by Liz Fielding
She laughed. ‘Perhaps, but there must have been something in the air that night. Brad should organise another event, not on such an epic scale, but special evenings out in exciting locations with those extra touches that money can’t buy. He could hold it on Valentine’s Day.’
‘It sounds like a great idea. He’s always looking for new ideas, although he’s still a man down and he might be pushed for someone to organise it.’
‘What does it involve?’
‘Finding people to donate the prizes is the biggest job. Mom did a great job with the opioid clinic auction, but she and Dad are planning a cruise early in the spring, Laura is back at uni and Lucy is completely absorbed in designing a boat adapted for teaching disabled kids to sail.’
‘And organising her wedding. I do like her, Kit. I hope she and Brad will be happy.’
‘He is wearing the glazed expression of a man who is head over heels. The same look I see in the mirror every morning.’
She leaned against him. He still smelled of the sea, but these days there were overtones of puppy.
‘It’s great to see you two comfortable together, too, but it occurs to me that if the resort is short a Merchant—in other words you,’ she said, ‘I should step into the breach. I’m only teaching two mornings a week so there’s no reason why I can’t organise a Valentine’s Day auction.’
‘I can think of one very good reason. The house is straight. We have a spare bedroom and I thought, since you have time to spare, that it might be fun to start working on a project that Hannah has her heart set on.’
‘Oh? What’s that?’
‘We wrote a letter to Santa and she put a baby sister at the top of her list.’
‘Oh.’ She blushed then laughed. ‘That would be fun, but you’re forgetting something. I’m a woman—’
‘No,’ he said, his arms around her waist, drawing her close, ‘I definitely haven’t forgotten that.’
‘I’m a woman and we can multitask, but even I can’t deliver a baby in time for Christmas. And she might have to take a brother.’
‘She was adamant that it had to be a sister. We might have to keep working on it until we get it right.’
‘I’m up for that. Shall we skip the buffet, go home and start working on it?’
* * *
Welcome to the Destination Brides quartet!
Summer Escape with the Tycoon
by Donna Alward
Swept Away by the Venetian Millionaire
by Nina Singh
One Night in Provence
by Barbara Wallace
A Secret, a Safari, a Second Chance
by Liz Fielding
And if you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Liz Fielding
The Billionaire’s Convenient Bride
Her Pregnancy Bombshell
All available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from Falling for the Secret Princess by Kandy Shepherd.
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Falling for the Secret Princess
by Kandy Shepherd
CHAPTER ONE
NATALIA KNEW SHE should have eyes only for her friends, the bride and groom, as the deliriously happy couple exchanged vows in the grounds of a waterfront mansion on Sydney Harbour. The correct etiquette and protocol for every possible social occasion had been drummed into her since birth. ‘You must always follow the rules, Natalia.’ She could almost hear the commanding tones of her parents. But, although she knew it was an impolite no-no, she could not help her gaze from straying to the tall, darkly handsome guest on the opposite side of the informal garden aisle. He was hot. Unbelievably hot.
What was it about Australia? Since she’d arrived in Sydney, five days previously, she’d never seen so many good-looking men. But none had triggered her interest like this one.
She’d noticed him as soon as the guests had started arriving—broad-shouldered and imposing, black hair, wearing an immaculately tailored charcoal tuxedo. Spanish? Middle Eastern? Greek? It was difficult to tell from this distance. She’d sneaked more than a few surreptitious glances since, each lingering longer than the last. This time he must have sensed her gaze on him because he turned to meet it.
Mortified, she froze. For a long second her eyes connected with his and he smiled, teeth dazzling white against olive skin, dark brows raised in acknowledgment. She flushed and quickly averted her gaze, looking down with feigned interest at the Order of Service card in her hand.
Despite her reputation in the gossip pages, Natalia wasn’t a flirt, or a ruthless breaker of men’s hearts. In fact she could be cursedly shy when she encountered an attractive man. But there was something about this fellow wedding guest that made her want to smile right back boldly. To flutter her eyelashes and let him know how drawn she was to him.
Instead she twisted the card between her fingers, determined not to look up again. Breach of protocol aside, she’d been warned to stay right under the radar so as not to take attention away from the bride and groom by her presence. That didn’t mean conducting a public, across-the-aisle flirtation with a handsome stranger.
But then she remembered with a giddying rush of excitement that she was here incognito and in disguise. Those constricting rules need not apply to her alter ego. She could do whatever she liked.
No one but a select few were aware that she was Princess Natalia of Montovia, second in line to the throne of a small European kingdom, notorious for her six refusals of proposals of marriage from royal suitors and her seeming determination to stay single.
Her presence could draw unwanted media attention. The press intrusion was here, even in far-away Australia. Her brother Tristan, the Crown Prince, had married a Sydney girl, and every move they made was newsworthy. The condition of Natalia being allowed to accept the invitation to this wedding, where her brother was a groomsman and his wife a bridesmaid, was that she—Princess Heartbreaker—stayed out of the gossip pages.
So Natalia had chosen a full-on disguise for her stay in Sydney. Her shoulder-length dark brown hair had been straightened, lengthened with extensions and lightened to a honey-blonde that complemented her creamy skin. She’d tried coloured contact lenses to darken her blue eyes, but they’d hurt so she’d abandoned them. Her exclusive designer clothes had been replaced with a wardrobe purchased from a smart high street chain—she’d picked outfits that a regular, non-royal twenty-seven-year-old woman would wear—and her priceless jewellery was locked i
n a safe back home at the palace, save for a single pair of diamond ear studs.
So far, to her delight, no one had guessed her secret. And the more she knew she was getting away with her disguise, the bolder she’d become at testing it.
Not-Princess Natalia—at this moment not bound by her kingdom’s rules—lifted her eyes and turned back to face the handsome guest, to find him still looking at her. She smiled, sure and confident, though she was racked with nerves inside. His answering grin made her flush grow warmer and awareness shimmer through her body.
Natalia had a sense that he was assessing her, in a subtle yet thorough way. Daringly, she did the same to him. On longer examination he was every bit as hot as he had appeared at first glance. Her smile danced at the corners of her mouth and she angled her shoulders towards him, scarcely aware that she was doing so. His grin widened and he nodded almost imperceptibly in acknowledgment of their silent exchange.
Her heart started beating in excitement. What next? Should she—?
At that moment the celebrant declared Eliza and Jake man and wife, and the newlyweds exchanged their first married kiss, to the accompaniment of happy sighs and cheers from their assembled family and friends. Natalia automatically turned towards the flowered arch where her friends were kissing, and watched as the couple started their march back down the grassy aisle. The bride was flaunting a neat baby bump, which was cause for great celebration.
‘Don’t you want to have children?’
Natalia’s mother, the Queen, had asked that question—for what must have been the zillionth time since Natalia had turned eighteen—as she’d reluctantly said farewell to her only daughter.
Of course she did. And she wasn’t averse to marriage. But she wasn’t going to couple up with a man she didn’t love just so she could have children and ensure further heirs to the throne. Besides, at twenty-seven she wasn’t panicking. She simply hadn’t met a man who thrilled her, either before or after the lifting of the edict that royals had to marry royals. In theory, she could now marry anyone she liked. That was if she ever fell in love.
Was it because of the men or herself that she’d never felt that giddying elation? Maybe she had to face up to the fact she wasn’t a ‘falling in love’ person. Perhaps she didn’t have it in her to trust someone enough to fall in love. Certainly there were very few examples of happy relationships in her family to inspire her.
She believed with all her heart that Tristan and Gemma’s happy marriage would last the distance, but it was an exception. Her other brother’s arranged marriage had been trumpeted as a ‘love match’, but his wife had turned out to be cold-hearted and greedy. Her selfishness had, in fact, contributed to her husband’s death. And then there were the King and Queen... As a teenager she’d been devastated to discover her parents’ marriage was a hypocritical sham.
But this wedding here in Sydney was the real deal, and it gave Natalia a skerrick of hope that true love could be found—among non-royals, anyway.
The bride shone her a special smile as she passed between the rows of white chairs set out on the lawn of the mansion. Eliza was one of the few here who knew her real identity. Eliza and Jake were friends of her brother Tristan. And Eliza and Tristan’s wife, Gemma, along with their friend Andie, who was married to the best man, Dominic, ran Sydney’s most successful party planning business, Party Queens.
Gemma now lived in Montovia and participated in the business from a distance. Her new sister-in-law had become a close friend, and Natalia had met the other two Party Queens on their visits to Montovia.
She had been thrilled to receive an invitation to Eliza and Jake’s wedding. Not just because Eliza was a friend, but also because she’d wanted to see Sydney—the place where Tristan had met his wife Gemma, the place where he had spent a glorious few weeks as an anonymous tourist. She’d wanted a rare chance to be anonymous too. To be herself. Possibly even to find herself.
After the rest of the bridal party had passed by, she looked over to the handsome stranger with bated breath, only to see an empty chair.
* * *
Finn was caught up in a swell of well-wishers, all rushing past him to congratulate the bride and groom. As they thronged around him he lost sight of the beautiful woman across the aisle. By the time he’d elbowed past the other guests he could only see the back of her head as she hugged Eliza, her long blonde hair glinting golden in the afternoon sun. Then he himself got caught up in conversation with the best man, Dominic.
Weddings tended to bring out the grouch in Finn. He was what people delighted in calling ‘an eligible bachelor’. He’d even, to his horror, been included in a well-publicised list of ‘Bachelor Millionaires’—but he was a private person and loathed being in the spotlight. A wedding seemed to bring out matchmaking efforts in even the most unlikely of his friends and acquaintances, all keen to introduce him to potential spouses in whom he had no interest whatsoever. Marriage was not on the cards for him. Not in the foreseeable future.
Thankfully, property developer Dominic wanted to talk business, not potential brides, but real estate was the last thing on Finn’s mind. He ground his teeth in frustration at the effort of being polite when all he ached to do was find an opportunity to see her again—the gorgeous sexy woman in the dark pink dress that hugged her curvaceous form. He had to see if she’d felt the same zing of attraction. That instant awareness that hadn’t struck him for a long, long time.
After Dominic went on his way Finn politely but impatiently brushed off a stranger who wanted to gush about how romantic the wedding was and headed for the veranda of the beautiful old Kirribilli house where the reception was being held. He had one thing on his mind—to find that lovely woman before some other guy did.
* * *
Where was he? Natalia searched the throng of guests, the women wearing a rainbow of dresses, the men in shades of grey and black. No hot guy.
Eliza had ridden up the makeshift aisle on a pony, and a cluster of people had gathered to admire the little mare tethered under the shade cast by the late-afternoon shadow of a towering fig tree. Hot guy wasn’t there either.
Natalia was five-foot-five in bare feet. Her stilettos gave her some height advantage over the crowd, but not enough to locate him.
She headed for the mansion where the meal was to be served. Then climbed the short flight of wide, sandstone steps to a veranda that gave a view of the garden to the harbour beyond.
From her new vantage point she scanned the throng in the garden below. Dignity, Natalia, dignity. A princess did not chase after a man—no matter how devastatingly attractive she found him.
She rested her hands lightly on the veranda railing, so any onlooker would think she had paused to admire the view of the Opera House with its white sails on the opposite shore of the harbour. Then she tensed at the sudden awareness that tingled along her spine. All her senses seemed to scream an alert.
Him.
Slowly she turned around. The hot guy stood behind her, framed by the arched sandstone windows of the mansion. Just steps away he looked even more handsome than at first glance. Sculpted cheekbones, and his eyes... Not the dark brown she had expected but lighter—hazel, perhaps. A sensuous mouth that lifted in a half smile.
He held a flute of champagne in each hand, tiny bubbles floating rapidly upwards like the excitement rising in her. He stepped forward and offered her a glass. ‘I snagged these from a waiter heading out to the garden.’
That voice! Deep, resonant, husky... The tone sent shivers through her. Her hands felt suddenly clammy with nerves. But it would be most un-princess-like behaviour to wipe them down the sides of her dress. She reached out for the flute, hoping it wouldn’t slide out of her grip. The movement brought her closer to him, so close that she caught his scent—spicy, fresh, male—so potent it caused her pulse to quicken.
She wanted to close her eyes and breathe him in. Instead she took a brea
th to steady herself. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured.
‘Most welcome. You’re a friend of the groom?’ he said.
How did he know that? Panic seized her voice, choking any possible reply.
‘You were on the groom’s side of the aisle,’ he prompted.
‘Yes. Yes, of course. Jake is a family friend.’
Tristan, Jake and Dominic had been friends for years, having met on the ski slopes of Montovia long before their Party Queens spouses had come along. Jake had been Tristan’s best man at his wedding to Gemma.
But Natalia didn’t want any questions about their connection. ‘You, of course, were on the bride’s side.’
‘I went to university with Eliza. Since then I’ve done business with her party planning company.’
‘I met her quite recently,’ Natalia said.
Eliza had been one of Gemma’s bridesmaids at her brother’s spectacular wedding in the grand cathedral the previous year. Just the kind of wedding her parents intended for her. Dread squeezed her at the very thought. Marriage Montovian royal-style seemed more like a trap than a gateway to happy-ever-after.
‘Eliza’s lovely, and she seems so happy.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘And Jake’s a good guy.’
Natalia had devised a cover story for her alter ego, but it didn’t go very deep. Stalling, she gulped some champagne as she tried to keep the details straight in her mind.
Hot Guy seemed to have no such hesitation. He transferred his glass to his left hand and offered his right. ‘Finn O’Neill,’ he said, by way of introduction.
Natalie stared at him, spluttered over her champagne, and coughed. Then she quickly recovered herself. ‘I’m sorry, I—’
‘You were startled by my name? Don’t worry. You’re not the first and I’d lay a hefty bet you won’t be the last. Irish father; Chinese grandfather and Italian grandmother on my mother’s side.’
