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Arranged Marriage, Bedroom Secrets
Yvonne Lindsay
An arranged marriage means she’s his bride. Her secrets make her much more… Only from USA TODAY bestselling author Yvonne Lindsay!Princess Mila will safeguard her kingdom by marrying a neighboring royal she barely knows. But she refuses to let Prince Thierry perfect his romantic arts with another woman. Disguised as his hired courtesan, the virgin princess plans to seduce her fiancé before their wedding night!The mind-blowing chemistry they discover can’t be taught—or forgotten. Yet Mila’s lie is unforgivable to a man who prizes honor above all. Public scandal threatens all Mila’s dreams and her country’s future…unless this prince can let passion, and his heart, reign supreme.
“I need to know how to seduce my wife.
“Not just physically, but on every level emotionally, too. I never want to see loathing in her eyes when she looks at me, as my mother so often looked at my father. And I never wish to treat her with disdain the way my father treated my mother. I will not have a marriage like that.”
A vein pulsed at the side of Thierry’s brow and while his voice had remained level, Mila could see the strain in his eyes as he turned to face her again.
“I want you to teach me how to make my wife fall in love with me so deeply she will never look to another man for her fulfillment. Can you do this?”
Thierry stared into the glowing amber of his courtesan’s eyes and willed her to give him the answer he craved.
“You want me to teach you to seduce your fiancée’s mind and her senses, and then her body?”
“I do.”
Her eyes shone brightly as she smiled.
“Your demand is not quite what I expected but I will do what you ask.”
* * *
Arranged Marriage, Bedroom Secrets is part of the Courtesan Brides duet: Her pleasure is at his command!
Arranged Marriage, Bedroom Secrets
Yvonne Lindsay
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
A typical Piscean, USA TODAY bestselling author YVONNE LINDSAY has always preferred her imagination to the real world. Married to her blind-date hero and with two adult children, she spends her days crafting the stories of her heart, and in her spare time she can be found with her nose in a book reliving the power of love, or knitting socks and daydreaming. Contact her via her website, www.yvonnelindsay.com (http://www.yvonnelindsay.com).
There are so many people who enrich my life but foremost are the members of my incredible family, so I dedicate this book to them.
Contents
Cover (#u16c5992b-ea06-5e98-9466-594aa5fe68f5)
Introduction (#uab3920d0-b334-5320-b773-74783793d97e)
Title Page (#ud08d8054-7e15-5ffd-8beb-1d450c7531e1)
About the Author (#u01a335fc-d447-5c2d-8639-6b885d797992)
Dedication (#u64319106-ef18-5f1a-a3ed-af36f59232f4)
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
One (#u7a4b7c57-f7f6-5967-9709-57393905521e)
“Isn’t that you?”
Mila shoved an unruly lock of her long black hair off her face and looked up in irritation from the notes she’d been making.
“Is what me?” she asked her friend.
“On the TV, now!”
Mila turned her attention to the flat screen currently blaring the latest entertainment news trailers that so captivated her best friend and felt her stomach lurch. There, for all the world to see, were the unspeakably awful official photos taken at her betrothal to Prince Thierry of Sylvain seven years ago. Overweight, with braces still on her teeth and a haircut that had looked so cute on a Paris model and way less cute on an awkward eighteen-year-old princess—especially one who was desperately attempting to look more sophisticated and who had ended up, instead, looking like a sideshow clown. She shuddered.
“I know it doesn’t look completely like you, but that is you, isn’t it? Princess Mila Angelina of Erminia? Is that really your name?” Sally demanded, one finger pointing at the TV screen while her eyes pinned Mila with a demanding stare.
There was no point in arguing. Hiding a cringe, Mila merely inclined her head. She looked back down at her notes for a thesis she’d likely never be permitted to complete, but her concentration was gone. How would her friend react to this news?
“You’re going to marry a prince?”
Mila couldn’t be certain if Sally was outraged because Mila was actually engaged to a prince, or because she’d never thought to let her best friend in on the secret of her real identity. She sighed and put her pen down. As an uncelebrated princess from a tiny European kingdom, she’d flown under the radar in the United States since her arrival seven years ago, but now it was clearly time to face the music.
She’d known Sally since their freshman year at MIT and, while her friend had sometimes looked a little surprised that Mila—or Angel as she was known here in the States—had a chaperone, didn’t date and had a team of bodyguards whenever she went out, Sally had accepted Angel’s quirks without question. After all, Sally herself was heiress to an IT billionaire and lived with similar, if not quite as binding, constraints. The girls had naturally gravitated to one another.
It was time to be honest with her friend. Mila sighed again. “Yes, I am Mila Angelina of Erminia and, yes, I’m engaged to a prince.”
“And you’re a princess?”
“I’m a princess.”
Mila held her breath, waiting for her friend’s reaction. Would she be angry with her? Would it ruin the friendship she so treasured?
“I feel like I don’t even know you, but seriously, that’s so cool!” Sally gushed.
Mila rolled her eyes and laughed in relief. Of all the things she’d anticipated coming from Sally’s rather forthright mouth, that hadn’t been one of them.
“I always had a feeling there were things you weren’t telling me.” Sally dropped onto the couch beside Mila, scattering her papers to the floor. “So, what’s he like?”
“Who?”
It was Sally’s turn to roll her eyes this time. “The prince of course. C’mon, Angel, you can tell me. Your secret’s safe with me, although I am kind of pissed at you for not telling me about him, or who you really are, any time in, oh, the last seven years!”
Sally softened her words with a smile, but Mila could see that she was still hurt by the omission.
How did you explain to someone that even though you’d been engaged to a man for years, you barely even knew him? One formal meeting, where she’d been so painfully shy she hadn’t even been capable of making eye contact with the guy, followed by sporadic and equally formal letters exchanged by a diplomatic pouch, didn’t add up to much in the relationship stakes.
“I...I don’t really know what he’s like.” Mila took in a deep breath. “I have Googled him, though.”
Her friend laughed out loud. “You have no idea how crazy that just sounded. You’re living a real life fairy tale, y’know? European princess betrothed from childhood—well, okay, the age of eighteen at least—to a reclusive neighboring prince.” Sally sighed and clutched at her chest dramatically. “It’s so romantic—and all you can say is that you’ve Googled him?”
“Now who sounds crazy? I’m marrying him out of duty to my family and my country. Erminia and Sylvain have hovered on the brink of war for the last decade and a half. My marriage to Prince Thierry is supposed to end all that—unite our nations—if you can believe it could be that simple.”
“But don’t you want love?”
“Of course I want love.”
Her response hung in the air between them. Love. It was all Mila had ever wanted. But it was something she knew better than to expect. Groomed from birth as not much more than a political commodity to be utilized to her country’s greatest advantage, she’d realized love didn’t feature very strongly alongside duty. When it came to her engagement, her agreement to the union had never been sought. It had been presented to her as her responsibility—and she’d accepted it. What else could she do?
Meeting the prince back then had been terrifying. Six years older than her, well-educated, charismatically gorgeous and oozing confidence, he’d been everything she was not. And she hadn’t missed the hastily masked look of dismay on his face when they’d initially been introduced. Granted, she hadn’t looked her best, but it had still stung to realize she certainly wasn’t the bride he’d hoped for and it wasn’t as if he could simply tell everyone he’d changed his mind. He, too, was a pawn in their betrothal—a scheme hatched by their respective governments in an attempt to quell the animosity that continued to simmer between their nations.
Mila rubbed a finger between her eyebrows as if by doing so she could ease the nagging throb that had settled there.
“Of course I want love,” she repeated, more softly this time.
She felt Sally’s hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t joke.”
“It’s okay.” Mila reached up and squeezed her friend’s hand to reassure her.
“So, how come you came here to study? If peace was the aim, wouldn’t they have wanted you two to marry as soon as possible?”
Again Mila pictured the look on Prince Thierry’s face when he’d seen her. A look that had made her realize that if she was to be anything to him other than a representation of his duty, she needed to work hard to become his equal. She needed to complete her education and become a worthy companion. Thankfully, her brother, King Rocco of Erminia, had seen the same look on the prince’s face and, later that night, when she’d tearfully appealed to him with her plan to better herself, he’d agreed.
“The agreement was that we’d marry on my twenty-fifth birthday.”
“But that’s at the end of next month!”
“I know.”
“But you haven’t finished your doctorate.”
Mila thought of all the sacrifices she’d made in her life to date. Not completing her PhD would probably be the most painful. While her brother had insisted she at least include some courses in political science, the main focus of her studies had been environmental science—a subject that she’d learned was close to the prince’s heart. After years of study, it was close to hers now, too. Not being able to stand before him with her doctorate in hand, so to speak, was a painful thought to consider, but it was something she’d just have to get over. She certainly hadn’t planned on things taking this long, but being dyslexic had made her first few years at college harder than she’d anticipated and she’d had to retake a number of courses. As Mila formed her reply to her friend, Sally was suddenly distracted.
“Oh, he’s so hot!”
Mila snorted a laugh. “I know what he looks like. I’ve Googled him, remember.”
“No, look, he’s on TV, now. He’s in New York at that environmental summit Professor Winslow told us about weeks ago.”
Mila looked up so quickly she nearly gave herself whiplash. “Prince Thierry is here? In the US?”
She trained her gaze onto the TV screen and, sure enough, there he was. Older than she remembered him and, if it was humanly possible, even better looking. Her heart tumbled in her chest and she felt her throat constrict on a raft of emotions. Fear, attraction—longing.
“You didn’t know he was coming?”
Mila tore her eyes from the screen and fought to inject the right level of nonchalance into her voice. “No, I didn’t. But that’s okay.”
“Okay? You think that’s okay?” Sally’s voice grew shrill. “The guy travels how many thousand miles to the country where you’ve been living for years now and he can’t pick up a phone?”
“He’s obviously only in New York for a short while and I’m sure he’ll have a strict timetable set in place. I’m over here in Boston—he can’t exactly just drop in.” She shrugged. “It’s not like it matters, anyway. We’re getting married in a little over four weeks’ time.”
Her voice cracked on the words. Even though she played at being offhand, deep down it had come as a shock to see him on the TV. Would it have killed him to have let her know he was coming to America?
“Hmph. I can’t believe you’re not seeing each other while he’s here,” Sally continued, clearly not ready to let go of the topic yet. “Don’t you even want to see him?”
“He probably doesn’t have time,” Mila deflected.
She didn’t want to go into what she did or didn’t want when it came to Prince Thierry. Her feelings on the subject were too confusing, even for her. She’d tried to convince herself many times that love at first sight was the construction of moviemakers and romance novelists, but ever since the day of their betrothal, she had yearned for him with a longing that went deep into the very fabric of her being. Was that love? She didn’t know. It wasn’t as if she’d had any stellar examples during her childhood.
“Well, even if he hadn’t told me he was coming here, I’d certainly make time to see him if he was mine.”
Mila forced herself to laugh and to make the kind of comment Sally would expect her to make. “Well, he’s not yours, he’s mine—and I’m not sharing.”
As she expected, Sally joined in with her mirth. Mila kept her eyes glued to the screen for the duration of the segment about Prince Thierry—and tried to ignore the commentary about herself. The reporters were full of speculation as to her whereabouts, which had been kept strictly private for the past several years. Though she realized, if Sally had put two and two together as to who she was, what was to say others wouldn’t, also?
She clung to the hope that no one would think to connect the ugly duckling of her engagement photo with the woman she had become. No longer was she the timid young woman with a mouth too large for her face and chubby cheeks and thighs. Somewhere between nineteen and twenty she’d begun a miraculous late-blooming transformation. The thirty extra pounds of puppy fat had long since melted from her body—her features and her figure fining down to what she was now, still curvy but no longer overweight. And her hair, thank goodness, had grown long and straight and thick. The dreadful cropped cut and frizzy perm she’d insisted on in a vain attempt to look sophisticated before meeting the prince was now nothing more than a humiliating memory. And she’d finally developed the poise that had been sadly lacking when she was just a teenager.
