The Prince She Had to Marry Read Online Free PDF Page A

that can happen to a child.”
    “Of course it’s not. But I wouldn’t call it a good thing. Would you call it a good thing, Lili?”
    “I didn’t say it was a good thing.”
    He topped off his drink. “Because it’s not a good thing. Not for a child who should have the right to a crown and could be denied that right because his mother refuses to marry his father.”
    “My baby will have a father who loves him—or her,” she announced. “If you can’t love this baby, the baby is better off without you.”
    “All right. I will love the baby.” He set down the decanter. “Happy now?”
    “Not especially. Alex, if you can’t at least try to make a real marriage with me, I won’t marry you.” She spoke more softly then, and her eyes seemed suddenly far away. “All my life, I’ve wanted one thing above all—to have true love like my parents had. Like your mother and father have. Like Max had with Sophia.” Maximilian was the heir to his mother’s throne. Max’s wife, Sophia, had died while he was in Afghanistan. “Love like Rule and Sydney have found.”
    He studied her for a long time. He pondered the goal: to get her to let him give their child his name. To achieve the goal, he should tell her whatever she needed to hear, which apparently was that he loved her. Deeply and completely. Somehow, he couldn’t wrap his mouth around a lie that large. “I can’t give you what you want, Lili. It’s simply not in me.” He steeled himself for her tears, for one of her big, emotional displays.
    Her eyes remained dry. And when she spoke, it was calmly. Reasonably. “I realize that. I can accept that.”
    Did he believe her? Hardly. She might be the most annoying woman he’d ever known, the most overwrought and emotional, the biggest chatterbox. But within her there lurked a will of iron. If she wanted something strongly enough, she would never rest until she had it.
    Or until she drove anyone who stood in the way of her having it stark, raving mad.
    Plus, beneath all the sweetness and meaningless chatter, she was quite intelligent. Sometimes she behaved stupidly, but there was a perfectly good brain inside that gorgeous head of hers. She was using it now. He could see the cogs turning. She was about to lay down terms.
    He already knew what kind of terms. Terms that would have him agreeing to give her more than he could afford to give, more than he even knew how to give anymore. Five years ago, maybe. But not anymore. Whatever that place was inside a man, that place a woman filled and made warm and good and hopeful. That place was dead in him now. Uninhabitable.
    She went on. “What I want from you is for you to try.”
    He purposely did not make the scoffing sound that rose in his throat. “Try.”
    “Yes. I want you make an effort to be a real husband to me. I want you to spend time with me. I want you to have breakfast with me every day and dinner as well. I want you to give me—to give us —the evenings, that time after dinner. I want us to spend our evenings together, just the two of us. I want you to tell me about your day and I will tell you about mine. I want us to share, Alex.”
    Share. Did it get any worse? She wanted him to share .
    She was still talking. “I want you to read the books I choose for you.”
    “Books. Hold on just a minute. You’re choosing what books I read?”
    “Not all the books you read, of course not.”
    “I suppose you’ll have me studying those romance novels you so enjoy.”
    “Don’t judge romance novels until you’ve read a few of them. One can learn a lot about love and life and relationships from a good romance.”
    He had no words to reply to that one. So he said nothing. He didn’t really need to say much around Lili anyway. She had the talking covered, and then some.
    She said, “No. Actually, I didn’t plan to have you reading romances, though I’m sure it would be good for you if you did.”
    He made a grunting sound and left it at that.
    “But I