The Prince's Scandalous Wedding Vow

If only it were that easy, she thought, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs, trying to anchor herself, craving safety and stability. Ever since she’d arrived in Roche, she’d felt rootless. Lost. She desperately missed her life on Khronos, needing her work to give her days structure and purpose. “I want to return to Khronos,” she whispered. “I want to go home.”

“Not until after the baby is born, but then yes, you could go for a visit.”

“A visit,” she said, her voice trembling.

He said nothing and she glanced around the room, taking in the thick stone walls, the narrow windows, the heavy beamed ceiling. “You’re punishing me.”

“That’s not fair.”

“I was a virgin when I met you and now I’m pregnant. Doesn’t seem fair at all.”

“You wanted to be with me.”

“Because I thought you were free. I thought you cared about me.”

“I do care about you, which is why I’m marrying you, not Danielle.”

“You’re only marrying me because I’m pregnant!”

“Do you want me to deny it? No, it’s true. I’m marrying you because you’re carrying my child, but that doesn’t invalidate my offer—”

“Oh, it does. It most certainly does, Your Highness.”

He sighed. “You’re being childish.”

“You’re being hideous.”

“We can’t go back, Josephine. We can only go forward.”

“And we will,” she agreed huskily, “but not together. We might have created a baby together, but that doesn’t mean we must punish ourselves for eternity—”

“Marriage is not hell.”

“So says the man who had a girlfriend and a fiancée.”

“I broke up with my girlfriend months before my engagement was announced.”

“But you were privately engaged to the princess, weren’t you?”

“We’ve had an understanding for years, yes, but Danielle also dated. She had relationships—”

“That still changes nothing. I’m not about to have my heart broken by a man who only cares for himself.”

“But why would it be broken if you don’t care for me? This isn’t a love marriage, Josephine. It’s a business deal, an arrangement to protect our child, who will inherit the Alberici wealth and title.”

She blinked, hard. “So I don’t matter.”

His sigh was deep, heavy. “Of course you matter.”

Her head dipped, her gaze dropped. “Please leave.”

“It’s time to put our child first. Stop with the selfishness—”

“Me? Selfish? Clearly, you don’t remember Khronos or what happened there. But I do. And I was never selfish, never unkind, not toward you.”

He left her then, and as the door closed behind him, she put her head down on her knees and fought tears.

She was exhausted and nauseous and sick of emotion. She wasn’t used to feeling this much, and certainly not used to so little physical activity. For a girl who’d grown up outside, so close to nature that she felt she was an extension of the mountains and sea, being cooped up in a tower, in a castle, in a city, was a terrible punishment indeed.

* * *

Alexander descended the tower staircase to his office on the second floor, aware that Josephine wasn’t wrong. He was different here. He had to be different here. On Khronos he’d been just a man. In Aargau he was the future king. He’d rather enjoyed being just a man. There had been freedom, and an ease he didn’t know in his world here.

Aimee, his secretary, was at her desk when he entered the room and she glanced up at him, a troubled crease between her brows. “Her Highness has requested you join her in her rooms immediately.” Aimee glanced at her watch. “That was nearly an hour ago. Her staff has followed up with me twice since, worried I haven’t passed on the message.”

“You knew where I was.”

She gave a faint smile. “Yes, but you said not to bother you, and so I didn’t.”

Alexander crossed the Alberici castle grounds, heading for the pale yellow eighteenth-century palace that travel guidebooks always falsely claimed had been inspired by the architecture of Versailles but in reality drew its inspiration from the Royal Palace at Caserta, which was just fifty years older and much closer geographically.

Alexander climbed the grand pink and yellow marble staircase to the second floor and headed back down the long corridor to the set of rooms that were his mother’s. There was no need for him to knock as her butler opened the door, announcing him.

Queen Serena waved him to a chair near hers. “You kept me waiting long enough,” she said as he sat down and stretched out his legs.

“I came to you the moment I was free.”

“I’m hearing things, worrying things.” She gave him a long look. “Do you have any news for me? News that would ease some of my anxiety, because your father grows weaker. He slept most of today. We’re running short on time, particularly if you hope to have him present at your wedding. Or perhaps you intend to marry after he’s gone?” His mother’s tone was cool and distant. But then, it was the tone he knew best. She was beautiful and regal, elegant and refined, always cognizant of her power and responsibility as the queen of Aargau.

“Of course I want him there.”

“Then the wedding needs to be sooner, not later.”

“I understand.”

“Then what is the problem, Alexander?”

“Josephine isn’t...ready...to marry.”

“Excuse me? She’s carrying your child, the heir to the kingdom.”

“I understand.”

“The longer you wait, the more difficult it becomes from a PR standpoint. You understand that, don’t you? We’re trying to do damage control, Alexander, and all we need is a small, private service in the palace chapel—”

“Unless she wants the formal service in the cathedral.”

“We don’t have time to plan a formal wedding, and she doesn’t need a big, formal wedding. Your father is very unhappy that she’s trapped you.”

“I trapped her, not the other way around.”

“You’re a prince. She is no one.”

He knew his mother well enough to know that she wasn’t trying to be cruel or rude, just honest. “She didn’t care that I was a prince, and she is most definitely someone.”

The queen sat back in her chair, her jaw dropping slightly. “You love her.”

“I want her, yes. But love? I don’t know about that. I was once teased for being so emotional. Now I’m criticized for not having feelings. Having feelings would make all of this easier.”

“I didn’t have...feelings when I married your father. But they developed over time. Yours will develop, too.” Her head tilted. She studied him intently. “Are you completely recovered from your accident?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You haven’t been the same since you returned home. You are less...you.”

He gave her a half bow. “Apologies. I shall try to be more...me.”

“I don’t appreciate the sarcasm, Alexander. It’s very tense here, not simply because your father slips away from us a little more every day, but King Marcel Roulet is livid that his daughter has been profoundly embarrassed just a week before her wedding. And I’ve just been informed that you are keeping your American locked in your tower—”

“I did lock her in the first night. But she hasn’t been locked in since.”

“But she believes she’s locked in.”

He shrugged. “She has a tendency to run away. I need her to remain.”