The Royal Collection - Rebecca Winters Mills & Boon e-Book Collections

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and began tossing them on his bed.

      “I’m going to do all kinds of ordinary things this week,” she announced.

      “Such as?” He didn’t offer to help her make the bed, just watched, secretly aghast at the mess she was making.

      “Cooking!” she decided.

      “I can hardly wait.”

      He got the suspicious look again.

      “Washing dishes. Doing laundry. You can show me those things, can’t you?”

      She sounded so enthused he thought she must be pulling his leg, but he could tell by the genuine eager expression on her face she really wasn’t.

      How did a man maintain professional distance from a princess who wanted nothing more than to be an ordinary girl, who was enthralled at the prospect of doing the most ordinary of things?

      He nodded cautiously.

      “I would like to learn how to sew on a button,” she decided. “Do you know how to do that?”

      Sewing buttons, insignia, pant hems, was right up there with making beds in a soldier’s how-to arsenal, but she didn’t wait for him to answer.

      “And I can’t wait to swim in the ocean! I used to swim here when I was a child. I love it!”

      He thought of that bikini in their backpack, closed his eyes, marshaling strength.

      “You don’t happen to know how to surf, do you?” she asked him. “There used to be a surfboard under the cottage. I hope it’s still there!”

      His boyhood days had been spent on a surfboard. It was probably what had saved him from delinquency, his love of the waves, his need to perfect the dance with the extraordinary, crashing power of them.

      “This bay doesn’t look like it would ever get much in the way of surf,” he told her. “It’s pretty protected.”

      She looked disappointed, but then brightened. “There’s snorkeling equipment under there, too. Maybe we can do that.”

      We, as if they were two kids together on vacation. Now would be the time to let her know he had no intention of being her playmate, but he held his tongue.

      She gave his bed a final, satisfied pat. “Well, good night Ronan. I can’t wait for tomorrow.” She blew him a kiss, which was only slightly better than the one she had planted on his cheek earlier in the day.

      He rubbed his cheek, aggravated, as if the kiss had actually landed, an uncomfortably whimsical thought for a man who prided himself on his pragmatic nature. He listened for her to get into her own bed, then went on silent feet and checked each side of the cabin.

      The night was silent, except for the night birds. The ocean was dark and still, the only lights were from the moon and stars, the few lights on the mainland had winked out.

      He went back into his bedroom. He knew he needed to sleep, that it would help him keep his thinking clear and disciplined. He also knew he had acquired, over the years, that gift peculiar to soldiers of sleeping in a state of readiness. Any sound that didn’t belong would awaken him instantly. His highly developed sixth sense would guard them both through the night.

      He shrugged out of his shirt but left the shorts on. He certainly didn’t want her to ever see him in his underwear, and he might have to get out of bed quickly in the night. He climbed into bed. It had to be his imagination that her perfume lingered on the sheets. Still, tired as he was, he tossed and turned until finally, an hour later, he got out of the bed, remade it perfectly. He got back in and slept instantly.

      Shoshauna awoke to light splashing across her bed, birdsong, the smell and sound of the sea.

      She remembered she was on her grandfather’s island and thought to herself, my heart is home. She remembered her narrow escape from marriage, the unexpected gifts yesterday: riding the motorcycle, buying the daring bathing suit and shorty-shorts.

      Kissing Ronan on the cheek. Feeling the muscles of his back as they shared the motorcycle, feeling his hands encircle her waist.

      Ronan was a gloriously made man, all hard muscle, graceful efficiency of movement, easy, unconscious strength, a certain breathtaking confidence in his physical abilities. Add to that the soft, firm voice, his accent. And his eyes! A soldier’s eyes to be sure, stern, forbidding even. But when the mask slipped, when they glinted with laughter, she felt this uncontrollable—and definitely wicked—shiver of pure wanting. He made her feel such an amazing mixture of things: excited and shy, aggravated, annoyed, alive.

      Shoshauna knew it was wrong to be thinking like that. She was promised to another. And yet…if you could pick a man to spend a week on a deserted island with, you would pick a man like Ronan.

      She gave her head a shake at the naughty direction of her own thoughts and realized her head felt unnaturally light and then remembered she had cut her hair.

      She had glimpsed her hair in the mirror of the motorcycle. Now she hopped out of bed and had a good look in the mirror above the dressing table.

      “Oh!” she said, touching her fingers to it. It looked awful, crushed in places from sleep, standing straight up in others. Despite that, she decided she loved it. It made her look like a girl who would never back down from an adventure, not a princess who had spent her life in a tower, at least figuratively speaking! In fact, she felt in love with life this morning, excited about whatever new gifts the day held. Excited about a chance to get to know Ronan better.

      But wasn’t that a betrayal of the man she was promised to?

      Not necessarily, she told herself. This was her opportunity to be ordinary!

      She realized she had not felt this way—happy, hopeful—since she had said yes to Prince Mahail’s proposal. Up till now she had woken up each and every morning with a knot in her stomach that shopping for the world’s most luxurious trousseau could not begin to undo. She had woken each morning with a growing sense of dread, a prisoner counting down to their date with the gallows.

      Her stomach dipped downward, reminding her that her reprieve was probably temporary at best.

      But she refused to think of that now, to waste even one precious moment of her freedom.

      Ronan had left the backpack in her room, and she pawed through it, found the shorty-shorts and a red, spaghetti-strapped shirt that hugged her curves. She put on the outfit and twirled in front of the mirror, her sense of being an ordinary girl increased sweetly.

      Her mother would have hated both the amount of leg showing and the skimpiness of the top, which made Shoshauna enjoy her outfit even more. She liked the way lots of bare skin against warm air felt: free, faintly sensual and very comfortable.

      She went out her door, saw his bedroom was already empty. She stopped when she saw his bed was made, hesitated, then went in and inspected it. The bedding was crisp and taut. She backed out when she realized the room smelled like him: something so masculine and rich it was nearly drugging.

      She went back to her own room, tugged the rumpled bedding into some semblance of order, declared herself and the room perfectly wonderfully ordinary and went in search of Ronan.

      He was at the outdoor kitchen, a basket of fruit beside him that he was peeling and cutting into chunks. She watched him for a moment, enjoying the pure poetry of him performing such a simple task, and then blushed when he glanced at her and lifted an eyebrow. He had known she stood there observing him!

      Still, there was a flash of something in his eyes as he took in her outfit, before it was quickly veiled, a barrier swiftly erected. And there was no hint of that flash in his voice.

      “Princess,” he said formally, “did you sleep well?”

      It was several giant steps back from the man who had laughed with her yesterday. She wanted to break down the barrier she saw in his eyes. What good was being an ordinary girl if it was as if she was on this island alone? If

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