The Prince She Had to Marry by Christine Rimmer Read Free Book Online Page B

priest...”
    He arched a brow. “I had to make you believe I actually intended to do what you asked of me, to try, as you put it. If I’d given you an easy agreement to everything you demanded, you would only have become suspicious. You’d have guessed that I didn’t have any intention of doing what I agreed to do.”
    She did more deep breathing. “You are impossible. Incorrigible.”
    “Good night, Lili.” He started to turn.
    She reached out and grabbed his granite slab of an arm. “Wait.”
    He stopped, eased his arm free of her grip and told her flatly, “There’s nothing more to say.”
    “Yes, there is. I have a...question, a question that’s been bothering me for weeks now.”
    “Lili, please...”
    She wanted to cry, to break down and sob her heart out. But somehow, she controlled herself. She held the tears at bay. “I just...I don’t understand, Alex. Why in the world did you have sex with me in the first place?”
    That got to him. He actually looked at a loss for a moment. But then he regained his inhuman composure. He said in a tone that spoke of limitless boredom, “I’m a man. You’re a woman. It happens.”
    “No. Uh-uh. That’s not good enough. What happened between us that morning was so hopelessly mad, so completely insane. And so very beautiful.”
    “Lili, don’t.” His voice had a ragged edge to it now.
    And she refused to back off. “I mean it. It makes no sense. It’s true you’re not smooth or romantic by nature. You’re hardly the kind who sweeps a woman off her feet. You’re more the type to knock her down and drag her off to your cave. But you are a prince. Women love princes. And there are a lot of women—beautiful, desirable women—who find the strong and surly type irresistible. You could have slaked your lust with one of them.”
    He actually blinked. “Slaked my lust?”
    “Well, I mean, if lust was your problem that day.”
    “My... What in the... My lust? ” Now he was the one sputtering.
    Truth to tell, she found his sudden agitation rather satisfying. “I’m only remarking that you could have been with someone you don’t totally despise, someone on birth control, for heaven’s sake.”
    He blinked some more. “That’s a ridiculous question—or did you even ask a question?”
    “I did. I asked you why you had sex with me. Why, Alex? Just tell me why.”
    He narrowed those strange, piercing eyes at her. They were looking considerably more lively than usual, those eyes of his. He hedged, “It’s a ridiculous question.”
    She didn’t give in. “No, it’s not. Answer me.”
    Of course he just had to turn it around on her. “Why did you have sex with me? ”
    She hitched up her chin at him. “You’re just trying to put me off.”
    “You don’t have an answer, do you?” he asked smugly. “I see no reason why I should have to answer a question you can’t even answer yourself.”
    As it happened, she did have an answer to her own question. She’d spent a lot of time pondering that one. “All right. Fine. I’ll go first. I had sex with you because I was sad and desperate, because I’d lost Rule, and was having to admit that I’d never had Rule, that I’d believed myself in love with someone who never thought of me that way, someone with whom I’d never shared anything but a...mutual fondness. And then you let me in your door, you listened to me. Or so I thought. Until you finally spoke and told me how my ‘petty problems’ meant nothing. I was outraged then. That I had been such a fool as to cry in front of you, as to pour out my suffering to someone like you. I raised my hand to slap you and you caught my wrist and...all at once, I looked in your eyes and I wanted to be lost in them. So I was. For a little while.”
    He seemed calmer suddenly. And not in a good way. For a moment, she’d had his attention, raised a spark. But now, he’d shut her out, retreated behind his walls of nonresponsiveness again. “My reasons were similar