The Princess Test. Shirley Jump

       Praise for Shirley Jump

      ‘Shirley Jump … has a solid plot

      and involving conflict, and the characters are wonderful.’

      —RT Book Reviews on

      Miracle on Christmas Eve

      ‘This tale of rekindled love is right on target—

      a delightful start to this uplifting,

      marriage-oriented series The Wedding Planners.’

      —Library Journal.com on

      Sweetheart Lost and Found

      ‘Jump’s office romance gives the collection a kick,

      with fiery writing.’

      —Publishers Weekly on

      New York Times bestselling anthology Sugar and Spice

      About the Author

      New York Times bestselling author Shirley Jump didn’t have the will-power to diet, nor the talent to master under-eye concealer, so she bowed out of a career in television and opted instead for a career where she could be paid to eat at her desk—writing. At first, seeking revenge on her children for their grocery store tantrums, she sold embarrassing essays about them to anthologies. However, it wasn’t enough to feed her growing addiction to writing funny. So she turned to the world of romance novels, where messes are (usually) cleaned up before The End. In the worlds Shirley gets to create and control, the children listen to their parents, the husbands always remember holidays, and the housework is magically done by elves. Though she’s thrilled to see her books in stores around the world, Shirley mostly writes because it gives her an excuse to avoid cleaning the toilets and helps feed her shoe habit.

      To learn more, visit her website at www.shirleyjump.com

       Also by Shirley Jump

      If the Red Slipper Fits

      Vegas Pregnancy Surprise

      Best Man Says I Do

      A Princess for Christmas

      Doorstep Daddy The Bridesmaid and

      the Billionaire

      Marry-Me Christmas

       Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

       The Princess Test

      Shirley Jump

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To my daughter, who may not be a frilly girl,

      but who is always the number-one princess

      in our house and in my heart.

      CHAPTER ONE

      DAWN broke its soft kiss over the lake, washing the blue-green water with a dusting of orange and gold. A slight breeze skipped gentle ripples across the water and whispered the scent of pine through the open window. Carrie Santaro curled up on the cushioned window seat, watching the day begin. In the three days since she’d arrived at her rented lakeside cottage in Winter Haven, Indiana, Carrie had spent every spare moment in this window seat, soaking up the tranquility and the quiet peace found in being utterly alone. Her sister Mariabella who lived half the year in a seaside town in Massachusetts had told her that life in the States was different from life in the castle.

      She’d been right. Here, in this tiny Midwestern town with all its hokey charm, Carrie felt free. To be herself, to drop the mantle of her princess life and to be just … Carrie. To be the person she’d been fighting all her life to be. She hadn’t packed a single ball gown, not one pair of high heels. While she was here, she’d be all jeans and T-shirts and sundresses all the time. Just the thought made her smile.

      And while she was here, she decided, she’d find out who she really was. Maybe with enough distance between herself and the castle, she could finally get the answers she’d waited a lifetime to hear. After all, hadn’t her mother once said that was what had happened to her when she’d visited this town? Perhaps Carrie could get lucky, too.

      Her cell phone rang. She sighed before flipping it open and answering the call she’d been dreading. “Hello, Papa.”

      “Carlita!” Her father’s booming voice, calling her by the name her parents used when they wanted to remind her of her royal roots—and royal expectations. To remind her she should be a dutiful daughter, an obedient princess.

      Uh, yeah, not.

      She’d always been a rebel, and never been much for the suffocating mantle of royal life. She was more at home with dirt under her nails than wearing a starched dress to a state dinner. She’d taken the etiquette lessons, suffered through boarding school and sat quietly through countless events, trying her best to be what everyone expected of a princess.

      Most of the time. And now, she was doing the exact opposite, which had displeased her parents to no end. Carrie was tired of caring. She was ready to live her life and be free of all that once and for all.

      “When are you coming home?” her father asked in their native, lyrical Uccelli language.

      “I just got here,” she answered, reverting to her native tongue, too. It felt a little odd after days of speaking only English. “I haven’t even started working yet.”

      He pshawed away that notion. “You have work here. Come home.”

      “Papa, we talked about this. I’ll be home in a few months. The wine shop needs an advocate for Uccelli. If we can get the American sales off the ground—”

      “We need you here,” he said. “Your sisters, everyone, needs you here.”

      Ever since her middle sister, Allegra, had become queen, her parents had been urging Carrie to be a bigger part of the royal family, to take a more active role in the Santaro family causes and the country’s needs. Something Carrie had resisted almost from birth. She wanted nothing to do with any of that. Just the thought of being surrounded by all that pomp and circumstance made her feel like she was being suffocated. “They’re fine without me. I’m barely a part of the family activities. The media hardly noticed I left.”

      There’d been one small piece in the Uccelli papers, a quick mention that Princess Carlita had gone on vacation and nothing more, Mariabella had said. If Allegra had been the one to leave the country, there’d have been newspaper and television coverage for days. Not for the first time, Carrie thanked her lucky stars that she would probably never be queen.

      “That’s because we have worked to keep your ‘antics’ out of the media, and keep this vacation of yours a secret.”

      “It’s not a vacation, Papa. It’s a job.”

      He sighed. “I know you love this work, and think this is what you want to do—”

      “Think? I know.”

      “But it is far past time you acknowledged your heritage,” her father said. “And stopped playing in the vineyards. And at life. All these years, I have indulged you and let you have your freedom. You, of all the daughters, have had the least to do with the royal family and its duties. But now, you are twenty-four, my dear. Time to start settling down and become a true Santaro.”

      Settle down? She bristled at the thought of handing her life over to yet another person who would want to tell her where to sit, how to act, what she should do. In the past year, her father had reminded her a hundred times that playtime was over and now she needed to step more fully into her role