Crowning His Unlikely Princess

‘Not before you explain why I left the office with the wrong information, you won’t.’

She sighed heavily, her chest rising and falling with the effort. ‘I was hoping you wouldn’t ask.’

Logan raised a brow at her evasive response, another clue that his EA had left the building and had been replaced by a woman he didn’t know.

‘Relying on hope is a waste of time and since we don’t always get what we want I’ll ask again.’

She glanced at her hands before raising her little chin as she looked at him. ‘I gave you the draft of the prospectus that was the one before the final copy.’ She opened her hands in front of her in a conciliatory gesture. ‘I’m not sure how it happened. I did text you to let you know I would be stopping by but clearly you didn’t get it.’

‘Clearly.’ He tried not to be annoyed at her incompetence but he was. ‘But I could have collected them from the office in the morning.’

‘You have an early flight to Boston and I didn’t want to put you out.’ She gripped her fingers together. ‘It’s been a horrible day and I’m really sorry for mucking up.’ Her hands lifted in a helpless gesture. ‘I’m not myself right now.’

She could join the club. If his unwanted physical reaction to her was any indication, he wasn’t himself either. Which was why he needed to retrieve her jacket and send her on her way. About to do exactly that, he frowned when his phone rang. Pulling it from his pocket, his frown deepened when he saw his brother’s name flash up on the screen.

Given that it was the middle of the night in Arrantino, it couldn’t be good news and he pressed the answer button.

‘What?’

His blunt greeting was met with a touch of humour. ‘Have I caught you at a bad time, brother? You’re not with a woman, are you?’

‘Yes.’ Before he could think better of it his eyes raked over Cassidy again. She tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and the innocent gesture sent a raw bolt of primal lust roaring through his blood. Closing it down with ironclad self-control, he turned away from her and corrected his answer. ‘No.’

‘Good. Have you got a minute? I have...something to tell you.’

Hearing the hesitation in his brother’s voice sent an icy shiver of dread down his spine, driving all thoughts of his EA’s legs from his mind. ‘What is it? Have you been to the doctor? Has—?’

Logan stopped, unable to voice the fear that his brother’s teenage leukaemia had returned. Leo had fought the illness bravely but Logan doubted he would ever fully recover from seeing his brother so weakened by the disease. Neither would he forget how powerless he had felt in the face of something he couldn’t control.

‘No. It’s nothing like that,’ his brother assured him. ‘Well, not entirely. It’s just that...’ The pause on the end of the phone took ten years off Logan’s life. ‘I’ve decided to abdicate. Which makes you the next King of Arrantino.’

CHAPTER TWO

LOGAN’S EYES NARROWED on the darkening sky that stretched for miles outside his window, not sure he’d heard his brother correctly. ‘Abdicate?’ He ploughed his hand through his sweaty blond hair. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘An...issue has arisen.’ His brother sounded pained. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this, to be splashed across the news, but... You know how this works. We live in a goldfish bowl. I wanted it to come out differently but that opportunity has passed.’

‘You’re not making a bit of sense,’ Logan growled. ‘Cut to the chase and tell me what’s going on.’

‘The long and short of it is that Anastasia and I have formally broken up and I’m stepping down.’

‘Divorcing your wife is not a reason to abdicate,’ Logan said. Especially when divorcing that scheming little predator was the best thing Leo could ever do for himself and his country. The woman had played both of them like a finely tuned instrument five years ago, latching onto the brother who would make her Queen in the end. She had caused a rift between the two of them when Logan had tried to warn Leo against marriage. But her beauty had blinded Leo, and Logan suspected that his brother had also been heavily influenced by his duty as King. Their mother had been in Leo’s ear about the need to produce an heir for months before Anastasia had turned up on the scene and the notion had taken root. Unlike Logan, Leo had always tried to do the right thing, rarely questioning his royal duties. Until now, it seemed.

‘No, it’s not,’ Leo agreed. ‘But having an affair that has made headline news around the world is.’

‘Damn.’ Logan swore under his breath. He had never had any hard evidence of Anastasia’s affairs, but perhaps she had gone too far this time and finally shown his brother her true colours. ‘What has Anastasia done now?’ he asked, not even trying to mask the disgust in his voice.

‘It’s not Anastasia. It’s me. And strictly speaking I haven’t had an affair because I haven’t consummated the relationship yet, but I was photographed kissing another woman and the press are playing it that way, so what does it matter? Mother has hit the roof. The world’s press are trying to draw comparisons between myself and Father and are desperate to know who my new love interest is... It’s bedlam over here.’

Still processing the fact that his brother was seeing another woman, Logan braced a hand against the window, his muscles rigid. He had no doubt that his mother had hit the roof.

They had all lived in the shadow of their late father’s damaging affairs and she had been hurt the most. Both he and his brother had hated his father for it so the fact that Leo had let this happen was shocking enough. The fact that he wanted to abdicate unthinkable.

‘Just keep a cool head,’ he advised, already working out how he was going to handle the crisis. ‘And don’t do anything rash. Like abdicate!’

‘Too late,’ Leo stated without any humour in his voic

e. ‘And actually it’s not a rash decision. I made it a month ago. I’ve just been sitting with it to make sure it’s the right one to make.’