Twice a Princess

by Susan Meier

  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 roof 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 i
n 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 into 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.

  "Your aunt Merry handled things like this personally! And I want these numbers to go back to the way they were when she ran things." He paused and caught the princess's gaze. "I was with her the night before she left. She was tired. That's all. She didn't talk of retiring. She most certainly didn't talk about replacing herself and I'm not at all happy with your being here."

  Princess Merry drew a quick breath, but before she could answer him, the conference-room door opened and head concierge Lissa Piers entered. A middle-aged woman with brown hair that was almost always pulled into a tight bun, Lissa wore the navy skirt and white shirt of the hotel lobby employees. A big smile lit her beatific face until she saw Alexander. Then her smile faded like the rays of the sun covered by a cloud. She glanced from Alexander to Merry; then back to Alexander again.

  Her face reddened guiltily and Alexander suddenly remembered something that had been right under his nose all along. Merry Montrose, Princess Meredith's aunt, may not have known he was Prince Alec, but Lissa Piers did and Lissa was Princess Meredith's godmother. With Princess Meredith acting as if she were totally unaware of his real identity and with Lissa's face currently as red as two tomatoes, it made sense to consider that Lissa—not Princess Meredith—was behind his betrothed's sudden appearance at his resort.

  Well, he would put a stop to any plan Lissa had right now.

  "Come in, Lissa." he said, his voice as smooth and dangerous as good Kentucky whiskey.

  Lissa took a shaky step into the room. She said, "Good morning. Merry." But her gaze was on Alexander, her eyes wide and bright. She knew she was in trouble.

  Oblivious to the tension between Alexander and Lissa, Merry said, "Alexander, I don't know if Lissa told you this, but she's my aunt and my godmother."

  Lissa's eyebrows rose in surprise, as if she hadn't expected Merry's revelation.

  Alexander's eyes narrowed. That introduction basically confirmed that Princess Meredith really didn't know who he was. Otherwise, she wouldn't have introduced him to a godmother he had already met.

  Still, he couldn't understand why Merry thought it relevant to mention she and Lissa were related until Merry added, "I hope you don't have a problem with relatives working together."

  Then he understood. He had been short with Princess Meredith from the minute she showed up at the resort, even before she appeared at his pool, so she assumed he was angry because her aunt Merry had hired a relative to be her temporary replacement. That assessment wasn't just wrong, it also caused a major problem for Alexander. If Merry Montrose thought Alexander was angry with her for hiring her niece, she could fear returning.

  "No," he said, intending to nip that misconception in the bud. "As long as everyone does his or her job, I don't care who they're related to."

  Merry said, "Good." Then she faced Lissa. who had taken a seat, "Lissa, when you arrived, Alexander and I were talking about my Aunt Merry's retirement and I was about to remind him that I'm only here temporarily."

  Surprised because he thought Merry would have been glad for the distraction of Lissa's entrance to take them away from that topic. Alexander said, "Yes, I remember."

  "When I took my aunt's place three days ago. I told my dad I'd be here three weeks." Merry continued, "I have to confess that for the past two days I've been considering leaving early, but then I saw the departure numbers and I realized I couldn't. I intend to stay until I get those numbers where they should be. Neither my aunt nor I want to see the resort suffer because she retired."

  Alexander stared at her. From the way she talked, it was clear that she honestly thought she could fix this problem. Worse, she genuinely thought he wanted her— the princess who hadn't worked a day in her life—to stay!

  "But I've already lost three days of my three weeks and I can't extend it. My father is insisting I return home on my thirtieth birthday." She drew a quick breath. "And I have to abide by his wishes because I have a commitment."

  "And it's a big commitment, Mr. Rochelle," Lissa said, snagging his attention and his gaze.

  From the expression in Lissa's eyes, he could see she expected him to get some kind of meaning from what Merry had said. He frowned. Merry couldn't stay because she had to return home to fulfill a commitment.

  The only commitment of hers that he knew about was…

  Oh, Lord.

  She was returning home to marry him! This time next month he could be married to her!

  When the meeting ended, Alexander grabbed Lissa's arm and, careful to keep his grip dignified but firm, he guided her to the back exit of the lobby, down the cobblestone path and to his villa. He didn't say a word until they were behind the closed door, then he turned on her.

  "What in the hell is going on?"

  Lissa smiled. "I'm not entirely sure myself."

  "Oh, come on! I know who you are! I know who she is!" Alexander headed for his bar, but changed his mind and faced Lissa again. "I'm not so naive that I don't recognize that she's here for a reason
! And whatever it is, you're in on it."

  Lissa shook her head. "Princess Meredith is only my niece. She's not obligated to tell me her plans."

  "So she has a plan?"

  "I have no idea," Lissa said with a laugh. "But if I were to guess, I'd say she's taking something of a vacation before she goes home to face her father."

  Alexander had assumed Merry was going home to announce she would be keeping her commitment to marry him, so Lissa's reply surprised him. "What do you mean, face her father?"

  "Do you think you're the only person who hasn't seen her in seven years?"

  "Yes. I thought she was hiding from me. Trying to get out of our marriage."

  "Not exactly, but I'm really not at liberty to tell you that story. When the time is right, Princess Meredith will tell you."

  "Frankly. I don't give a damn about why she left. But I do give a damn about what's going to happen when she goes home."

  Not hedging or playing coy, Lissa bluntly said, "You don't want to marry her?"

  "I'm honor-bound to marry her."

  "And I can see it thrills you to pieces."

  He sighed. He had no intention of explaining to Lissa that only a fool would be "thrilled" by a marriage that was at best a negotiation at worst a war. His parents' arranged marriage had shown him there was no room for sentiment in a union brought about for the purposes of nations.

  "It doesn't matter if I'm thrilled or not."

  Lissa's voice softened. "Of course it does. Do you think I want my goddaughter in an unhappy marriage?"

  "I think neither Merry nor I has much choice."

  "You could petition to get out of the arrangement" He shook his head. "No, I can't. Merry might have made a promise to her father, but I made a pledge to my country."