The Prince She Had to Marry by Christine Rimmer

it, never stepped out from behind it and joined her on the other side.
    After Venice, there was Trieste. They received updates from the Prince’s Palace. Their honeymoon was working out exactly as planned. The paparazzi were getting lots of pictures of Lili and Alex looking so much in love. They were seen embracing on the front pages of any number of scandal sheets. The headlines were all about how perfect they were for each other, a real-life prince and princess, living the dream of happily ever after and doing it in grand style.
    Looking at those tabloid photos, Lili wanted to cry. The happiness, the true togetherness that those pictures seemed to show only made the reality of her life with Alex all the more unbearable.
    From Trieste, they turned south again. They continued on their slow exploration of the Adriatic, of the endless string of islands off Croatia.
    Every day was worse, the way Lili saw it. They’d shared that one shining moment of understanding that first day, but after that?
    They only grew apart. Every night in their stateroom, Alex slept on the floor. It was simply too sad and hopeless.
    Something had to give—or so she kept promising herself. But as the days flowed past, full of sunshine and gleaming blue sea and lovely scenery, she despaired. What can a woman do when a man simply will not let her in?
    On the eleventh day of their honeymoon that wasn’t really a honeymoon at all, Lili had had enough. If she couldn’t get Alex to truly be with her, then she needed a little time alone. She wanted at least a few hours outside, perhaps on a deserted pebbled beach beneath the open sky, a few hours when she didn’t have to pretend to be ecstatically happy with her glamorous life and her royal marriage.
    The problem was how to make that happen. Round-
the-clock she was surrounded by staff and bodyguards and crew—not to mention her intimacy-challenged but nonetheless ever-watchful groom. Reporters hovered above in helicopters. They lurked in speedboats ahead and astern, ready to follow anytime anyone disembarked.
    But Lili was determined. She had to have a break. And as luck would have it, there were escape vehicles available right there on the giant yacht. She could choose from a small sailboat, a helicopter, or the thirty-two-foot day cruiser, the Lady Jane . The helicopter was out of her league and she’d never been much of a sailor. She’d ridden in the day cruiser more than once, when they visited some of the more obscure ports of call, the ones where a super-yacht like the Princess couldn’t safely make it into harbor. The Lady Jane was sleek and speedy and would be just about perfect for her plans.
    She should have asked to take the helm during those other rides ashore, but she hadn’t planned ahead. So she decided to ask the captain for a tour and a little lesson in how to operate the controls. To allay suspicion as to her escape plans, she asked for tours of the sailboat and the helicopter as well. And she scheduled those tours between nine and eleven in the morning, when Alex would be busy working out in the Princess’s state-of-the-art gym.
    Wouldn’t you know he would appear, freshly showered and suddenly way too attentive, after she’d learned more than she ever wanted to know about the helicopter and the sailboat—and before the second mate led her to the Lady Jane?
    “That was a quick workout,” she said with her sweetest smile.
    Alex put his arm around her and drew her close. “I can’t seem to stay away from you.”
    She swallowed the scoffing sound before it escaped her throat and ignored the little thrill that shivered through every time he touched her.
    The Lady Jane, she learned, was capable of a top speed of forty-five knots. Just what she needed to get ahead of the reporters—far ahead, far enough to lose them in her wake.
    Alex was right there at her side, his face unreadable, as she got a quick briefing on the controls and then proceeded down into the small cabin and