Royals: Chosen By The Prince: The Prince's Waitress Wife / Becoming the Prince's Wife / To Dance with a Prince. Rebecca Winters

her face. ‘You’re extremely tired.’

      ‘Long day.’

      ‘Too long. The official visits have to stop, Holly.’

      ‘What? Why?’ Hurt and upset by the apparent criticism, Holly sat up straighter in her seat. ‘What am I doing wrong? I’ve worked so hard.’

      ‘Precisely. You’re working too hard.’

      For a moment Holly just gaped at him in disbelief. ‘That’s the most unfair criticism I’ve ever heard. How can I be working too hard?’

      ‘If you’re so exhausted you’re falling asleep, then you’re working too hard.’

      ‘That’s nothing to do with the official visits. I’m falling asleep because you keep me awake half the night!’ She looked at him in exasperation, her temper mounting. ‘Oh, that’s it, isn’t it? You don’t like me working hard because you’re afraid I’m going to be too tired to perform in the bedroom! Is that all you care about, Casper? Whether I have the energy for sex?’

      ‘You’re doing that uniquely female thing of twisting words for the purpose of starting a row.’ Ice cool, he watched her with masculine detachment and Holly felt a flash of frustration.

      ‘No, I’m not. I hate rows. I would never, ever choose to row with anyone. I hate conflict.’ The ironic gleam in his eyes somehow served to make her even more infuriated. ‘And you’d know I hate conflict if you’d bothered to spend a few hours alone in my company! But you don’t, do you? Do you realise we’ve never even been on a proper date? You are so, so selfish! You just come to bed and do your whole virile, macho-stud thing, and then you swan off, leaving me.’

      One dark brow lifted in cool appraisal. ‘Leaving you?’

      ‘Exhausted,’ she muttered, and a sardonic smile touched his mouth.

      ‘So I leave you to sleep. By my definition, that makes me unselfish, not selfish. And it brings me back to my earlier point, which is that you’re working too hard.’

      ‘You always have to win, don’t you?’ Holly sank back down onto the window seat, the bout of anger having sapped the last of her energy. It just wasn’t worth arguing with him.