Free A Christmas Bride by Susan Mallery

dealing with an angry monarch who wanted heirs.
    “But who would care for the girls?” he asked. “The children can’t raise themselves.”
    “Hire a nanny. Hire Kayleen.” Lina shrugged. “She already has a relationship with the girls. They care for her and she cares for them.”
    “Wait a minute,” Kayleen said. “I have a job. I’m a teacher here.”
    Lina looked at her. “Did you or did you not give the girls your word that their life would get better? What are you willing to do to keep your word? You would still be a teacher, but on a smaller scale. With three students. Perhaps there would even be time for you to teach a few classes here.”
    The last thing As’ad wanted was to adopt three children he knew nothing about. While he’d always planned on a family, the idea was vague, in the future, and it included sons. Still, it was a solution. Tahir would not stand in the way of a prince taking the children. And as Lina had pointed out, it would buy time with his father. He could not be expected to find a bride while adjusting to a new family.
    He looked at Kayleen. “You would have to be solely responsible for the girls. You would be given all the resources you require, but I have no interest in their day-to-day lives.”
    “I haven’t even agreed to this,” she told him.
    “Yet you were the one willing to do anything to keep the sisters together.”
    “It would be a wonderful arrangement,” Lina told Kayleen. “Just think. The girls would be raised in a palace. There would be so many opportunities for them. Dana could go to the best university. Nadine would have access to wonderful dance teachers. And little Pepper wouldn’t have to cry herself to sleep every night.”
    Kayleen bit her lower lip. “It sounds good.” She turned to As’ad. “You’d have to give your word that they would never be turned out or made into servants or married off for political gain.”
    “You insult me with your mistrust.” The audacity of her statements was right in keeping with what he’d seen of her personality, but it was important to establish control before things began.
    “I don’t know you,” she said.
    “I am Prince As’ad of El Deharia. That is all you need to know.”
    Lina smiled at her. “As’ad is a good man, Kayleen.”
    As’ad resented that his aunt felt the need to speak for his character. Women, he thought with mild annoyance. They were nothing but trouble.
    Kayleen looked him in the eye. “You have to give your word that you’ll be a good father, caring more for their welfare than your own. You’ll love them and listen to them and not marry them off to anyone they don’t love.”
    What was it with women and love? he wondered. They worried too much about a fleeting emotion that had no value.
    “I will be a good father,” he said. “I will care for them and see that they are raised with all the privileges that go with being the daughter of a prince.”
    Kayleen frowned. “That wasn’t what I asked.”
    “It is what I offer.”
    Kayleen hesitated. “You have to promise not to marry them off to someone they don’t care about.”
    Such foolish worries, he thought, then nodded. “They may pick their own husbands.”
    “And go to college and not be servants.”
    “I have said they will be as my daughters, Ms. James. You test my patience.”
    She stared at him. “I’m not afraid of you.” She considered for a second.
    “I can see that. You will be responsible for them. Do as you see fit with them.” He glanced at his aunt. “Are we finished here?”
    She smiled, her eyes twinkling in a way that made him wonder what else she had planned for him. “I’m not sure, As’ad,” she told him. “In a way I think we’re just beginning.”
    CHAPTER TWO
     
    KAYLEEN WOULDN’T HAVE thought it was possible for her life to change so quickly. That morning she’d awakened in her narrow bed in a small room at the orphanage. If she stood in the right place and leaned all the way over,