A Bride Fit For A Prince?

A rebellious glint fired in her eyes that promised more entertainment down the line. What had happened to his much-vaunted control? Wrecked, he concluded when he’d bought the burger and watched Samia lap red sauce from her fingers.

‘So what do you think you know about me?’ he asked as a distraction from his body’s urgent prompting to do more with this woman than eat burgers.

‘Very little,’ she admitted. ‘Only what I’ve read in the press.’

‘You mentioned being off the radar a while. Is that because of this trip?’

She confined her answer to a brief nod.

‘I was hoping for more than that,’ he admitted.

Flattening her lips, she said nothing, but her eyes told him firmly, Back off.

He liked that she stood up to him, but as he caught sight of the Black Diamond, apparently floating serenely on a tranquil ocean, when he knew all about dangerous currents lurking beneath, it was as if sailing was a metaphor for life. He didn’t know this woman, or the harm she could do to him.

‘Don’t you want to share?’ she asked, holding out the greasy bun.

His mind flew to the galley on board the Black Diamond where his Michelin-starred chef would be preparing some delicacy to tempt him. ‘Thank you, but I’ll pass.’

‘Not up to your princely standards?’

He gave her a look, then thought of the unidentifiable sludge he used to eat in the army. ‘I have a healthy appetite, and it will take more than a mouthful of meat to satisfy me.’

Her cheeks fired red, but she drove past her embarrassment to assure him she would remember that, if she got a job in his galley.

Or in his bed.

‘Once you’ve had a chance to settle in, I’ll assess what you can do.’

‘Settle in?’ she queried, pulling her head back to frown at him. ‘What do you think I’ve got in this knapsack? It isn’t the Tardis. If I have to wear a uniform it would double the number of outfits I own. Will I have to wear a uniform?’

A number of options flashed into his mind. ‘Not right away.’

She lightened him, he admitted silently, and no one but his beloved nonna could do that. A better state of mind was good for him, and could only be good for his people. Her banter amused him, and her quick wits kept his on point. Either she’d annoy the hell out of him when they were on board, in which case she’d leave at the next port, or she’d join him in bed.

‘Will we be sailing straight to Madlena?’ she asked as if reading his mind.

‘I haven’t decided yet,’ he said as they approached his private dock.

‘Aren’t you due at an enthronement in a couple of weeks’ time?’

His hackles rose. He didn’t need a reminder that the gulf between the freedom he was enjoying now and the shackles he was facing then was closing. ‘What’s that to you?’

‘Hold on to your hat,’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m just trying to work out your schedule, so I know where I stand.’

His schedule might have to undergo some radical changes if he was to fit in an interlude of pleasure before duty claimed him. That gap had almost closed already, he concluded as they approached the tight security cordon at the entrance to his dock. ‘We might take a small diversion.’

‘We?’ she queried.

‘The crew and I.’

The Fortebracci dynasty would have to wait a little longer for its next Prince to forge some cold-blooded alliance with a po-faced princess. Spending time with a woman who gave as good as she got held far more appeal.

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