‘To hang on your arm?’ Her sneer was insulting.
‘Of course not. If I wanted a mere trophy wife, I would have picked one of the eminently suitable candidates on the list my mother drew up.’
Rachel nearly choked at that, her soft brown eyes going shocked and wide. ‘There’s a list?’
‘Yes, more’s the pity. I don’t want a trophy wife, one who ticks all the boxes. I want someone I can trust. Someone who makes me laugh. Someone who, dare I sound so sentimental, gets me.’
Tears filled her eyes, appalling him. He’d been trying for humour, but he feared he’d only sounded twee. ‘Rachel...’
‘Why are you making this so hard?’ she whispered, blinking back tears. Her teeth sank into her lower lip, creating two rosy indents he had the urge to soothe away—with his tongue. Mateo forced the unwanted and unhelpful image back.
‘I’m making it hard because I want you to agree.’
‘And if I did?’
The thrill of victory raced through his veins, roared in his ears. Never mind that she sounded a bit sad, a touch defeated. She was actually considering it.
‘Then I’d arrange for you to travel back to Kallyria with me as soon as possible. We’d be married as soon as possible after that, in the Cathedral of Saint Theodora. Everyone in the royal family has been married in the Greek Orthodox church. I hope that is acceptable to you.’
‘Mateo, I was speaking hypothetically.’
He shrugged, refusing to be deterred. ‘So was I.’
‘But after the ceremony? What then?’
‘Then we live together as man and wife. You accompany me to state functions, on royal tours. You decide on which charitable institutions you wish to pioneer or support.’
‘And I give you an heir?’ She met his gaze even though her cheeks were fiery now. ‘That’s a part of this marriage deal you haven’t actually mentioned yet.’
‘No, I haven’t,’ Mateo agreed after a moment. He wished he knew why she was blushing—was it just because they were talking about sex? Or was it something else, something more? ‘It seemed fairly obvious.’
‘That this would be a marriage in...in every sense of the word?’
‘If, by that phrase, you mean we’d consummate it, then yes.’ He held her gaze evenly despite the images dancing through his mind. Images he’d never, ever indulged in before, of Rachel in slips of silk and lace, smiling up at him from a canopied bed in the royal palace, her thick, wavy hair spread across the pillow in a chocolate river...
‘Don’t you think that’s kind of a big thing to discuss?’ Rachel asked, her voice sounding a little strangled. ‘Obvious as it may seem?’
‘Fine.’ Mateo spread his hands as a waiter came in to quickly and quietly clear their dishes. ‘Then let’s discuss it.’
* * *
What had she got herself into? Rachel sat in silent mortification, willing her blush to recede, as the waiter cleared their plates and Mateo waited, completely unfazed by the turn in the conversation, just as he’d been unfazed by everything that had already been said.
He was like a bulldozer, flattening her every objection, making his proposal seem obvious, as if she should have been expecting it. And meanwhile Rachel felt as if she kept stumbling down rabbit holes and across minefields, dodging all the dangers and pitfalls, as she was accosted by yet another reason why a marriage between them would never work.
‘You’re not attracted to me,’ she stated baldly. It hurt to say it; it humiliated her beyond all measure, in fact, and brought up too many bad memories or, really, just one in particular, but Rachel had long ago realised that confronting the elephant in the room, naming and shaming it, was the only way forward for her dignity. She’d done it before and she’d do it again, and she’d come out stronger for it. That much had been her promise to herself, made when she was a shy and naïve twenty and still holding true today, twelve years later.
She held his gaze and watched his lips purse as an expression flickered across his face that she would have given her eye teeth to identify, but could not.
‘Sexual attraction is not a strong foundation for a marriage,’ he said at last, and Rachel swallowed, trying not to let the sting of those words penetrate too deeply.
‘It’s not the most important part, perhaps,’ she allowed. ‘But it matters.’
Another lengthy silence, which told her just how unattracted to her he had to be. Rachel took a sip of wine, her gaze lowered, as she did her best to keep Mateo from knowing how much he was hurting her.
‘I don’t believe it will be an obstacle to our state of matrimony,’ he said at last. ‘Unless you have an intense aversion to m
e?’ He said this with such smiling, smug self-assurance that Rachel had the sudden urge to throw her wine in his face. Oh, no, of course it couldn’t be the case that she found him undesirable. Of course that was a joke.