Marion Lennox: Cinderella: Hired by the Prince / The Sheikh's Destiny

She stared up at him in the moonlight. He stared straight back at her and she felt her heart surge.

What am I getting into? she demanded of herself, but suddenly she didn’t care. The night was warm, the boat was lovely, and this man was holding her hands, looking down at her in the moonlight, and his hands were imparting strength and surety and promise.

Promise? What was he promising? She was being fanciful.

But she had to be careful, she told herself fiercely. She must.

It was too late.

‘Yes,’ she said, before she could change her mind—and she was committed.

She was heading to the other side of the world with a man she’d met less than a day ago.

Was she out of her mind?

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BY ROYAL APPOINTMENT

You’re invited to a royal wedding!

From turreted castles to picturesque palaces to sumptuous sheikhdoms—these kingdoms may be steeped in tradition, but romance always rules!

So don’t miss your VIP invitation to the most extravagant weddings of the year!

Your royal carriage awaits in…

CINDERELLA: HIRED BY THE PRINCEby Marion Lennox

THE SHEIKH’S DESTINYby Melissa James

By

MARION LENNOXis a country girl, born on an Australian dairy farm. She moved on—mostly because the cows just weren’t interested in her stories! Married to a ‘very special doctor’, Marion writes Medical ™Romances as well as Mills & Boon ®Romance (she used a different name for each category for a while—if you’re looking for her past Mills & Boon Romances, search for author Trisha David as well). She’s now had over 75 romance novels accepted for publication.

In her non-writing life Marion cares for kids, cats, dogs, chooks and goldfish. She travels, she fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost).

Having spun in circles for the first part of her life, she’s now stepped back from her ‘other’ career, which was teaching statistics at her local university. Finally she’s reprioritised her life, figured what’s important and discovered the joys of deep baths, romance and chocolate.

Preferably all at the same time!

‘RAMÓN spends his life in jeans and ancient T-shirts. He has money and he has freedom. Why would he want the Crown?’

Señor Rodriguez, legal advisor to the Crown of Cepheus, regarded the woman before him with some sympathy. The Princess Sofía had been evicted from the palace of Cepheus sixty years ago, and she didn’t wish to be back here now. Her face was tear-stained and her plump hands were wringing.

‘I had two brothers, Señor Rodriguez,’ she told him, as if explaining her story could somehow alter the inevitable. ‘But I was only permitted to know one. My younger brother and I were exiled with my mother when I was ten years old, and my father’s cruelty didn’t end there. And now…I haven’t seen a tiara in sixty years and, as far as I know, Ramón’s never seen one. The only time he’s been in the palace is the night his father died. I’ve returned to the palace because my mother raised me with a sense of duty, but how can we demand that from Ramón? To return to the place that killed his father…’

‘The Prince Ramón has no choice,’ the lawyer said flatly. ‘And of course he’ll want the Crown.’

‘There’s no “of course” about it,’ Sofía snapped. ‘Ramón spends half of every year building houses for some charity in Bangladesh, and the rest of his life on his beautiful yacht. Why should he give that up?’

‘He’ll be Crown Prince.’

‘You think royalty’s everything?’ Sofía gave up hand wringing and stabbed at her knitting as if she’d like it to be the late, unlamented Crown Prince. ‘My nephew’s a lovely young man and he wants nothing to do with the throne. The palace gives him nightmares, as it gives us all.’

‘He must come,’ Señor Rodriguez said stiffly.

‘So how will you find him?’Sofía muttered. ‘When he’s working in Bangladesh Ramón checks his mail, but for the rest of his life he’s around the world in that yacht of his, who knows where? Since his mother and sister died he lets the wind take him where it will. And, even if you do find him, how do you think he’ll react to being told he has to fix this mess?’

‘There won’t be a mess if he comes home. He’ll come, as you have come. He must see there’s no choice.’

‘And what of the little boy?’

‘Philippe will go into foster care. There’s no choice there, either. The child is nothing to do with Prince Ramón.’

‘Another child of no use to the Crown,’ Sofía whispered, and she dropped two stiches without noticing. ‘But Ramón has a heart. Oh, Ramón, if I were you I’d keep on sailing.’

‘JENNY, lose your muffins. Get a life!’

Gianetta Bertin, known to the Seaport locals as Jenny, gave her best friend a withering look and kept right on spooning double choc chip muffin mixture into pans. Seaport Coffee ’n’ Cakes had been crowded all morning, and her muffin tray was almost bare.

‘I don’t have time for lectures,’ she told her friend severely. ‘I’m busy.’

‘You need to have time for lectures. Honest, Jen.’ Cathy hitched herself up onto Jenny’s prep bench and grew earnest. ‘You can’t stay stuck in this hole for ever.’

‘There’s worse holes to be stuck in, and get off my bench. If Charlie comes in he’ll sack me, and I won’t have a hole at all.’

‘He won’t,’ Cathy declared. ‘You’re the best cook in Seaport. You hold this place up. Charlie’s treating you like dirt, Jen, just because you don’t have the energy to do anything about it. I know you owe him, but you could get a job and repay him some other way.’

‘Like how?’ Jenny shoved the tray into the oven, straightened and tucked an unruly curl behind her ear. Her cap was supposed to hold back her mass of dark curls, but they kept escaping. She knew she’d now have a streak of flour across her ear but did it matter what she looked like?

And, as if in echo, Cathy continued. ‘Look at you,’ she declared. ‘You’re gorgeous. Twenty-nine, figure to die for, cute as a button, a woman ripe and ready for the world, and here you are, hidden in a shapeless white pinafore with flour on your nose—yes, flour on your nose, Jen—no don’t wipe it, you’ve made it worse.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Jenny said. ‘Who’s looking? Can I get on? There’s customers out there.’

‘There are,’ Cathy said warmly, peering out through the hatch but refusing to let go of her theme. ‘You have twenty people out there, all coming here for one of your yummy muffins and then heading off again for life. You should be out there with them. Look at that guy out there, for instance. Gorgeous or what? That’s what you’re missing out on, Jen, stuck in here every day.’