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

marriage and then throw away that marriage without even giving what they might have shared a chance.
    He didn’t look the least pleased to see her. “Lili,” he said gruffly, with a regal nod.
    “Alex.” She said his name as if by rote.
    And then Adrienne hugged him and told him to have a seat. Evan came over and joined them. He kissed Lily and asked how she was feeling and she told him that she was doing fine.
    “Feeling well?” Evan asked.
    “Yes. Yes, I am. Perfectly well, thank you.” She beamed her warmest smile at Alex’s father and was scrupulously careful not to give her new husband as much as a glance.
    Why had they been summoned? What was going on? Lili had a feeling that whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
    The secretary entered with a silver tea service. She set it down.
    Adrienne, who had gone back over to her enormous, heavily carved antique desk, dismissed the woman. “I will pour. Thank you, Regina.”
    “Ma’am,” said the secretary with a nod deep enough to serve as a bow. She left.
    Adrienne came back and joined them. She sat on the sofa in front of the tea service. She had something—rolled-up newspapers and magazines?—in her hand. “The tea will need to steep a little,” she said. And then she slid the tray to the side and smoothed the papers she held down onto the coffee table. “My darlings, this will never do.”
    Lili’s stomach lurched again as she stared at a photograph of herself and Belle taken a few days before, in a hospital tent in South Sudan. Princess Lili aids the needy, leaves Prince Alex behind .
    Adrienne spoke again, gently as always. “This article spends a few paragraphs on your history with one another, on how you two never have liked each other and have never gotten on. Then it proceeds to say that nothing has changed, that your marriage is a sham.”
    Alex cleared his throat and started to speak.
    But his mother put up a hand. “That was only the beginning,” Adrienne continued. “The article speculates that you, Lili, are ‘preggers’—their word.” Adrienne made quote marks in the air. “‘Sources reveal,’ it says here, that the child is not even Alex’s, that Alexander has thrown himself on his proverbial sword to salvage your reputation, Lili. That he’s married you to give your child a name, and for the marriage settlement you bring, and for the chance to be the consort of a queen.” She tossed that tabloid aside and fanned out the ones beneath it. “These others make similar outrageous allegations. We already have our solicitors tackling this problem, of course.”
    Lili put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, no. Papa will be livid. There’s no telling what he might do.”
    Adrienne and Evan shared a speaking look. Then Evan said, “We’ve discussed the problem with His Majesty at length this morning.”
    Adrienne gave her husband a fond glance. “We have a plan and Leo is willing to sit back and allow the plan to unfold.”
    “Papa? Sit back? Are you sure?”
    Adrienne nodded. “He wants the best for you, Lili. For both of you.”
    “It’s all my fault,” Alex said in a low voice. He was hanging his head.
    Lili stared at his big, bent head and wondered if she’d heard right. True, it really was his fault. Mostly...
    All right, she had made love with him. And enthusiastically, too. But he was the one who’d tricked her into marriage and then coldly explained to her that they were going to be leading separate lives. How could she pretend to be madly in love when her husband refused to get near her?
    Chidingly, Adrienne reminded her son, “You agreed to play the part of the infatuated and doting groom. Yet you and Lili have not been seen in each other’s company since your wedding day.”
    “I know,” Alex said grimly. “I...I have no excuse, Mother. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
    Not thinking clearly . Oh, please. Lili felt wonderfully vindicated and self-righteous at that moment.
    And then Adrienne turned to her. “And you, Lili.