‘It means I’ve just spoken with my brother, who informed me about your impending nuptials with Lord Richton.’
‘He had no right to do that.’
‘Why not? He didn’t reveal anything I wouldn’t know in a week or two anyway.’
‘Then you also know why we reached the decision.’
‘Because a group of hot-headed Berenians went about a hundred steps too far? Yes, I heard. Did you ever think of just calling in the army for protection?’
‘Oh, that would really work,’ she scoffed. ‘Make a show of aggression and give the BLF even more of an excuse to start a war. Maybe you could lend us a few of the bouncers who work the doors at your nightclubs for extra muscle.’
‘It seems a damn sight better than marrying someone to reach an outcome it might not even achieve.’
Her eyes narrowed at his disparaging comment. ‘Diplomacy is always better than might.’
Not in his view. ‘I take it this marriage isn’t of the fake variety,’ he said, an edge in his voice he was struggling to control.
‘No.’ She paused, as if what she was about to say was distasteful, staring out over the expanse of green lawn surrounded by potted roses and gardenia bushes. ‘It won’t be fake.’
Silent fury made his voice gruff. ‘Is that what you want? To marry Richton?’
She gave him a fulminating look. ‘You know it isn’t.’
‘But you’ll do it anyway.’
‘If my country needs me to do it.’ Her chin lifted, as if daring him to contradict her. ‘Then yes, I’ll do it.’
‘The dutiful little mouse.’
Jade fire flashed from her eyes at his mocking tone but what did she expect, that he’d ignore the obvious?
‘I am no more a mouse than a doormat,’ she said icily.
‘You’re doing something you don’t want to do. I’d say that makes you one or the other.’
‘Sometimes sacrifices have to be made,’ she said with regal fortitude. ‘Why do you care?’
‘I don’t like injustice. And I know how it feels to be trapped by circumstance.’ He knew how it felt to be bullied into doing something you didn’t want to do. His father had made an art form out of it, and it seemed her father was doing the same to her. ‘It’s why I left Santara.’
‘So you’re trying to help me? Very chivalrous, Prince Rafaele,’ she mocked softly. ‘But I don’t have the luxury of choice. I have to marry at some point.’ She swallowed heavily and turned her gaze out over the elaborate garden once more. ‘It might as well be Lord Richton.’
Watching how controlled and closed-up she was only made Rafe’s temper hit a new high. ‘Richton might seem like an upstanding citizen, but word is that he has a dark side. One you don’t want to meet.’
‘How would you know that?’
‘Because he’s been blacklisted from at least seven clubs that I’m aware of, including mine.’
A grimace crossed her face as she shook her head. ‘I’d prefer not to know that.’
‘Dammit, Alexa. That’s not even the point here.’ He stepped closer, deliberately crowding her. ‘Stop being a martyr.’
‘My, you have a lot of names for me, don’t you?’ she mocked, her eyes cool enough to freeze lava.
Yes, he did have a lot of names for her, utterly beautiful being one of them.
‘My brother died three years ago,’ she said, a note of sadness replacing the iciness of moments ago, ‘leaving all of us utterly devastated and me the only heir t
o the throne. When you add in the problems with Santara, combined with the corruption my father has just weeded out of our government, that has set back our modernisation plans and given the BLF even more to gripe about, you can see that something has to be done. And quickly.’