Cinderella's Royal Seduction / Crowned At The Desert King's Command. Dani Collins

of distress, though. The longer she sat here, the more she began to feel self-conscious about her lack of inhibition. About waiting here like a harem girl for the sheik to return.

      When she heard his footsteps crunching through the trees, she sat a little straighter, mouth trembling into a shy smile of greeting.

      It wasn’t him. It was one of his bodyguards. The clean towel and robe he carried glowed like an armload of snow as he approached.

      Throat locked, eyes burning in mounting horror, Sopi watched him look indecisively between the soggy pants and shirt she’d left atop her shoes and the snow-covered bench nearby.

      “The prince offers his regrets that he couldn’t bring these himself. He said he will speak to you in the morning. Um… Here?” He shook out the items and hung them on the fence, then stepped through the gate and stood with his back to her.

      “What are you doing?” she asked, appalled when he stayed there.

      “I’m to escort you safely indoors.”

      Her embarrassment turned to outrage. “I’m fine. Go.”

      “With respect, I have my orders. Take your time.”

      She stewed with impotent fury as she realized her choices were to argue while she boiled or end this as quickly as possible. Why was the practical choice always to give in?

      And why hadn’t Rhys come back himself? Had she turned him off? Had he finished with her already? Was he mad that she hadn’t put out with actual sex?

      Growing more and more horrified by what she’d done, she waded out and shook the robe open, struggling into it without bothering to dry herself. When she scooped up her clothes, she glanced at the thick snow on the far side of the pool and decided to find her underwear in the morning, when it was light.

      Moments later, she stomped through the trees toward her cabin, surprising the bodyguard into saying, “Ma’am?” He hurried to follow her new direction.

      She ignored him, aware of him trailing her, but she didn’t even look at him as she got to her door, unlocked it, then closed it in his face, locking it again from the inside.

      With hot, dry eyes and wet, tangled hair, she fell into bed.

      Rhys had returned to the deserted spa in time to hear Nanette trying to pull rank on his bodyguard.

      “I’m the owner. I can go anywhere I want,” she insisted.

      “Your mother claims to own it,” Rhys had said flatly, moving forward to prevent her from realizing he was coming from the hallway to the building’s exit, not the men’s room.

      Nanette faltered, frosty expression morphed into welcome.

      “That’s what I mean, of course. My mother is the owner. Your Highness,” she added with a sweet smile especially for him. “When I saw your man standing guard, I wanted to be sure you had everything you need.”

      “Everything but privacy.”

      Her smile stiffened, and she looked past him. He waited for her gaze to come back and held it with his most unapologetically imperious glare.

      She sniffed and said, “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

      “Do.” He waited until she was out of earshot before he muttered his instructions to his bodyguard to take a robe and towels to Sopi, aware Nanette would stake out his floor to see whom he brought back to his room.

      Rhys rarely took action without considering the consequences. If he did, he would currently be wondering if a deflowered virgin was incubating a royal baby. He’d had the presence of mind to stay this side of sane with Sopi, thankfully, but he wouldn’t expose her as his lover to the likes of Nanette until such time as he’d weighed the ramifications for both of them. What little she’d told him about her relationship with Maude meant there could be consequences for her.

      She had also left him with the impression that she was the rightful owner of this property, if not legally, at least morally. Her father had bought it for her mother, who had lovingly restored it, but Maude was the one trying to unload it in a private sale under the radar.

      That had his mind churning as he took the elevator back to his floor, passing Nanette in a chair in an alcove, hair twisted around one finger, an open book in her lap.

      “Good night,” she said as he passed, shoe dangling from her toe.

      He nodded curtly, entered his room and went directly to the window on the north wall. He thought he might have seen a flash of movement in the trees but wasn’t sure.

      Annoyed, he went back to the folio Maude had given him.

      Lawyers cost money, Sopi had said.

      They did but, as it happened, he had an abundance of both.

      Sopi’s morning went from bad to worse very quickly.

      She woke with the worst type of hangover—the sober kind that piled nausea on remorse with none of the blurry celebration of alcohol to dampen her memory or give her an excuse for behaving so wantonly. She didn’t even regret the sex part. She had wanted that, but she felt very much like she’d fallen for a line from a playboy who set up conquests like bottles on a log, simply so he could shoot them down.

      At least no one would know, she told herself. Then her walk of shame past the pump house turned up fruitless. One of the hotel’s maintenance men must have checked the gate and gathered her bra and underwear. She could only pray her things would be thrown away rather than turned in to Lost and Found.

      By the time she was heading into the back door of the hotel and passing Maude’s office, her phone was exploding with the usual work-related texts. Sopi had her head down, reading complaints about late deliveries and equipment needing repair, and didn’t see Maude waiting for her until her stepmother’s haranguing voice said, “Sopi.”

      Hiding her wince, Sopi detoured into Maude’s office. “Good morning.”

      “Two of Fernanda’s friends are arriving in Jasper in an hour. They don’t want to wait for the shuttle. Can you collect them?”

      “Fernanda can’t do it?” Wasn’t that the obvious solution?

      “She’s tied up.”

      Doing what? Sopi didn’t ask. She was too relieved to have an excuse to disappear for three hours. Plus, the drive was always pretty. Minutes later, she was admiring the golden gleam of snow off the craggy peaks above her and caught the stub tail of a lynx as it slunk into the trees.

      Maude’s information on the women’s flight was completely wrong, of course. Sopi wound up with time to kill, so she engaged in retail therapy while she was in the bigger center. Then she sat in the airport addressing as many texts and emails as she could.

      When the chartered flight finally arrived, there were a dozen women, too many for Sopi’s SUV, and they’d already arranged for a private shuttle.

      Annoyed, but completely unsurprised—this was classic Fernanda—Sopi drove home alone.

      Rhys had grown up on the sort of palace intrigue that had resulted in the murder of his parents. The infantile game Maude was playing, trying to sell this property without telling the person it would affect most gravely, was nothing more than a mosquito-like annoyance to him.

      Things took a turn into adult parlor games when Rhys decided to play along while he turned the tables. He kept hearing Sopi ask, How long does it last? What happens when it’s over?

      They