The Royal Collection

Herself—something more and more lost behind the royal mask, the essential facades of good manners, of duty. Something that might be lost forever when she was returned to Prince Mahail as his bride.

“There’s an island,” she called over the putter of the engine. “My grandparents have a summer place on a small island just north of the mainland. No one is ever there at this time of year.”

“No one? No security? No groundskeeper?”

“It’s a private island, but not the posh kind. You’d have to know my grandfather to understand. He hates all the royal fuss-fuss as he calls it. He likes simplicity.

“The island is almost primitive. There’s no electricity, the house is like a cottage, it even has a thatched roof.”

“Fresh water, or do we have to bring our own?”

“There’s a stream.” Ronan thought like a soldier, she realized. All she could think about was it would be such a good place to try on her new bikini, such a wonderful place to rediscover who she really was! But, given the strange trembling inside her, how wise would that be? Given the reality of his smile, the pure sexiness of it, was it possible she was headed into a worse danger zone than the one she was leaving?

“Bedding? Blankets?”

His mind, thankfully, a million miles from bikinis, on the more practical considerations. “I think so.”

“How do you get to it?”

“My grandfather keeps a boat at the dock across the bay from it.”

“Perfect,” he said. “Show me the fastest way to the boat dock.”

But she didn’t tell him the shortest way. She directed him the longest way possible, because who knew if she would ever ride a motorcycle again, her arms wrapped so intimately around a man with such an incredible, sexy smile?

She loved the motorcycle, even if she had been deprived of feeling the fingers of the wind playing with her hair. She could still feel the island breeze on her face, playing with the hem of her skirt, touching her legs. She could feel the kiss of warm sunshine. She had a lovely sensation of being connected to everything around her. The air was perfumed, birds and monkeys chattered in the trees. She didn’t feel separate from it, she felt like a part of it.

And she could feel the exquisite sensation of being connected to him—her arms wrapped around the hard-muscled bands of his stomach, her cheek resting on the solid expanse of his back, her legs forming a rather intimate vee around him.

Her mother, she knew, would have an absolute fit. And her father wouldn’t be too happy with her, either. She could only imagine how Mahail would feel if he saw her now!

Which only added to the delectable sense of dancing with danger that Princess Shoshauna was feeling: free, adventurous, as if anything at all could happen.

Just this morning her whole life had seemed to be mapped out in front of her, her fate inescapable. Now she had hair that Prince Mahail would hate, and she didn’t think he’d like it very much that she had spent a week alone with a strange man, either!

“Can you go faster?’ she called to Ronan over the wind.

The slightest hesitation, and then he did, opening the bike up so that they were roaring down the twisting highway, until tears formed in her eyes and she could feel the thrill to the bottom of her belly.

She refused to dwell on how long it would last, or if this was the only time she would ever do this.

Instead she threw back her head and laughed out loud for the sheer joy of the moment, at her unexpected encounter with the most heady drug of all—freedom.

CHAPTER THREE

RONAN cut the engine of the motorboat, letting it drift in to the deserted beach. He glanced at the princess, asleep in the bottom of the boat, exhausted from the day, and decided there was no need for both of them to get wet. He stood up, stepped off the hull into a gentle surf. The seawater was warm on his legs as he dragged the boat up onto the sand.

It was night, but the sky was breathtaking, star-studded. A full moon frosted each softly lapping wave in white and painted the fine beach sand a bewitching shade of silver.

From a soldier’s perspective, the island was perfect. Looking back across the water, he could barely make out the dark outline of the main island of B’Ranasha. He could see the odd light flickering on that distant shore.

He had circled this island once in the boat, a rough reconnaissance. It was only about eight kilometers all the way around it. Better yet, it had only this one protected bay, and only the one beach suitable for landing a boat.

Everywhere else the thick tropical growth, or rocky cliffs, came right to the water’s edge. The island was too small and bushed in to land a plane on. It would be a nightmare to parachute in to, and it would be a challenge to land a helicopter here. Planes and helicopters gave plenty of warning they were arriving, anyway.

It was a highly defensible position. Perfect from a soldier’s perspective.

But from a personal point of view, from a man’s perspective, it couldn’t be much worse. It was a deserted island more amazing than a movie set. The sand was white, fine and flawless, exotic birds filled the night air with music, a tantalizing perfume rode the gentle night breeze. Palm trees swayed in the wind, ferns and flowers abounded.

At the head of the beach was a cottage, palm-frond roof, screened porch looking out to the sea. It was the kind of retreat people came to on holidays and honeymoons, not to hide out. Which was a good thing. He highly doubted anyone would think to look for the princess here.

He gave the rope attached to the boat another pull, hauled it further up on the sand until he was satisfied it would be safe, even from the tide, which, according to the tide charts he had purchased at a small seaside village, would come up during the night.

Only then did he peer back at Aurora, his very own Sleeping Beauty. The princess, worn down from all the unscheduled excitement of her wedding day, was curled up in the bottom of the boat, fast asleep on a bed of life jackets.

The silver of the moon washed her in magic, though he felt the shock of her shorn head again, followed by a jolt of a different kind—the short hair did nothing but accentuate her loveliness. Right now he was astonished by the length and fullness of her lashes, casting sooty shadows on the roundness of her cheeks. Her lips moved, forming words in her sleep, something in her own language, ret-nuh.

He’d insisted on a life jacket, but the skirt was riding high up her legs, he caught a glimpse of bridal white panties so pure he could feel a certain dryness in his mouth. He reached out and gave the skirt a tug down, whether to save her embarrassment or to save himself he wasn’t quite sure.

A deserted island. A beautiful woman. A week. He was no math whiz, but he knew a bad equation when he came across it.

He’d done plenty of protection duty, and though it wasn’t his favorite assignment, Ronan prided himself on doing his work well. He’d protected heads of states and their families, politicians, royalty, CEOs.

The person being protected was known amongst the team as the “principal.” The team didn’t even use personal names when they discussed strategy, formulated plans. The cardinal rule, the constant in protection work, was maintaining a completely professional, arm’s-length relationship. Emotional engagement compromised the mission, period.

But the very circumstances of those other assignments made maintaining professionalism easy. The idea of forming any kind of deeper relationship or even a friendship, with the principal had been unthinkable. There was always a team, never just one person. There was always an environment conducive to maintaining preordained boundaries.

Ronan was in brand-new territory, and he didn’t like it. So, before he woke her up, he looked to the stars, gathered his strength, reminded himself of the mission, the boundaries, the rules.

“Hey,” he called softly, finally, “wake up.”

She stirred but didn’t wake, and he leaned into the boat and nudged her shoulder with his hand. She was slender as a reed, the roundness of her shoulder the epitome of feminine softness.

“Princess.” It would be infinitely easy to reach in and scoop her up, to carry her across the sand to that cottage, but that brief contact with her shoulder was fair warning it would be better not to add one little bit of physical contact to the already volatile combination.

A bad time to think of her lips on his cheek earlier in the day, her slight curves pressed hard against him on that motorcycle.

“Wake up,” he said louder, more roughly.

She did, blinked—that blank look of one who couldn’t quite place where they were. And then she focused on him and smiled in a way that could melt even the most professional soldier’s dedication to absolute duty.

She sat up, looked around and then sighed with contentment. She liked being here. She had liked the entire day way too much! He had not been nearly as immune to her laughter and her arms wrapped around him as he had wanted to be, but thankfully she didn’t have to know that!

She shrugged out of the life jacket and then stretched, pressing the full sensuous roundness of her breasts into the thin fabric of the ill-fitting blouse. Then she stood up. The boat rocked on the sand, and the physical contact he wanted so badly not to happen, happened anyway. He caught her, steadied her as the boat rocked on the uneven ground. She took one more step, the boat pitched, and she would have gone to her knees.

Except his hands encircled her waist nearly completely, the thumb and index finger of his right hand nearly touching those of his left. He lifted her from the boat, swung her onto the sand, amazed by her slightness. She didn’t weigh any more than a fully loaded combat pack.

“You’re strong!” she said.

He withdrew from her swiftly, not allowing himself to preen under her admiration. A week. They had to make it a week.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked, hugging herself, apparently oblivious to his discomfort. “I love it here. My grandfather called it Naidina Karobin—it means something like my heart is home.”

Great.

“Isn’t that pretty?”

“Yeah, sure.” Real men didn’t use words like pretty. Except maybe in secret, when they looked at a face like hers, washed in moonlight, alive with discovery. Mission.

He reached into the boat and grabbed the knapsack. As he followed her across the sand toward the cottage, he noted that the trees in the grove around it were loaded with edible fruits, coconuts, bananas, mangos.

He’d landed in the Garden of Eden. He only hoped he could resist the apple. Boundaries.

As they got closer, the princess jacked her skirt up and ran, danced really, across the sand. She looked like some kind of moonlit nymph, her slender legs painted in silver. Rules, duty, professionalism.

He followed her more slowly, as if he could put off the moment when they set up housekeeping together and everything intensified yet more.

Becoming part of Excalibur, Ronan’s endurance, physical strength, intellectual assets, ability to cope with stress had all been tested beyond normal limits. One man in twenty who was recruited for that unit made it through the selection process. Membership meant being stronger, faster, tougher in mind and spirit than the average man.

And yet to share the space of that cottage on this island with a real-live sleeping beauty seemed as if it would test him in ways he had never been tested before.

Ronan had been in possession of the princess for less than twenty-four hours and he already felt plenty tested!

He drew a deep breath as he followed her up wide steps to the screen door that he thought had been a screened-in veranda. As his eyes adjusted to the lack of moonlight inside, he saw he had been mistaken.

It was not a screened porch, but a screened-in house. A summer house, she’d said, obviously designed so that it caught the breeze from every angle on hot summer nights. The huge overhang of the roof would protect it from the rare days of inclement weather these islands experienced.

White, sheer curtains lifted and fell in the breeze, making the inside of the house enchanting and exotic. The main room had dark, beautiful wooden floors, worn smooth from years of use, moonlight spilling across them. Deeply cushioned, colorful rattan furniture was grouped casually around a coffee table, a space that invited conversation, relaxation.

Intimacy.

At the other end of the room was a dining area, the furniture old, dark, exquisitely carved and obviously valuable. That such good furniture would be left out in an unlocked cottage should have reassured him how safe the island was. But Ronan was a little too aware that the dangers here could come from within, not without.

The screens as walls gave a magnificent illusion of there being no separation between the indoor living space and the outdoors.

He spied a hurricane lamp and lit it, hoping the light would chase away the feeling of enchantment, but instead, in the flickering golden light, the great room became downright romantic, soft, sultry, sensual.

The light was soft on her face, too, her expression rapt as she looked around, her eyes glowing with the happiness of memories.

Ronan would have liked it a lot better if she was spoiled rotten, complaining about spiderwebs and the lack of electricity.

To distance himself from the unwanted whoosh of attraction he felt, Ronan went hurriedly across the room to investigate a door at the back of it. It led to an outdoor kitchen, and he went out. The outdoor cooking space was complete with a huge wood-fired oven and a grill. Open shelves were lined with canned goods. A person could camp out here, on this island, comfortably, for a year.

Beyond that, in a flower- and fern-encircled grove was an open-air shower, and the whoosh he’d been trying to outrun came back.

He reentered the house reluctantly, thankful he didn’t see her right away. He finished his inventory of the main house: there were two rooms off the great room, and he entered the first. It was the main bedroom, almost entirely taken up by a huge bed framed with soaring rough timbers, dark with age, more sheer white curtains flowing around the bed, surrounding it. Again the screens acting as outer walls made the bed seem to be set right amongst the palms and mango trees. The perfume of a thousand different flowers tickled his nose. There was no barrier to sound, either. The sea whispered poetry. He backed hastily out of there.

Princess Shoshauna was in the smaller of the bedrooms, looking around and hugging herself.

“This is where I always stayed when I was a child! Look how it feels as if you are right outside! My grandfather designed this house. He was an architect. That’s how he came to be on B’Ranasha. I’ll have this room.”

He would have much preferred she take the bigger room, act snotty and entitled so he could kill the whoosh in his stomach.

“I think you should take the bigger room,” he suggested. “You are the princess.”

“Not this week I’m not.” She smiled, delighted to have declared herself not a princess.

If she wasn’t a princess, if she was just an ordinary girl…he cut off the train of his thought. It didn’t matter if she was a wandering gypsy. She was still the principal, and it was still his mission to protect her.

He reached into his pocket, took out a pocketknife and cut the cord that kept the mattress rolled up. He found the bedding in a tightly closed trunk under the bed. A floral sachet had been packed with it, and the white linen sheets smelled exotic.

He laid them quickly on the bed, then watched, bemused, when she eyed the pile of bedding as though it were an interesting but baffling jigsaw puzzle.

“You don’t know how to make a bed,” he guessed, incredulous, then wondered why it would surprise him that a princess had no idea how to make a bed.

The truth was, it would be way too easy to forget she was a princess, especially with her standing there with shorn hair, and in a badly rumpled and ill-fitting dress.

But that was exactly what he had to remember, to keep his boundaries clear, his professionalism unsullied, his duty foremost in his mind. She was a princess, a real one. He was a soldier. Their stations in life were millions of miles apart. And they were going to stay that way.

“My mother would never have allowed it,” she said, sadly. “She had this idea that to do things that could be done by servants was common. Of course, she was a commoner, and she never quite overcame her insecurity about it.”

She didn’t know how to make a bed.

Every soldier had been tormented, at one time or another, with making a bed that could satisfy a drill sergeant who had no intention of being satisfied. Ronan could make a bed—perfectly—anywhere, anytime.

To focus on the differences between them would strengthen his will. To perceive her as pampered and useless would go a long way in erasing the memory of her slender curves pressed into his back as they rode that motorcycle together.

“I’d be happy to make it for you, Princess,” he said.

She glared at him. “I don’t want you to make it for me! I want you to show me how to make it.”

He was tired. He had not had the benefit of a two hour nap in the bottom of the boat. She had slept for an hour or so before that, as well, while they had waited, hidden, for it to get dark enough to take her grandfather’s boat from the dock and cross the water without being seen.

It would be easier for him to make the bed himself, but he had to get through a full week, and that wasn’t going to be easy if he argued with her over little things.

His eyes went to the full puffiness of her lips, and he felt his own weariness, his resolve flickering.

He had to get though a full week without kissing her, too.

Making a bed together didn’t seem like a very good starting point for keeping things professional and distant. Neither did fighting with her.

He had the uneasy feeling he’d better adjust to being put in no-win positions by the princess.

He separated the sheets from the blankets, found the bottom sheet and tossed it over the mattress.

“First you tuck this under the mattress,” he said.

“I’ll do it!” she said, when he reached out to demonstrate.

He held up his hands in surrender, stood back, tried not to wince at her sloppy corners, the slack fabric in the center of the bed. He didn’t offer to help as she grunted over lifting the corners of the mattress.

He handed her the second sheet, tried to stay expressionless as she shoved it under the bottom of the mattress in such a bunched-up mess that the mattress lifted.

She caught the tip of her tongue between her teeth as she focused with furious concentration on the task at hand. He folded his arms firmly over his chest.

She inserted the pillows in the cases with the seams in the wrong places and fluffed them. Then he handed her the top blanket, which she tossed haphazardly on top of the rest of her mess.

The bed was a buck private’s nightmare, but she smiled with pleasure at her final result. To his eye, it looked more like a nest than a well-made bed.

“See?” she said. “I can do ordinary things.”

“Yes,” he said, deadpan. “I can clearly see that.”

Something in his tone must have betrayed him, because she searched his face with grave suspicion.

A drill sergeant would have had the thrill of ripping it apart and making her do it again, but he wasn’t a drill sergeant. In fact, at the moment he was just an ordinary guy, trying to survive.

“Okay,” he said, “if you have everything—”

“Oh, I’ll make yours, too. For practice.”

“What do you need practice making a bed for?” he asked crankily. He didn’t want her touching his bedding.

He was suddenly acutely aware of how alone they were here, of how the dampness of the sea air was making the baggy dress cling to her, of how her short hair was curling slightly from humidity, and there seemed to be a dewy film forming on her skin. He was aware of how her tongue had looked, caught between her teeth.

Ignoring him, she marched right by him into his room. He trailed behind her reluctantly, watched as she opened the trunk where the linens were kept and began tossing them on his bed.

“I’m going to do all kinds of ordinary things this week,” she announced.

“Such as?” He didn’t offer to help her make the bed, just watched, secretly aghast at the mess she was making.

“Cooking!” she decided.

“I can hardly wait.”

He got the suspicious look again.

“Washing dishes. Doing laundry. You can show me those things, can’t you?”

She sounded so enthused he thought she must be pulling his leg, but he could tell by the genuine eager expression on her face she really wasn’t.

How did a man maintain professional distance from a princess who wanted nothing more than to be an ordinary girl, who was enthralled at the prospect of doing the most ordinary of things?

He nodded cautiously.

“I would like to learn how to sew on a button,” she decided. “Do you know how to do that?”

Sewing buttons, insignia, pant hems, was right up there with making beds in a soldier’s how-to arsenal, but she didn’t wait for him to answer.

“And I can’t wait to swim in the ocean! I used to swim here when I was a child. I love it!”

He thought of that bikini in their backpack, closed his eyes, marshaling strength.

“You don’t happen to know how to surf, do you?” she asked him. “There used to be a surfboard under the cottage. I hope it’s still there!”

His boyhood days had been spent on a surfboard. It was probably what had saved him from delinquency, his love of the waves, his need to perfect the dance with the extraordinary, crashing power of them.

“This bay doesn’t look like it would ever get much in the way of surf,” he told her. “It’s pretty protected.”

She looked disappointed, but then brightened. “There’s snorkeling equipment under there, too. Maybe we can do that.”

We, as if they were two kids together on vacation. Now would be the time to let her know he had no intention of being her playmate, but he held his tongue.

She gave his bed a final, satisfied pat. “Well, good night Ronan. I can’t wait for tomorrow.” She blew him a kiss, which was only slightly better than the one she had planted on his cheek earlier in the day.

He rubbed his cheek, aggravated, as if the kiss had actually landed, an uncomfortably whimsical thought for a man who prided himself on his pragmatic nature. He listened for her to get into her own bed, then went on silent feet and checked each side of the cabin.

The night was silent, except for the night birds. The ocean was dark and still, the only lights were from the moon and stars, the few lights on the mainland had winked out.

He went back into his bedroom. He knew he needed to sleep, that it would help him keep his thinking clear and disciplined. He also knew he had acquired, over the years, that gift peculiar to soldiers of sleeping in a state of readiness. Any sound that didn’t belong would awaken him instantly. His highly developed sixth sense would guard them both through the night.

He shrugged out of his shirt but left the shorts on. He certainly didn’t want her to ever see him in his underwear, and he might have to get out of bed quickly in the night. He climbed into bed. It had to be his imagination that her perfume lingered on the sheets. Still, tired as he was, he tossed and turned until finally, an hour later, he got out of the bed, remade it perfectly. He got back in and slept instantly.

Shoshauna awoke to light splashing across her bed, birdsong, the smell and sound of the sea.

She remembered she was on her grandfather’s island and thought to herself, my heart is home. She remembered her narrow escape from marriage, the unexpected gifts yesterday: riding the motorcycle, buying the daring bathing suit and shorty-shorts.

Kissing Ronan on the cheek. Feeling the muscles of his back as they shared the motorcycle, feeling his hands encircle her waist.

Ronan was a gloriously made man, all hard muscle, graceful efficiency of movement, easy, unconscious strength, a certain breathtaking confidence in his physical abilities. Add to that the soft, firm voice, his accent. And his eyes! A soldier’s eyes to be sure, stern, forbidding even. But when the mask slipped, when they glinted with laughter, she felt this uncontrollable—and definitely wicked—shiver of pure wanting. He made her feel such an amazing mixture of things: excited and shy, aggravated, annoyed, alive.

Shoshauna knew it was wrong to be thinking like that. She was promised to another. And yet…if you could pick a man to spend a week on a deserted island with, you would pick a man like Ronan.

She gave her head a shake at the naughty direction of her own thoughts and realized her head felt unnaturally light and then remembered she had cut her hair.

She had glimpsed her hair in the mirror of the motorcycle. Now she hopped out of bed and had a good look in the mirror above the dressing table.

“Oh!” she said, touching her fingers to it. It looked awful, crushed in places from sleep, standing straight up in others. Despite that, she decided she loved it. It made her look like a girl who would never back down from an adventure, not a princess who had spent her life in a tower, at least figuratively speaking! In fact, she felt in love with life this morning, excited about whatever new gifts the day held. Excited about a chance to get to know Ronan better.

But wasn’t that a betrayal of the man she was promised to?

Not necessarily, she told herself. This was her opportunity to be ordinary!

She realized she had not felt this way—happy, hopeful—since she had said yes to Prince Mahail’s proposal. Up till now she had woken up each and every morning with a knot in her stomach that shopping for the world’s most luxurious trousseau could not begin to undo. She had woken each morning with a growing sense of dread, a prisoner counting down to their date with the gallows.

Her stomach dipped downward, reminding her that her reprieve was probably temporary at best.

But she refused to think of that now, to waste even one precious moment of her freedom.

Ronan had left the backpack in her room, and she pawed through it, found the shorty-shorts and a red, spaghetti-strapped shirt that hugged her curves. She put on the outfit and twirled in front of the mirror, her sense of being an ordinary girl increased sweetly.

Her mother would have hated both the amount of leg showing and the skimpiness of the top, which made Shoshauna enjoy her outfit even more. She liked the way lots of bare skin against warm air felt: free, faintly sensual and very comfortable.

She went out her door, saw his bedroom was already empty. She stopped when she saw his bed was made, hesitated, then went in and inspected it. The bedding was crisp and taut. She backed out when she realized the room smelled like him: something so masculine and rich it was nearly drugging.

She went back to her own room, tugged the rumpled bedding into some semblance of order, declared herself and the room perfectly wonderfully ordinary and went in search of Ronan.

He was at the outdoor kitchen, a basket of fruit beside him that he was peeling and cutting into chunks. She watched him for a moment, enjoying the pure poetry of him performing such a simple task, and then blushed when he glanced at her and lifted an eyebrow. He had known she stood there observing him!

Still, there was a flash of something in his eyes as he took in her outfit, before it was quickly veiled, a barrier swiftly erected. And there was no hint of that flash in his voice.

“Princess,” he said formally, “did you sleep well?”

It was several giant steps back from the man who had laughed with her yesterday. She wanted to break down the barrier she saw in his eyes. What good was being an ordinary girl if it was as if she was on this island alone? If her intrigue with this man was not shared?

“You must call me Shoshauna,” she said.

“I can’t.”

She glared at him. “I command it.”

He actually laughed out loud, the same laugh that had given her her first glimpse yesterday of just how real he could be, making her yearn to know him, know someone real.

“Command away, Princess. I’m not calling you by your first name.”

“Why?”

“It’s too familiar. I’m your bodyguard, not your buddy.”

She felt the sting of that. Her disappointment was acute. He wanted the exact opposite of what she wanted! She wanted to feel close to another human being, he wanted to feel distant. She wanted to use this time together to explore his mysteries, he was just as determined to keep them secret.

It was frustrating! Her mother would approve of his attitude, a man who knew his place and was so determined to keep their different positions as a barrier between them.

But so would her grandmother love him. Her grandmother said soldiers made the best husbands, because they already knew how to obey. Not that he was showing any sign of obeying Shoshauna!

And not that she wanted to be thinking of this handsome man and the word husband in the same sentence. She had just narrowly missed making marriage her fate.

Still, she wanted him to participate in the great adventure she was on. How could she forget she was a princess, forget her obligations and duties for a short while, if he was going to insist on reminding her at every turn by using a formal title?

“How about my code name, then?” she asked.

He hesitated, glanced at her, shrugged. She couldn’t tell if it was agreement or appeasement, though whichever it was, she sensed it was a big concession from him, he suddenly refused to look at her, took an avid interest in the fruit in front of him.