LITMIR.BIZ

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between nineteen and twenty she’d begun a miraculous late-blooming transformation. The thirty extra pounds of puppy fat had long since melted from her body—her features and her figure fining down to what she was now, still curvy but no longer overweight. And her hair, thank goodness, had grown long and straight and thick. The dreadful cropped cut and frizzy perm she’d insisted on in a vain attempt to look sophisticated before meeting the prince was now nothing more than a humiliating memory. And she’d finally developed the poise that had been sadly lacking when she was just a teenager.

      Would her soon-to-be husband find her attractive now? She hated to think he’d be put off by her, especially given how incredibly drawn she was to him.

      Sally had been one hundred percent right that Prince Thierry was hot. And all through the broadcast she saw evidence of that special brand of charisma that he unconsciously exuded. Mila watched the way people in the background stopped and stared at the prince—drawn to him as if he was a particularly strong magnet and they were nothing but metal filings inexorably pulled into his field. She knew how they felt. It was the same sensation that had struck her on the day of their betrothal—not to mention since, whenever she’d seen pictures of him or caught a news bulletin on television when she was home on vacation back in Erminia.

      She’d return there in just a few weeks. It was time to retrieve the mantle of responsibility she’d so eagerly, even if only temporarily, shrugged off and reassume her position.

      She should be looking forward to it. Not only because of the draw she felt toward the prince, but because of what the marriage would mean to both of their countries. The tentative peace between her native Erminia and Sylvain had been shattered many years ago when Prince Thierry’s mother had been caught, in flagrante delicto, with an Erminian diplomat. When both she and her lover had died in a fiery car crash fingers had pointed to both governments in accusation. Military posturing along the borders of their countries ever since had created its own brand of unrest within the populations. She’d understood that her eventual marriage to Prince Thierry would, hopefully, bring all that turmoil to an end—but she wanted something more than a convenient marriage. Was it too much to hope that she could make the prince love her, too?

      Mila reached for the remote and muted the sound, ready to turn her attention back to her work, but Sally wasn’t finished on the subject yet.

      “You should go to New York and meet him. Turn up at the door to his hotel suite and introduce yourself,” Sally urged.

      Mila laughed, but the sound lacked any humor. “Even if I could get away from Boston unchaperoned, I wouldn’t get past his security, trust me. He’s the Crown Prince of Sylvain, the sole heir to the throne. He’s important.”

      Sally rolled her eyes. “So are you. You’re his fiancée, for goodness’ sake. Surely he’d make time for you. And, as to Bernadette and the bruiser boys,” Sally said, referring to Mila’s chaperone and round-the-clock bodyguards, “I think I could come up with a way to dodge them—if you were willing to commit to this, that is.”

      “I couldn’t. Besides, what if my brother found out?”

      Sally didn’t know that Mila’s brother was also the reigning king of Erminia, but she was aware that Rocco had been her guardian since they lost their parents many years ago.

      “What could he do? Ground you?” Sally snorted. “C’mon, you’re almost twenty-five years old and you’ve spent the last seven years in another country gaining valuable qualifications you’ll probably never be allowed to use. You have a lifetime of incredibly boring state dinners and stuff like that to look forward to. I think you’re entitled to a bit of fun, don’t you?”

      “You make a good point,” Mila answered with a wry grin. As much as Sally’s words pricked at her, her friend was right. “What do you suggest?”

      “It’s easy. Professor Winslow said that if we wanted he could get us tickets to the sustainability lecture stream during the summit. Why don’t we take him up on it? The summit starts tomorrow and there’s a lecture we could attend,” she said the latter word with her fingers in the air, mimicking quotation marks, “the next day.”

      “Accommodation will be impossible to find at this short notice.”

      “My family keeps a suite close to where they said the prince is staying. We could fly to New York by late afternoon tomorrow—Daddy will let me use his jet, I’m sure, especially if I tell him it’s for my studies. Then we check into the hotel and you could suddenly feel ill.” Sally hooked her fingers into mimed quotation marks again. “Bernie and the boys wouldn’t need to be with you if you were tucked up in bed with a migraine, would they? We’ll take a blond wig so you can look more like me. After a couple of hours, I’ll pretend I’m going out but instead I’ll go to your room and go to bed and pull the covers right up so if she checks on you she’ll think you’re out for the count. We’ll swap clothes and you, looking like me, can just slip out for the evening. What do you say?”

      “They’ll never fall for it.”

      “It wouldn’t hurt to try, though, would it? Otherwise when are you going to get a chance to see the prince again? At your wedding? C’mon, what’s the worst that could happen?”

      What was the worst that could happen? They’d get caught. And then what? More reminders of her station and her duty to her country. Growing up in Erminia constant lectures about her duty and reputation had been all she’d known, after all. But after living and attending college in the States for the past few years, Mila had enjoyed a taste—albeit a severely curtailed one—of the kind of freedom she hadn’t even known she craved.

      She weighed the idea in her mind. Sally’s plan was so simple and uncomplicated it might just work. Bernadette was always crazy busy—even more so since she’d begun making plans for Mila’s return to Erminia. A side jaunt to New York would throw her schedule completely out—if she even agreed to allowing it. But Mila still had the email from the professor saying how valuable attending the lecture would be. Mila knew she could put some emotional pressure on the chaperone who’d become more like a mother-figure to her and convince her to let her go.

      “What’s it going to be, Mila?” Sally prompted.

      Mila reached her decision. “I’ll do it.”

      She couldn’t believe she’d said the words even as they came from her mouth, but every cell in her body flooded with a sense of anticipation. She was going to meet Prince Thierry. Or, at least, try to meet him.

      “Great,” Sally said, rubbing her hands together like the nefarious co-conspirator she was at heart. “Let’s make some plans. This is going to be fun!”

       Two

      Dead.

      The king was dead. Long live the king.

      Oblivious to the panoramic twilight view of New York City as it sparkled below him, Thierry paced in front of the windows of his hotel suite in a state of disbelief.

      He was now the King of Sylvain and all its domains—automatically assuming the crown as soon as his father had breathed his last breath.

      A flutter of rage beat at the periphery of his thoughts. Rage that his father had slipped away now, rather than after Thierry had returned to his homeland. But it was typical of the man to make things awkward for his son. After all, hadn’t he made a lifetime hobby of it? Even before this trip, knowing he was dying, his father had sent Thierry away. Perhaps he’d known all along that his only son would not be able to return before his demise. He’d never been a fan of emotional displays.

      Not that Thierry would likely become emotional. The king had always been a distant person in Thierry’s life. Their interactions had been peppered with reminders of Thierry’s duty to his country and his people and reprimands for the slightest transgression whether real or imagined. Yet, through the frustration and rage that flickered inside him, Thierry felt a swell of grief. Perhaps more for the relationship he had never had with his father, he realized,

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