“You expect me to exit bachelorhood and start producing babies on such short notice?”
Kairos waved a hand. “Don’t be so dramatic about it. Just because you marry doesn’t mean you have to change your behavior entirely. Certainly you will have to be more discreet.”
His brother suggesting something as shocking as carrying on extramarital affairs was surprising, and was almost as shocking as the fact that Kairos was essentially marrying him off. “Are you unfaithful to your wife?”
A muscle in Kairos’s jaw jumped. “No. I’m simply telling you that things don’t have to change all that much. Obviously your marriage will be one of convenience, and as long as you treat her with respect, I don’t see why you should have to pledge your fidelity to her.”
“I have no practice with fidelity. I would hardly stake my life on it.”
“You knew the day would come when you would have to take some responsibility for the nation. That day is now. It’s this. Father may have expected you to amount to nothing, but I certainly expect you to carry your weight.”
“I had no idea that as the spare, I was required to carry any weight unless you died.”
“Unhappily for you, that is not the case. I need you for political reasons, and practical reasons.”
Andres looked down at his brother’s dark, furious eyes. “If things are so terrible with Tabitha, why don’t you divorce her and find a woman who can give you the children you need?”
Kairos laughed, a hollow, bitter sound. “There are certainly some things you will have to learn if you’re to be a husband. I can no more cast off my wife because she can’t produce children than give a speech in front of foreign dignitaries without clothes on. I would be crucified by the press. I made vows to her, and I intend to keep them.” He didn’t sound happy about it, and certainly his devotion to her had nothing to do with love. That much was clear. “It’s time to atone for your sins, little brother.”
Andres was usually quite content in his sins, with no desire to atone for them at all. Except for Francesca. That he would take back a hundred times over if he could. Particularly now, with the stark reality of Kairos’s marriage to Tabitha laid out in front of him, he could hardly defend those actions.
“You’re overlooking a very important piece of the equation,” Andres said.
“And that is?”
“She does not want to marry me. That much was clear when I encountered her in my bedroom. We’re holding a kidnapped woman.”
“She has very few alternatives,” Kairos said. “I get the sense that if she goes back to Tirimia she’ll be in danger. For all that their government is playing nicely with us now, things are far too tentative for me to stake her life on presumed decency. She is safest here.”
“She’s feral. What do you expect me to do with her?”
“You’re a legendary playboy. The last thing you need from me is advice on how to deal with women.”
“She is not a woman. She’s a creature.”
He thought of that wild dark hair, her glittering, angry eyes. Somehow they were supposed to make a royal couple? He would need a woman twice as tame as Tabitha to convince the public of a change in him.
A woman such as her wouldn’t make his reinvention easy.
Kairos laughed, an even rarer occurrence than a smile. “I’m a married man, but even I noticed there was enough to recommend her. She’s beautiful, though, I confess not overly sophisticated.”
“I was too busy being surprised by her presence in my bedroom to notice her beauty.” A lie. He was not blind to her curves, her full, sensual lips. Despite the fact that, for all he knew, she might attack him if he approached her, she was a lush little package.
“My word is law,” Kairos said, his tone uncompromising. “And you owe me, brother. You will obey me on this. Tame her, train her, seduce her, I don’t really care, but by God you will marry her.”
Andres clenched his teeth together. He would find the moment more surreal if he hadn’t long suspected that it was coming. That someday he would stand before his brother and be informed of his fate. He was a prince, the second born to an old royal family. He had never imagined he would escape marriage, children. It had always only been a matter of time. And his time, it seemed, was up.