Queen By Royal Appointment (Mills & Boon Modern) (Princesses by Royal Decree, Book 1) by Lucy Monroe

Author:Lucy Monroe [Monroe, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mills & Boon Modern
Published: 2021-05-27T13:21:22+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

WHEN NATALIYA RETURNED to her hotel later that night, she called Mama to warn her about the formal announcement going out the next day.

Nikolai had never doubted Nataliya’s answer even if he had been willing to ask the question.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” Mama asked, sounding worried.

“Why are you asking me that now? You didn’t ask me ten years ago when I signed that contract if I was doing what I wanted.” Nataliya didn’t know where the words came from.

She sounded bitter, but she wasn’t bitter. Was she? She’d never thought she was.

Her mother had done the best she could, but she hadn’t been raised to stand up to family pressure, or even to stand against an abusive bully that called himself a husband.

Only it did feel like it was ten years too late to be asking Nataliya if she wanted to be a princess.

“Ten years ago, I was still desperate to go home, desperate to return to life as I knew it.” Went unsaid was the truth that Solomia had been prepared to allow her daughter to pay the price to make that happen.

“And I was the conduit for that happening,” Nataliya spelled out.

“You were born into a royal family—your life was never going to be entirely your own. No more than mine has been.”

So, why ask if marriage to Nikolai was what Nataliya wanted now? “Did you ever want something different for me?”

“Why, when I believed that was the way life should be?” Her mother’s sigh was clear across the phone. “I’m not the same woman I was ten years ago.”

“So you don’t still believe that?”

“If I could go back ten years, I would insist you not sign that contract,” her mother said fiercely.

“Why?”

“Because at the time I didn’t realize it could mean you would end up married to the King.” And her mom’s tone made that sound like the worst imaginable fate.

Nataliya didn’t understand why. “Not because you didn’t think an arranged marriage was a bad thing.”

“No, actually. I didn’t want you to love your husband like I loved your father. It made our relationship too inequal.”

“You believe I love Nikolai like that,” she said with dawning understanding.

Her mother was worried about Nataliya being hurt the way she had been.

“Don’t you?”

“Nikolai is not anything like my father,” she said instead of answering. Nataliya had never lied to Mother and she wasn’t going to start now.

“You look at him with such fascination,” her mother said, like that was a tragedy. “You always have done. Even before that contract. When the idea of you marrying Konstantin came along I thought I saw a way of protecting you from the pain of living with a one-sided love.”

“Because you didn’t think Nikolai could ever love me.”

Her mother’s scoffing sound was answer enough. And surprisingly hurtful. “He was infatuated with Tiana from the time he first laid eyes on her. They were of an age. She sexually enthralled him. I knew because I recognized the signs. I was enthralled with your father and I ended up badly hurt because of it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.