How to Love a Princess

  COPYRIGHT

  How to love a Princess

  Published by Claire Robyns

  Copyright © 2012 by Claire Robyns

  Cover by Fantasia Frog Designs

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at claire.robyns@googlemail.com

  All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination.

  www.clairerobyns.com

  Prologue

  “Wake up, cucciola.”

  Catherine’s dream blended into the soft morning light streaming through the blinds. She opened her eyes, reluctant to release the night, the love…the fulfilment that swelled her heart. Her breath caught as knuckles grazed her cheek tenderly from behind and the husk whisper repeated itself, warm and teasing against the curve of her collarbone.

  “Wake up, cucciola. The day is half gone.”

  The deep baritone sent a wave of warmth pushing through her tummy and down to her toes. Her eyelids slowly shut on a smile lit from inside as she eased from her side onto her back.

  It’s real.

  All real.

  No dream. This is now my life. My love.

  “Nicolas,” she murmured, still smiling, her eyes still closed. “Pinch me. Quickly.”

  Those slender, capable fingers went up her throat, slowly and provocatively, and then went on to trace her smile. “There are many things I’d do right now, dolce cuore, but pinching is not one of them.”

  “I thought the day is half gone,” she teased, well aware that for Nicolas, who usually woke at five a.m. and often worked throughout the night, half the day could mean anything between eight and ten in the morning. She opened her eyes to look at him and stretched the foreign stiffness from her muscles.

  “So it is.” He brought his rogue grin low to brush her lips in a tender kiss, then toppled his side of the covers on top of her and slid from the bed.

  Catherine groaned. She’d led such a ridiculously sheltered life that there was no doubt much more he’d have to teach her, but there was one contribution she’d make to this relationship: Nicolas Vecca would be made to see the advantage of lying in, especially on a Sunday morning.

  She watched him pad to the bathroom, all they’d shared still new enough to make her blush. She instinctively pulled the sheet up to her throat.

  He turned around at the bathroom door and her gaze flew up to his handsome face, much more familiar and comfortable with that sight than the body he had no qualms about displaying. A lazy grin slashed his bristled jaw and she saw, with a warm jolt to her heart, that the depths of his brown eyes held a languid smile and none of the energetic vitality that usually brimmed from a mind that never stopped.

  “Where are you going?” Not to work, Catherine prayed. Not today. Not after last night.

  Nicolas gazed at the woman he loved more than life. Oh, yes, it had taken him all of three minutes to fall in love with her, but three long months to admit it to himself.

  His grin grew.

  He couldn’t help it.

  His research team were going to have a field day come Monday if he went in with this half-baked grin plastered on his face. He held her vivid blue eyes for another moment, then grazed further down, over her flushed cheeks and stubborn chin, the swirl of auburn tangles hitched there, and to the slim fingers clutching the sheet at her throat. The sapphire stone on her ring finger glinted blue fire in a ray of sunlight streaming through the blinds. So much like her eyes.

  If his grin wasn’t half-baked before, it surely was now.

  Nicolas laughed, lifting a broad shoulder in an amused shrug as he imagined the comments that would fly in his laboratory.

  He didn’t care.

  The woman who’d driven him crazy for three months was here, in his home, in his bed, in his heart. Soon to be his wife. Today, he couldn’t seem to care much about anything else.

  He’d already begun the process of schedule shifting and delegation that would open up his life to include Catherine and the family they’d make, and it cumulated into today. “I’m going to make us breakfast and then we are going to spend the day doing exactly as you wish.”

  Blue eyes flashed mischievously. “Now I know I’m dreaming. I cannot possibly be getting Nicolas Vecca to myself for the entire day.”

  “You’re getting him for the rest of your life, dolce cuore,” he murmured, smiling.

  Then, before he gave in to the temptation to jump back into bed and show her just how much he loved her for a few more hours, Nicolas went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Within seconds, the steaming water was washing over his body. He closed his eyes and threw his head back, allowing his mind to wander over the unease that habitually crept up on him.

  At twenty-one, Catherine was more innocent than most women her age. All along, he’d attributed his reluctance to take their relationship into the bedroom to his conscience. While he enjoyed physical pleasures, he was serious about responsibility and duty and, in his eyes, taking a woman’s virginity came with many responsibilities. Now, however, now that he’d admitted how much he loved her, that he couldn’t live his life without her, now that he’d proposed and been accepted, he had reason to wonder.

  Conscience…or fear?

  He hadn’t wanted to be just the man she lost her virginity to.

  He hadn’t wanted to be a pleasant memory she one day shared with a close friend, or maybe even a future lover.

  Catherine was still much of a mystery to him. She had come to London on some extended tour to celebrate her coming of age. Yes, he had been afraid that he was no more than an extension of that celebration, a tourist attraction on her journey into adulthood. That he was simply the vessel she’d chosen to awaken the secret of sexual pleasures.

  Nicolas turned the taps off and grabbed a towel. As he rubbed down his body and dried his hair, the irony was not lost on him. For one who’d never been short of female company, he must be the first and only man in his generation to insist on marriage before taking his—this specific—girlfriend to bed.

  Once again, he did not care.

  Catherine was his now. She’d promised to be his and he’d hold her to that promise. The sooner they were wed the better. And the sooner he learnt more about her, the easier he’d sleep at night.

  Her name was Catherine de’Ariggo. Born in New York, she was twenty-one and had obviously led a protected life—until she’d decided to travel a little before completing her Masters in Psychology and Sociology.

  She was beautiful and impish and incredibly stubborn.

  She was full with life and quick to laugh.

  She was sweet and her heart was gentle.

  She was his and he loved her.

  Nicolas hitched the towel at his hips and left the bathroom, a quick glance at the empty bed on his way to the wardrobe telling him that Catherine was up.

  He felt as if he knew everything there was to know about his wife-to-be and nothing at all. He dressed quickly in denims and a black T-Shirt, then made his way down the stairs to the open-plan kitchen and living area. “Catherine…?”

  The fridge door was open, stainless steel and high enough to tower above her head. She stepped back and shut the door, holding up a carton of eggs. “I thought I’d help.”

  He laughed, coming forward to round the granite counter divider. “What you know about cooking is dangerous.”

  He reached for the carton and she held it away with a giggle. “Then you’ll have to teach
me how to make your famous herb omelette.”

  “Very well.” He stood aside, leaning against the counter, content to admire the midnight blue sundress that caressed her figure and swirled at her calves. “You’ll need the whisk and a bowl to start with.”

  Catherine knew exactly where to find the utensils she needed. She’d watched Nicolas cook often enough. When she brought the things to the counter, he came to stand behind her, his chest flush with her back, his arms around her, his hands covering hers protectively with all the warmth and strength of the man himself. Together they selected one egg and broke the shell against the rim of the bowl.

  “I do know how to crack an egg,” she protested, while her spine rippled with pleasure at his closeness.

  “I wouldn’t know,” he murmured at her ear. “I know so little. Today, we get to know each other thoroughly.”

  Although softly spoken, she understood the edge to his tone. “Today,” she promised, and this time her shiver held a trace of apprehension. “You might not be so eager to marry me once you learn all my dark secrets,” she added, only half teasing.

  “There is no secret dark enough, no crime vile enough, no discovery black enough to keep me from you, little one.”

  Moisture gathered in the corner of her eye. But it would be fine, she told herself. She was, after all, the first woman in her family to be free. The curse was broken. She could live her life here in London, as a wife and, hopefully, a mother, without the haunting shadows of her ancestry and country.

  Turning her head, she lifted her chin to him, her heart filled with an abundance of love that pushed fresh tears of joy to her eyes.

  “What’s this?” he asked as their gaze met. “No tears allowed today.”

  “Happy tears. I’m so in love with you, it feels as if my heart cannot contain it all.”

  “I know the feeling.” Smiling—he just couldn’t stop doing that today—he started to bring his hand up to wipe beneath her eyes.

  She turned her body slightly to fit into him and an instant later they both jumped at the deafening crash. Tears forgotten, Catherine squiggled free, saw the mess of the shattered bowl and the carton of eggs that had been swept from the table, and groaned.

  Nicolas chuckled. “I said this would be dangerous.”

  She went to wet a cloth beneath the tap and came back, looking up at him as she dropped to her knees. “This is all your fault for distracting me.”

  “Guilty as charged.” He chuckled harder. “I must admit, you make a pretty picture on your knees, scrubbing floors.”

  “Chauvinistic pig!” But she laughed as well, fully aware that he’d proposed knowing exactly how useless she was when it came to domestic chores.

  “Very well,” he said, moving to grab the house keys from the peg on the wall beside the fridge, “this chauvinistic pig will just run down to the corner shop for some more eggs, if that’s all right with my beautiful wife?”

  “I’m not your wife yet.”

  “Yes, you are.” He came alongside her and swung her straight from the floor into his arms with a twist that put her flat against his chest. His kiss was deep, probing and thorough, and left her utterly breathless. “After last night, cucciola mia, the wedding ceremony is but a formality.”

  “Hmmm.” She kissed him back, moulding her lips to his warmth, not about to argue.

  Too soon, he set her down and tipped her nose. “I won’t be long.”

  Catherine cleaned the mess, was rinsing the cloth in the sink when the door chimes sounded. She shook her head as she went to answer it, convinced that she’d seen him take the house keys. He must have set them down when he pulled her into his arms and forgotten to collect them on his way out.

  “And I’m supposed to be the one hopelessly inadequate at—“ Her words froze as she pulled the door open and saw the last person she’d ever expected to see. Here. Now.

  “Good morning—”

  “What are you doing here?” she cut through his greeting. “How did you find me?”

  The six-foot-five bear of a man, completely bald shaven, his black eyes even more sombre than was usual for him, attempted to step past her. “Can I come in?”

  Her hesitation was minimal. Accepting that she was beaten, Catherine threw her hands up and stood back.

  “Is Nicolas here?”

  She turned on him with flashing eyes. “What do you know of Nicolas? How did you know I’d be here? I was promised—”

  “Whatever the circumstances, you are Princess Amelia Catherine Theresa of Ophella. Did you honestly think your movements would not be monitored?” He sounded both reprimanding and regretful.

  Catherine closed the door and sighed. Gascon was her closest friend; he loved her as a father, he respected her as any other subject of Ophella, he abetted her in any way he could. But not even for her would he neglect his duty to the crown. He’d been appointed her bodyguard on the day she’d been born and she should have known that, above all, he watched over her and protected.

  “Catherine…” he started, using the middle name she’d always preferred.

  “Don’t Catherine me,” she muttered. “I’m furious with you and you’d better leave before Nicolas returns. He doesn’t know…yet. Arrange a place and we can meet tomorrow.”

  Gascon lifted a thick black brow, then gave her a half smile that seemed more sad than stern. “That isn’t possible, Catherine. Please, sit down. I would not have disturbed you, but I have distressing news.”

  Catherine frowned as unease gripped her heart. She took a deep breath. “What is it? My mother? Not problems at the mines, I hope.”

  He shook his head, waiting a long beat, waiting until it became apparent that she was not going to sit. “Jevron and Alexander were returning from New York on a late night flight, Catherine. The plane went down.”

  Her lips parted on a ‘No’ but not a sound released from her instantly parched throat.

  Gascon saw the blood drain from her face and held his arms out to gather her into himself as her knees gave way. He carried her to a sofa and sat down, cradling her on his lap.

  Suddenly she sat up, her eyes shimmering into his. “They’re alive. They must be. What have the search parties—”

  “The plane was tracked and easily found.” He pushed her cheek to his chest and stroked her hair. “Their bodies have been retrieved.”

  No, screamed Catherine’s heart.

  Dear God, please…no!

  She gave in to the terror for a few long minutes, drawing comfort from Gascon’s arms, the man who’d always been more father to her than her own. And then she sucked in a deep, unsteady breath and pushed out of his arms. “I must…I must go home.”

  Whatever her burdens, whatever her sorrow, she’d been raised a royal princess and duty came before else. She couldn’t lose herself to grief now. She couldn’t crawl into a corner and damn the world for taking more than its due. She couldn’t drop to her knees and scream the thousand curses storming her head at such a cruel fate that would take her brothers.

  Her mother needed her.

  Her country needed her.

  There’d be time to fall apart after she’d stood at her mother’s side and addressed their mourning nation.

  Gascon rose as well and, in his eyes, she saw that there was more even before he spoke. “They were assassinated, Catherine. Someone got through our security and placed plastic explosives aboard the royal jet.”

  She pinched her eyes to keep the tears at bay, to drown the petrified cries and close the black hole that threatened to open in her heart.

  Alex and Jev, her wonderful, brave, handsome, loving, laughing brothers. The Black Princes of Ophella, they’d being lovingly dubbed by all, for their dark complexions and peat black hair, not for their hearts which were whiter than most.

  They could not be gone. This could not be happening.

  She opened her eyes.

  This was happening.

  Her eyes were open, yet still it felt as if she were walkin
g blindly, groping for her purse where it lay on a side table, stumbling towards this door. “I must get home, Gascon. My mother needs me.”

  “What of Nicolas?”

  Her heart jumped. Nicolas! She could not think of him now. That would have to come later. She rubbed her eyes as another kind of grief overwhelmed her strength and courage. She had to think of him. There would be no later. “Nicolas…”

  “He should know,” Gascon said.

  Catherine shook her head slowly, sadly. “Whatever we had is…past.” She choked on the words, but they had to be said. Acknowledged. The deep breath she needed to continue staggered from her lungs. “I’m now heir to the throne. The curse has not been broken after all.”

  “Maybe he is different.”

  She stared into Gascon’s black, worried eyes. Nicolas Vecca was a power in his own right. Dominant and aggressive in the field of medical research, having already achieved many breakthroughs in the mysteries of blood disorders that had stumped the world for years. He was proud and arrogant, a product of both his Italian father and all that he’d already achieved at the impossibly young age of twenty-eight. He was a genius, applauded for his brilliant work. He was the strongest of strong men.

  The curse that she’d inherited ate strong men. The stronger they were, the more furiously it corroded.

  She’d lived through the proof with her absent father, the memory of a man who’d faded from an overwhelming, larger-than-life figure to a ghostly shadow with each passing, infrequent visit. She’d once thought that if the world ended, her father would somehow survive to create a whole new world; she’d grown up to learn first hand that “the bigger they are, the harder they fall,” was more than a careless saying.

  She’d buried her grandmother beside the eroded tomb of her husband, who’d taken his own life after a mere two years of marriage.

  The curse broke strong men, wheedled and whittled them until they were but a fraction of their former self and then it either sent them running off across the ocean or jumping from the North Tower. Or, as in the case of her great-grandfather, drove them to drink and recklessness that ended in a fatal car crash.