Christmas Nights by Penny Jordan Read Free Book Online

‘new’ royal apartments comprised a drawing room, a dining room with a small kitchen off it, the bedroom she was now in, two bathrooms and two dressing rooms, which were entered via doors on either side of the large bed that she was trying desperately hard to ignore.
    The drawing room had large glass doors that opened out onto a private terrace, complete with an infinity swimming pool, and the view from the apartments’ windows was one of wild rugged splendour over the cliffs and out to sea.
    Unlike the rest of the palace, with its grand and formal decor and furniture, these rooms had a much more modern and relaxed air to them. In fact they were rooms in which she would have felt very much at home in other circumstances.
    She had deliberately chosen to change into a pair of jeans and a simple tee shirt, as though wearing them was somehow like wearing a badge of independence, making a statement about what she was and what she was not. And because she wanted to distance herself in every way from what had happened earlier, so that he knew it had been a momentary aberration—her response to him alien to everything she believed she stood for and something never to be repeated.
    She did not desire him. She simply desired the son he would give her. When she lay beneath him, enduring the possession of his body, it would be because of her belief that the people on this island deserved to be freed from their servitude. Not because she wanted to be there, and certainly not because she gloried in beingthere. There would be no repetition of that earlier kiss. She would show him no weakness or vulnerability.
    Abruptly she realised that she was pacing the floor. Why? She already knew that he would claim payment of her family’s debt to him. If he thought to draw out her torment by making her wait, because he thought she would be anxious until it was over and done with, then she would show him that he was wrong.
    She opened the glass doors and stepped out onto the terrace. The air on this side of the island smelled and felt different, somehow—sharper, stronger, more exhilarating. The sea both protected the castle and reminded those who had built it that it was a dangerous restless living force that could never be ignored. Like love itself.
    Love? What had
that
to do with anything?
    Everything, she told herself sombrely. Because she would love the son this marriage would bring her, and in turn would ensure that he loved his people.
    Late autumn had long ago faded into winter and now the tops of the mountains that lay inland were capped with snow as icy and remote as the heart of this marriage she had made.
    Where was he? When was he going to come to her and demand his pound of flesh? Ionanthe paced the terrace as she looked towards the bedroom she would have to share with Max.
    At least it was not the same bedchamber he had shared with her sister. Yania, the young woman who had been appointed to attend her, had told her that when she had mentioned that Max had moved out of the Royal State Apartments immediately after Eloise’s death.
    Because he couldn’t bear to sleep there alone without her?
    What did it matter to her
what
he felt?
    She turned round to stare out to sea.
    ‘I’m sorry. I got involved in some necessary paperwork which took longer than I had anticipated.’
    Was it the fact that she hadn’t heard him come towards her or the fact that she hadn’t expected his apology that was causing her heart to thump so unsteadily against her chest wall?
    ‘Have you eaten? Are you hungry?’
    ‘No, and no,’ Ionanthe answered him shortly, adding, ‘Look, we both know what we’re here for, so why don’t we just get it over with?’
    Max frowned. Her dismissive, almost critical manner was so different from the come-on she had given him earlier that it struck him that it must be just another ploy—and that irritated him. He’d expected anger, resentment, bitternes—those were the things he had been prepared for her to