Crowning His Unlikely Princess

Logan’s lips curled into a rueful grin. ‘You roll with it.’

That is exactly what her sensei would tell her to do.

‘Easy for some,’ she said despondently. ‘I’m not a roll-with-it kind of girl.’ She never had been and she never would be. ‘I’m more the pull it apart, analyse it to death and put it into a plastic food container kind of girl. That’s why your office runs so well.’

And maybe why her love life sucked. She’d discovered on the few dates that she’d had that men generally didn’t appreciate being picked apart so that their motives were laid bare. Unfortunately for them, Cassidy didn’t like being used so it inevitably turned into a lose-lose situation.

‘My office hasn’t run quite so well today,’ Logan drawled.

‘I know. And again I’m sorry about that. I had a few things on my mind.’

‘Such as?’

Cassidy blinked with surprise, absently noting the granite-hard line of his unshaven jaw. She had never seen him as anything other than clean-shaven in the office and she couldn’t stop herself from wondering if it would be hard or soft to the touch. ‘You really want to know?’

‘If it means I have my EA back then I do.’

For a moment she had thought that he’d actually been interested in her as a person and now she felt...disappointed. Wondering whether to tell him or not, she decided that he had asked and, knowing him, he’d likely push until she answered anyway.

‘My sister told me that she’s getting married and it threw me out all day.’

Logan frowned. ‘You don’t like her partner?’

‘No, I love him. He’s great...but she... It’s just taken me by surprise. And on top of that she needed me to look after my twin nieces this week so she’s not happy with me for leaving.’

‘Can’t she find someone else?’

‘I’m hoping she can, but really I look after them all the time so we’ve never had to rely on anyone else on a regular basis.’

‘All the time?’

Seeing his surprise, she shrugged. ‘Pretty much. But I’m always happy to do it. I love my nieces.’

‘I’m sure you d

o. But it sounds like your sister is taking advantage.’

Having felt guilty for thinking the same thing herself once or twice, Cassidy jumped to Peta’s defence. ‘She’s had a hard time. She was a teenage mother and the twin’s father bailed before they were born. She didn’t have a lot of help and it was really hard for her.’

‘I have no doubt. So who did help out?’ he asked shrewdly. ‘You?’

‘There wasn’t anyone else. Our mother had left two years earlier, and our father sort of lost the plot. He became depressed and started gambling...’ She bit into her lower lip as she remembered how worried she and Peta had been that something would happen to him. That fear had been realised when a few years back he’d died after his car had collided with a tree.

‘Logan, I’m pretty sure you don’t want to hear any of this.’ And she was shocked to find that she was seriously at risk of blurting out her long, sordid history, including her own awful indiscretion, and she never talked about the past to anyone, preferring to leave it long buried. ‘I promise that once we land I’ll be back to normal. In fact, I’ll start now. I’m going to sit here and work all night then my lack of packing won’t matter.’

‘You can’t do that. We’ll arrive just before lunch Arrantinian time tomorrow and I need you fresh. If you don’t sleep you’ll suffer jet-lag.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

Logan sat back in his chair, regarding her steadily. ‘I didn’t know you were this stubborn.’

‘I’m not stubborn.’

‘Cassidy, if I have to order you into the bedroom, I will.’

Cassidy’s eyes went wide. She blushed, even though she knew there was no reason to. Still the devil on her shoulder whispered to her that she should ask him what he would do if she disobeyed and the heated anticipation that shot through her sent her flying to her feet.

‘Fine. I’ll use the bed. But I’m not borrowing a shirt.’