Confessions of a Girl-Next-Door. Jackie Braun

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To little princesses everywhere …

      CHAPTER ONE

      HOLLYN Elise Phillipa Saldani always did what was expected of her. As next in line for the throne of the tiny Mediterranean principality of Morenci, she’d known from an early age what her duties entailed and she’d followed them to the letter. Which was why her driver looked at her as if she were speaking a language other than the four in which she was fluent when she said, “Take me to the airport, please.”

      “The airport, Your Highness?” Henry asked.

      She settled back in the plush leather seat of the limousine and fussed with the folds of her full skirt. Even though her heart was hammering, Hollyn said with characteristic calm, “Yes. The airport.”

      Henry wasn’t mollified. He lifted one bushy eyebrow and inquired, “Are we picking up a passenger, then, on our way to the annual garden party? The queen didn’t mention it.”

      No, indeed. Her mother hadn’t mentioned it, because Olivia Saldani wasn’t privy to Hollyn’s last-minute change in plans.

      “We are not picking up a passenger.” Hollyn moistened her lips. This was it. There would be no turning back once she said the words. Once she gave the edict, her will would be done. “You are dropping one off. Me.”

      Henry cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon. I must not have heard you correctly.”

      “Yes, you did.” Despite her nerves, she smiled. “Your hearing is as good now as it was when you caught me trying to take out the Bentley with cousin Amelia when I was sixteen.”

      “Your giggles gave you away, Your Highness.”

      She sighed. “It’s just Hollyn.”

      But she hadn’t been “just Hollyn” in too many years to count. Not to Henry or the other people who staffed the royal palace. Or the citizens of the small kingdom that she would one day rule. To them she was Princess Hollyn, daughter of King Franco and Queen Olivia, next in line to the Morenci throne and rumored to be soon engaged to the son of one of the country’s most celebrated and dashing young businessmen.

      Duty. She understood it and accepted it. But that didn’t mean she liked it. Or that she didn’t wish, sometimes, that she could be an ordinary young woman, living a simpler life.

      Holly.

      The nickname whispered from her past, beckoning from across the Atlantic. She allowed herself the luxury of recalling the boy who’d called her that. In her memory, a pair of wide-set brown eyes crinkled with a smile that also caused his cheeks to dent.

      At fifteen, Nathaniel Matthews had been surprisingly self-assured and determined to break free of the small community the past two generations of his family had so eagerly embraced. She’d found the tiny island tucked between Canada and America in Lake Huron a paradise.

      She’d spent five summers on Heart Island, so named because of its shape, living in anonymity and loving every minute of her unregimented life. No teas or cotillions to attend. No fussy state dinners. And no boring garden parties where more eyes would be focused on her than the blooms.

      “The airport,” she said again. “A plane is waiting for me.”

      Not the royal jet, but a private one she’d chartered for this trip. In the rearview mirror, she saw Henry’s brows draw together. His perplexed expression was endearing and nostalgic. She remembered that look of concern from the days when he’d taught her to drive on the palace grounds. Afterward, she and Henry had laughed like a pair of loons at her exploits, which included an encounter with a bee-infested log. It was doubtful this day would end with much mirth.

      “I’m leaving, Henry.”

      “Your mother never spoke of it.”

      Hollyn fussed with the folds of her skirt again. She couldn’t wait to take it off and change into something less formal. “She doesn’t know.”

      Those bushy brows drew together a second time. “But, Your Highness …”

      She closed her eyes briefly, feeling swallowed up by a life that so many other young women in her kingdom considered a dream. For her, lately at least, it had become a nightmare.

      “It’s Hollyn. Please, Henry, just call me Hollyn.”

      When he stopped

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