Okay, maybe not “just like” his novel, but, like his novel, some people will turn their nose up at art designed to inspire love and passion. They will call it frivolous or smutty or wrong, but for me, knowing women will dress in my designs and feel beautiful, powerful, and worshipped and adored by their lovers makes me feel those things, too.
I will never know what it’s like to have a lover of my own, but I’m part of hundreds of loves stories. Maybe thousands, if I win the design contract for the spring collection and my work goes into mass production.
But first I have to finish.
I settle into my rented cottage far from my family’s drama and work until my eyes ache and my head throbs. I work until my fingertips are bruised and covered in pinprick scabs. I work until my shoulders are one solid knot of twisted tissue and I worry I might never be able to stand up straight again.
But I’m so close. The end is in sight.
I just need one final push, one last burst of frenzied concentration, and my baby will be born.
But first I need tea.
Or, better yet, coffee.
I love tea, but sometimes only the dark lord of caffeine will do.
I head for the coffee shop in the village near my cottage, expecting to fetch coffee and pastries and a few of the honey-flavored lollipops I’ve become addicted to in the short time I’ve been in town.
Instead, I open the door and run directly into six feet three inches of heavily muscled, scowling, prince-flavored trouble.
3
Prince Jeffrey James Von Bergen
A man who smells a rat—
a cute rat—
but a rat, nevertheless.
I don’t believe in fate.
I believe in hard work, willpower, and a man’s capacity to shape his own future—provided he’s willing to fight for what he wants. I come from a long line of stubborn men who refused to take “no” or “can’t” or often even “shouldn’t” for an answer, and I intend to follow in their footsteps.
I won’t be coming home empty-handed.
As I guide my sleek, Jaguar F-TYPE around the tight, Alpine curves, making my way deeper into the Rindish countryside, I vow to scour every mountainous nook and cranny of the nation. I will find Elizabeth Rochat, prove she’s Elizabeth, and confirm that the woman passing herself off to my brother as his fiancée is an imposter.
She’s Sabrina, Elizabeth’s twin sister, or I’ll eat my hat.
Or my coat, the heavy wool one.
I’m that sure Andrew’s being duped.
Yes, they look eerily alike, even for twins, but there are subtle physical differences that will be readily apparent once I tote the real Elizabeth home to Gallantia for a side-by-side comparison. And of course, there are the personality differences. Like that fact that Elizabeth is one of the most intriguing people I’ve met and Sabrina…
Well, Sabrina is…nice. Friendly. Okay.
Andrew certainly seems interested in her, but Sabrina is no Elizabeth. I only spent three hours with Lizzy the last time we spoke, but even at thirteen, she was a layered, thoughtful, quirky-in-an-enjoyable-way sort of person.
I’m sure at twenty-five, she’s even more charming.
As angry as I am at the twins for pulling such a stupid stunt—an engagement is serious business, and a royal engagement even more so—I can’t deny that I’m eager to see Elizabeth again.
To talk to her. Listen to her. To discover her thoughts on the state of the world and the evolution of literature in the past decade, to learn what she’s been reading and if she enjoyed Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
We can talk about that now. Back when she was thirteen and I was sixteen, it would have been inappropriate to call her up and ask if she found the sex scenes in that book as depressing as I did. But at twenty-five and twenty-eight, we can talk about anything we damned well please.
Including the fact that she shouldn’t marry my brother.
Elizabeth and her sister are going about this the wrong way, but their instinct is spot on. This arranged marriage has been a disaster in the making from day one. It’s high time someone came to their senses and put his or her foot down.
Andrew, however, is determined not to be the “bad guy.” My older brother has always cared far too much about what other people think. In his defense, I’m sure it’s hard to go against our grandfather’s wishes now that he’s gone, so it falls to Elizabeth to call for a return to sanity.
I have no doubt she has it in her to end the betrothal.
The man Andrew hired to spy on his fiancée painted Elizabeth as a shy, stuttering, weak-willed woman, but I’ve met her. She’s calm and quiet, but there’s steel in her core. She might not stand up for what she wants often, but when she sets her mind on something, I bet she’s a force to be reckoned with.