Meet the Author:
As a Texan and recovering sorority girl, Lindsay Emory has strong opinions on "real" football (soccer, duh), wine (bubbles, please), and wearing white after Labor Day (just don't). Lindsay writes books with mystery and romance featuring cranky heroes and the sassy heroines who drive them crazy. She lives on the North Texas plains with two big dogs and her own cranky hero, drinking gimlets and raising two STEM warrior princesses.
About the Book:
When Princess Caroline of Drieden of the Royal House Laurent eloped with a race car driver, she forfeited her royal title and her family.
Now a widow and exiled from Drieden, Caroline is working as a journalist, writing exposes under a pen name. When, one day, she catches sight of her sister Thea's ex-fiancé, she's stunned - Christian is supposed to be dead. Here could be the scoop of the century.
But Caroline's plans to uncover Christian's deception are foiled by the arrival of Hugh Konnor - her former bodyguard and Caroline's first - unrequited - love. When Hugh stubbornly refuses to leave her side, Caroline can't deny they make a good team.
As they unravel a web of deception that could bring down the House of Laurent, Caroline must decide how far she's willing to go to protect a family she feels deserted her - and whether the man who swore to guard her body can safely hold her heart.
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Excerpt
Maybe Astrid was right. There was
something in the blood line. Something that made the women in our family
different. After my mother’s infidelities and the divorce and the reality shows
and tabloids, we—my siblings and I—had become estranged from her. How could we
not be? We were princesses (and a prince) of a royal house. We had all the
privileges and burdens that came along with that. When my mother threw a
metaphorical glass of champagne in the face of the House of Laurent, we had no
choice, really.
Years went by, I was a good princess.
Until I wasn’t.
Until I defied the Queen and she taught
me that both the privileges and the burdens that came with my birth were only
mine because she allowed it.
And now who was I? A princess without a
title, sure. A woman with a comfortable amount in Swiss bank accounts,
absolutely. I was intensely aware that so many women would love to be in my
shoes.
Freedom.
I had it now, didn’t I? Exactly what I
thought I had wanted when I demanded to be granted permission to marry Stavros.
But freedom is so very … free. Wild.
Uncontainable.
After a lifetime of constraints and
rules and dictum, I saw now that maybe freedom didn’t settle on me as
comfortably as I’d imagined it would. It was a silk Pucci kaftan after a
lifetime of tweed Chanel suits. It was going barefoot on the sands of Bali
after only wearing Louboutins on slick marble.
Of course, it was going to take a while
for me to get used to the feeling. To the lack
of expectations. That was all this was, really. Quite understandable that I was
having a hard time saying no to Hugh
Konnor and his continued insistence that I stay safe by his side. I had spent
nearly twenty-nine years doing exactly that, obeying my Laurent side.
It would take some time to grow into my
Sevine side.
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine
it. Openly saying, “Fuck you,” to the House of Laurent, to the courtiers and
politicians. To not hiding anymore.
Because really, hiding? My last six
months of solitude in Northern Italy? Hadn’t that been another concession to
the royal princess playbook? To not make a fuss, to hope that people averted
their eyes and ignored my indiscretions?
What if …
What
if I were more like my mother?
A distinct feeling of discomfort skipped
through my veins.
Or maybe that was too much, too soon.
Baby steps, maybe?
And then, as if the universe had heard
me … and then laughed … who came stumbling into the room but Hugh Konnor.
“There you are,” he said, pulling his
head back as if he was seeing me for the first time in ages. Giving me a look
that a man does right before he says something like, “Done something new with
your hair?”
Except he didn’t say that. Hugh Konnor
would never not notice a change in
me. He noticed everything, didn’t he? If I darted my eyes, if I shifted my
weight. I had always felt like a pinned butterfly specimen when he was around.
As if I was only there for him to study. To amuse him.
The thought was arousing in a sneaky
way. I always thought I hated the idea of being pinned in place by Hugh. But
then, as the image sat with me, as the feeling grew solid, made my limbs loose
and languid, I discovered I quite liked it.
It probably was the wine talking.
Liar, the wine said.
Excerpt #3
Our gazes locked. He looked down at me
with a molten golden stare and I got the distinct impression that he was
thinking about the same things.
“We can’t,” I started.
“No,” he agreed quickly.
Too quickly. I felt the familiar
resistance, the old wound of his rejection, that he found me ridiculous and
repulsive, but I remembered. His fingers, his touch, the way he greedily tasted
me.
My inner princess was now offended. “Why
can’t we?” I demanded. “A lot of men think I’m attractive. A lot of women,
too,” I added, for good measure.
A tense sigh tore of out of him. “I
know.”
“You know that I’m attractive, or you
know that a lot of other people think I’m hot enough to …” My voice tapered out
under the undeniable heat of his gaze. “Kiss,” I ended lamely.
“You don’t want to be with someone like
me,” Hugh said, almost kindly.
“Someone like you?” There was my alter
ego, Awkward Repeating Robot, again. “Are you gay?” I asked him.
“No.”
“Impotent?”
His mouth slid to one side. “No.”
I wracked my brain for other possible
reasons why I would not want to be with this tall, handsome, extremely
competent man with intense eyes and clever hands and a loyal heart and … oh.
Crap.
“You’re married.”
“No.”
“Otherwise attached?”
Another frustrated sigh. “No. I’m a
fucking street kid from Koras who joined the army simply to get food and a roof
over my head. I’m a government employee with cheap suits, tattoos, a government
pension that starts in two months and absolutely no knowledge about expensive
wine or the Crusades or the fucking king who got himself killed in that
supermarket car park.” Suddenly, Hugh was much closer, practically looming over
me.
“Wait. You think you’re not good enough
for me?” I laughed. Oh, irony was delicious. “You know I’m not a princess
anymore, right?”
“So you keep saying. But all I see is
the daughter of the next king of Drieden.”
I held his gaze for a long moment.
“Liar,” I finally said.
“What did you call me?”
“You heard me. I called you a liar. If
all you saw was an untouchable princess, then you wouldn’t have done what you
did.”
“It was a mistake.”
“Not on the couch,” I said. “In the
stables. When I was nineteen and asked you to take my virginity. You know what
I think?”
“I couldn’t possibly guess.”
“I think you were tempted to take me up
on the offer.”
“You were a child.”
“I
was nineteen. You were—what, twenty-five?” I shook my head. It wasn’t an
unheard-of, insurmountable age difference. “You saw me as something else.”
“You’re right.”
“See?”
He leaned in, inches away from my face.
“I saw you as trouble.”
It all clicked then. Hugh’s fundamental
nature, how he took his job so seriously. He’d said it in Italy, hadn’t he? He
thought his job was to protect me from my own bad decisions.
Even if my bad decision was him.
Giveaway:
- $15 Amazon Gift Card
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