Arranged Marriage, Bedroom Secrets. Yvonne Lindsay
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“I need to know how to seduce my wife.
“Not just physically, but on every level emotionally, too. I never want to see loathing in her eyes when she looks at me, as my mother so often looked at my father. And I never wish to treat her with disdain the way my father treated my mother. I will not have a marriage like that.”
A vein pulsed at the side of Thierry’s brow and while his voice had remained level, Mila could see the strain in his eyes as he turned to face her again.
“I want you to teach me how to make my wife fall in love with me so deeply she will never look to another man for her fulfillment. Can you do this?”
Thierry stared into the glowing amber of his courtesan’s eyes and willed her to give him the answer he craved.
“You want me to teach you to seduce your fiancée’s mind and her senses, and then her body?”
“I do.”
Her eyes shone brightly as she smiled.
“Your demand is not quite what I expected but I will do what you ask.”
* * *
Arranged Marriage, Bedroom Secrets is part of the Courtesan Brides duet: Her pleasure is at his command!
Arranged Marriage, Bedroom Secrets
Yvonne Lindsay
A typical Piscean, USA TODAY bestselling author YVONNE LINDSAY has always preferred her imagination to the real world. Married to her blind-date hero and with two adult children, she spends her days crafting the stories of her heart, and in her spare time she can be found with her nose in a book reliving the power of love, or knitting socks and daydreaming. Contact her via her website, www.yvonnelindsay.com.
There are so many people who enrich my life but foremost are the members of my incredible family, so I dedicate this book to them.
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
“Isn’t that you?”
Mila shoved an unruly lock of her long black hair off her face and looked up in irritation from the notes she’d been making.
“Is what me?” she asked her friend.
“On the TV, now!”
Mila turned her attention to the flat screen currently blaring the latest entertainment news trailers that so captivated her best friend and felt her stomach lurch. There, for all the world to see, were the unspeakably awful official photos taken at her betrothal to Prince Thierry of Sylvain seven years ago. Overweight, with braces still on her teeth and a haircut that had looked so cute on a Paris model and way less cute on an awkward eighteen-year-old princess—especially one who was desperately attempting to look more sophisticated and who had ended up, instead, looking like a sideshow clown. She shuddered.
“I know it doesn’t look completely like you, but that is you, isn’t it? Princess Mila Angelina of Erminia? Is that really your name?” Sally demanded, one finger pointing at the TV screen while her eyes pinned Mila with a demanding stare.
There was no point in arguing. Hiding a cringe, Mila merely inclined her head. She looked back down at her notes for a thesis she’d likely never be permitted to complete, but her concentration was gone. How would her friend react to this news?
“You’re going to marry a prince?”
Mila couldn’t be certain if Sally was outraged because Mila was actually engaged to a prince, or because she’d never thought to let her best friend in on the secret of her real identity. She sighed and put her pen down. As an uncelebrated princess from a tiny European kingdom, she’d flown under the radar in the United States since her arrival seven years ago, but now it was clearly time to face the music.
She’d known Sally since their freshman year at MIT and, while her friend had sometimes looked a little surprised that Mila—or Angel as she was known here in the States—had a chaperone, didn’t date and had a team of bodyguards whenever she went out, Sally had accepted Angel’s quirks without question. After all, Sally herself was heiress to an IT billionaire and lived with similar, if not quite as binding, constraints. The girls had naturally gravitated to one another.
It was time to be honest with her friend. Mila sighed again. “Yes, I am Mila Angelina of Erminia and, yes, I’m engaged to a prince.”
“And you’re a princess?”
“I’m a princess.”
Mila held her breath, waiting for her friend’s reaction. Would she be angry with her? Would it ruin the friendship she so treasured?
“I feel like I don’t even know you, but seriously, that’s so cool!” Sally gushed.
Mila rolled her eyes and laughed in relief. Of all the things she’d anticipated coming from Sally’s rather forthright mouth, that hadn’t been one of them.
“I always had a feeling there were things you weren’t telling me.” Sally dropped onto the couch beside Mila, scattering her papers to the floor. “So, what’s he like?”
“Who?”
It was Sally’s turn to roll her eyes this time. “The prince of course. C’mon, Angel, you can tell me. Your secret’s safe with me, although I am kind of pissed at you for not telling me about him, or who you really are, any time in, oh, the last seven years!”
Sally softened her words with a smile, but Mila could see that she was still hurt by the omission.
How did you explain to someone that even though you’d been engaged to a man for years, you barely even knew him? One formal