Twice a Princess

Merry swallowed a giggle. She’d wondered how Lissa had explained the curse to her father. Since it was all over now, and because she had learned valuable lessons, she wouldn’t argue Lissa’s convenient story and said simply, “Yes. My classes are done now.”

“I’ll send a plane.”

“No, Dad, I can’t come home today.” She needed to find a real replacement for herself to fulfill her responsibility to the resort, but more than that she wanted her reward time with Alexander. “I won’t be home for two weeks.”

“Two weeks?”

“Yes,” she said, strolling away from her desk and walking to the mirror in her private powder room where she smiled contentedly at her reflection. “I want a few weeks to adjust to being myself.”

“Adjust to being yourself?”

Merry grimaced at her slip, but she also realized that she’d just revealed a tidbit of information about her curse and it had come out as real words, not gibberish. Up to this point, every time she’d tried to explain her curse, she couldn’t. She couldn’t even give tiny details. With the curse broken, she could explain the real story to her dad.

“Merry?”

She drew a quick breath. In spite of the fact that Lissa had created an acceptable excuse for her disappearance, Merry wanted to tell her father the truth. She wanted him to understand her hardships and to see there was a good reason she’d changed so much, so he would understand that she wouldn’t revert to being a spoiled princess.

Still, this wasn’t a story one told over the phone. This was a story a daughter told in private, in her father’s study, sipping cocoa, when she could be herself. Not a member of a royal family, but a daughter. “I’ll explain everything when I get home.”

She could hear the warning in her father’s voice when he said, “I’m counting on it.”

“Dad, really. I haven’t done anything wrong, or foolish, or frivolous. How about this? I promise to be home for my birthday.”

He sighed. “That’s three weeks!”

Considering that this was all the time she’d have with Alexander to satisfy the yearning of her soul for one great love, Merry’s heart dipped. Her voice was filled with sadness when she said, “Three weeks isn’t such a long time.”

Apparently picking up on her melancholy, her father relented and softly said, “I suppose.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Tears pricked Merry’s eyes. Though he was a king, her father always deferred to her, always loved her—even when she’d made his life miserable for remarrying after her mother’s death. Lord, she’d been absolutely horrid!

Regret swamped her and she squeezed her eyes shut. She had a lot to make up for when she returned home. “I love you, Dad.”

From her dad’s quickly indrawn breath, she knew she’d surprised him. After a moment of silence, he whispered, “I love you, too.”

Merry tried all afternoon to think of something spectacular that would push Alexander into breaking or bending any rules he might have about getting involved with a co-worker, but she couldn’t think of anything. It wasn’t until she walked past the window of La Torchere Boutique at the end of the day and saw a white thong bikini that a plan formed.

If anything could render a man incapable of resisting a woman, it would be that suit. And as the resort manager, who had insider knowledge of Alexander’s activities, Merry knew the perfect way to be alone with him when he saw her in it. Every night Alexander had a drink beside his private pool before he ordered dinner from the Greenhouse Café. All she had to do was pretend to be lost and walk in on him and voilà…. She’d render him speechless. After a little flirting—to prove she was interested in him and to let him know he didn’t have to worry about her telling tales to the staff—he’d be helpless.

Her plan was perfect.

Merry strode into the boutique and ten minutes later marched out with her secret weapon. But she wasn’t quite so confident when she slid into the skimpy white bikini and eyed herself critically in the full-length mirror of her bedroom.

The scant material barely covered the appropriate areas, but she didn’t think the suit’s skimpiness was the problem. Her hips and thighs were trim and toned. Her tummy was flat. Her breasts were firm. She’d worn this kind of suit a million times before she’d been cursed. So why did something not feel right? And why was that “something” making her stomach churn?

Deciding her odd feeling could simply be nervousness about her night with Alexander, Merry slipped on her blue-violet crocheted cover-up and sneaked out of her villa in the dying light. Wavy clouds of red, pink and aqua applauded the sun for its hard day of work as it made its final descent. Soon it would be dark and she would be in Alexander’s arms. Excitement quivered through her at all the wonderful possibilities that awaited her. But imagining being kissed and held and loved by Alexander also caused Merry’s queasiness to return.

She stopped on the cobblestone path when she reached the fork that gave visitors the option of walking to the beach or turning toward Alexander’s residence. She glanced toward his villa. Though he was owner of La Torchere, Alexander hadn’t wanted his quarters to stand out in any way, so in terms of size and shape, his cottage looked the same as all the others. An open cobblestone path was surrounded on both sides by the resort’s trademark foliage. But that plant life also camouflaged the biggest difference between his villa and the others—a fence that surrounded a private pool.

She knew the gate would be open because every night the guards reported locking it for him. She knew his habits. She had the opportunity. And she looked great. Besides, she didn’t have enough time to wait for him to notice her. At most, she had three weeks before she had to go home. She had to start something tonight.

Anticipation trembled through her as she slid through the gate. Covertly peeking through the sliding glass door to his living room, Merry could see his black leather sofa in the muted glow of a single lamp, the light a fairly clear indicator that he was home.

Nervous, she slid out of her cover-up. She couldn’t decide if she should be in the pool or be lying on a chaise when he came out with his drink. Then she realized a splash from her dive into the water would conveniently alert him that he had a visitor. Time wasn’t her friend. She had to get things moving as quickly as possible. She draped her cover-up over the chaise and dived into the pool. By the time she came up for air, Alexander was opening his sliding glass door.

“What the…Merry?”

Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of him. That afternoon, he had changed out of his typical resort attire and into a black suit for a meeting, and right now, with the jacket removed and the sleeves of his white shirt rolled to his elbows, he looked sexily rumpled.

Though it was difficult, Merry managed to sound composed when she said, “Oh, hello, Alexander. What are you doing here?”

“I live here.”

She glanced around as if confused. “We all live here.”

“No, I live here,” he said, pointing at the ground beneath his feet. “This is my villa and that,” he said, pointing again, “is my private pool.”

“Private pool?” She feigned a gasp, pretending she didn’t know he had a private pool since this was her “first day” as manager, and hoisted herself up on the ladder. Water sensuously trickled from her hair to her shoulders, from her shoulders to her breasts, from her breasts down her flat-as-a-pancake stomach to the string that perched on her hip bones. She shook her hair off her face and tucked it behind her ears. “What do you mean, private pool?”

“This is my villa. This is my pool,” he said, slowly, because he couldn’t stop his eyes from taking in the scenery she provided. As he looked at her, she watched his pale irises heat to a blue flame, confirmation of what she believed she had seen that afternoon. He found her as attractive as she found him.

Shivering with a combination of nervousness and her own desire, Merry swallowed hard before she said, “My villa doesn’t have a pool.”

“You,” he reminded her, raising his gaze away from her taut body until it angled with hers, “are the help.” She could tell from his tone that he was trying very hard to remain righteously indignant, but nothing he said dimmed the fire in his eyes. “I’m the owner. I get one of the deluxe villas. You get a darned good one, but not deluxe.”

From the tone of his voice, it was clear he wanted to be furious with her, but the way his gaze continually fell to her body proved other emotions warred with his anger. Still, that was a good sign. A battle had to be fought and won. His eyes were supposed to stray to her body. His feet were supposed to remain rooted to the spot, as if he couldn’t turn away. He was supposed to try to walk away and fail. He was doing exactly what needed to be done.

So why didn’t she feel triumphant?

Watching his gaze fall again to her breasts, Merry suddenly knew why she didn’t feel any sense of victory. This was a purely sexual encounter. Even her own responses were physical, not emotional. But theirs was supposed to be a romantic relationship. A time of great love that they both could remember forever. And right now there was nothing romantic about the way he was looking at her.

She stepped in front of him, not so close as to be inappropriate, but near enough that he was forced to look at her face. In a deliberate effort to shift the mood, she softly said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude on your privacy.”

He drew a long breath and quickly averted his eyes, but not before she saw the look of discomfiture in them. And she knew why everything had gone awry. Being with a nearly naked stranger embarrassed him.

“Just get back to your own quarters.”

With that he turned and all but ran to his sliding glass door, which he closed so hard the glass rattled. Then he snapped the vertical blind closed.

Merry blinked rapidly. Her hope melted into the realization that she hadn’t just failed, she’d embarrassed Alexander enough that he might never speak to her again.

She grabbed her cover-up, then turned and scrambled away from his villa, before anyone could see she’d been in the boss’s private quarters. But her steps slowed as the soothing sounds of the night calmed her. The whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of the waves lulled her into thinking clearly, and she began to understand not just Alexander’s reaction but why she’d had her own odd feeling about her plan right from the start.

It wasn’t the suit. The suit was merely a symptom of her bigger misjudgment. Seven long years had passed since she’d been flirty Princess Merry. The tricks she’d used to entice men didn’t work anymore…or maybe those tricks didn’t work with mature men.

Alexander was certainly a mature man. That was part of the attraction. She didn’t want to have the romance of her life with a silly boy. She wanted a man. And a man didn’t respond to a girl’s tricks.

And now he would be wary of her. She had three short weeks to share a romance with him and she’d put him so much on the defensive that she would probably spend most of that time convincing him she was harmless.

That is, if he stayed in the same room long enough for her to speak to him again!

She’d blown it.

Chapter Three

After the blind on his sliding glass door closed with a satisfying snap, Alexander turned and marched across the corner of the Oriental rug that sat beneath the black leather sofa and matching chair of his living room. Without stopping, he strode through the dining room, which was furnished with only a long oak table and ladder-back chairs arranged atop a bright red area rug on sand-colored ceramic tile, and bounded into the galley kitchen he never used.

He didn’t know what the devil was going on with Princess Meredith Bessart, but from her behavior by his pool it was abundantly clear that the woman who had once told him she found him repulsive had just thrown herself at him.

He knew he’d matured in the past seven years. He wasn’t the ugly duckling prince she had insulted at her coming-out ball. So it wasn’t inappropriate to assume that she might not find him repulsive anymore. He’d also grown accustomed to women hitting on him. Most wanted his money. The few in Europe who knew his real identity wanted a piece of his royal stature. But Princess Meredith had her own money. She had her own royal position. He didn’t have anything she might want. Her making a pass at him didn’t make any sense.

That was why he tossed his hardly touched Scotch into the sink and rinsed it down the drain with a quick splash from the faucet. He needed a clear head to think this through. The princess had almost bested him out there by his pool. Not because he couldn’t resist her, but because he hadn’t realized he’d have to resist her. He assumed that while she was here, she’d play at resort manager, boss around the staff and flirt with the guests. He hadn’t expected her to flirt with him. Caught off guard as he had been, every male instinct he possessed had burst to life.

And why not? Spoiled or not, selfish or not, Princess Meredith was one gorgeous, sexy woman. A cloistered monk would have trouble resisting her.

Of course, the easy answer to this dilemma was never to be in the position of having to resist her again. All he had to do was stay away from her. If she were here looking for fun and she’d decided to make chasing him the sport of the day, his avoiding her actually suited two purposes. He would not only save himself from her flirting, but also Aunt Merry might return more quickly when the princess got bored and called her aunt to complain. It was such a clever yet uncomplicated plan that Alexander relaxed.

He easily ignored her for two whole days. Until Princess Meredith called a meeting of the executive staff that Alexander couldn’t miss. But given that all department heads were required to attend, he wasn’t worried.

Unfortunately, when he arrived at the first-floor conference room before anyone else and found himself alone with his betrothed, he stopped dead in his tracks.

Dressed in a very covering apricot-colored suit and strappy brown sandals, Princess Meredith wasn’t intending to be sexy, but she was nonetheless. Her suit jacket and little skirt fit her as if both were made to accent the attributes of her perfect figure. But more than that, she couldn’t hide her sensual red-brown hair or her bedroom eyes.

Still, Alexander didn’t panic. He said good morning and took his seat at the far end of the table—giving Merry the place at the head, the same as he had with her aunt— and diverted his attention to the meeting handouts.

After only a cursory review of the week’s registry, which reported that three single men and two single women had opted out of the final two days of their resort stays, Alexander’s entire demeanor changed, and he forgot all about Merry’s curves. With a pampered princess at the helm of his resort for only three days, the business was in trouble. Left to her own devices, she was tanking his resort!

The time for ignoring Princess Meredith was over. He wanted Merry Montrose back. Now.

Without looking up from the spreadsheet, Alexander said, “The early departure figures are distressing.”

Merry cleared her throat. “Well, sometimes little things like this happen in a transition.”

“Little things?” Alexander asked, leaning back in his seat. “Five guests left early.” He caught her gaze. “That means they were bored.”

“I’ll tell Constance, the activities director, to step up her efforts to get the men and women involved in games or sports together.” Clearly nervous, Merry rose to get a cup of coffee.

“I don’t think so,” Alexander began, but his attention was unexpectedly snagged by the way the soft material of her skirt rounded the curve of her bottom and a vivid image of that same bottom in the thong bikini wound through his brain.

His mouth watered.

Disgusted with himself for being weak, Alexander immediately shifted his eyes upward. Unfortunately Princess Meredith simultaneously turned away from the coffeepot to face him. His gaze fell on the V created by her buttoned jacket, and he found himself staring at her cleavage.

Angry that his thoughts kept veering in the wrong direction, and more eager than ever to get his real manager back, he tossed the spreadsheet across the shiny conference-room table and sharpened his tone.

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