that the three ladies in question weren’t beauties. Not that he could bring that up without proving himself to be shallow—of which she accused him endlessly.
The impatient growl that escaped him didn’t seem to alarm her in the least. “Once you calm down, Your Highness, you’ll see this was a good idea.” She didn’t back away. She never backed down from him, one of her many annoying qualities. “By tonight, I promise you’ll feel a lot better about all this.”
The only thing that would have made him feel better would have been tossing her into the sea. Sadly, being a prince, he’d been raised better than to threaten bodily harm to a woman. Not even a woman who was dead set on ruining his life.
She wasn’t going to quit until she saw him married. She was the type to see that the job got done. No matter what. In anyone else, he could have appreciated the drive. He could appreciate little in her. They’d been doing battle for months now.
A wave of weariness hit him. “Why are you doing this to me?”
Her gaze never wavered. “For one, as you pointed out, I get paid for it.”
“I could pay you more to go away.”
“I would never break my contract. You should be grateful. I’m here to help you. The Queen gave you six months to announce that you’ve chosen a bride. She wants to see you settled down. You must end the scandals.”
“I still have another month.” In fact, he’d been counting on that last month of freedom rather desperately.
“Exactly.”
“Two weeks on this blasted island would waste half. Absolutely not. When that boat leaves in a few minutes, I’m leaving with it.”
“And the ladies? Common courtesy—”
“If you want to stay with the ladies, be my guest.
Have a pajama party.” He ignored the intriguing picture that flashed into his mind and focused on her clenched jaw instead.
But the next moment she was forcing a smile again. He hated how cheerful she always was while she tortured him.
“Two weeks in this beautiful place is exactly what you need.” She sounded like she actually believed it. “By the time we come back for you, you will have made your choice. The Queen and the country will be happy.”
“Dare I ask, what about me?”
“Try to give these women a chance. Maybe you’ll fall in love with one of them.” Her eyes brightened at the mention of the L word.
“In two weeks?” Was she for real? Sadly, she was. She had an unshakable, deep-seated belief in romance that annoyed the hell out of him. He gave her his most discouraging expression, the one he normally reserved for ambushing paparazzi.
But her eyebrows stayed up, the corners of her lips tugged into that fake encouraging smile, her gaze steady on him. “Stranger things have happened.”
A lot of strange things had happened to him lately, his mother hiring the pushiest woman in the world to force him to wed being one of them. But the chances of him falling in love were slim to none. For that to happen, he would have to believe in love to begin with.
There was no point in further bickering with her. They were too different. They’d never understand each other. He glanced at the boat, ready to go, and realized that the two guards had disappeared, leaving the boxes of food on the bluff above the tide line. “Where did Ben and Vince go? ”
She worried her bead bracelet again for a brief, unguarded moment before she responded. “They’ll guard the island’s perimeter. They’ll be in radio contact with each other, but not with you. I can’t risk you bullying them with some fake emergency into coming to pick you up.”
The woman boggled his mind. She was beyond all belief. “Good plan.” He couldn’t help a sneer. “And what would have happened if there’d been an emergency?”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” she said, apparently still thinking that she could make him stay.
He glanced toward his jacket, draped over the side of the boat, his cell phone in the pocket. He needed to pay closer attention to her. She wasn’t to be underestimated. With some luck, she could have stranded him. The thought was disturbing.
He needed to make her see reason and quit this sordid business. “You really expected me to spend two weeks in the bush with a bunch of wilting lilies? I’m a racer, not a camper. And I bet your ladies haven’t seen more nature than what can be found at the palace gardens. What, exactly, did you think we would be doing out here? ”
She put that pert nose of hers into the air and flashed him a smug look. “Lady Lidia is an herbalist, Lady Szilvia is a survival specialist and Lady Adel is a doctor at your favorite ski resort.”
He sure didn’t remember her. Which must have meant she wasn’t a looker. Then again, he preferred to sustain his injuries at the racetrack, so maybe he hadn’t been visited by the resort’s doctor in the past.
“I’m to attend a race tomorrow evening.” It was to be the first time one of his cars was running with a modified engine, a major invention he needed to see in action. He needed to make manufacturing decisions based on tomorrow’s race. She was interfering with his business.
“Prince Lazlo—”
“Enough.” He was out of patience with her and her meddling. She’d been relentlessly after him for the past five months, since the Queen and Chancellor Egon had sicced her on him. “So you decided to parade the country cows.” He practically growled the words. “You need to understand, Milda, that I’m not some prize bull you can lead into the pasture for breeding.”
“Prince Laz—”
“No.” He raised a hand, palm out. “I don’t care what these women want from me—title, money or their children in the line of succession. They need to find another way of getting it. So you collected a homely bunch of ambitious—” he swallowed the word that a prince wouldn’t utter “—ladies. Read my lips. I don’t want any of them.” He pushed by her to stride toward the boat.
“Prince Lazlo!”
“Goodbye, Milda.”
But something in her voice as she called his name again stopped him. He turned to give her a piece of his mind, in case she still harbored some doubts regarding how he felt about the evil job she’d been hired to do.
And he saw the three ladies.
They had come out of the wild olive grove. From the look on their faces, they’d been standing within hearing range when he’d made that country cow comment. Blast it, he thought.
By God, he was tired of this. He liked the chase between the sexes, another sport to him. But, call him old-fashioned, he liked to be the one to do the chasing. He inclined his head, his jaw so tight he could barely push out the single word. “Ladies.”
They looked vaguely familiar—and were pretty, to be fair—but he couldn’t place them. No big surprise there.
