Free HOW TO MARRY A PRINCESS by Christine Rimmer Page A

once she was shoving away from him, throwing off the blanket and leaping to her feet.
    “Alice. Don’t...”
    “I’m going wading.” She gathered up her gold skirts and ran to the water’s edge.
    He got up and followed her, taking his time about it. Better to give her a moment or two to calm down.
    When he reached her, she was just standing there, the foamy waves lapping her slender feet, holding her skirts out of the way. For a moment they stared out at the water together toward the sinking moon on the far horizon.
    Then she confessed, “All right, that was a little bit bitchy. Not to mention over the top. Sorry.”
    He said nothing, only reached out a hand, caught a loose curl of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. He really liked touching her—and he liked even more that she let him. “I was only saying that we’re more or less evenly matched.”
    “But I don’t want to be shattered. I don’t want to shatter you. I want...” Words seemed to fail her.
    He ran a finger down the side of her neck. Living silk, her skin. He drank in her slight shiver at his touch. “You want what?”
    She gazed out over the water again. “I want to rip off my dress and dive in. Right here. Right now.”
    A bolt of heat hit him where it counted. Gruffly, he suggested, “Fine with me. I’ll join you.”
    She let her head drop back and stared up at the dark sky. “I can’t.”
    “There’s no one here but the two of us.”
    She lowered her head and turned to him then. “Oh, Noah. That’s the thing. I can never be sure, never be too careful. If someone just happened to be lurking back on the trail with a camera and got a shot of me cavorting naked in the waves with you... Oh, God. My mother would never forgive me.” She smiled then, but it was a sad smile. “If the paparazzi caught me in the buff now, I don’t think I would forgive myself, if you want the truth.”
    “You’re being way too hard on yourself. You know that, right?”
    “Maybe. I suppose. It didn’t used to bother me much. I used to simply ignore it all. I did what I wanted and if the journos had nothing better to do than to take pictures of me and write silly stories about me, so what? But now, well, I feel differently. I’m sick to death of being the wild one, the ready-for-anything, out-of-control Princess Alice.”
    He had a good idea of what had pushed her over the line. “The pictures from that pub in Glasgow?”
    She winced. “You saw them.”
    “Yeah.”
    “My mother was pretty upset over them.”
    He blew out a slow breath. “I thought they were hot.”
    “More like a hot mess.”
    “ Hot still being the operative word.”
    She turned fully toward him and studied his face, a deep look, one that made him slightly uncomfortable. And then she said, “I think I really should go home now.”
    Uh-uh. Not yet. Not this time.
    He reached out. He couldn’t stop himself. He wrapped his fingers around the back of her neck and pulled her into him. “Kiss me.”
    “Oh, Noah...”
    “Shh.” He took her mouth. She made a reluctant sound low in her throat—but then she softened and kissed him back. When he lifted his head, he said, “I’ve got to get you away from here.”
    She gazed up at him, eyes shining, lips slightly swollen from the kiss. “Away from where?”
    “Away from Montedoro.”
    She frowned. “That’s not going to happen. Tonight is our last night and—”
    He stopped her with a gentle finger on her soft lips. “I don’t want this to be our last night. And I don’t believe that you do, either.”
    Her slim shoulders drooped. “Noah. Be realistic.”
    “But I am. Completely. And my point is, it’s a fishbowl here—beautiful, glamorous, but still. A fishbowl. Whatever we do together here, there will be pictures and stories in the tabloid press.” Plus, it was way too easy for her to escape him here on her own turf. He needed to get her onto his territory for a change. He went for it. “Come back to California with me