs. And then, one of their favorite sequences, he and a date entering a luxury hotel in the early-morning hours, him leaving a couple of hours later, and his date, dashing out in the daylight hours, wearing the same thing she’d worn the night before.
    They loved that one. A look at the scandalous prince. After a while, reading his own exploits had bored him. And sometimes it made him.
    He shut his mind on the thoughts. This wasn’t the time to reflect on all of that. Standing in the formal reception hall, the state seal behind him, his fiancée at his side, it made it seem like another life.
    “Thank you,” he said, nodding again and dropping his arm from Carlotta’s waist. He moved to exit and she stayed with him, walking closely beside him.
    She really was the perfect royal wife. At least in public. That was all that mattered.
    As soon as they were outside the room, Carlotta seemed to deflate as she released the breath she’d been holding. “That was …”
    “I know. I’m sorry that man mentioned Luca. It was out of line. I won’t tolerate it.”
    “Thank you,” she said, her voice muted. “Thank you for standing up for him. I know that you aren’t. I know you don’t really like kids.”
    “What? Who said I didn’t like kids?”
    “He makes you uncomfortable. I can tell.”
    Rodriguez shifted, a vague feeling of. embarrassment, something he wasn’t sure he could ever remember experiencing, washing through him. “That doesn’t mean I don’t like children. I have no experience with them.”
    “You’ve never dated a woman who had a child?”
    Vaguely, he remembered that there had been a woman who’d left the hotel before him once. He was almost certain she said something about needing to get back so her babysitter could go home. “I. Not one that ever introduced me to her children.”
    Carlotta began to walk down the corridor, back to the private palace quarters. He followed, his eyes drifting to the rounded curve of her backside. His body most definitely approved of the view.
    “I didn’t have any experience with children either. I don’t remember if I’d ever held a baby until I held my own. And then, he was so tiny and perfect. I loved him right then. And I knew I didn’t need any experience. I just needed to love him.” She tossed him a glance over her shoulder. “Of course, I now go through intermittent, crippling bouts of wondering whether or not I’m doing the right thing for him, but, essentially, I trust that just. loving him is enough.”
    He stopped walking for a moment. “Do you think all mothers feel