she’d done at La Torchere and he didn’t believe she was the type of person to retire. More than that, though, as the owner of a resort, he was quite familiar with the power of a good vacation. Even if Merry were exhausted enough to think she needed to retire, he genuinely believed that once his very active manager got two weeks of peace and privacy she would be bored. And he had to wonder if she hadn’t sent her spoiled niece, a woman with no experience at all, because she was trying to hold her job for herself without looking obvious.
That made a great deal of sense.
Princess Meredith being chosen as a temporary replacement also meant there was a good possibility Alexander would get his wonderful manager back. All he had to do was work with Princess Meredith for about two weeks.
He studied her delicate features, her pretty eyes, her serene smile. Whether those weeks would be two loooong weeks or two short weeks would be determined by the behavior of his betrothed. Merry Montrose might not have known she was sending her niece to work for her future husband, but Alexander knew. And he wasn’t sure he could work with his spoiled, selfish fiancée long enough for Merry Montrose to realize she wanted her old job back.
The phone rang and, jarred out of his thoughts, Alexander noticed he and Merry had attracted a crowd of curious staff who milled around the lobby desk pretending to be busy. If he didn’t make a decision quickly, he and Merry would undoubtedly be the topic of conversation at lunch today.
He glanced at his betrothed with her sexy little suit, her soft violet eyes and her shiny auburn hair that caught the sunlight pouring in from the skylight above the fountain. The only real weapon she had was sex appeal, and it would be a cold, frosty day in hell when he let sex appeal affect the way he ran his business or distract him from doing what he needed to do.
“Let’s talk in your aunt’s office,” he said, directing Princess Meredith to a corridor to the right. Without waiting for her, he walked away.
Because he kept his gait deliberately long, Merry scrambled to keep up with him. “I’m sorry Aunt Merry quit without giving notice.”
He frowned. Since when did Princess Meredith know about notices? “Don’t worry about it. I realized myself that she was tired.”
“Then you understand?”
Actually, he probably understood a lot better than Princess Meredith did. Right now Merry Montrose needed rest, and the only way Alexander could assure she would return would be if he kept Meredith here so Merry Montrose would know her job was still open.
He wasn’t thrilled with the situation, but he did have the upper hand, so he wasn’t worried.
“Yes. I understand.”
They reached the doorway to Merry’s office, but rather than go inside, he stopped.
“You can stay.”
“You won’t be sorry!” Merry said and just barely stifled the urge to throw her arms around him and kiss him soundly. But before she had a chance, Alexander Rochelle pivoted and was halfway down the hall to the lobby.
Merry sighed. This was not working out the way she had hoped. She’d seen the flares of sexual awareness that flamed in Alexander’s eyes but he’d quickly banked them as if he didn’t want to be attracted to her.
Stepping into her office and walking across the charming blue-and-white braided rugs that sat atop the hardwood floors, Merry considered that maybe Alexander had tempered his reaction to her because he didn’t get personally involved with employees. After all, she’d never seen him “date” a member of the staff. She decided that would be a reasonable, but conquerable, problem—except, having any kind of difficulty to overcome took away precious time. She would have to think of something spectacular to force him to get beyond his reservations quickly.
In fact, now that she had explained crone Merry Montrose’s disappearance and had herself established as the resort manager, the next order of business was calling her father to see how much time she did have.
She fell to the slate-blue leather chair behind the honey-colored desk, lifted the receiver of the cordless phone and dialed his private number. She waited three rings before his manservant answered.
“Charles! Charles! It’s Princess Merry! My goodness! It’s so good to hear your voice.”
Dead silence greeted her and Merry frowned. She supposed she should expect this kind of reaction. Not only had she been out of touch for seven years, but also she hadn’t exactly been the kindest princess in the world.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye before I left, Charles.”
Again silence.
Her frown deepened but Merry decided to save her fence-mending for when she got home. “Is my father around?”
“Yes, Mum.”
“Great. May I speak with him, please?”
“Yes, Mum.”
She waited only two seconds before her father was on the line.
“Merry! My God! Where the hell have you been? Are you okay? The only contact we’ve had were those notes you sent through Lissa!” he said, referring to the godmother who had cursed her. “We understood you wanted an American education, but did you really need to go to school disguised as a commoner?”
Merry swallowed a giggle. She’d wondered how Lissa had explained the curse to her father. Since it was all over now, and because she had learned valuable lessons, she wouldn’t argue Lissa’s convenient story and said simply, “Yes. My classes are done now.”
“I’ll send a plane.”
“No, Dad, I can’t come home today.” She needed to find a real replacement for herself to fulfill her responsibility to the resort, but more than that she wanted her reward time with Alexander. “I won’t be home for two weeks.”
“Two weeks?”
“Yes,” she said, strolling away from her desk and walking to the mirror in her private powder room where she smiled contentedly at her reflection. “I want a few weeks to adjust to being myself.”
“Adjust to being yourself?”
Merry grimaced at her slip, but she also realized that she’d just revealed a tidbit of information about her curse and it had come out as real words, not gibberish. Up to this point, every time she’d tried to explain her curse, she couldn’t. She couldn’t even give tiny details. With the curse broken, she could explain the real story to her dad.
“Merry?”
She drew a quick breath. In spite of the fact that Lissa had created an acceptable excuse for her disappearance, Merry wanted to tell her father the truth. She wanted him to understand her hardships and to see there was a good reason she’d changed so much, so he would understand that she wouldn’t revert to being a spoiled princess.
Still, this wasn’t a story one told over the phone. This was a story a daughter told in private, in her father’s study, sipping cocoa, when she could be herself. Not a member of a royal family, but a daughter. “I’ll explain everything when I get home.”
She
