Princess from the Shadows Maisey Yates by Maisey Yates

have a meal with him. From fantasizing about him in her bed every night. In the shower the next morning.
    She blinked and tried to concentrate on what he was saying.
    “It’s for one of the heads of state, and it’s one of the really fun things we get to do as rulers of Santa Christobel. You know, go stand on hard marble floors eating soggy appetizers until our backs hurt.”
    Carlotta wanted to melt into the settee she was perched on. She already felt spent. Rodriguez had been at the palace all day and avoiding him was starting to feel like a full-time job. She’d taken Luca to the cinema in the morning and then she and Angelina had taken Luca out to the beach for the afternoon. She currently felt grubby, exhausted and more than a little bit grumpy.
    “On such short notice?”
    He acted so calm around her. It was irritating. After the stupid fight, the passion explosion, the continued fighting.
    She closed that line of thought down. She wasn’t going to remember that. It had been two weeks. No. She didn’t recall any of it. And her lips did not still tingle. Neither did any other part of her.
    “Sorry, I only just got the invitation passed to me, but it really is too important to miss.”
    It was infuriating, and it shouldn’t be, that he seemed entirely unaffected by the kiss-she-did-not-remember. Because he should look tense. Or unsatisfied. Or angry. Just … something. Rather than his typical, easy-breezy self. The mocking curve of his lips had returned.
    She blew out a breath. “I know this is what it’s like. Public appearance after public appearance. And then, after, you go home and go to your separate bedrooms, then get up the next day and start over. It’s what my parents have always done. They’re professionals at this.”
    “So you can do it too. I’m certain of that.”
    “I’m certain I can. I never wanted to. For a while I thought.” She shook her head. “Sorry, I’m sharing. I don’t know what got into me.”
    He sat in the chair across from her. “I have nowhere to be until 8:00 p.m. Share away.”
    “Why?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
    “Shouldn’t I know? I’m going to be your husband.”
    “It’s boring. But fine. I used to think I would get married for love. That my husband and I would have this grand passion that could not possibly be satisfied by separate bedrooms. I used to want. more than the sterile palace life I was raised in.”
    “And now you’ve lost that dream?”
    She snorted a laugh. “I lost that dream six years ago.”
    “Because you got pregnant?”
    “Because of the man who got me pregnant. I don’t like to call him Luca’s father. He’s never met him, so how can he be a father? But he … I thought he was the one, you know? I was stupid. I know better now. That’s just a bunch of romantic nonsense, it’s not reality. This, what we’re doing, is so much more meaningful.”
    “Even though you hate it?”
    She sighed. “At least there’s a reason. There’s something more firm than. love. Whatever that’s supposed to be.”
    “I don’t know that I’ve ever met a woman as cynical on the subject of love as I am.”
    “Well, now you have. We got distracted in the hall earlier,” she said, averting her gaze, “but the real reason I’m doing this isn’t about penance. It’s about doing something that matters. I can’t matter while I’m hiding in exile in Italy. I certainly didn’t contribute to the greater good when I started a relationship with him . There’s more to life than passion. Duty, that’s real. Marrying to better my country? Your country? There are benefits to that that no one can take away. It’s all so much more permanent than some ephemeral notion of love.”
    “And lust? What are your feelings on lust?” The teasing light in his eyes was gone again, replaced by something dangerous, that intense darkness she’d sensed in him earlier.
    “Lust is unnecessary, certainly nothing to overturn one’s life for.”
    “Lust