since arriving in Carathia? Princess Serina might have been dressed in a completely different outfit each time she’d appeared, but Rosie couldn’t compete.
Ready to go, she critically eyed herself in the huge mirror and gave a bleak nod; the soft material skimmed her body so her curves weren’t too obvious and the neckline was discreetly flattering.
She’d aimed for discretion in make-up too, but her glowing reflection made her wonder uneasily if she shouldn’t apply a little more foundation just to tone things down. Not that foundation would mask the sparkle in her eyes.
She hesitated, then shrugged. Who was she fooling? She was going out with Gerd because she craved a tiny interlude of privacy, of something special.
To build more dreams on?
‘No,’ she said aloud, startling herself. ‘To convince myself once and forever not to dream any more, because dreaming is a total, useless waste of my life and I’m over it. I’m free and twenty-one and unemployed, and I will put fairy tales behind me.’
Chapter Three
STIFFENING her shoulders, Rosie turned away from her reflection, picked up a small blue evening bag and went out.
Her composure lasted exactly as long as it took for her to set eyes on Gerd.
The previous week should have accustomed her to his magnificence in austere, perfectly tailored black and white. Only it hadn’t. A wild tumult beat through her blood and she had to stop herself from dragging in a shaken breath.
Don’t you dare stutter like a besotted teenager, she commanded.
That horrible prospect gave her enough energy to steady her erratic breathing and say in a voice that almost sounded normal, ‘You’re an amazing family, you and Kelt and Alex. You’re all gorgeous in your different ways even when you’re in ordinary kit, but put you in evening clothes and you all take on a masculine glamour that should come with flashing signs to warn impressionable females. Most men look vaguely like penguins at formal occasions, but not you three. Have you ever been approached to model male cosmetics?’
‘No.’
Just the one word, but she was left in no doubt about his feelings. Laughter bubbled up inside her. ‘Alex has. He looked just like you did then.’
‘I can imagine it,’ Gerd said with a half-smile. ‘If you think we men need warning signs, you should hand out sunglasses.’
Nonplussed, she stared at him. His face was unreadable, but she thought she saw a glint of amusement in his eyes, enough to give her voice an edge when she said, ‘Thank you, I think. But it’s not me, it’s the dress—Hani gave it to me.’
His voice deepened. ‘Nonsense, it’s always been you. Hani calls you instant radiance.’
Shaken by both his words and their tone, she grabbed at her precarious poise. ‘Radiance? I haven’t noticed myself glowing in the dark, so I assume I’m safe.’
His eyes narrowed a fraction. ‘Ah, yes, but what about those close to you?’
‘I don’t think you need worry,’ she said kindly. ‘Hani and Kelt let me play with their precious infant, and that’s as good a safety recommendation as you can get.’
To her disappointment he glanced at his watch. ‘We’d better go. One of the minor irritations of life here is that it’s ruled by the clock.’
‘Even when you’re off-duty?’ she asked on the way down.
‘Basically I’m never off-duty.’
A car waited discreetly by one of the side doors of the palace. Two men sat in front—one in uniform, one without.
Gerd stood aside to let her in first and, once settled, she said thoughtfully, ‘I doubt if I could cope with that.’
‘I’ve always known I was going to have to do it.’ He clicked his seat belt in and glanced across at her already fastened one. ‘When I was younger I was resentful of paparazzi, but I grew out of that.’
A grim note in the deep voice made her wonder how hard it had been for him to achieve that resignation. Something about the man sitting in front of her caught her eye. ‘Gerd, the man in the passenger seat isn’t wearing a seat belt.’
Straight brows drawing together, he told her, ‘He’s a bodyguard.’
‘Oh.’ Feeling foolish and slightly uneasy, she asked, ‘Bodyguards don’t?’
‘No. They need to be able to react instantly.’
Perturbed at the thought of him in danger, she said, ‘I didn’t realise you’d need them here.’
Although she should have. Only a couple of years ago the Carathians had been fighting each other over his accession.
Quickly she asked, ‘Is everything all right here now?’
He said in a tone that dismissed her concern, ‘Yes, of course.’
But something his First Minister had said to him that morning echoed in Gerd’s mind. ‘Things are quiet now; the discovery that the ringleaders were in the pay of MegaCorp and that the purpose of the insurrection was to take over the carathite mines horrified every Carathian. And while the people are basking in the afterglow of the coronation and the harvest is on the way, no one is going to have time to call on ancient legends to back up any lingering dissatisfaction.’
Gerd trusted his judgement; the First Minister came from the mountains, where the legend that had bedevilled his ancestors for centuries had its strongest adherents.
Before Gerd could speak the older man had added, ‘But with respect, sir, you need a wife. Further celebrations—a formal betrothal followed by a wedding and the birth of an heir as soon as possible—would almost certainly put an end to any plotting. Your plans for higher education should mean that the old legend will never have the hold over future generations that it has in the past.’
Gerd said grimly, ‘At least we don’t have to worry about further problems from MegaCorp.’
He’d seen to that, using his power in the financial world to clinically and without mercy ruin the men who’d so cynically played with other men’s lives.
He glanced down at the woman beside him, lovely and eminently desirable, her wide blue eyes anxiously uplifted. Concernwas in them and something else, something that disappeared so quickly he barely recognised it.
Deep inside him a fierce instinct stirred. She was so young, but it wasn’t hero worship he’d caught in her gold-sprinkled eyes. If she was still longing for Kelt, it was a total waste of a life.
And he suspected he could do something about it…
Rosie could gather nothing from his impassive, gorgeous face. Repressing a quiver deep in the pit of her stomach, she demanded, ‘What do you mean, of course everything’s all right? I thought—’
‘Once the ringleaders of the insurrection were shown to be the pawns of a foreign company who wanted
