Royal Marriage Market (33 page)

There is no doubt in my mind he is not happy to be here. If I had to pick a more concise description, I would insist he is flat-out miserable.

Greta makes a beeline toward my bedroom, no doubt to get my clothes ready for—wait.
Greta is heading to the bedroom
.

“Wait!” I call out. She freezes, questions filling her eyes.

“Would you mind fetching me coffee?” She opens her mouth, so I add, “Not hotel coffee.” Now she’s regarding me as if I’ve lost my mind. And I understand the reasoning; this is an excellent hotel. The coffee is most likely excellent, too.

I lamely add, “Perhaps . . . real coffee? From a café?”

Her dark eyes flit back and forth between Mat and me before easing in ridiculous assumption. Nonetheless, she curtseys and departs the suite, shutting the door behind her.

Mat asks, “Are you feeling ill? You’re a bit flushed.”

To prove his point, heat crawls up my neck; Mat clearly notices it, because his eyes trace the path too low for comfort. While there isn’t anything I’d call interest there—which I am uncertain if I find pleasing or insulting—his focus lingers far too long at the vee of my robe. I pull the pieces together so tightly they turn form fitting.

I wave two fingers in front of my face. “Eyes up here.”

He sighs and does as I ask. Even blushes a bit himself. “My apologies.”

“Perhaps I ought to be asking
you
how you’re feeling.”

Something that sounds perilously close to both a sob and a chuckle falls out of the landless prince standing before me. “Honestly? It’s been a bitch of a morning. When you didn’t show . . .”

Uneasy silence falls between us for long seconds as we warily regard one another. And it’s irrational, but a bit of guilt taunts me, considering there is a man in my bedroom, one I’m falling in love with, and instead of being with him, I am out here going through the motions with a man everyone thinks I ought to marry.

I clear my throat. “We need to talk.”

He releases another sigh, one born of irritation edged with sadness. And then he covers his eyes with a hand and turns away, shaking his head.

Uneasy silence transitions into excruciating stillness. I am ready to voice my concerns more forcefully when he breathes deeply, straightens his back, and once more faces me.

Frustration reflects back at me. “I’m begging you to let all the arguments go. I can’t . . . What’s this going to be like, you and I going at this every single time we see one another? Is this our future? One massive row after another? I know you don’t want to marry me. You’ve made that perfectly clear. If you want to argue about it some more . . . do it with those who actually have a say in the matter.”

It’s enough to draw me closer. “Who would that be?”

He runs a hand through his hair. Says nothing.

“Mat.” I touch his shoulder, drawing his focus to me. “Talk to me. Maybe together, we can figure a way out—”

The next words burst out of him. “Stop. Just—I’m trying, all right? I’m doing my bloody best with this incredibly shitty situation. I need you to try, too. Especially when they’re watching.”

“When
who
is watching? The same people who have a so-called say in this matter?”

He shifts away, his shoulder sliding from my fingers as he clears his throat. “Obviously, brunch is no longer an option. And I think in light of how we’re both feeling, we ought to skip lunch as well. Hopefully my parents will understand. Let’s try again at dinner tonight. I’ll send a car to pick you up at eight.”

“Talk to me.” I’m begging, but I have no other choice. “I’m blind to something right now. Don’t leave me in the dark.”

As he steps through the door, a sad little shake of the head precedes, “I’ll see you tonight, Elsa.”

chapter 51

Christian

For one brief, uncharitable moment, I despise my old mate, even as red alerts flash through my mind during the brief conversation between Mat and Elsa. Something isn’t right here, and while I now know part of the story behind why Prince Gustav is so keen to ensure Elsa marries into the
Chambéry
name, it strikes me there must be a pretty soul-sucking reason on Mat’s end, too.

Elsa reappears in the doorway, her luminous face reflecting all the concerns brewing inside me. “Did you hear any of that?”

I fold back the covers and pat the empty space next to me. “Yes.”

She slips into the bed. “He is hiding something. I’m sure of it.”

“You’re wearing too many clothes. And yes, I agree about Mat.”

When her hands drift to the robe’s sash, her head tilts to the side in a way that nearly distracts me from what we need to talk about. “You two are friendly, correct? Do you have any idea what it might be? Why he insists I must try when they—whoever
they
are—are watching?”

“Let me do this.” My deft fingers unwrap the knot and slide the silky robe off her shoulders all within two seconds. As shafts of dust-sparkling sunlight filtered by gauzy curtains fall down upon her, I marvel at how my lungs forget how to instinctually work all too often when I’m with this woman.

I force myself to focus on the problem at hand. “What has he told you of his past?”

She takes the initiative to toss the robe across the bed and onto the floor. “Probably as much as I’ve told him: little to nothing.”

I drop a kiss on a pale, smooth shoulder. “Nothing exchanged during those teas you two shared?”

A hand drifts onto my thigh. “What were you and my sister sharing during yours?”

“Not a damn thing.” No. That’s unfair of me. I clarify, “Actually, she shared an excessive amount about horses and the weather.”

Soft laughter curls around us, instantly leaving me wanting much more. “Point made. You were saying? About Mat’s past? Something I apparently don’t know about?”

My lips trace the sloped curve where neck and shoulders meet. Ah, yes. We were discussing Mat. “When he lived in America, he was involved with a woman named Kim.”

She sighs softly, leaning into me, but the moment my words register, I lose her. Elsa leans back, bottom lip pulled once more between her teeth. “When did they break up?”

When I tell her I haven’t a clue, she presses, “Is she American?”

I nod. “The last I heard, his family didn’t know about her.”

She smacks the bed. “He told me he’d been in love before.”

“Ah, so you two
were
sharing.”

A dismissive hand waves between us. “There were no details other than he’d been in love before. This must be who he was referencing.” She glances around. “I asked Charlotte to look into his past, but I’ve yet to hear from her, thanks to Her Serene Highness’ supervision.”

“Mat’s relationship with Kim wasn’t public knowledge,” I inject. “He went to great lengths to keep it quiet.”

“Yet you knew.”

“Well, there were a select number of us who did, yes. It wasn’t like I was going to spill his secrets to the press, though. I had a hard enough time ensuring my own business was kept under lock and key. That said, Mat was very protective of Kim. He didn’t want the press hounding her movements as they do with so many others that our kind get involved with.”

She takes all of this in quietly. “Did you know her?”

I nod. “You’d have liked her, all things considering.”

“Why did he never tell his family? Is it because she is American?”

I choose my words carefully; no matter what, this is still not my story to tell. “Partially. It also had a lot to do with the fact that Kim came from an exceedingly violent neighborhood riddled with crime. Two of her siblings are in gangs; one of those is—or was at the time—in jail, the other has been in and out of prison for years. That wasn’t the kind of life Kim wanted, though. She worked hard to become a doctor. There was genuine fear on both their behalves, I think, that his family would disapprove. And hers, too.”

“They were serious, though?”

I run a hand down her belly, lingering only momentarily at the shallow indentation before heading further south. “That was my impression, yes. He was crazy about her.” It’s hard to do, but my fingers still. “Els. There’s a lot we need to talk about. There are things you need to—”

One hand settles on my lips. The other nudges my fingers to keep moving. “I think,” she says slowly, “that perhaps we can talk about this in a bit?”

“But—”

When she kisses me, my hormones refuse to allow me to do anything but what she asks. We come together then, all fierce and soft at the same time, mouths fusing and hands roaming and I’m finally in her once more, moving and feeling and living and dying all at once.

When the next series of knocks sounds, Elsa throws her hands up and lets loose a tiny shriek of frustration.

Assuming it’s the secretary who unwillingly tagged along on the trip, I remind her, “To be fair, she took a fantastically long time to find coffee. There must be twenty cafés all within a two-block radius of the hotel.” Granted, it was because she thought Elsa and Mat were together, but still.

The woman has promise. I can work with promise.

She presses a kiss against my collarbone before getting out of bed. “What are we going to do, Chris? I can’t send her for coffee every time she wants to come in.”

Bloody hell, do I like it when she calls me that. That simple nickname, so common, sounds so perfect when it comes from her mouth.

I slide out from beneath the sheets. “Since the day I’ve met you, I’ve been paying off one person or another in order to ensure our time together is uninterrupted. What makes this woman any different?”

She simply stares at me for a good few seconds before bursting into that erotic laughter of hers. “You are going to bribe my mother’s personal secretary?”

“Might as well. Go let her in. I need to at least put on some pants so she won’t run away in terror.”

I get a cheeky smile and a firm smack on the arse. “She’d stick around to look. I guarantee that. Don’t you remember how long the maid back in California ogled you?”

chapter 52

Elsa

Greta bears three coffees, which is ironically ideal.

“Is His Highness already gone?” She glances around the room, as if she fears Mat may leap out from behind the drapes.

“Yes.” I motion to a chair. “Please join me for some of the coffee you must have gone to Nice for.”

She blanches. “Oh, Your Highness, please accept my deepest apologies. I—”

I sigh. Poor Greta wouldn’t know a joke if it hit her over the head. “No need to apologize. I was merely teasing. I understand why you felt you ought to take your time, even if it was wholly unnecessary. Please have a seat.”

Her bottom barely meets fabric when Christian strolls out of the bedroom, looking so delicious in his t-shirt and jeans that I drool right alongside poor Greta.

As he sits down next to me, I think:
mine.

A hand is extended; she takes it warily, eyes widened and darting back and forth between the two of us first in confusion and then alarm.

I love that this woman speaks volumes with her eyes, and that my mother has not squashed all emotion out of her. “Greta, I would like to introduce you to His Highness, the Hereditary Grand Duke of Aiboland. To make a long story short, this is my boyfriend, Christian.”

The poor thing collapses back into her chair, even as she struggles to rise and curtsey before him. “It is a great pleasure to meet you, Your Highness.” Only, it doesn’t sound like a pleasure at all. She sounds as if she’s on the verge of a heart attack.

Christian, for his part, shows no reaction toward the definition I threw out. “The pleasure is all mine, Greta. I’ve heard wonderful things about you from Elsa.”

I think both of our eyes do some talking at that one.

“I know it must come as a surprise to find me here when you were naturally expecting another prince,” he continues, words filled with a charming sense of camaraderie that practically undoes Greta, “but I’m going to lay this all out for you. We are all well aware of why you have been sent to Paris instead of Charlotte.”

We are? Or rather—he is, too?