Reanna shook her head. He was looking down at her with such genuine concern that she felt ridiculous considering for a moment that what she’d heard could possibly be true. “I want to see whatever you want to show me, Xander. I’m fine.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “If you’re sure, I have a helicopter waiting for us.”
Reanna went up on her tiptoes and kissed him, her fears falling away as their kiss deepened. This was real. Not the castle gossip.
He groaned and wrapped his arms around her. When he broke off the kiss, he said, “If I had not put so much work into making today perfect, I would carry you back to bed now.”
“We have tonight,” Reanna said with a smile.
He kissed her again and led her down the hall. “Yes, we do. And I have a feeling it will be one that does not involve much sleep.”
A short time later, Xander helped Reanna out of the helicopter and across a helipad he’d had installed on the Royal University campus. He led her to the front of a building under reconstruction. To keep the purpose of the work a surprise, he’d ordered the name of the building to be covered. He’d arranged for workers to rig the covering to drop at his command.
“Reanna, you took a leap of faith and followed me here without knowing much about me or my country. You came with me, asking for nothing, and because of that I want to give you everything. Each time we spoke about your work at Biostern you sounded as if you missed it. I don’t want you to have to choose between me and a career you love.” He raised one hand and the material covering the building’s name fell away.
Reanna read the words on the building out loud: “Fielding Division of Biostern Genetics.” She read it again then looked at Xander in awe. “That’s my name up there.”
“Yes it is. You’re in charge of this facility. You’ll need to hire staff, finish the interior plans, and choose a project to focus on. I located it at the university in the hope you will encourage a partnership with them. They could benefit from working with someone as brilliant as you.”
“I don’t deserve this. I haven’t made any great discoveries.”
“Yet. You will, Reanna. I believe in you.”
Reanna closed her eyes and wiped away a tear that slid down her cheek. She opened her eyes and searched his face again. “How did you get Biostern to agree to this?”
“I bought them out,” he said simply.
“You bought them out?” She looked back at the building then at him. “You bought out a multi-billion dollar company just like that?”
“My family does not rely on the taxes of our people to support us. We’ve always made our own wealth and done well at it. Find a cure for something here, Reanna. My gift to you can be our family’s gift to the world.”
Reanna was visibly shaking. Xander put an arm around her waist and took out a small box. “I had planned to ask you this tonight on my yacht, but you look pale. I don’t want you to get too excited again.” He opened the box, revealing a three-carat diamond ring. “Will you marry me, Reanna Fielding? Will you spend the rest of your life here in Rubare Collina with me?”
He expected her to throw her arms around his neck and say yes and was surprised when she looked at the ring as if she were debating something. She turned in his arms and asked, “What would happen if I said no?”
He rolled back on his heels, shaking his head and assuring himself he had misunderstood her. “What?”
She waved a hand at the building. “This is amazing. It feels too good to be true. And when something feels that way it almost always isn’t true. At least, in my experience. There has to be a catch. Something that makes you and this place not as perfect as you seem. I know this is going to sound crazy, but if I said no to you, what would happen?”
He pocketed the ring and grabbed both of her upper arms. “You won’t say no. You love me. You said so last night.”
She flinched. “You’re hurting me, Xander.”
He swore and released her. He told himself to calm down. He loved her, and she loved him. There was no way she could know about the law that had brought him to her. He was overreacting. “I’m sorry. Reanna, if you look too closely at anything, you will find something wrong with it. I’m not a perfect man, but I do love you. Marry me, and I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you how much.”
She hugged her arms around her waist. “I want to say yes. I want to believe in this. Humor me for a moment, Xander. Look me in the eye and tell me that nothing bad would happen to me if I said no to you. I need to hear you say it.”
Xander told himself to do it, but when he opened his mouth, he found he could not lie to the woman he loved. In that one awful moment, he saw her trust in him dissolve, and she physically withdrew from him. “You want to be with me as much as I want to be with you, Reanna. Why are you doing this?”
“I overheard people talking, Xander. They said I would be put to death if I refused you. That’s not true, is it? A law like that can’t exist in the modern world, can it?” When he said nothing, she covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, my God.”
He grabbed one of her arms again, preventing her from turning away from him. “Who did you hear? Who said this?
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
“You’re missing the point. How could you claim to love me and risk my life like this?”
“Your life was never in danger because I had no intention of failing. I knew we would be good together. And we are. You need to forget what you heard and remember that I love you. That’s what matters. Not some archaic law. Us. The family we’ll make together.” He referenced the building behind him. “The future you’ll have here.”
When she tugged at her arm and he held it tight, she said, “This is not right, Xander. It’s not okay. What kind of country puts a woman to death for refusing a proposal from its prince? Do your people know about this?”
“No, and they never will. Every society has its secrets. I only learned about this one when I was within a year of my thirtieth birthday. I could not believe it myself when I first heard it. But it’s true. And it is enforced by the council’s Arcano, not the Royal Guard. You could get us both killed if you try to speak out about this.”
“Why would anyone make such a law?”
“As monarchies around Europe fell due to the foibles of individual rulers, my ancestors gave our council power to ensure we would survive the missteps of any one ruler. It was supposed to be a system of checks and balances. We rule them, and they rule us. It has kept the throne secure for hundreds of years.”
“Do your brothers know about this law? Will they lure women here under the same rules?”
“They know they must marry, but they don’t know the darker side of it. Bryan will be taken aside on his twenty-ninth birthday as I was.”
“So, if we marry, we’re sentencing another woman to possible death. Xander, you have to see how wrong that is.”
Xander’s frustration grew along with his fear he would not be able to convince her. He cursed himself for not lying to her. “Do you think I haven’t spoken to my father regarding my revulsion with this law? He will not budge. The only way I can change the law is to abolish it when I am king. And the only way I can become king is if I marry in the next few months. And on that day, you must proclaim your loyalty to me and to my country before my father and the council. It’s the only way. If you want to stop this law, marry me, and we’ll stop it together when we rule side by side.”
“Meeting me wasn’t an accident, was it?”
“No, you were chosen because of your beauty and your intelligence.”
“Can you hear yourself? Do you know how awful that sounds?”
“I didn’t expect to have feelings for you, Reanna. I did what I had to do for my family and for my country. I don’t expect you to condone my choices, but I do love you, and you need to understand how serious this is. Deadly serious.”
Reanna rubbed her knuckles across her mouth. Her eyes were w
ide as she processed what he’d said. “Even if you love me, Xander, this is wrong. Will you be king before your brother picks his wife?”
“Probably not.”
“So, your brother will choose a woman, like you did? He’ll bring her here? Then what? If she says no, she’ll be put to death?”
Xander said nothing. There was nothing he could say.
“I can’t do this, Xander. I can’t put someone else in danger so I can have my happy ending. There has to be another way.”
“Do you love me, Reanna?”
Reanna’s eyes filled with tears. “Yes, but don’t ask me to do this. I won’t do this.”
“Then you will die.” He hated the words as he said them, but he needed her to understand the seriousness of the situation. If he could convince her to marry him, he would spend the rest of his life making amends for how he pushed her now.
Her chin rose, and she surprised him by looking more angry than afraid. “No, I won’t. You love me, Xander. You won’t let anyone hurt me. You’ll find a way to abolish this law. I know you will. I believe in you, too.”
Xander punched his thigh in frustration. He turned to his guards and instructed them to take her back to the summer castle and keep her detained in his chambers. She struggled against them, but he had worse things to worry about than her temper.
