The Prince's Convenient Proposal. Barbara Hannay

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ difference.

      The possibilities presented by this resemblance were so tempting.

      Rafe, Crown Prince of Montaigne, needed a fiancée.

      He’d been engaged for barely a fortnight before Olivia Belaire took flight. Admittedly, his arrangement with Olivia had been one of hasty convenience rather than romance. They’d struck a business deal in fact, and Rafe understood that Olivia might well have panicked when she’d come to terms with the realities of being married to a prince with enormous responsibilities.

      Rafe had come close to panicking, too. One minute he’d been an AWOL playboy prince, travelling the world, enjoying a delightful and endless series of parties...in Los Angeles, London, Dubai, Monaco...with an endless stream of girls to match...redheads, brunettes, blondes...all long-legged and glamorous and willing.

      For years, especially in the years since his mother’s death, Rafe had been flying high. He and Sheikh Faysal Daood Taariq, his best friend from university, had been A-list invitees at all the most glittering celebrity parties. As was their custom, they’d made quite a hit when they arrived at the wild party in Saint-Tropez.

      Just a few short weeks ago.

      Such a shock it had been that night, in the midst of the glitz and glamour, for Rafe to receive a phone call from home.

      He’d been flirting outrageously with Olivia Belaire, and the girl was dancing barefoot while Rafe drank champagne from one of her shoes, when a white-coated waiter had tugged at his elbow.

      ‘Excuse me, Your Highness, you’re needed on the phone.’

      ‘Not now,’ Rafe had responded, waving the fellow off with the champagne-filled shoe. ‘I’m busy.’

      ‘I’m sorry, sir, but it’s a phone call from Montaigne. From the castle. They said it’s urgent.’

      ‘No, no, no,’ Rafe had insisted rather tipsily. ‘Nothing’s so important that it can’t wait till morning.’

      ‘It’s urgent news about your father, Your Highness.’

      In an instant Rafe had sobered. In fact, his veins had turned to ice as he’d walked stiff-backed to the phone to receive the news that his father, the robust and popular ruling Prince of Montaigne, had died suddenly of a heart attack.

      Rafe’s memories of the rest of that dreadful night were a blur. He’d been shocked and grief-stricken and filled with remorse, and he’d spent half of the night on the phone, talking to castle staff, to his country’s Chancellor, to Montaigne’s Chief of Intelligence, to his father’s secretary, his father’s publicist—who were now Rafe’s secretary and publicist.

      There’d been so much that he’d had to come to terms with in a matter of hours, including the horrifying, inescapable fact that he needed to find a fiancée in a hurry.

      An ancient clause in Montaigne’s constitution required a crown prince to be married, or at least betrothed, within two days of a ruling prince’s death. The subsequent marriage must take place within two months of this date.

      Such a disaster!

      The prospect of a sudden marriage had appalled Rafe. He’d been free for so long, he’d never considered settling down with one woman. Or at least, no single woman had ever sufficiently snagged his attention to the point that he’d considered a permanent relationship.

      Suddenly, however, his country’s future was at stake.

      Looking back on the past couple of weeks, Rafe was ashamed to admit that he’d been only dimly aware of the mining company that threatened Montaigne. But on that harrowing night he’d been forced to pay attention.

      The message was clear. Without a fiancée, Rafe St Romain would be deposed as Prince of Montaigne, the Chancellor would take control and the mongrels intent on his country’s ruin would have their way. In a blink they would tie up the rights to the mineral wealth hidden deep within Montaigne’s Alps.

      Among the many briefings Rafe had received that night, he’d been given an alarming warning from Montaigne’s Chief of Intelligence.

      ‘You cannot trust your Chancellor, Claude Pontier. We are certain he’s corrupt, but we’re still working on ways to prove it. We don’t have enough information yet, but Pontier has links to the Leroy Mining Company.’

      In other words...if Rafe wasn’t married within the required time frame, he would be deposed and the Chancellor could take control, allowing the greedy pack of miners to cause irreparable damage to Montaigne. Given free rein, they would heartlessly tear the mountains apart, wreaking havoc on his country’s beautiful landscape and totally destroying the economy based on centuries-old traditions.

      With only two days to produce a fiancée, Rafe had turned to the nearest available girl, who had happened to be the extraordinarily pretty, but slightly vacuous, Olivia Belaire. Unfortunately, less than two weeks after their spectacular and very public engagement ball, Olivia had done a runner.

      To an extent, Rafe could sympathise with Olivia. The night she’d agreed to step up as his fiancée had been a crazy whirlwind, and she certainly hadn’t had time to fully take in the deeper ramifications of marriage to a ruling prince. But Rafe had paid her an exceedingly generous amount, and the terms for their eventual divorce were unstinting, so he found it hard to remain sympathetic now, when his country’s problems were so dire.

      Despite his wayward playboy history, Rafe loved his country with all his heart and he loved the people of Montaigne, who were almost as famous for the exquisite jewellery they made from locally sourced gemstones as they were for their wonderful alpine cuisine. With the addition of the country’s world-class ski slopes, Montaigne offered an exclusive tourist package that had been his country’s lifeblood since the eighteenth century.

      Montaigne could never survive the invasion of these miners.

      Regrettably, his police still hadn’t enough evidence to pin Pontier down. They needed more time. And Rafe desperately needed a fiancée.

      Damn it, if Charlie Morisset hadn’t just received a phone call from her father that had clearly distressed her, Rafe would have proposed that she fly straight home with him. She would be the perfect foil, a lifesaving stand-in until Olivia was unearthed and placated, and reinstated as his fiancée. He would pay Charlie handsomely, of course.

      It seemed, however, that Charlie was dealing with some kind of family crisis of her own, so this probably wasn’t the choice moment to crassly wave money in her face in the hope that he could whisk her away.

      ‘How on earth did you manage to lose Olivia?’

      Rafe frowned at Charlie’s sudden, cheekily posed question.

      ‘Did you frighten her off?’ she asked, blue eyes blazing. ‘You didn’t hurt her, did you?’

      Rafe was almost too affronted to answer. ‘Of course I didn’t hurt her.’ In truth, he’d barely touched her.

      Instantly sobered by the news of his father’s death, he had dropped his playboy persona the very moment he and Olivia had left the party in Saint-Tropez. As they’d hurried back to Montaigne, Rafe had reverted to the perfect gentlemanly Prince. Apart from the few tipsy kisses they’d exchanged while they’d danced at the party, he’d barely СКАЧАТЬ