The Prince and the Pie Maker (The Rebel Royals 2)

Alex was fine with that … one day. Perhaps in a year, after the restaurant, which he’d allow his brother to finance, was doing well. But for now, he pulled Jan into his arms and kissed her lightly. Then because he was a glutton, he deepened the kiss.

All around him, cameras flashed. But for once in his life, he didn’t mind what story they printed in the papers because this particular headline could not be spun into any other tale except a Prince in Love.

Epilogue

Diego Zhi Wen de Barnadino, the current Duke of Mondego, sat behind the massive oak desk of his ancestors peering down at the day’s headline. A Prince in Love? asked the rag of a newspaper that was The Royal Times. That reporter, Lila Drake, had been a pain in the sides of noblemen and noblewomen across all of Cordoba for years. She could’ve left the question mark off of the report.

Instead, she speculated that Alex and Jan might not be in it for love. That they could possibly be in their relationship, in their business partnership, for money.

Though Zhi had never expected Alex to actually get married, he knew that what was between the prince and the pie maker was the trues form of love he’d ever bared witness to. He also knew that money played no part in the affair.

Zhi had known there was something afoot between the two back when Jan had presented a perfect pie and swiped a win from him in the annual Union Day pie competition. Her concoction had won her the equivalent of five thousand US dollars.

It had been money that he’d needed. Money that his ducal estate could have sorely used. Instead, he’d had to laugh off the loss as though it meant nothing to him.

He was a duke. He held vast lands. His coffers were brimming. Unfortunately, only two out of those three statements were true.

The ancestral desk wobbled as Zhi leaned his elbows on it. It was in need of repair. So many things inside this crumbling estate were in need of rehabilitation, reconstruction, or a downright overhaul. But the money coming in was a trickle where he needed a deluge to set the estate right.

Zhi bent down and stuffed a wadded sheet of paper beneath the unbalanced desk leg. It would hold for a while. But if he wasn’t careful, he’d lose it all due to his father’s mismanagement of their wealth.

His ailing father had a solution. Whenever the old man was lucid, he demanded Zhi simply do what he did in his position when he took over from his near destitute father. That solution was simply to marry more money.

It was the way of the men of their class. Love matches like Alex’s were rare even today. But Zhi was neither irresponsible when it came to money, nor was he heartless when it came to women. So he rejected that idea.

Not that he planned to find love in this lifetime. But he would save h

is dukedom, and not by lying to some unsuspecting heiress like had been done to his mother. No, Zhi planned to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty.

He’d righted the desk. He would right the entire estate, brick by brick, stone by stone, dollar by dollar. He just needed time to do it… and a miracle would be nice.

Unfortunately, Zhi’s time is about to run out.

He’s going to have to consider his father’s Option B

-to boo up with a wealthy heiress.

Too bad he’s about to fall for the rich girl’s party DJ instead!

The tables will turn when these two opposites attract.