Page 53 of Expecting Royal Twins!
“I spoke with him about that.” Niko seemed hesitant, uncertain.
“What?”
“My father believes Vernonia needs an heir. He wants one as soon as possible.”
Her stomach knotted. “This will be a, um, real marriage?”
“I am the crown prince.” A small smile played at the corners of Niko’s lips, drawing her gaze. He had such a well-formed mouth, so inviting… “An heir and a spare are the minimum for any royal marriage. Real or not.”
She blinked and forced herself to look away as heat crept up her neck. “Can’t a person get used to one thing before having something else thrown at her?”
He placed his hands on her shoulders.
Warmth, delicious and oh, so inviting, emanated from the point of contact and flowed through Izzy. The entire dynamics of the situation seemed to change with the one touch. She focused on the word seemed. This was still an arranged marriage with a total stranger, who cared more about duty and country than anything else.
“This is not the kind of marriage you planned on having with Boyd,” Niko said. “But we can make this work.”
“How?” Izzy wished she shared his confidence. “It’s not as if we’re going to fall madly in love with each other.”
“No, this isn’t a love match, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a successful union .”
“Successful?”
“Providing the necessary heirs.”
“So it’s all about the baby making.”
“That is a large part of it.”
“I appreciate your honesty, but maybe you could sugarcoat it a little.”
“You need to know what you’re getting into,” Niko said, as if he were an employer offering her a job, not a husband speaking about their relationship.
“Do we live together?” she asked. “I’m not sure how this kind of marriage will work.”
“We have two options. A state marriage. That is living as husband and wife until we have the required number of heirs, then we live our separate lives, only appearing together at state functions or for our children’s sake.”
Izzy wasn’t expecting a fairy-tale ending, but she hadn’t been prepared for something so…calculated. “Would I be able to return home to live? To Charlotte, I mean.”
He hesitated. “Possibly, but you must understand a divorce would never be allowed and custody arrangements might be tricky.”
Niko was talking about children yet they’d never kissed. “What’s the other option?”
“We live as husband and wife until death do us part.”
“A together forever kind of thing?” she asked.
“As close to that as we could manage,” he said. “In the old days, arranged marriages were quite successful. Why shouldn’t ours be? We like each other, right? Besides, contemporary marriages based on love don’t come with guarantees. Many people end up separating. Every marriage takes work if it’s going to last.”
“What kind of work?” she asked honestly. “I’ve never had a serious relationship before.”
“Me, either,” he admitted. “We will have to figure out what it takes together.”
Izzy rested the palms of her hands on the car. A marriage based on respect and honesty wouldn’t be bad. She was attracted to him. “If we can’t figure it out, we can always just live apart.”
A vein throbbed at his jaw. “If the marriage does work…”
“Then we’ll owe your father a big thank-you.”
Niko rocked back on his heels. “So it’s settled.”
“Not yet.” Izzy straightened. “I don’t see how we can begin to make a marriage work when I don’t feel married.”
“We are married.”
“I know we got married, I saw the photograph and the marriage certificate, but I don’t remember getting married. Maybe if we had a wedding ceremony, one we both remembered, I’d feel like your wife.”
His gaze searched her face. “This is important to you.”
“To feel married. Yeah, especially if we’re going to, um…”
Amusement twinkled in his eyes. “Have sex.” This was so not what she wanted to be talking about with him. “Provide Vernonia with an heir.”
