her heart and the sickness of her palms. ‘Wear something nice. And don’t expect to be home until late.’
‘Sounds like you’ve already got a plan.’
‘Maybe.’ She didn’t, not really, not beyond showing Ben what fun could really mean. And it had nothing to do with football pitches. For a second, she dizzily imagined just how much fun the two of them could have. And then swallowed audibly.
Ben’s gaze still rested on her, considering, heavy, and once more Natalia wondered just what on earth she was doing. Risking. Then, without another word, the tension still tautening the air between them, he turned and went into the office.
As he closed the door Natalia sagged, saw she’d been clenching the T-shirt she’d been folding so hard there were nail marks in the fabric.
When Natalia arrived back at the palazzo that evening, her mind still buzzing from her exchange with Ben, her mother called her into her private rooms and Natalia knew from the lavender silk evening gown her mother wore that once again royal duty beckoned.
‘Back from your charity work?’ Zoe asked, which Natalia knew was how her mother liked to view her volunteering for Ben Jackson. She nodded, and Zoe turned to a waiting maid. ‘I’ll wear the amethyst parure.’
‘Very good, Your Highness.’ The maid went to fetch the magnificent set of diamond and amethyst earrings, necklace, bracelet cuffs and tiara from her mother’s private safe. Zoe turned to Natalia.
‘We have several foreign dignitaries coming to dine tonight. You will attend. It is perfectly possible that one may represent your future husband.’
Natalia felt an icy plunging sensation in her middle. ‘My engagement to Prince Michel only ended a few weeks ago.’
‘All the more reason to press on. You are twenty-seven years old, Natalia. High time you were married.’
‘It’s the twenty-first century, Mother,’ Natalia protested, even though she’d made this argument before, to little effect. ‘Twenty-seven could be considered young these days.’
‘Not for a princess,’ Zoe replied firmly. ‘In any case, we are not ruled by current fashions. Your marriage is an important negotiation that will strengthen our country.’
‘Plenty of royals marry whomever they please,’ Natalia pointed out, and Queen Zoe arched her eyebrows.
‘You do not, I trust,’ she said, ‘have anyone in mind.’
Ridiculously and unreasonably, Ben—his quirking smile, his powerful body—flashed through her mind. ‘Of course not.’
Zoe sighed. ‘I know it is hard for a young woman to face her royal duty. And perhaps your father and I have been too lenient, allowing you the freedom to live life as you saw fit for too long.’ Although her mother spoke delicately, Natalia still heard the judgment, felt it in herself. She hadn’t done much with her life. She knew that. She just didn’t know how to change, or if she even wanted to. What was the point?
The maid returned with the parure and laid out the pieces on her mother’s vanity. Zoe glanced down at them, her eyes narrowed in assessment. ‘It is time you stepped into the role to which you were born, Natalia. It is time you started acting like a princess.’ The maid lowered the bejewelled tiara onto Zoe’s silver hair. Her mother met Natalia’s gaze in the ornate mirror. Natalia saw compassion there, but also an implacable will she knew she didn’t have the strength or resources to defy. ‘You will start,’ Queen Zoe told her, ‘tonight.’
An hour later, dressed in a sedate and modest evening gown of ivory silk, Natalia followed her mother into the palazzo’s formal receiving room. She hated these evenings. Hated how she felt like a dressed-up doll, or worse, a slab of meat. Something to be assessed and bargained over, and then picked apart or even devoured.
The hours dragged on as her parents engaged the dignitaries in social niceties and political innuendoes that Natalia didn’t even bother to listen to. She’d long ago learned not to have an opinion about any of it. As they headed into the dining room, her mother whispered in her ear once more.
‘At least smile, Natalia. You’re behaving like a block of wood.’
‘I thought that was exactly what you wanted,’ Natalia muttered.
Her mother silenced her with a quelling look and swept into the dining room. Natalia took her place at the table, her mind wandering as the conversation continued to flow around her. Then she heard her name.
‘The Princess Natalia has enjoyed herself, hasn’t she?’ One of the dignitaries—from some Middle Eastern island nation, Natalia thought—glanced at her with a smile, although his words had held a sharp edge.
‘All young girls enjoy themselves,’ Zoe answered with a gracious smile. ‘But the princess now needs a strong husband to guide her.’
Natalia nearly choked on her vichyssoise. She didn’t want a man to guide her. Or even love her. She didn’t want to get married at all. The thought of being auctioned off to some nameless autocratic royal made her insides clench in a spasm of both fear and fury.
Even as she told herself that her parents couldn’t force her to marry anyone, she acknowledged that they very well could. They could certainly make her life unpleasant or even unbearable unless she agreed to whichever husband they had chosen for her. She might as well live in the Middle Ages.
Perhaps she would have been better off with Prince Michel.
‘The princess is involving herself with some charity work,’ Zoe continued. ‘For disadvantaged children.’ She turned to Natalia, acknowledging her presence for the first time. ‘You find it very rewarding, don’t you, my dear?’
Natalia thought of the hundreds of envelopes she’d stuffed and sealed over the past few days. From somewhere she dredged up a small smile. ‘Very.’
Zoe smiled at the men assembled, who looked satisfied by Natalia’s meek answer. One of them gave her what she suspected he thought was a benevolent look. ‘I’m glad to hear the princess is changing her ways.’
‘The princess,’ Natalia said before she could stop herself, ‘is right here.’
The ensuing silence was like a thunderclap. Defiantly Natalia reached for her wine glass and took a large sip. What could they do to her after all? She was twenty-seven years old, a grown woman …
A woman who was dependent on her parents and their generosity because there was no way she could ever support herself. No way she could ever make it in this world.
After an icy pause her mother resumed the conversation, steering it towards more innocuous matters. At the end of the meal Queen Zoe rose to retire with Natalia to one of the smaller salons while the men discussed politics—and her possible marriage—in another room.
As soon as they were alone, the staff dismissed, Zoe turned to Natalia. ‘How dare you embarrass me,’ she hissed. ‘And yourself, and your family. We have been very patient, Natalia. Very tolerant—’
Natalia flushed. ‘I didn’t like them talking about me as if I wasn’t there.’
‘That is how it is done, Natalia! That is how these negotiations take place. These men want to see you and how you comport yourself so they can make a report to their sovereign. Is even this concept too difficult for you?’
‘I am not,’ Natalia said through gritted teeth, ‘that stupid.’
‘You could have fooled me tonight,’ Zoe snapped. ‘The way you have carried on these past years, never mind your abysmal performance in school! At least your sisters have learned how to behave themselves.’
That stung. ‘Oh, really? Carlotta is unmarried with a child and Sophia eloped with—’
‘Their marriages are now settled,’ Zoe cut across her, ‘and so must yours be.’
‘And