She tried to tell herself her mind was playing tricks on her.

A man sat at a polished table with her daughter. He was dressed in faded jeans, a denim shirt—he had the build of a prizefighter, all sinewy muscle.

And yet she could not deny his resemblance to the man she had loved so many years ago….

He glanced up, and his eyes met hers.

The exact color of the little girl’s who sat across from him.

This was a dream. No, a nightmare! Her daughter was sitting across the table from the man who bore such a frightening resemblance to the man who had fathered her.

Jordan let the shock of it wash over her. The man who had loved her was a prince. A living, breathing, gorgeous prince.

Her Royal Husband
Cara Colter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my niece, Courtenay Sarvis, with all my love.

CARA COLTER

shares ten acres in the wild Kootenay region of British Columbia with the man of her dreams, three children, two horses, a cat with no tail and a golden retriever who answers best to “bad dog.” She loves reading, writing and the woods in winter (no bears). She says life’s delights include an automatic garage door opener and the skylight over the bed that allows her to see the stars at night.

She also says, “I have not lived a neat and tidy life, and used to envy those who did. Now I see my struggles as having given me a deep appreciation of life, and of love, that I hope I succeed in passing on through the stories that I tell.”

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter One

I t was the sound he had been waiting for.

The faint rasp of the key in the lock, the tumble of the bolt. Prince Owen Michael Penwyck felt his muscles coiling. He was tense, ready. He became aware he was holding his breath, and blew out slowly, forced himself to breathe.

The heavy wooden door creaked on its ancient hinges. Owen was wedged behind it. He remained focused on the shaft of light that penetrated the darkness of his cell as the door swung slowly open.

A long shadow, elongated, fell across the cold, stone floor. The shadow showed one man, his rifle slung over his shoulder, the sharp angle of his elbow indicating to Owen he carried something in front of him. All was as the young prince had hoped.

The shadow paused, and before he became aware of the broken, empty cot, to register danger, Owen launched himself from behind the door, and smashed into his captor. The man had been carrying a food tray, and some of the contents, steaming soup, a cup of coffee, flipped up onto him and he howled in surprised outrage. And then in pain as Owen pressed the advantage of surprise, and kneed him with all the considerable strength of legs hard-muscled from years of mountain climbing, horseback riding and hiking.

Too much noise, he thought with regret, stepping over the man who had curled up in a fetal position on his cell floor. His captors, alerted by that initial yell, were approaching down the hallway. Owen could hear their footsteps, coming fast, echoing like thunder in the cavernous passage.

Though Owen now knew escape was not likely, not this time, there was fierce swelling within him. It felt like a fire in his breast, a warrior spirit rising. He felt a moment of sweet gratitude for youth and strength, and he unconsciously flexed the hard line of his biceps, filled the breadth of his wide chest with a cleansing breath of air. He took a harder hold on the iron leg he had spent the better part of a day persuading to part company with the cot in his cell.

Fearless, ready, calm, like the knights who had been his ancestors, he stepped out of the doorway. He blinked once, hard, as his eyes adjusted from the murky darkness of the cell to the sudden brightness of the passageway.

Three men were on him almost instantly, dressed in black, faces covered. Owen swung the straight iron bar off the bed, putting all the considerable power of his arm and shoulder into the swing. He felt the jar of connection, and a man toppled to the ground. The bar had glanced off that first man and struck another, and that second attacker backed off warily, swiping at the cut over his eyebrow. He looked at his blood-covered hand with angry, stunned disbelief.

But the third attacker had ducked under the melee of bar and bodies, and was behind Owen. A sinewy arm, appallingly strong, wrapped around the column of the young prince’s neck. The second man saw opportunity and rushed forward again. Owen dropped the bed leg and pried ineffectively at the arm that was cutting off his air supply. He reared back, smashing the head of the man who had his arm around his neck with his own head. Though the force stunned him, he was caught in the flow of adrenaline and felt no pain. He heard the other man’s grunt, and felt a marginal loosening of the hold on his neck. Owen reared back again, this time kicking forward at the same time. He felt his foot connect with the belly of the second attacker, heard the satisfying “oomph” of the air leaving the man. His neck was free.

His satisfaction was short-lived. A black wave of men appeared out of a connecting passageway and was flowing down the hallway toward him.

And the attacker behind him was a demon. He had a clawlike grip on his shoulder now, and was slamming a hard fist over and over into the soft flesh of Owen’s cheek. Owen managed to twist, to finally see his opponent head-on.

He was dressed in black, like the others, but the cover had slipped from his face. Even as Owen let loose a punch, and felt the man’s nose give under the force of it, he was trying to memorize the hawkish features. He now knew there was no possibility of winning this fight, let alone escaping. Still, some base instinct roared within him, demanded he do as much damage as possible before the inevitable loss.

Owen used the man’s own shock against him. He shoved him to the floor, leapt on top of him, his knees bracketing the man’s chest. He pulled his arm back, seeing red now, his fury unleashed. But before he could complete his swing, his arm was caught fast and painfully. The air went out of him as someone leapt on his back, shoving him down hard on top of his opponent.

The young prince fought with everything he had left, but there were too many, now, holding him down. One sat on his back, a hard hand on his neck. Both his arms were being held behind him, and hands held his legs. He was lifted enough for the man underneath him to slither out, and then he was slammed back into the cold rock floor.

“Okay,” he said, and heard the calm contempt in his own voice, “uncle.”

That earned him a hard swat on the back of his head, and he tasted his own blood on his lip. He heard the subtle rattle of metal before he realized what they were doing, and felt his first moment of panic. He fought desperately with his remaining strength, managed to send a man flying and to get his arm free temporarily. But they came back harder than before, and his head was slammed again into the rock floor, and his arm twisted up painfully behind his back. He felt the shackle close and then click shut with cold metallic finality, first around his right wrist and then, despite the wild fury of his struggle, the left one.

More weight settled on him as he tried to writhe away from the leg irons. Cruel hands held him as the iron bands were clamped, too tightly, around his ankles.

He registered, with impotent fury, his own helplessness, and then was jerked roughly to his feet.

He stood, swaying, captured but unsubdued, and then marshaling his remaining strength, he lunged forward. He allowed himself to feel brief satisfaction in the wary respect he saw as men leapt back from him. He noted, too, that for a single, solitary man, he had managed to cause an inordinate amount of damage. The men who faced him were bloody and bruised, their clothing torn and disheveled. His captors’ chests were heaving from exertion.

Owen reminded himself he did not have the luxury to gloat. He had only one thing left and he needed to use it. His mind.

Carefully, he looked at the men, taking swift mental notes. They were dressed the same as they had been the night of his kidnapping, in identical black sweatpants, black turtlenecks, now pulled up over the lower part of their faces and black woolen caps. The effect was dramatic and sinister. He tried to get a sense of nationality from the eyes of the men, from their skin color, but he could not. He did get a sense of organization. This was not a motley crew who had decided to capture a prince for ransom.

This was a highly organized group, quasi-military.

He took his eyes from the men. He had been blindfolded when he arrived, and now he looked carefully at the passageway. It looked remarkably like a medieval dungeon, dark and dank. Still, the stones that formed the formidable walls caught his attention. They had a faint pink tinge. His gaze traveled up them. High up the wall was one small opening, barred, no glass. Owen was certain he could smell the sea.

That color of rock was famous on the island of Majorco, an island about to sign a groundbreaking military alliance with Penwyck.

Owen was careful not to let it show in his face that he had a pretty good idea where he was. And maybe even an inkling of why he was being held. There were those who were opposed to this kind of alliance between the two islands.

Maybe more opposed than anyone had ever guessed.

His chance to observe ended abruptly. A boot in his back indicated it was time for him to move back in the direction of his cell. Despite the chains he refused to shuffle, making his stride as long as the chain would allow. He tilted his chin up at a haughty angle.

“Your Royal Highness,” one of the men said sarcastically, bowing as he held open the cell door.

Owen slammed his whole body into the man who had been foolish enough to not only mock him, but to take his eyes off of him for a second.

He went down in a hard scrabble of bodies, took another hard punch to his head, and three or four to his rib cage. Then he was picked up and thrown unceremoniously on his cell floor. He watched, panting, his cheek resting on cold stone, as half a dozen of his captors entered the cell, and carried the dismantled bed out, and then the mattress.

The man who had bowed, gave him a kick as he walked by. “You’re more like a bloody street fighter than the pampered pouf I was expecting a prince to be,” he spat out.

Owen, flattered, managed to laugh through swelling lips, and then became aware of a man standing over him. It was the one whose turtleneck had slipped off his face. He had not bothered to replace it.

He was dabbing at his bloody nose with a handkerchief. Expensive, Owen noted. The eyes that watched him were liquid and black, his lips thin and cruel. Owen memorized the white ridge of the scar that ran from his ear to his jawline.

“A foolish move, Your Highness,” the man said mildly. “Your stay here could have been quite comfortable. Pleasant, even.”

From his position on the floor, Owen watched him narrowly. The leader? He listened for an accent. Did he hear a faint Majorcon lilt? Did it mean something that the man was making no attempt to conceal his identity? If it did, what it meant was not good.

“I expect that will be the end of such foolishness,” the man said silkily.

Owen said nothing.

The man crouched beside him, balancing on his toes. He rested his arms on his knees and when he did so the right sleeve of his dark tunic pushed up minutely, showing a square of his forearm. Owen tried to look at the unusual tattoo, without appearing to be the least bit interested. Only partially showing, it looked like the tip of a black dagger.

“Is that the end of your foolishness?” the man pressed.

Owen looked deliberately away from the tattoo, met the flat black eyes and said nothing.

The man laughed, a soft, chilling sound. “You are not my prince,” he said, “you are my prisoner. When I ask a question of you, I expect an answer.”

Educated, Owen decided of his tone, his inflection, his use of words. He answered him by spitting.

He waited for the blow that didn’t come.

“The man who guarded you last night said you called out in your sleep.” This was said softly, almost kindly.

Owen felt himself go very still. He felt a new wariness. This man was far more dangerous than those who thought they could beat him into submission. He sensed the cutting intelligence, and the ruthlessness of the man.

“You called a name. A name I have not heard before in connection with your family, not even as a minor player.”

He knows a great deal about my family, Owen noted uneasily. He did not let his unease show.

“Who are you?” Owen asked, every bit of twenty-three years of royal breeding and training going into the cold authority he inserted into his voice. “And what do you want?”

The man ignored him, gazed by him thoughtfully. “What was it now?” he mused. “An unusual name.”

Owen was not fooled into believing the man did not know the name.

“Laurie Anne? No, no. Jo Anne, perhaps.”

The man was playing with him, and Owen struggled to look patently bored, even though he dreaded the fact this man might know his deepest secret, or part of it.

“No. Now I recall.” The gaze was fixed intently on his face, gauging reaction. “Jordan. That was the name you called in your sleep.”

The black eyes seemed to bore into his own, and Owen knew he had not succeeded in preventing the shock of recognition from flashing in his own eyes even though he had been bracing himself since the moment the man began toying with him.

The man smiled slightly. “Obviously you are a man who can and will accept the price of personal pain for raising my ire. But will you be responsible for what I would do to others if you push me too far?”

“You would never find her,” Owen snapped.

“Her,” his captor said with satisfaction. “I didn’t know that before. Jordan could have been a man’s name.”

Owen silently cursed his own stupidity.

“Amazing that someone whose life has been so much under public scrutiny could have a love interest that no one knows about. I wonder how you managed that? A love interest, is that correct?”

Owen glared silently at his tormentor.

“Do you know there is a drug that will make a man tell everything? His every secret? It’s called Sodium Amytal. Have you ever heard of it, Your Royal Highness?”

It was a head game, now, a sparring of minds. Owen was aware if he answered he was conceding to his captor’s rules that he was expected to answer him, and that if he didn’t answer, the stakes could be upped. Jordan. He swallowed his pride.

“No, I haven’t heard of that drug,” Owen said tersely.

“No?” He nodded slightly acknowledging the younger man’s concession. “Well, princes don’t dabble in the dirty stuff, do they? No, they cut ribbons and dance at galas and ride the fall hunt. Though I will admit your strength took me and my men by surprise. But be warned, the drug can make even the strongest man, even a man who can withstand great physical punishment, babble like a baby. I could know everything about your Jordan in very short order.”

“Okay,” Owen said harshly, “I hear you.”

“I’m glad that you do.” The man rose to his feet. “I think this session is ended for today. Tomorrow I will have some questions. About the diamonds.”

“Diamonds?” Owen echoed, completely baffled.

“If you give me any more trouble, be warned, I will not punish you. I will find the girl. Do you understand that?”

Owen thought the threat was empty. For one thing, if he made another escape attempt, he fully intended to succeed. But if he did not, how could he tell his captor where Jordan was when he had no idea himself? On the other hand, somewhere in his mind, there were probably clues to her whereabouts. He remembered, uneasily, she was from Wintergreen, Connecticut.

“Do you understand?” he was asked again with soft, but unmistakable menace.

“Yes.”

“Good. It’s important that we understand each other. Satisfactory answers to the questions I have will also be beneficial to Jordan.”

Owen detested himself that he had revealed an Achilles’ heel so easily.

“I’ll leave your dinner here on the floor where you threw it. If you get hungry enough, it may begin to look appetizing to you, though it’s been slightly trampled now. Of course, I am unable to attest to the cleanliness of my men’s boots.”

Owen struggled with his fresh fury, the abject humiliation of finding himself being totally in this despicable despot’s power. He managed to turn over on his side, turn his back to his tormentor.

“Bon appetit, Your Royal Highness.”

It was not until he heard the door lock behind him that Owen allowed himself the luxury of a groan.

His whole body was throbbing. Owen would have liked to inspect his knuckles, as it felt like one of them was split open. And touch his face to check the swelling in his cheek, the bleeding from his lip. But his arms were trussed tightly behind his back. He contented himself with laying his hurt cheek against the cold floor.

His bid for freedom had not only failed, it had made the next attempt harder. Perhaps impossible. What if another attempt meant danger to Jordan Ashbury, wherever she was?

The floor seemed harder and colder by the second. Owen steeled his mind to the discomfort, refused to acknowledge the niggle of hunger that had begun in the bottom of his belly.

He had cried her name in the night.

Jordan.

He closed his eyes, and she danced across his memory and came to him. He remembered her running across the sand beside the ocean in the moonlight, her blond hair streaming behind her, the sparkle in her eyes putting the stars to shame. He remembered when he kissed her, that first time, her lips and skin had tasted of the salt in the moist sea air that shrouded them.

The memory made him groan again, a pain deeper than the physical pain he was in.

Because from the start he had known one truth: a relationship with her was impossible.

Impossible.

Impossible to resist. Impossible to control.

And in the end, just plain impossible, his life and hers too far apart, a chasm between worlds too huge to be leaped.

There was rough laughter outside his door. Changing of the guard. He tried to figure out what time it was, but then gave up. Instead, he closed his eyes and gave into the simple pleasure of remembering her speaking his name.

Or what she thought was his name.

He wondered, wearily, if they were going to kill him, these captors. It was the first time he had allowed himself to consider that possible outcome to his kidnapping.

He knew it did not bode well that his captor had allowed him to look at his face, had carelessly revealed the tattoo on his arm.

Looking his mortality in the face, Owen had a moment of illumination, a clarity of thought he had never experienced before.

He was aware, suddenly, that he had let go of the one thing in life that he should have treated as most precious.

He did what he had not allowed himself to do for five years. He allowed himself to remember her. He allowed himself to wish things could have been different.

He had been eighteen the summer of his rebellion.

Eighteen and aware that he was more likely than his twin brother, Dylan, to be chosen to be king one day.

What had it been about being eighteen that had made truths of which he had always been aware seem suddenly unbearable?

He had always known his life would not be his own.

He had always known that every decision regarding his life and every detail affecting his life would be carefully orchestrated, not to meet his needs, but to meet the needs of his small island nation of Penwyck.

He had always known that the most important decisions of his life, including whom he would one day marry, would largely be influenced by others.

At eighteen, he had seen his life unfolding before him, a prison he could not escape. He could see now they were grooming him to be king, and not his brother Dylan. He could see how it hurt Dylan, and he had hated a system that would make one brother seem to have more value than another, just because he had different gifts.

Owen was strong and fast and smart. Dylan was those things, too, but not to the same extent. And Dylan had quiet strengths of his own that were largely overlooked because Owen was a “package” that the public adored. Tall, dark and handsome, the fact that he was good-looking and athletic played a part in the manufacture of a fairy tale that the people of Penwyck delighted in believing. Sometimes Owen was uncomfortably aware of his image being manipulated more than Dylan’s, his acceptance as the future monarch of the small island being worked on in subtle and not-so-subtle ways all the time.

Most men, Owen knew, had to find their destiny. He had been born to his.

At eighteen, he accepted that. But he also realized he had some trading power. And the trade he insisted on was that he have a summer of freedom—one summer in the United States—before he came back and devoted himself and his life totally to the destiny he had been born to. In exchange for one summer he promised he would return to Penwyck without argument and ready and willing to assume his adult role in the affairs of state.

Even with that promise, he had to fight hard. It was the first time he came face-to-face with the implacable strength of his own warrior spirit.

He found it to be a part of himself that he enjoyed thoroughly.

Disguised, drilled in his assumed identity until he could recite it in his sleep, under oath not to reveal his true self to anyone, under any circumstances, Owen was finally allowed, albeit reluctantly by his parents, and especially by the Royal Elite Team, to go off completely on his own for what was supposed to be a five week program for gifted political science students at the world-renowned Smedley Institute at Laguna Beach in California.

“Hey, you, blond boy.”

Those were the first words she’d said to him, her voice laced with scorn, no doubt because she had realized he was no more a natural blonde than she was a sumo wrestler.

He’d recognized her as the smart girl, the one who was not afraid to raise her hand, who did her homework, who had the answers, who was on the lookout for sexism. She had shoulder-length blond hair and she could have been pretty, if she tried, but he suspected she would have scorned expending energy in such a superficial pursuit.

That day her jeans and T-shirt were way too baggy for her slight figure, and her beautiful eyes were almost hidden by the brim of a ball cap she had pulled down too low.

Almost. Because when he looked in her eyes for the very first time, he had felt a strange shiver. Her eyes were not the eyes of the class brain, nor even the eyes of a woman who could slice a man with her razor wit. Her gaze was calm, and strong, almost unsettling in what it said about her.

Honest. Trustworthy. Kind.

The word destiny had formed unbidden in his brain as he looked at her, but how could that be when his was already so rigidly outlined for him and when she so obviously thought men were beer-swilling swine whom she had to guard against at all times?

He’d crossed his arms over his chest, rocked back on his chair and replied, “What can I do for you, blond girl?”

She’d smiled, reluctantly.

“I drew your name on the class project. Ben Prince, right? Despite the movie star jaw and the underwear model body, I expect you to pull your weight.”

He’d always been treated with the complete deference of one born to royalty. “Underwear model body?” he’d sputtered with royal indignation. On the other hand, that meant Miss Priss had been looking. He took off the heavy glasses that were part of his disguise. If she was looking, he had a simple male need to look great.

“I know you don’t need those,” she said. “What are they for? To make you look more intelligent?”

So, she had seen through the Royal Elite Team’s best disguise in no time flat. But look more intelligent, as if nothing he had contributed in class had convinced her of that? It occurred to him, tangling with her would be about as much fun as tangling with a porcupine.

If you believed her words, believed her eyes, then you knew she was as much in disguise as you were, his inner voice chided.

“Don’t worry,” she’d said airily. “All I’m worried about is what you have up here,” she’d tapped his forehead lightly, “under the Miss Clairol.”

“Miss Clairol?” he’d asked, slightly dazed because her touch said things her demeanor did not. Her demeanor said, loudly, ice-cold. Her touch said, even more loudly, red-hot.

“Blonde in a bottle,” she’d whispered. “Hair dye.”

“I’m disguised,” he said coolly.

“Really? FBI’s Most Wanted list?”

“Close. Royal family. Small island kingdom you’ve never heard of.”

She’d laughed out loud, caught off guard and unexpectedly delighted, even while he was uncomfortably aware he’d done, jokingly, something he had given his promise not to do. Told her who he was.

Her laughter changed everything. It erased the wariness from her face, and the stiffness from the way she held herself.

“Well, Your Royal Muckety-muck,” she’d said, straight-faced, now, but still relaxed, “which despot in history would you like to do our project on? I thought maybe Stalin.”

“Genghis Khan,” he said, knowing she wanted to walk all over him, and if he let her, he would never be allowed to explore the deeper mystery of her calm eyes.

“Wow. Are you actually planning on contributing to this? You’re not just going to let me do all the work while you go down to the beach and ogle girls in their bikinis?”

“As tempting as that sounds, I’m actually here to learn something.”

She looked at him with reluctant respect, and then smiled. Really smiled, no barriers. It won him completely. Not that he let her know that for a good long time. At least a day and a half.

And so it began. Huddled over tables at study hall, grabbing quick hamburgers, throwing ideas back and forth, reworking sentences, drawing time lines.

That’s how he’d come to love the way she thought—her wry humor, her quick intelligence, the way she danced with words, how much fun it was to spar with her mind.

That’s how he had started to notice the smell of her hair, the light that danced in her eyes, the breathtaking figure she hid under all those layers of clothes she was so fond of.

And he found, just as the first time, he told her over and over who he really was. In ways he had never told another living soul.

That was her gift to him. She allowed him to be normal. To explore normal dreams and ambitions, to be a normal eighteen-year-old guy.

Jokingly, they had called each other Blond Boy and Blond Girl. She teased him unmercifully when his natural dark brown, nearly black hair began to grow out, giving him roots.

How quickly he had come to see her inner beauty, her sharp mind, her wonderful sense of humor, her huge capacity to be kind.

They had become the best of friends almost instantly. It was a relationship based, originally, on mutual respect for each other’s intelligence.

He knew he had to make it stay that way. He knew he could not allow himself to love her. But he sensed he had begun the fall that even the most powerful of men seemed powerless to stop.

Unless he was mistaken Owen Michael Penwyck, aka Ben Prince, was falling in love with Jordan Ashbury.

Without the press looking on, without a royal council vetting his choice, without her lineage being subjected to scathing scrutiny.

He was just a normal guy with a normal girl who had been given the gift of an extraordinary summer.

Respect deepened to admiration, words deepened to silence, eyes locking deepened to hands holding, liking deepened to love. Just like that.

Now, lying in a cell, contemplating the possibility his life was over, and thinking with a clarity that seemed illuminated from the heavens, Owen acknowledged his regret. His one mistake.

Unable to leave her at first, he had begged for and been given an extension on his stay. Two more weeks of exploring remote beaches, and remote places of the heart. Two more weeks of her hand in his, her lips on his eyelids, his hands allowed to go where no man’s had gone before his. But when that was gone, he had phoned home and begged again. This time he had been refused, so he had done what any eighteen-year-old boy in the throes of first passion would have done. He had refused to go home, and moved into Jordan’s tiny basement suite off campus.

He remembered the last night, when he could feel it coming to an end, knew his days were numbered.

“Tell me one thing about you that no one else in the world knows,” he had begged. “Your deepest secret.” Something of her that he could hold onto forever.

They had been in her tiny bed. Was there anything more wonderful than two people in a single bed? With her naked skin against him, and her hair, soft and fine as a baby’s spread over his chest, with her fingers tangled in his, she told him.

“I’m a closet romance nut.”

“What?”

“I know. Under all that sarcasm and biting intelligence that scares the boys away, I was dying to be loved, Ben Prince. Dying. Underneath my bed at home are three full boxes of romance novels. Historicals are my favorite.”

He had tightened his hold on her, kissed her temple, knew what she was really telling him was that she had been lonely. And he felt sick that she would be lonely again, soon.

She sighed against him. “It’s like two people live inside of me. The one who wants to be the first female mayor of Wintergreen, Connecticut. And the one who would love to be riding through the dark woods in a carriage, when from their mysterious depths comes a highwayman.”

They had made love after that, wild, passionate, completely unbridled.

“Thank you for making me so happy,” she had said sleepily, trustingly. And he had lain awake, knowing he had to tell her the truth about himself, and knowing at the same time he could not.

In the morning, he had gotten up before her. He walked down to their favorite oceanfront café to get her a croissant and one of those specialty coffees she adored. Filled with thoughts of waking her up with his lips on her cheek, he had walked into a trap.

Four members of the Royal Elite Team, apparently tipped off about his routine, were waiting for him there. They had been sent to escort him home. No more extensions.

“I just need to do one thing. Alone. I promise I’ll come right back. One hour.”

“We can escort you where you need to go, sir.”

But then they would know about her, and her life would be scrutinized and investigated and torn apart for no reason. The security team was the best, but what if there was a leak? What if the tabloids went after her?

“No, no escort.” He must have looked like he was going to make a dash for it, because he’d found himself in the center of a circle of big, intimidating men, who looked sympathetic but unmoving.

“Sir, please don’t make us do this the hard way.”

No goodbyes and no explanations. Maybe it was better that way. Maybe it would be better if she hated him, rather than held some hope in her heart.

He had made a vow, and he was now being asked to keep it.

Owen turned his back on that part of his life that would have made him insane had he allowed himself to dwell on it, to remember it.

He returned to Penwyck and threw himself into the role he had been born to play, the role he had agreed to play in exchange for one magical summer.

He tirelessly attended functions, raised funds for charities and worked on economic development projects for his country. He felt the adoration of the people and tried to be worthy of it. When the Penberne River did its annual flood, Prince Owen was filling sandbags, shoulder to shoulder with the citizens of Sterling. When the Lad and Lassies Clubs were having a fund-raiser he could be counted on to take a turn in the dunking booth, to buy the first pie at the raffle. He cut ribbons and gave speeches, danced the first dance of each and every charity ball.

The rift between he and his brother deepened—Dylan not understanding his brother wasn’t trying to win a crown—he was trying to outrun a broken heart.

It was only his mother that he knew he had failed to convince. Sometimes he caught her watching him, unveiled sadness in her eyes. But had he not always detected a faint sadness when his mother looked at him?

A sadness that was not present in her eyes when she looked at Dylan?

Even so, he knew it to be intensified now.

And really, his campaign who was leading him down the road to being king, and away from the road of being normal, had almost worked.

Had worked until the precise moment his bedroom door had blasted open in the middle of the night, a drug-saturated cloth had been forced over his face, and he had been kidnapped.

Now, ironically, in a cell where the prince had nothing, he had everything once more.

Her memory came to him. And brought him comfort. Once again he could smell her and taste the salt on her lips, feel the silk of her hair sliding through his hands.

“If I die,” he mumbled, “I will die happy if my last thoughts are of her.”

She filled him, and he felt content.

He almost didn’t want to be drawn back from where he was by the far off sound that he could have mistaken for firecrackers, had he not been waiting for it.

Gunfire. It could only mean a rescue attempt.

And he knew he had to do his part. He struggled back from Jordan’s memory, and yet it filled him with a strength such as he had never known.

Shackled, he lurched to his feet. When his cell door flew open, and it was the enemy who arrived first, he lowered his head, like a battering ram, and charged.

And held them until he saw the familiar crest of Penwyck’s Royal Navy Seals on the dark clothed men now swarming down the hall, the enemy fleeing in front of them.

“Your Royal Highness,” a man said, stepping toward him, his smile white against the camo-darkened skin of his face.

Owen recognized the voice and took a closer look. It was his cousin, Gage Weston, a man who had made a calling of showing up where there was trouble.

Gage said, “With all due respect, you fight like a man who was born to it.”

Owen smiled wearily. “So I’ve been told.”

He looked back at his cell, and felt relief. Jordan would be safe now. All his secrets were safe.

Except for the one he had been keeping from himself. He had never, ever stopped loving her.

Chapter Two

J ordan Ashbury woke partially, her heart beating frantically within her chest.

So real was the feeling that his kiss was on her lips, that she ran her tongue along them, hoping the faint taste of salted sea air would be lingering there. When it was not, she reached across the tangle of her sheets, wanting to be reassured by the silky touch of his skin under her fingertips, wanting the ache within her to be eased by his presence in her bed.

When her fingertips touched cold emptiness, Jordan came fully awake and smelled the mingled aroma of wood smoke and fall leaves coming in her open window, not the sea. Her sheets were covered in a prim pattern of yellow teacup roses. They were sheets that had never known the skin of a man.

The ache was there, though, as real as if it had been yesterday, instead of just over five years ago, that she had awoken and he had been gone. For good. Forever. Without so much as a goodbye.

He had warned her it would be that way. The warning had not made it one bit easier to cope with when it had happened.

Jordan shook herself fully awake, angry. She sat up and fluffed her pillow with furious punches. She glanced at her bedroom clock. It was only three-thirty in the morning. She clenched her eyes tight, commanded herself back to sleep.

She had not had one of those dreams for so long. It had been at least six months. She thought that meant her heart was mending, finally.

She would not go as far as to say she was happy. Jordan Ashbury mistrusted happiness. It was the crest of an exhilarating wave you rode before it tossed you carelessly onto sharp and jagged rocks.

But she would say she was content. She had her girls—the young, unwed mothers she did volunteer work with. She had her job with her aunt. She had this little humble house she had just purchased. And of course, she had Whitney, her four-year-old daughter, who had enough exuberance for both of them.

And she had the new male in her life. There he was now. He prowled into her bedroom, leapt onto the bed in a single graceful leap, curled up by her ear and began to purr.

Jay-Jay, named in honor of Jason, whom she had dated once and hated, and Justin whom she had dated twice and liked. Both had been dismissed from her life with equal rapidity.

“No time,” she’d told her mother who had set up both disasters.

“But aren’t you lonely?” her mother wailed.

“Of course not,” she had said, strong and breezy. “It’s a brand-new world, Mom. Women don’t need men to feel they have purpose, to feel complete.”

“Working with those unwed mothers is making you cynical about men,” her mother said.

No, it wasn’t. It was reminding her, over and over, of the life lesson she most needed reminding of.

Love hurt.

Well, not Whitney love. Not Mom and Dad love. Not Jay-Jay love. Just the other kind. Man-woman love.

Only in the middle of the night, like this, did the insanity of loneliness take her, try to pull her down, make her wistful, make her ache with yearning.

“Weak ninny,” she scolded herself, opened her clenched eyes to glance at the clock then closed them again with renewed determination. Sleep.

Instead, a chill washed over Jordan, a chill not caused by the cool September air sliding through her open window. In that space between wakefulness and sleep where her mind sometimes shook free of her tight hold on the reins, she allowed herself to wonder, did it mean something that she had dreamed of Ben?

Why did she feel a knot in her stomach, a shadow in her soul? Was he in trouble? Was he dead?

She shivered, caught in the grip of something that felt weirdly like premonition.

Ben Prince did not exist, she reminded herself bitterly. How could he be dead when he had never been alive?

Except he was alive, amazingly so, in the sapphire-blue eyes of their daughter. Her daughter. The child he knew nothing about.

Jordan had tried to tell him. It seemed the only thing, the decent thing. That was when she’d found out, through the registrar’s office at the Smedley Institute where they had met during a summer program, there was no Ben Prince.

Short of yelling at them that a figment of her imagination could not have produced a pregnancy, there was nothing more she could do. He was gone.

Except in that place where her dreams took her.

Restless, she got out of bed, went over and slammed the window shut. She paused and looked out at Maple Street, Wintergreen, Connecticut. This was not the best area of town, but it was old, so the maple trees were enormous, just beginning to hint at their fall splendor. The houses that lined the street were tiny, asphalt-shingled boxes, but the yards were generous, which is what she had wanted for Whitney.

When she was growing up, Jordan had always assumed she would end up in a neighborhood like her parents, spacious Dutch colonial and Cape Cod homes set well back from the road, sporting wraparound verandas and porch swings and lawn chairs where people whiled away hot summer nights.

A perfect all-American street in a perfect all-American neighborhood. The scent of apple pies baking wafted out the windows at this time of year, and red, white and blue flags flew from porch pillars.

Of course, she had spoiled her parents’ all-American dreams for her by showing up pregnant, no marriage, no man.

Forgiveness had been some time coming though Whitney’s entrance into the universe seemed to have greased the wheels of progress considerably.

Her parents had objected to Jordan buying her own little house six months ago. Of course, it made more sense for her to continue living with them. She was a single mom with a limited income. Her options, which had once seemed endless, now seemed limited.

Even so, she liked her life. Was contented with it. Ninety percent of the time.

Still, looking at that quiet street, washed in silver moonlight, Jordan felt restless. What had happened to the girl who beamed out of her senior high yearbook, the banner Most Likely To Succeed draped across the picture?

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, she had been politically ambitious, certain she would be the first female mayor of Wintergreen.

It was that ambition that had made her sign up for an intense political science summer program at Laguna Beach the summer after her graduation from high school.

It had turned out to be her date with destiny—and she was not sure yet that she had recovered from the surprise that her destiny was not even close to what she had planned for herself.

Now, she was a chef’s assistant working for her aunt. It was a job Jordan had fallen into, rather than planned for. Given that, it was surprisingly satisfactory.

She no longer had any desire to be mayor. She just wanted to be a good mom to her small firebrand of a daughter. She wanted to help other girls, who like herself, found themselves thrown up on love’s rocks, battered and bruised. Priorities changed that quickly.

Reminding herself sternly she had to work tomorrow, she climbed back into bed, and tossed restlessly until the phone jangled shrilly. Startled, Jordan looked at her bedside clock—6:00 a.m. No one in their right mind called that early in the morning. It must be Marcella. She was due the third week of September.

“Hello?” she answered, already pulling on her jeans. She could drop off Whitney at her parents, call Meg, be in the labor room in fifteen minutes.

“Jordan, you are not going to believe this!”

She sat down on the edge of her bed, and eased the jeans back off. “I’m already having trouble with belief. Aunt Meg, when have you ever been up at this time of the morning?”

“Never,” her aunt admitted. “But it was worth it! Did I wake you? Never mind. You’ll think it’s worth it, too.”

“We’ve been hired to cater the presidential ball?” Jordan asked, tongue-in-cheek.

“Better. It’s because of the time zone difference that they called so early.”

Better than the presidential ball? Jordan was intrigued despite herself. “Aunt Meg, who called so early?”

“Lady Gwendolyn Corbin, lady-in-waiting to Queen Marissa Penwyck of the island kingdom of Penwyck.”

Jordan, confused, checked her calendar. As she thought, it was still September, not anywhere near April Fool’s day. She sighed. Her lovely aunt, a chef extraordinaire, always walked the fine line between genius and eccentricity. Sadly, she had obviously finally crossed the line.

“Jordan, listen! She wants me—us—to cater the party. At the palace! Right there on the island of Penwyck! We get to go there, all expenses paid. Oh my, Jordan, it is the break I’ve been waiting for. I told you that little piece in Up and Coming People was going to do it. I told you!”

The article in the national magazine Up and Coming had been dreadful. It had made her aunt seem considerably more eccentric than she was, which must have been a stretch for the writer. It had featured Meg’s experiments combining edible flowers with pastry. “Flaky Flowers” had been the title of the piece and it had gone downhill from there.

“Aunt Meg, slow down,” she suggested gently, suspecting the article had generated a prank. “Where have you been asked to go? And what have you been asked to do?”

Her aunt took a deep breath. “You read about it in the papers, didn’t you? Or saw it on television?”

“Flaky Flowers was on television?” Jordan asked, appalled that her aunt might have been held up for ridicule at a new and dizzying level.

“Not Flaky Flowers. Jordan, the whole world has been talking about nothing else. You missed it, didn’t you?” This was said with undisguised accusation.

“I suppose I might have,” Jordan admitted uncertainly.

Her aunt sighed. “You are taking this heartbroken recluse thing to radical limits.”

“I prefer to think of myself as a strong, independent woman,” Jordan said, miffed. She could feel a headache coming on. She did not feel prepared to defend her lifestyle choices at six in the morning.

“Same thing,” her aunt said.

“What world event did I miss?” she asked, trying to get her aunt back to the point and away from her personal life.

“The kidnapping of that prince! And now he’s been safely returned to his home and his mother, the queen, is having a party to celebrate, and I’m catering and you’re coming with me!”

I hope this isn’t real, Jordan thought. “Is this real?”

“Of course. A celebration for those closest to the family. Which is a mere one hundred and seventy-five. Dinner, of course before the ball. Did you hear me, Jordan? A ball, like in Cinderella.”

The fairy tale Jordan most alluded to when she told frightened young expectant mothers not to believe in fairy tales. The prince was not coming to rescue them. Sometimes, Jordan even found herself wishing the story could have a different ending, but it rarely did.

“A midnight snack will be necessary,” her aunt went on, not intercepting the chilly response to Cinderella. “What do you think? My Moose Ta-Ta for the main course?”

Despite the name, Meg’s Moose Ta-Ta was to die for: roast beef done in a secret sauce that Meg claimed included the unshed velvet of a moose antler.

When she debated saying it might be hard to procure that much velvet, Jordan realized she was being sucked into the incredible vortex of her aunt’s enthusiasm. “I can’t help you, Aunt Meg.”

“What?!” This said in the same tone Cruella used when she was refused the puppies.

“No,” Jordan said firmly, “I can’t possibly. I told you from the beginning I wouldn’t travel. Couldn’t. I am giving my daughter stability.”

“What you are giving your daughter is a boring life. Boring. Boring. Boring.”

“Plus, Marcella’s baby is due any day. I can’t just leave her in the lurch.”

“Jordan, which member of your group had her baby last? Stacey? You had nine people in the delivery room with her. That’s a baseball team. You don’t need to be there.”

“The girls like knowing I’m there for them.” Like no one else ever has been.

“I think you should find a volunteer activity that doesn’t underscore your anger at men.”

Menu discussion to free psychology advice from the woman who had proudly named Moose Ta-Ta. Jordan noted her headache seemed to be intensifying, moving around from the center of her forehead toward her ears.

“I like my boring life, and my volunteer work,” Jordan said, a touch testily. She had experienced the other. She had experienced exhilaration. Magic. Wonder. It was exhausting. The pain of losing those kinds of things never dulled, ever.

Boring on the other hand was nice and dull to begin with. It was hard to go downhill from there.

“Of course you adore boring, dear,” her aunt said soothingly, “but you must come. You must. As a teensy-weensy favor to your favorite aunt who can no longer survive without you. Who else could I trust with the icing for the Dancing Chocolate Ecstasy?”

“I won’t leave my daughter and Marcella in order to baby-sit your active bacterial cultures.”

“Darling, you never even let me get to the best part! Whitney can come. They’ve given me a blank check. Me and my entire entourage are expected in Penwyck by tomorrow evening. Lady Gwendolyn used that word. Entourage. I mentioned Whitney, of course. I knew I wouldn’t be able to pry you away from her. They’ll provide a nanny!”

“I can’t,” Jordan said, sensing a danger she did not understand. “That kind of trip sounds like it would be terribly unsettling to a small child. Too whirlwind. Too exotic. Too chaotic. Too…you know.”

“No. You know. Me. And I am not taking no for an answer. I will come right over there and tell Whitney her deranged mother has refused an all-expense-paid trip for two to an island with a real castle, a real king and queen, real princesses, and two real princes.”

“Don’t you dare! She’ll—”

“—torment you until you agree to go,” Aunt Meg said with satisfaction. “Don’t make me do it, Jordan. Just say yes to the adventure, for once!”

“I said yes to an adventure, once,” Jordan reminded her aunt stiffly.

“And you have a lovely daughter to show for it. Besides, I’ll pay you double, plus a very generous living out allowance. Aren’t you saving for a microwave for that little meeting room of yours? So you can serve nice, healthy soup to all your young moms-to-be? I’ll even donate soup.”

Sometimes there was just no arguing with Meg. Besides, Marcella did have a good support network. Her mom and her sister were both very supportive of her, and both had already expressed an interest in being there for the delivery.

Suddenly, without warning, that yearning came over Jordan. To say yes to adventure even though the price could be so high. Wasn’t it worth it?

Just by closing her eyes she could still remember how it felt, those seven weeks in July when her soul had been on fire.

“All right,” she said slowly, giving into the impulse, the yearning, “All right. I’ll come.”

Her aunt whooped so loudly into the phone that she nearly deafened her poor niece. After hearing what needed to be done, and in very short order, Jordan hung up the phone and looked at it bemused.

“Why do I have the awful feeling I’m going to regret this?” she asked herself. And yet, if she was honest, regret was not what she felt.

She felt the tiniest stirring of excitement, a feeling she had not allowed herself to have, not in this way, since a morning five years ago when she had woken up to the cold, hard reality of a bed empty beside her, and the terrifying knowledge she was now totally alone with the secret of the baby growing inside of her.

“Meg,” Jordan told her aunt, “no nasturtiums. I cannot find a fresh nasturtium on all of Penwyck.”

“Oh,” her aunt wailed, “the pastry just doesn’t have the same flavor with geranium leaves. See what it would cost to import some. Orange. I only want orange ones. No yellow.”

Jordan stared at her aunt, and allowed herself to feel exhausted. They’d arrived here in Penwyck less than twenty-four hours ago. Jet-lagged, arriving practically in the middle of the night, Jordan had not really noticed much about the island as they were whisked to the castle, and into quarters that adjoined the banquet kitchen. The quarters were motel room plain and seemed distinctly humble and uncastlelike.

The nanny, Trisha, had been introduced to her early the following morning. A teenage girl, she was an absolute doll. With those shifting loyalties young children are so famous for, Whitney had given her heart to the young girl completely and irrevocably and only stopped by on brief visits to the kitchen to tell her mother she had seen “a weel thwone with weel jewels” or “a weel pwincess with a weel pwetty smile.”

Jordan, on the other hand, had seen only her quarters, the kitchen and the small office off of it, which housed a cranky telephone that was like nothing she had ever seen in America. She was developing a healthy hatred for the instrument and dreaded trying to call overseas now in the never ending search for nasturtiums.

She’d been going flat-out, putting out fires, soothing her ruffled aunt, trying to find impossible ingredients and, of course, nursing that active yogurt culture, the secret ingredient that made her aunt’s Dancing Chocolate Ecstasy so unbelievably delicious.

She was exhausted. “Only orange nasturtiums,” she repeated, turning from her aunt.

“Miss Jordan! Miss Jordan!”

Her relief at being called from her quest for orange nasturtiums was short-lived. Trisha was rushing across the kitchen toward her, obviously close to tears.

“I’ve lost her,” she wailed. “Miss Jordan, I’ve lost Whitney.”

For the first time since they had arrived, Jordan allowed herself to wish she had listened to her doubts.

“I knew I was going to regret this,” she said. “I just knew it.”

“Jordan, don’t overreact,” Meg said, bustling by, her hands full of something that looked dangerously like the moss that crept up the castle walls. “Whitney has gone exploring. Perfectly normal for a child that age. She’s having fun. You know, maybe a few yellow would be all right.”

“My daughter is missing, and she’s four years old. Excuse me if I give that priority over yellow nasturtiums.”

Meg gave her a hurt look, put the moss in a large pot and turned her back on her.

“One minute she was there, ma’am,” the young nanny said tearfully, “and the next she simply wasn’t. I’ve looked everywhere.”

“How long have you been looking?” Jordan asked firmly, though she would have liked dearly to wring her hands and cry just like the nanny.

“Nearly an hour.”

An hour. In an enormous castle, full of hazards, coats of armor waiting to be pulled down, swords waiting to impale. And what of all the strange people? The prince had been kidnapped from this very castle only two weeks ago!

Jordan forced herself to take a deep and steadying breath. She whipped off her apron.

Her aunt peered up from the pot she was stirring, which was emitting strange clouds of green steam. “I wish you’d think of the Dancing Chocolate Ecstasy. A mistake at this phase, and it’s ruined!”

Jordan glared at her, and turned back to the quivering nanny. “Where were you exactly when you noticed her gone? Take me there.”

For the first time, Jordan entered the main part of the castle. Despite her worry for Whitney, she could not help but notice the richness all around her. Thick muted carpets covered stone floors. Richly colored tapestries and stern oil paintings covered the stone walls. The furniture was all antique, glowing beautifully from hours of elbow grease. Intricate crystal chandeliers hung from ceilings. Oak had been used extensively on bannisters and window casings and doorways. All in all, the opulence was somewhat overwhelming.

“We were right here, ma’am,” the girl finally said, stopping in a quiet hallway on the second floor. The carpet under their feet looked priceless. A muted tapestry, obviously silk and obviously ancient hung on one wall, a portrait of a fierce-looking man mounted on a horse hung on the opposite wall.

Jordan could see nothing here that would fascinate her daughter.

“I had just paused for a moment, to talk to Ralphie, one of the gardeners, and when I looked at where she had been, Whitney was gone!”

Jordan decided not to pursue what Ralphie-the-gardener might have been doing on the second floor of the palace.

There only seemed to be one place Whitney could have gone. “And this door goes where?” Jordan asked.

“That’s Prince Owen’s suite, ma’am.”

“Did you tell her that? My daughter? That a real live prince resided behind those doors?”

Trisha looked painfully thoughtful. “Well, yes I might have mentioned it.”

Jordan pushed down the handle, but the young nanny flung herself in front of her, wide-eyed with disbelief.

“You can’t just enter his suite,” she whispered.

“My daughter might be in there!”

“Surely not.” The girl looked terrified.

“What is the prince? Why are you so afraid? Is he some sort of old ogre?”

A blush crept charmingly up the girl’s cheeks. “Oh, no, ma’am. Not in the least. I mean nothing further from an ogre. He’s not old for one thing. And he’s the most handsome man who ever lived. And so wonderfully kind. He’s very, oh, just the best. But you can’t just enter his quarters.”

So much for Ralphie, Jordan thought, grimly amused by the girl’s obvious crush.

“I could never presume to knock on his door,” the girl whispered. “If he finds out I’ve lost a child in my charge, I’ll never live with the shame of it. He’s going to be king some day!”

“What nonsense,” Jordan said, and hammered on the door. Despite the nanny’s gasp of dismay, she pushed down the handle before there was an answer. Prince or not her child was lost and royal protocol came a long way down the list from that.

“Excuse me—” she stopped dead in her tracks, and felt the blood drain from her face.

Whitney was there after all, sitting happily at a huge table, manipulating chessmen that appeared to be made of crystal.

But the discovery of her daughter brought none of the expected relief. Instead, Jordan felt close to panic.

She tried to tell herself her mind was playing tricks on her.

Of course it was.

A man sat at a polished table with her daughter. Not the prince, obviously. He was dressed in faded jeans, and a denim shirt with a smudge of dirt on the elbow. He had the build of a prizefighter, all sinewy muscle, and the look of one, too, his face bruised, his lip split. This must be the famous Ralphie-the-gardener. Obviously those distortions to his facial features had momentarily made her think the impossible.

And yet she could not deny his resemblance to the man she had loved so many years ago, when once before she had said yes to adventure.

No, it wasn’t him.

Ben had been blond. This man’s hair was dark as fresh-turned loam. Besides, he was broader through the shoulders, and the chest than Ben had been. It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be.

She reminded herself that this happened to her from time to time—a glimpse at a stranger set her heart to beating wildly, filled her with the joyous thought, it’s him, before she had a chance to remind herself seeing him again would be nothing to be joyous about.

He glanced up. The way his hair, just a touch too long, fell over his brow, made her take a step back, and then his eyes met hers.

Deep, cool, the exact color of sapphires. The exact color of the little girl’s who sat across from him.

This was a dream. No, a nightmare, that she imagined her daughter sitting across the table from the man who bore such a frightening resemblance to the man who had fathered her.

But if she could have convinced herself it wasn’t him, the look on his face shattered that.

Stunned recognition washed over his features before he scrambled to his feet.

“Leave us,” he said to the flustered nanny, sending only the briefest glance her way.

“You do not have to leave us,” Jordan snapped. “I’m sure your duties do not include taking instructions from Ralphie-the-gardener.”

Trisha looked like she was going to faint. “No ma’am,” she whispered, standing like a deer caught in headlights, “but this is not Ralph.”

“Leave,” he said again, curtly.

The girl actually curtsied, and flushed to a shade of purple that reminded Jordan of the fresh beets lined up for the Blushing Beet Borscht they were preparing in the kitchen.

“Yes, Your Royal Highness,” Trisha squeaked, and backed out of the room, tripping over herself in her haste to get out of the door.

Your Royal Highness. Jordan let the shock of it wash over her. The man who had loved her was a prince. A living, breathing, gorgeous prince.

He was still the man who had left her, she reminded herself. That meant he was still a cad.

The silence was electric as she regarded him. She wanted him to flinch away from the fury in her look, but instead she could feel the familiar intensity of his gaze, could feel it threatening to melt in an instant what it had taken her five long hard years to build.

“Hi, Mommy,” Whitney said, looking up, breaking the silence.

She saw the shock cross his features.

“Mommy?” he said, almost accusingly, as if he had a right to know what had transpired in her life in the past years—as if he was shocked she had the audacity to have a life without him.

“Your Royal Highness?” she shot back, just as accusingly.

“Pwince Owen,” Whitney filled in helpfully.

“Oh my,” Jordan said, allowing a faint hint of sarcasm into her voice, “and I thought it was Prince Ben. Or was that Ben Prince?”

“It was Blond Boy, wasn’t it?” The faintest twinkle appearing in his eye.

How could he be trying to make this light? She hated that twinkle. It was part of his easy charm, his great big lying charming self. There had probably been dozens after her, who felt the very same weakness she had felt when he gazed at her with those amazing passionate seductive eyes.

The bruises, the marks of the beating on his face only added to his pull—the almost irresistible desire to touch him with tender fingertips. Traitor fingers!

“Of course, you feel passionate about him,” Jordan would tell those sobbing girls who came to her house late in the night, “that’s what got you into this mess in the first place. But there’s no need to be a weak ninny about it.”

Here she was, being given an opportunity to practice what she preached. She was not going to forgive the betrayal that had nearly torn her soul from her body five years ago, the betrayal that had turned her from an innocent and idealistic child to a cynical and wounded woman in the blink of an eye, just because he had the most mesmerizing eyes of any male on the planet.

“Well, Your Royal—” she hesitated, tempted to call him Your Royal Muck-muck, to show his title did not impress her in the least, did not make up for his great failings in character, but she thought he might think she was playfully referring to their shared past, so she bit her tongue and called him Highness. “I guess your identity explains a great deal, up to and including this dream contract of my aunt’s.”

“Jordan,” he said quietly, “my identity explains nothing, least of all the abysmal way I treated you. Obviously seeing you again has come as a shock to me. I don’t know your aunt, or anything about her contract.”

“Well, whatever,” she said, trying to shrug carelessly, knowing she could not allow that sincere tone to disarm her.

“Jordan, why are you in Penwyck?” he asked.

How dearly she would have loved to tell him she was here for a meeting of municipalities. That she was the best mayor in the world and she had come to receive a medal.

Childish to want to build herself up like that, just because he was a prince and she was a kitchen assistant. “I’m working with my aunt on the banquet preparations for next Saturday. Whitney, we have to leave.” This room, this castle, this island.

Whitney gave her an amazed look. “I not leaving. You leave.”

Not now, she begged inwardly. This would be the worst possible timing for that stubborn streak to put in an appearance. “Whitney,” Jordan said, using her sternest mother voice, “we are leaving right now.” She held out her hand.

Whitney ignored it, studying the chess players with single-minded intensity.

“Don’t you dare laugh,” Jordan warned Ben. Owen. The prince. His Royal Highness. She had to get out of here.

“I’m not laughing,” he denied. “Whitney, please do as your mother asks.”

“I’m Princess Whitney,” the tyke decided.

“All right by me,” Owen said easily. “Princess Whitney, I think you should go with your mother.”

Jordan wondered uneasily if her daughter really was a princess since her father really appeared to be a prince.

She didn’t like how his gaze lingered on the child, and then a frown creased his forehead.

“Whitney—” she said.

A sudden light came on in his eyes, and with breathtaking swiftness he had crossed the distance between himself and Jordan. His fingers bit into her elbow and he looked straight into her eyes.

“My God, is she mine?” His tone was quiet, intense, loaded with that same princely authority that had made the young nanny quake.

Jordan felt both frightened and furious. “If you were that interested, you should have taken a miss on the melodrama with your middle-of-the-night departure all those years ago.”

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