Taming the Prince. Elizabeth Bevarly

twins weren’t, in fact, the Penwyck twins. Or vice versa.

      Or whatever.

      Oh, man, did Shane have a headache now. And he was already exhausted, before his trip had even begun. Sixteen hours, he marveled again. And all of it stuck on a little jet with an escort who seemed disinclined to do anything more than rigorously read big books and sip tea.

      The jet might be small, he noted, but it lacked nothing in comfort. He and the prim-and-proper Miss Wallington were the only two passengers on a vessel that was outfitted for a dozen more, and one of the flight attendants had pressed a Scotch and water—damned good Scotch, too, he mused as he enjoyed a second sip—into his hand within moments of him sitting down. Obviously the service was going to be excellent. And the decor was posh and luxurious, reminding him more of a five-star hotel than a jet—not that he had much experience with five-star hotels, not since he was a child at any rate—with oversize seats and plush carpeting down the aisle and pink-tinted lighting to make things easy on the eyes. And his traveling companion…

      Well. He certainly had no complaints there, either. Talk about easy on the eyes. When Marcus had called him that morning to go over final preparations for the trip, he’d said the queen was sending an envoy to meet him at LAX who would accompany him to Penwyck. Shane had immediately pictured some doddering old stuffed shirt with a walruslike handlebar mustache decked out in an overly decorated uniform of the Empire. Even when Marcus had said the envoy was named Sara Wallington, Shane had altered his description only slightly, making the stuffed shirt a stuffed blouse, instead. The rest of the description had remained pretty much the same, right down to the mustache, though it hadn’t been quite so walruslike on the female version.

      But Sara Wallington was in no way walruslike. To put it mildly. No, she was, in fact, one of the most beautiful women Shane had ever laid eyes on. She was also, unfortunately, he was fast realizing, one of the most refined. Dammit. With her crisp, cultivated accent, and her pale red hair twisted up into some kind of bun, and her sea-green eyes currently hidden behind a pair of small, oval-shaped, wire-rimmed reading glasses that she’d donned immediately after sitting down and unfolding the huge tome she currently had open in her lap, she might very well be the owner of this jet, so princesslike was her demeanor.

      Still, he didn’t think he was the only one who’d felt the little sizzle of heat that had arced between them during their initial encounter. Prim and proper Miss Wallington might be, but there was interest—and more—lying beneath her cool, pink-sweatered facade. And Shane couldn’t wait to explore and find out just what that more might be.

      He stifled a groan. Just what he needed. Trapped in close quarters for sixteen hours with a beautiful woman who was obviously interested in him, too, and she was exactly the kind of woman he should avoid. She couldn’t be some flashy, fun-loving, devil-may-care hedonist who had as much experience as he had himself and might be amenable to a little short-term fooling around once they arrived in Penwyck—or even before they arrived in Penwyck, he thought further with a lascivious glance at the washroom at the front of the cabin—and then ride off into the sunset with a cheery “Cheerio.” No, she had to be some delicate, pearls-wearing, pink-sweater-encased, chaste-looking little nun who would doubtless find it unseemly to break into a sweat. At least, into the kind of sweat that Shane had in mind for the two of them.

      She for sure looked like the kind of woman who would want a man to stick around for a while. And not the kind of man Shane was, either. No, Miss Sara Wallington would no doubt want some guy in tweeds and button-downs and riding boots, a man who could say words like poppycock and bumbershoot with a straight face, a man who would feel more at home viewing pictures in an art gallery while sipping champagne than digging in the dirt on a construction site while anticipating his first Rolling Rock of the evening. A man who would want the same things she probably wanted out of life—commitment, kids, cocker spaniel and the thatched-roof cottage with a cobblestone fence.

      Ah, well, Shane told himself philosophically. It wasn’t like he didn’t have other things to occupy his mind right now, what with all this missing-princes-and-switched-at-birth-and-heir-to-the-throne business going on in his life. Not that it was his mind, necessarily, he’d been thinking of engaging with Miss Pink Sweater over there. Miss Pink Sweater who didn’t seem to be any more interested in sleeping than Shane was. Unfortunately, her condition obviously hadn’t come about because she was preoccupied by the same lusty thoughts that were trying to preoccupy Shane at the moment. No, it was more because Miss Pink Sweater over there was too busy reading her big book. And daintily sipping her tea. And totally not even noticing he was there.

      Dammit.

      The problem was, Shane didn’t want to occupy his mind with all those other things right now. Maybe not ever. How the hell was a man supposed to react to the news that he might be the heir to a royal throne in a country he’d hardly thought about before? King Shane? Gee, that didn’t sound like the appropriate moniker for a blue-collar construction worker whose closest brush with nobility had been his childhood visits to White Castle. There had to have been a royal foul-up somewhere. Still, he hadn’t quite been able to turn down Queen Marissa’s royal command when she’d insisted he come to Penwyck to join his brother, Marcus, until they could get to the bottom of the mystery.

      Hey, if nothing else, Shane thought, he could have a nice little vacation and spend some time with his brother. No matter that he didn’t have any vacation time coming. He was pretty sure he’d lost his job anyway, by taking off the way he had yesterday. Mr. Mendoza hadn’t looked as if he’d believed the story about King Shane any more than Shane believed it himself.

      Inevitably, his gaze stole across the aisle to linger on Sara Wallington again. She really was beautiful, he thought, no matter how tightly she bound herself. The loose sweater and tailored skirt had done nothing to hide her curves, and a few errant wisps of silky hair had fallen from their confinement, giving her the look of a woman who might just be able to let herself go wild once in a while if given the right kind of provocation. Her profile, in the soft light raining down from above her, was elegant and fine, her skin creamy and flawless, touched with just a hint of pink on her high cheekbones. But it was her mouth that caused Shane to feel most restless. Full and delicious looking, all he could do was wonder how she would taste if he touched his lips to hers.

      Her head snapped up suddenly then, and she turned to look at him, her gaze falling directly onto his. Her expression was slightly alarmed, as if she’d somehow known what he was thinking about—or maybe she’d been thinking about it, too? he couldn’t help wondering—and the pink on her cheeks darkened some when she saw him gazing back at her so resolutely. Instead of calling him on it, however, she only smiled—albeit with a bit of starch.

      “Was there something you wanted, Mr. Cordello?” she asked softly.

      Oooo, loaded question, Shane thought. What would she do if he answered her truthfully? he wondered. “No, nothing,” he lied instead. “I think I have everything I need.”

      “Excellent,” she replied. “Should you think of something…” Her voice trailed off before she finished the remark, as if Shane should know how she’d intended to finish it.

      “If I think of something?” he prodded her, a spark of hope flickering to life somewhere inside him. Maybe they were on the same wavelength.

      She smiled that cool, starchy smile again, and what little spark he’d felt firing suddenly sputtered and died. “Feel free to summon one of the attendants,” she finished crisply.

      He smiled back, a smile, he felt certain, that was every bit as stiff as hers was. “I’ll do that,” he assured her. Somehow he refrained from adding Your Highness, even though that was exactly the sort of response she seemed to command.

      She smiled yet another perfunctory smile, then dropped her gaze back to the book she had opened in her lap. It was a big, thick hardback, probably a textbook, and Shane realized then that she must be a student. Certainly she looked young enough to be, but there was something in her carriage that made her seem like a much older woman, so he hadn’t until now realized that she was probably pretty close to his own twenty-three. He told himself not to bother her, because she so clearly wanted to be left alone,