The Princess and the Player. Kat Cantrell

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СКАЧАТЬ should be the most important factor in whom you married. The thought solidified Bella’s resolve. If her father wanted a match between the Montoros and the Rowlings, great. Bella would comply—as long as the Rowling was James.

      She’d rather see where that led than try to force a match with the right brother.

      Why shouldn’t she be allowed to be as happy as Rafe and Gabriel?

      * * *

      The loud, scornful whispering at the next table over started to annoy James about two bites into his paella. Couldn’t a bloke get something to eat without someone publicly crucifying him? This time, the subject of choice was his lack of a decision on whether to take a spot on Alma’s reserve team.

      The two middle-aged men were in complete agreement: James should be happy to have any position, even though Alma wasn’t a UEFA team. He should take his lumps and serve his penance, and then it would be acceptable to play for a premiere club again, once he’d redeemed himself. Or so the men opined, and not very quietly.

      The paella turned to sawdust in his mouth. He was glad someone knew what he needed to do next in his stalled career.

      Playing for Alma was a fine choice. For a beginner. But James had been playing football since he was seven, the same year his father had uprooted his two sons from their Guildford home and moved them to the tiny, nowhere island of Alma. Football had filled a void in his life after the death of his mother. James loved the game. Being dropped from Real Madrid had stung, worse than he’d let on to anyone.

      Of course, whom would he tell? He and Will rarely talked about anything of note, usually by James’s choice. Will was the perfect son who never messed up, while James spent as much effort as he possibly could on irritating his father. James and Will might be twins but the similarities ended there—and Will was a Manchester United fan from way back, so they couldn’t even talk football without almost coming to blows.

      And Will had first dibs on the woman James hadn’t been able to forget. All without lifting a finger. Life just reeked sometimes.

      Unable to eat even one more bite of the dish he’d found so tasty just minutes ago, James threw a few bills on the table and stalked out of the restaurant into the bright afternoon sun on the boardwalk at Playa Del Onda.

      So much for hanging out at the beach where fewer people might recognize him. He might as well go back to Del Sol and let his father tell him again how much of a disappointment he was. Or he could swallow his bitterness and get started on finding another football club since none had come looking for him.

      A flash of blond hair ahead of him caught his eye. Since Bella had been on his mind in one way or another since he’d met her the day before, it was no wonder he was imagining her around every corner.

      He shouldn’t, though. She’d been reserved for the “right” Rowling, the one who could do no wrong. James’s black sheep status hadn’t improved much. Frankly, she deserved a shot at the successful brother, though he had no clue if Will was even on board with the match their father had apparently orchestrated. When Bella mentioned it yesterday, that was the first he’d heard of it. Which didn’t mean it wasn’t legit.

      The woman in front of him glanced into a shop window and her profile confirmed it. It was Bella.

      Something expanded in his chest and he forgot why he wasn’t supposed to think about her. Unable to help himself all of a sudden, James picked up his pace until he drew up alongside her. “Fancy meeting you here.”

      Tilting her head down, she looked at him over the top of her sunglasses and murmured something reassuring to the burly security detail trailing her. They backed off immediately.

      “James Rowling, I presume?” she said to him.

      He laughed. “The one and only. Getting in some shopping?”

      “Nope. Waiting around for you to stroll by. It’s about time. I was starting to think you’d ordered everything on El Gatito’s menu.” She nodded in the direction of the restaurant he’d just exited and leaned in to murmur, “I hope you skipped the cat.”

      She’d been waiting for him? The notion tripped him up even more than her wholly American, wholly sexy perfume, for some odd reason.

      “I, uh, did. Skip the cat,” he clarified as he caught her joke in reference to the restaurant’s name. “They were fresh out.”

      Her smile set off a round of sparks he’d rather not have over his brother’s intended match.

      “Maybe next time.”

      “Maybe next time you’ll just come inside and eat with me instead of skulking around outside like a stalker,” he suggested and curled his lip. What was he doing—asking her out? Bad idea.

      One of her eyebrows quirked up above the frame of her sunglasses. “I can say with absolute authority that me noticing you heading into a restaurant and accidentally-on-purpose hanging around hoping to run into you does not qualify as stalking. Trust me, I’m a bit of an expert. I have the police report to prove it.”

      He had a hard time keeping his own eyebrows from shooting up. “You’re a convicted stalker?”

      Her laugh was quite a bit more amused this time. “Not yet. Don’t go and ruin my perfect record now either, okay?” She shrugged and slipped off her sunglasses. “I picked up a stalker in Miami a couple of years ago. So I’m pretty familiar with American law. I would hope it’s reasonably similar in Alma.”

      Sobering immediately, he tamped down the sudden and violent urge to punch whomever had threatened Bella’s peace of mind. She’d mentioned it so casually, as if it wasn’t a big deal, but it bloody well was. “What do you mean, you picked up a stalker? Like you went to the market to get milk and you just couldn’t resist selecting a nutter to shadow you all the way home? No more jokes. Is he in jail?”

      That may have come out a little more fiercely than he’d intended, but oh, well. He didn’t take it back.

      Wide-eyed, she shook her head. “He was practically harmless. A little zealous with his affections, maybe. I was out for the evening and he broke into my bedroom, where he waited for me to come home, bouquet of flowers in hand, like we were a couple. Or at least that was his sworn testimony. When my father found out, he immediately called the police, the mayor of Miami and the CEO of the company who’d sold him the security system installed on the grounds. I’m afraid they were rather harsh with the intruder.”

      Harmless? Anyone who could bypass a security system was far from harmless.

      “As well they should have been.” James developed an instant liking for Bella’s obviously very level-headed father. “Was that the extent of it? Do I need to worry about the nutter following you across the pond?”

      James had had his share of negative attention, invasions of privacy and downright hostile encounters with truly disturbed people. But he had fifty pounds and eight inches on Bella, plus he knew how to take care of himself. Bella was delicate and gorgeous and worthy of being treated like the princess she was. The thought of a creepy mouth-breather following her through the streets of Alma in hopes of doing depraved things made him furious.

      “I doubt it. I haven’t heard a peep from him in two years.” She contemplated James with a small smile and crossed her arms over the angular sundress СКАЧАТЬ