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

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      When Sopi returned and confronted Maude over the wasted day, her stepmother frowned and said, “Oh, you know how Fernanda gets distracted when she’s excited. She and Nanette have been invited to dine with the prince tonight. That must be why she mixed things up.”

      It was a prevarication if not an outright lie. Sopi was dying to say, Oh, really? Because last night, when I was with the prince, he told me he wasn’t interested in either of them.

      But she didn’t want to reveal she’d been with the prince. She hadn’t felt sordid when it happened, but after brooding on it all day, she was convinced she’d behaved like those women he’d spoken of so disparagingly. The ones who straddled him whether he wanted them to or not.

      She went about her afternoon checking in with staff and pitching in as necessary. When a handsome young man approached her as she was covering the booking desk, she smiled in greeting, caught off guard when he used her full name, not the Sopi on her name tag.

      “Cassiopeia Brodeur?”

      “Yes.” This was more the type of man she ought to aim for, she thought absently. He was polite and well dressed, but his attitude didn’t scream wealth and privilege. He returned her smile, but with polite reserve. He didn’t move the needle on her body temperature one millimeter, which was delightfully unthreatening if a little disappointing.

      “Please call me Sopi. How can I help you?”

      “I’m the prince’s assistant, Gerard. This is for you.” The small envelope he offered was imprinted with the royal crest.

      Her heart tripped, and she ducked the envelope below the edge of the desk to hide how her hands began to tremble.

      “Thank you,” she said in a strangled voice, cheeks scorching. She wanted to glance around guiltily but held his stare and her smile even though it began to feel forced.

      “He asked if I could also take your number?” He offered his telephone with a contact already started in her name.

      She balked. Rhys had gotten her naked last night, then fobbed her off on his bodyguard when he was finished with her. She wasn’t up for a do-over, if that’s what this was about.

      “Perhaps if you read his message,” Gerard suggested, correctly interpreting her mutinous expression.

      She withdrew the card, which was a single sheet, not even folded. It was some kind of high-grade linen stock in ivory with raw edges, also embossed with his crest.

      His fine-tipped pen had dug in deep and left small trails, as though he’d rushed to write his brief message, barely lifting the pen. Or had written it in anger.

       Where the hell did you go today?

       Dinner.

       No excuses.

      Splotch went the ink on the final dot.

      She bit her lip and slid the card back into the envelope, glanced at Gerard.

      “Seven p.m. in the dining room with the rest of your family? I’ll tell him you’re confirmed?”

      The rest of her family? Yech.

      He must have read her reaction. “If there are any impediments, please bring them to my attention so I may iron them away.”

      She resisted asking him to squash her family flat.

      “I’ll be there,” she said, not sure if she was telling the truth. At least she’d bought a new dress today, still stinging over the incident with her stepsisters. The new one wasn’t designer or flashy by their standards, but it had come from an upscale boutique and cost more than Sopi’s weekly earnings. She had planned to return it on her next trip to Jasper.

      “Excellent. And would you be so kind…?” He offered his phone again.

      She hesitated, then gave him her number. He tried it, smiling when a ping sounded in her pocket. “Please let me know if I can assist you in any way.”

      Perhaps he could offer her some strategies on facing the prince after last night?

      For the rest of the afternoon, every time she tried to think up a reason to cry off the dinner invitation, she touched the card in her pocket and could hear Rhys’s deep voice warning, “No excuses.” Why did she find his profanity-laced impatience so reassuring? It brought a secretive smile to her lips every time she thought of it.

      At five fifty-five, Maude called her. “Sopi. We have a disaster in the kitchen. You’ll have to run out or breakfast won’t happen tomorrow morning.”

      Here was her excuse to skip dinner, but a devilish part of her refused to seize it.

      “We’re expected to dine with the prince СКАЧАТЬ