Page 105 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4
Prince Talos had arranged a wedding meal for them in a stateroom in the palace, the four of them dining at a table that could comfortably seat fifty.
She was dining with royalty, a thought that was only a dim whisper in a head filled wholly with the man seated next to her, eating, chatting and laughing as if this were all just an ordinary meal. Her husband.
The wedding service itself had passed in a daze but she could still feel the mark of Alexis’s mouth from their kiss. Still feel the longing that had ripped through her when he’d made his vows, a swelling of emotion that had filled her so completely she had no memory of reciting her own identical vows in turn.
‘I promise you love, honour and respect; to be faithful to you, and not to forsake you until death do us part…’
Why hadn’t it occurred to her that marrying in a chapel would mean reciting traditional vows? And why, when the time had come to recite them, had it felt the most natural thing in the world when it was all a lie? As if Alexis were going to be faithful to her! As if he could ever love her! As if she could ever love him!
But it had all felt so natural and, in the moment, right, and now she had an impending sense of doom in the pit of her stomach that she’d just made the greatest mistake of her life.
A hand slid onto her thigh. She trembled as a jolt of electricity shot through her, and tightened her hold on the stem of her glass to stop herself seeking out the hand to hold it.
He was marking his territory, she told herself. Reminding her thatshewas now his territory, reminding her of what was to come when they left the palace, and she didn’t know if her growing sickness was nerves, terror or excitement. All she did know was that her heart had forgotten how to beat properly and when his fingers made gentle circles on her thighs, she didn’t know if she wanted to grab his hand to shove it off her or move it higher…
As desperately as she wished for time to slow down, it accelerated, their seven courses flashing by at such speed that before she knew it, she was being embraced by the prince and princess with wishes for a long and happy marriage that registered like a distant ringing in her ears. When she climbed into the back of the car she realised she couldn’t remember a single thing she’d eaten or a single snippet of conversation.
Nerves hadn’t just kicked in, they were doing a full-blown cancan with a vigour that only increased when their car set off.
They were returning to Alexis’s apartment to consummate the marriage. To have sex. For Lydia to fulfil her side of their deal as Alexis had just fulfilled his.
A large, warm hand covered the fist she hadn’t even realised she’d made. ‘How are you feeling,wife?’
Terrified.
She tried to conjure a smile. ‘Good. You?’
A slow smile curved his cheeks and he leaned his face closer to hers. ‘Very good.’
It was the blaze of sensuality in his eyes and the promise contained in it that had her sharply extract her hands from his on the pretext of removing her phone from her bag and checking her messages. She couldn’t bear the longing that swelled in her to see it.
Hugely aware of Alexis’s silent displeasure at her abrupt turning from him, even more aware that she was close to falling to pieces, Lydia bowed her head and tried to focus on reading the myriad messages she’d received from her mother with updates, along with the myriad messages from friends wanting to know what on earth was going on and why Thanasis and Lucie’s wedding had been called off. And she tried harder than ever to block out the hunk of a man whose thigh was pressed against hers, and clear her body and mind of all the feelings and emotions ravaging her.
There was no preamble. They returned to the villa late afternoon and went straight up to the bedroom, Lydia’s hand caught in Alexis’s possessive hold.
He held the door open for her, then closed it firmly behind them, shutting out the world, narrowing it down to just the two of them.
Blue-grey eyes locked onto hers.
Lydia could no longer feel the individual beats of her heart. All efforts to clear her body and mind had come to nothing. The sickness in her stomach was like no sickness she’d ever felt before.
His stare fixed firmly on her, Alexis removed his watch and cufflinks and placed them on his dresser, then his fingers pinched the top button of his shirt. Working methodically, he undid the buttons one by one and shrugged his arms free.
She could swear her whole body contracted, and she drank him in, helpless to turn her stare away, helpless to stop her tongue tingling with the remembered taste of that glorious body, her breasts tightening in anticipation of being flattened against it.
There was a buzzing from inside the bag she was holding to her chest as if it were a life raft.
His eyes narrowed. ‘Ignore it. You spent long enough on it in the car.’
Call it defiance, stubbornness, fear, anything, but she wrenched her stare from his and pulled her phone out. Before she could swipe to answer it, the phone had been plucked from her hand.
‘Give it back, that’s my mother calling.’
‘No.’ He placed it beside his watch on the dresser.
Fear turned to an anger she couldn’t begin to understand. ‘Give that back!’
‘No. I have been more than patient but enough is enough.’
