Maisey Yates - Luxury Escapes

“This is wonderful!” Isabella hadn’t stopped chattering since she and Alison had gotten into the limo. “My mamma never allows me to go shopping.”

“Your mother never lets you go shopping?” Alison couldn’t imagine being controlled to such a degree. The very thought of it made her feel claustrophobic. “And are we supposed to be doing this now?”

Isabella had been very excited about taking a trip to help furnish a new, princess-worthy wardrobe for Alison, but Alison had assumed it had been Max’s idea. And she certainly hadn’t imagined that her future sister-in-law might be forbidden from going.

A slight blush stained Isabella’s high cheekbones. “Not exactly.”

Anger, not directed at Isabella, tightened her stomach. “Why aren’t you allowed to shop?”

A mutinous expression creased Isabella’s forehead. “Shopping is not a skill required of the future wife of a sheikh.”

“You’re engaged?” The other woman seemed very young to her. Naive, but very sweet.

She shrugged one very lovely shoulder. “More or less. I have an arranged marriage.”

“An arranged marriage?”

It felt wrong to Alison, the thought that such a lovely, gentle person was being farmed out to a man she didn’t even love. But then, wasn’t that essentially what was happening with her? Except it was different for her. Isabella was clearly a romantic, and Alison had never imagined that she would marry for love. Anyway, Max was an honorable, handsome, decent man and any woman would be lucky to marry him.

Her own line of thinking shocked her. When had she come to think of him like that? It was ridiculous. She’d only known him for a few days. And she didn’t want to marry him. She was only doing it because it was the right thing to do. That was all.

Isabella’s eyes shone with passion now. “I thought I was entitled to experience a little something before I gave it all up for duty and honor. I just want to live a little bit of life. The life of my choosing.” She took a deep breath as though she was trying to regain some composure. “But arranged marriages are normal in our family. It’s just how things work. Well, except with you and Max, of course.”

“Was Max and Selena’s marriage arranged?” She felt a tiny twinge of guilt for digging into Maximo’s past. It would have been one thing if she were really the woman he loved, if they had the sort of relationship where they shared confidences. But they didn’t.

“Yes. Well, my mother met Selena after one of her shows. She was an opera singer … a very talented one. My parents had been pushing Max to settle down and start having babies. They encouraged him to pursue Selena and he did. I know he loved her, though, after a while. I could tell. So it was an arranged marriage in a way. Not like mine, though.” She sighed. “I’ve never even met my fiancé.”

Alison only half heard the rest of the conversation. She was too busy processing the information she’d just received. No wonder Maximo’s view on marriage was so pragmatic. He’d made it sound as though his mother had introduced them, but she had assumed that he’d married her for love, not duty. Although Isabella was certain he’d grown to love Selena.

She was also starting to suspect that his marriage hadn’t been a perfect one. She could see it in the tension that pulled up around his eyes when he spoke of his late wife. But they had been through so much as a couple, perhaps it was only natural that they would have had some strain put on the relationship.

She couldn’t figure out why it all suddenly seemed so important. It just did. The more she got to know Max as a person, the more she wanted to know about him. She just wanted to … to understand him. And that was normal. He was the father of her baby; of course she wanted to understand him.

The limo pulled up to the curb of what looked like a very upscale row of boutiques. The driver opened the door and Isabella slid out. Alison followed. The ocean was only a hundred yards away from the shops, and the chilly salt air did wonders for the eternal churning in Alison’s stomach. The shops were all set into small, historic stone buildings, but just at the end of the row of boutiques there was a new, massive casino. It wasn’t all lit up like Vegas, rather it was more sedate, in keeping with the theme of the rest of the district. Maximo really was a genius. What he’d done to revamp the economy of his country was brilliant.

Women in expensive clothing milled around on the cobblestone walks sipping coffee that was as designer as their handbags. The men, Alison assumed, were in the casino.

“Princess Isabella!” Both Isabella and Alison turned to the sound of a man shouting. A flash went off, followed by more flashes.

Alison’s eyes widened. There was a pack of people, men and women, holding cameras, They were moving toward the limo quickly, microphones and recorders held out.

“Are you Alison Whitman? Prince Maximo Rossi’s fiancée?” A woman shouted just before snapping a picture with her camera.

“Why are you getting married so quickly?”

“Does it bother you that you aren’t as glamorous as his first wife?”

“Is he good in bed?”

Questions—lots of questions, inappropriate questions—were flying at her from all directions, and the paparazzi was moving in closer, crowding them up against the side of the limo.

“Back up!” Alison yelled, afraid she was about to get crushed against the side of the car. Afraid for her baby. But no one was paying attention because her statement hadn’t included any hint of scandal.

Isabella managed to get the door open, and Alison slid into the car after her, closing the door and locking it behind them. “Drive!” she said, banging on the partition between the front and backseat. The princess drew a shaky hand over her face. “No wonder I’m not allowed to do this.”

“That was … overwhelming,” Alison said, leaning back against the seat. She hadn’t expected that. Hadn’t factored it in when she’d imagined being married to Max. She wanted to cry. Nothing was going like it was supposed to. Living like this was so foreign, and such a complete departure from how she’d imagined her life. It was only just now sinking in, how much she was changing her life to give her baby a father.

Isabella’s expression turned sad. “It was always like that for Max and Selena. The press couldn’t get enough of them.”

Alison couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for them. Cameras following them all the time, the constant, insistent crush of bodies every time they went out in public. She wasn’t sure she could cope with it.

But it’s your life now.

She put her hand on her stomach and tried to calm the wild, fluttery wings of panic that were making her entire body tremble.

Isabella picked up her cell phone and punched numbers rapidly. “Max,” she all but shouted into the phone. “We just got ambushed by the paparazzi.”

She cast Alison a sideways glance, her expression guilty. “I wanted to go shopping. I didn’t think …”

Alison could hear the muffled tirade that Max was subjecting his sister to. Isabella grimaced, but let him talk until he was through yelling. “She’s fine. The baby, too, I’m sure. We’ll see you in a moment.”

Isabella hung up the phone. “I’ve never heard him sound like that before. He’s worried. He must really love you.”

Alison’s heart squeezed and a restless, burning ache seemed to open up inside of her, one that she was desperate to have filled. But she didn’t know what she needed to fill it.

That was a lie. She was starting to think she knew exactly what would fill it. But that was a something she was too scared to face. Everything seemed to be closing in on her at once; the stark reality of what all the changes becoming a princess would entail, and even more terrifying, the reality of the feelings she was starting to have for her future husband.