Page 20 of Claimed By the Crown Prince

Laia bristled. ‘Maybe I don’t want “easier”. Maybe I don’t want to marry a king who will automatically assume that role over a country he knows little about.’

‘That’s hardly his fault,’ Dax pointed out. ‘Even with the marriage agreement, and a thawing of relations between the two kingdoms, it’s not as if things improved overnight. Hence this—’

Laia put up her hand. ‘Don’t say it.’ She stood up from the stool, feeling agitated. ‘I know how it looks for me to be flying in the face of what everyone must think is the logical solution. But I know my father wouldn’t want to see Isla’Rosa become a suburb of Santanger. And with the best will in the world, that’s what would happen.’

‘You would be Queen of Santanger—you would have your own influence.’

Laia looked at Dax. ‘I don’t want to be Queen of Santanger. I just want to be Queen of Isla’Rosa. That’s all I need.’

Dax was stirring the stew. He turned off the heat and turned around. ‘And, according to you,love.’

Laia felt exposed again. ‘Not necessarily love. I’m not that delusional.’

She wasn’t going to admit to this man in a million years that she yearned for a soul-deep connection. He’d laugh his head off.

Laia sat back on the stool and said, ‘I know it’s not something that comes easily for people like us. What my mother and father had was rare and special.’

Dax frowned. ‘They were in love?’

Laia nodded. ‘My father adored my mother. He never married again.’

But he had an affair resulting in your secret half-sister.

Laia avoided Dax’s eye. She could only imagine his cynical response if she told him about that. She didn’t want Dax judging her father for his moment of weakness. A moment he’d never forgiven himself for.

Something about that caught at her, but Dax cut through her thoughts.

‘If he’d married again—as I’m sure he was pressured to do—he might have had more children, given you siblings and some spares, taking some of the burden from you.’

Laia shifted uncomfortably on the stool. It was as if heknew.She felt the urge to blurt out the truth to Dax, in spite of how he might respond, and that made her wary. Very few people made her feel inclined to open up.

She held up her glass. ‘Can I have another?’

Dax raised a brow and took her glass.

Laia saw his look and said defensively, ‘It’s nice, fresh. It doesn’t really feel like drinking. I’ve never been drunk.’

‘It’s really not all it’s cracked up to be.’ Dax expertly and efficiently prepared another gin and tonic with fresh ice and a cucumber slice and handed it to her. ‘Take it easy. I don’t want to be responsible for getting you drunk for the first time. I don’t know if my reputation can handle it.’

He seasoned the stew and then turned back.

‘Speaking of reputations... You’ve managed to carve out quite a one for yourself, considering you’ve never been drunk.’

Laia nearly choked on her drink. She remembered seeing Dax in the club in Monte Carlo, when he’d said to her,‘We seem to frequent all the same social events and yet you’re as elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel.’

She looked at him accusingly. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’

He shrugged. ‘I think I realised after that night that something was up. It was the first time I’d seen you in the flesh on the circuit, even though we’d always both appear in the papers the next morning.’

‘It wasn’t the first time you’d seen me in the flesh, though...’ Laia wasn’t even sure where those words had come from. Falling out of her mouth before she could stop them.

Dax frowned. ‘What do you mean? We’d never met before that night. Not face to face, at least.’

Laia felt a dart of hurt. She lifted her chin. ‘It was in Paris...after a charity polo match. I was there with my father.’

He looked at her blankly for a long moment, and then slowly she could see the dawning of recognition. It was almost insulting.

‘That was...years ago. You were a child.’

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