"The Tycoon Princes"

by Barbara McMahon

and

"Princess in the Outback"

by Barbara Hannay  

    ‘Now that,’ Laura said, grinning,  ‘is domesticated.’

‘Not ordinary at all, then,’ he said, his own mood deteriorating in direct proportion to her cheerfulness. 

‘Not in your world, maybe.’

If she’d picked up on his change of mood, she wasn’t letting it affect hers.  Maybe she didn’t notice.  Maybe her caller had made her too happy to care. 

 ‘Would you like some tea?’ she asked, taking the basket from him and stowing the vegetables in the fridge.  ‘We could sit outside in the garden.’

 ‘How very English,’ he said.  Feeling, suddenly, very foreign indeed.  Out of his depth.  Unimportant.  He did not like feeling unimportant, he discovered.  Not in Laura Varndell's life, anyway.  ‘Will we have cucumber sandwiches and scones?’ 

      ‘With home made strawberry preserve?’ she asked, amused by this, too, apparently.  Her mood was beyond dampening.  ‘Sorry, this is ordinary life, remember?  Not some nostalgic Hollywood version of England.  I might have a packet of chocolate biscuits somewhere, though.  And you could have coffee if you prefer.  Or something cold?’

 ‘What about this curry?’ he said, hell bent on irritating her.  ‘Don’t we have to start chopping onions?’

 ‘Not instantly,’ she said  ‘It doesn’t take long to cook.’  Then, finally responding to his tone, she shut the fridge door and turned to face him.  ‘Unless you’ve got a curfew?  Will your minions raise the alarm, call out the guard, if you don’t return before dark?’

He refused to make it that easy for her.  ‘If you’d prefer to me to leave early, just say.’

Laura had realised the minute she’d entered the kitchen that Xander had reverted to distant autocrat.  Was he really offended that she’d given her attention to her unknown caller?  Or just offended that she’d had a caller when she was supposed to be giving him her undivided attention.  And in a moment, her mood has switched from guilt to anger.

He might be king of the castle where he came from, but this was her home.  Her life. 

‘That,’ she said, lobbing the ball straight back into his court, ‘is entirely up to you.’

He shrugged.  ‘It occurs to me that you weren’t expecting me to stay all evening,’ he said, not answering her question.  But then, she’d not answered his.  ‘Maybe you have other plans?  A previous commitment?’

Commitment.  Nice word.  Covered all eventualities.  ‘Do you mean a date?’ she asked.  ‘I did invite you to stay, Xander.’

 ‘That’s generous of you, but I believe I invited myself.  I forget sometimes that people assume that my simplest of thought, spoken out loud, is an order.’

 ‘Not me.  If I’d had a date, I’d have told you so.’

 ‘If you’ve put someone off…‘  He left the sentence hanging, leaving her to fill in the blank.

So.  He’d heard her talking to Jay and instantly assumed that she was breaking some poor sap’s heart on his account.  How arrogant could one man get?  He didn’t deserve to be put out of his misery.  But she wanted to put that smile back on his face.

 ‘The message on the machine was from my aunt, Xander.  Someone called for me, wanting to talk about a job.’

‘Now?’  He let slip the aristocratic pose.  ‘Don’t let me --’ 

‘I won’t!  Now for goodness sake, if you don’t want tea, take a beer and go and sit outside in the sun.  Relax.’

‘What about Sean?’  He persisted.

‘What is this?  Twenty questions?’ 

‘Won’t he be dropping in for … coffee?’

He wasn’t suspicious, or on his aristocratic high horse, she realised, belatedly.  He was just plain jealous. 

This man, this prince who had a whole country at his feet, who could snap his fingers and have his pick of the beauties of Montorino – or anywhere else for that matter -- was jealous of her narcissistic neighbour. 

She didn’t know whether to be cross with him, laugh at him, or hug him.  She did none of those things, too touched, moved, by this unexpected evidence of self-doubt.  Uncertainty.

It was so … human.

So ordinary.

From the book THE ORDINARY PRINCESS by Liz Fielding
ISBN 978-0373037735
Imprint: Romance TM & Harlequin Romance (R)
(R) & TM are trademarks of the publisher