voice cracked. ‘You’ve been smiling at me, you had your arm around me. You kissed me.’

      ‘We’re supposed to look as though we’re in love.’ Apparently unaffected by her mounting distress, he strode over to an antique table next to the window. ‘Do you want a drink?’

      ‘No. I don’t want a drink!’ Her heart was suddenly bumping hard and she felt physically sick. ‘Are you saying that everything that happened today was for the benefit of the crowd?’

      He poured himself a whisky but didn’t touch it. Instead he stared out of the window, his knuckles white on the glass, his handsome face revealing nothing of his thoughts. No emotion. ‘They wanted the fairy tale. We gave it to them. That’s what we royals have to do. We give the people what they want. In this case, a love match, a wedding and an heir.’

      She blinked rapidly, determined to hold back the tears. ‘So why did you marry me?’

      He lifted the glass to his lips. ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because you could have married someone you loved.’

      He lowered the glass without drinking. ‘I don’t want love.’

      Because he’d had it once and now it was gone?

      Holly’s throat closed. ‘That’s a terrible thing to say and a terrible way to feel,’ she whispered. ‘I know you lost and I know you must have suffered, but—’

      ‘You don’t know anything.’

      ‘Then tell me!’ She was crying openly now, tears flooding her cheeks. ‘I’m devastated that the whole of today was a sham. I know it’s difficult for you to talk about Antonia, and frankly it isn’t that easy to hear it, either. But I know we’re not going to have any sort of marriage unless we’re honest with each other.’

      Please don’t let him walk out on me. Please don’t let that happen.

      ‘Honest?’ He slammed the glass down onto the table and turned to look at her. ‘You lie about your baby, you lie all the way to the altar wearing your symbolic white dress, and then you suggest we’re honest? It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?’

      ‘It’s your baby,’ Holly said hoarsely. Her insides were twisted in pain as she felt her new life crumbling around her. ‘And I don’t know how you can believe otherwise.’

      ‘Don’t you? Then let me tell you.’ He strolled towards her, his eyes glittering dark and deadly. ‘It can’t be my baby, Holly, because I can’t have children. I don’t know whose baby you’re carrying, my sweet wife, but I know for sure it isn’t mine. I’m infertile.’