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shell. Sandro watched, amused, as she wrangled with the mussel and failed. This was a food that required greasy fingers and smacking lips, a wholehearted and messy commitment to the endeavour. He sat back in his chair and waited to see what his bride-to-be would do next.
    She took a deep breath, pressed her lips together, and tried again. She stabbed the mussel a bit harder this time, and then pulled her fork back. The utensil came away empty and the mussel flew across her plate, the shell clattering against the porcelain. Sandro’s lips twitched.
    Liana glanced up, her eyes narrowing. ‘You’re laughing at me.’
    ‘You need to hold the mussel with your fingers,’ he explained, leaning forward, his mouth curving into a mocking smile. ‘And that means you might actually get them dirty.’
    Her gaze was all cool challenge. ‘Or you could provide a knife.’
    ‘But this is so much more interesting.’ He took another mussel, holding the shell between his fingers, and prised the meat from inside, then slurped the juice and tossed the empty shell into a bowl provided for that purpose. ‘See?’ He lounged back in his chair, licking his fingers with deliberate relish. He enjoyed discomfiting Liana. He’d enjoy seeing her getting her fingers dirty and her mouth smeared with butter even more, actually living life inside of merely observing it, but he trusted she would find a way to eat her dinner without putting a single hair out of place. That was the kind of woman she was.
    Liana didn’t respond, just watched him in that chilly way of hers, as if he was a specimen she was meant to examine. And what conclusions would she draw? He doubted whether she could understand what drove him, just as he found her so impossibly cold and distant. They were simply too far apart in their experience of and desire for life to ever see eye to eye on anything, even a plate of mussels.
    ‘Do you think you’ll manage any of them?’ he asked, nodding towards her still-full plate, and her mouth firmed.
    Without replying she reached down and held one shell with the tips of her fingers, stabbing the meat with her fork. With some effort she managed to wrench the mussel from its shell and put it in her mouth, chewing resolutely. She left the juice.
    ‘Is that what we call compromise?’ Sandro asked softly and she lifted her chin.
    ‘I call it necessity.’
    ‘We’ll have to employ both in our marriage.’
    ‘As you would in any marriage, I imagine,’ she answered evenly, and he acknowledged the point with a terse nod.
    Liana laid down her fork; clearly she wasn’t going to attempt another mussel. ‘What exactly is it you dislike about me, Your Highness?’
    ‘ Sandro. My name is Sandro.’ She didn’t respond and he drew a breath, decided for honesty. ‘You ask what I dislike about you? Very well. The fact that you decided on this marriage without even meeting me—save an unremarkable acquaintance fifteen years ago—tells me everything I need to know about you. And I like none of it.’
    ‘So you have summed me up and dismissed me, all because of one decision I have made? The same decision you have made?’
    ‘I admit it sounds hypocritical, but I had no choice. You did.’
    ‘And did it not occur to you,’ she answered back, her voice still so irritatingly calm, ‘that any woman you approached regarding this marriage, any woman who accepted, would do so out of similar purpose? Your wife can’t win, Sandro, whether it’s me or someone else. You are determined to hate your bride, simply because she agreed to marry you.’
    Her logic surprised and discomfited him, because he knew she was right. He was acting shamefully, stupidly , taking out his frustration on a woman who was only doing what he’d expected and even requested. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said after a moment. ‘I realise I am making this more difficult for both of us, and to no purpose. We must marry.’
    ‘You could choose someone else,’ she answered quietly.