A Bride For His Majesty's Pleasure. Penny Jordan

we are agreed, then?’ he asked her. ‘You understand that you are to take your late sister’s place in my life and in my bed, as my wife and the mother of my heir?’

      They were stark and dispassionate words, cold words that described an equally cold marriage, Max acknowledged. But they were words that had to be said. There must be no misunderstanding on her part as to what would be expected of her.

      Ionanthe lifted her chin, and told him firmly, ‘Yes. I do.’

      ‘Very well, then,’ he acknowledged.

      They looked at one another: two people who neither trusted nor liked one another but who understood that their future lay together and that they were trapped in it together.