Page 54 of Expecting Royal Twins!
“Do you enjoy sex, Isabel?”
Oh, man, he assumed she’d had sex. What was she going to say?
“I…” She looked around as if the answer would pop up on the hood or headlight for her to see. Of course, it didn’t. Where was an enchanted castle when you needed one? “I don’t know. I’ve never…”
She couldn’t finish the sentence. He might be her husband, but that somehow made it more embarrassing.
“Never?” he repeated, sounding intrigued.
“Never.” She felt self-conscious under his gaze. “I had the chance, more than once, but I always thought having sex after the first or second, even the third date was selling myself short. Uncle Frank said it should be an expression of love and commitment, not a way to cap off dinner or a movie.”
Niko didn’t say anything.
She flushed. “I’m a total freak, aren’t I? I don’t know how to be a princess. And I have no clue how to, you know.”
“You are not a freak.” He reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re beautiful.”
She shivered at the light touch. If only she felt beautiful.
“Do not worry. We have not known each other long, but there is a chemistry between us,” he said in a husky tone.
Okay, at least he’d felt it, too. That had to count for something.
He moved closer. “I didn’t pursue it because of Julianna.”
“That was honorable of you.”
Wicked laughter gleamed in his eyes. “But now that it is the two of us and you are my wife…”
Izzy stepped back until she hit the truck’s bumper. “Look, I wanted to kiss you in the kitchen two nights ago. Outside near the garden yesterday. But now I don’t want to do anything until I feel married.”
He raised a brow. “Not even kiss?”
Temptation flared. A touch made her feel all tingly. A kiss might send her right over the edge. “No.”
“We will have a wedding.” His smile crinkled the corners of his eyes, and her heart beat like a drum. “We shall have a royal wedding complete with a fanfare of bugles, a packed cathedral and a horse-drawn carriage that would make Cinderella envious.”
“That sounds so elaborate.” And overwhelming. “I was thinking more along the lines as a quick trip to the courthouse.”
“You need to think bigger,” he said. “In fact, a wedding isn’t enough. We will also go on a honeymoon.”
Every single nerve ending stood at attention. She balled her hands so tightly her nails poked into her palms. A honeymoon implied romance, intimacy, sex. “That really isn’t necessary.”
“It is if we are to get to know each other and start our marriage right.”
And, she realized with a sinking feeling in her stomach, conceive an heir. If that was all Niko wanted, their marriage really didn’t stand a chance.
At precisely one o’clock in the afternoon the following Saturday, a flourish of trumpets announced the royal wedding procession. As fifteen hundred guests sat in the intricately carved wooden pews, the ancient stone cathedral’s walls swallowed the music. An omen or poor acoustics?
Izzy shivered with apprehension.
The first of twelve bridal attendants, all wearing ice-blue strapless silk gowns, strolled out of the vestibule and into the church. She’d barely met any of the women, but at least Jules was her maid of honor.
Even though I’ve always known I would be told who to marry, I’ve never given up hope that somehow I’d be able to marry for love. However remote the possibility.
Jules had received another reprieve from the altar. She’d also convinced her father to support trade and offer investment capital to assist Vernonia’s rebuilding efforts. Izzy hoped the princess’s generosity would be rewarded and she would be allowed to marry for love.
It was too late for Izzy, but things were improving between her and Niko. She’d been on her best behavior trying to learn all she could about being a princess from Jules. Niko seemed to be trying, too.
Would trying be enough to make a marriage work?
Izzy hoped so. She clung to the idea that love could grow over time. That they could have a forever kind of marriage, not a state one.
