Carrie Alexander - Once Upon A Tiara

Two brand-new stories in every volume…twice a month!

Duets Vol. #83

Royalty makes an appearance in the line this month with a fun-filled Double Duets by fan favorite Carrie Alexander. Look for the sexy, sassy RED-HOT ROYALS miniseries from this author whom Romantic Times says is “a gifted writer, with a fresh distinctive voice.” The regal miniseries continues next month with Jill Shalvis!

Duets Vol. #84

Bonnie Tucker and Holly Jacobs team up this month to write about disastrous weddings. Bonnie’s The Great Bridal Escape features a runaway bride who elopes with the best man. Holly follows with a quirky story, How To Catch a Groom, about a hunky hero left at the altar with only the gorgeous wedding coordinator to console him. Enjoy all the matrimonial antics with this dynamite writing duo!

Be sure to pick up both Duets volumes today!

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Once Upon a Tiara Once Upon a Tiara

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilogue

Henry Ever After

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

“Ooh, my blouse is all damp,” Lili said.

She peeled off her pink jacket and reached to unbutton the blouse. The wet silk had gone transparent, clinging to the curves of her breasts.

Good God! Simon thought. Breasts! Naked! Lucky, lucky man!

Then: Bodyguard! Royal outrage! Disgrace!

Worth it!

“Do you have a hair dryer?” Lili asked.

“There are hand dryers in the lavatories. I’ll take your things, if you like.”

His brain had lost too much blood for him to think straight. Staring at the ceiling, he reached out a blind hand, hoping she’d put the clothes into it.

“I’ll do it.” She stood suddenly.

Simon got a handful of breast instead.

The princess gasped.

Lili looked at him with bright, inquisitive eyes, her clothing clutched to her chest. “Now that you’ve touched my breast, you practically have to take me on a date.”

He hesitated. “Would I get to touch the other breast?”

Dear Reader,

I had such fun writing for the RED-HOT ROYALS miniseries. I’m never going to be a princess—and, honestly, I wouldn’t want to be—but occasionally it’s a treat to indulge in the fantasy world of ball gowns, tiaras and fairy godmothers. Of course, since this is the wild and wacky world of Duets, I also threw in a few less perfect elements: bee stings, bad dates, pickpockets and a Gypsy curse. To say nothing of two rather improbable Prince Charmings…

Please enjoy the intertwined stories of my two princesses, Lili and Jana. One’s not quite as royal as the other—except to her hero. That’s as it should be. Because we’re all princesses where it counts!

Yours, with a sprinkle of fairy dust,

Carrie Alexander

P.S. Amelia Grundy isn’t finished yet. Remember to look for Lili’s sisters’ stories, A Royal Mess and Her Knight To Remember by Jill Shalvis, next month.

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

839—SMOOTH MOVES

869—RISKY MOVES

HARLEQUIN BLAZE

20—PLAYING WITH FIRE

HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

1042—THE MAVERICK

To Susan Sheppard, a final pearl for the true pearl

Thanks for everything, “Clam”

“PEANUT BUTTER,” Lili said to herself, gazing beyond the wisps of vaporous clouds. The airplane was beginning its descent.

Soon, she, Liliane Brunner, Her Serene Highness of Grunberg—oh, my, my. La-di-da!—would have her first taste of genuine American peanut butter. To be excited over such a silly little thing was not at all grown-up or sophisticated. Even though Lili had sworn to her family that she’d behave on this trip, at the moment she didn’t give a fig about what a proper princess would do. There were peanut butter jars to explore! Childish or not, she’d wanted to stick her finger into a jar of Skippy or Jif ever since she’d heard of the exotic brands.

And grab a handful of M&M’s, she added silently, leaning closer to the small window to get a glimpse of land. Oh, and I mustn’t forget hot dogs, slathered in mustard and ketchup and relish and sauerkraut and pickles and five-alarm chili…

Perhaps it would be best not to try it all at once!

Lili smiled, propping a fist beneath her chin in a gesture left over from her storybook childhood, when life at the royal castle in Spitzenstein had been one grand entertainment after another. Her mother’s death in an avalanche in the Swiss Alps had changed all that. Lili had been nine. Her father had grieved deeply, withdrawing from the world for several years. Afterward, he’d become far more restrictive about what he allowed for his three young daughters. Lili and her two older sisters, Natalia and Andrea, had grown up as sheltered as possible in the modern day.

Despite her mother’s tragic demise, Lili’s optimism and outgoing personality could not be stifled. She tried to be good to please her father—especially since Natalia, the eldest, had grown into a rebel, while Andrea played the nonconformist—but being good was terribly boring. Lili loved life—all of it! She wanted to experience everything. This was her first trip to America as an adult, and she was practically light-headed, her anticipation so fizzy it was as if she’d been guzzling expensive champagne straight from the bottle.

Lili nipped the tip of her tongue to quell an eruption of sheer excitement. If she let it out, she might not be able to stop…and it wasn’t very princessy to giggle in first class.

Then again, why should only she have to behave? Prince Franz, her father, was spending a weekend in Cap d’Antibes with his va-va-voom mistress—though Lili wasn’t supposed to know that—while Andrea, the tomboy, and Natalia, who was Lili’s role model for mis behavior, completed preparations to attend a wedding in the American Southwest. They had been enlisted to lecture Lili about the importance of maintaining proper royal comportment, but really… Was she seriously expected to take instruction from Natalia, with her leather miniskirts and bite-my-heinie attitude? Or Annie, who knew her own mind and spoke it frequently?

Lili was the baby at twenty-two. Old enough, in her opinion.

Her father had another, however. She was considered too capricious to handle vital duties. For her first overseas outing as a solo representative of the royal family, the opening of an exhibition of the royal jewels in a diddly-squat museum in Middle America was as safe and insignificant an assignment as Prince Franz could find. Lili didn’t mind. She’d been waiting for any opportunity to strike out on her own.

At her first glimpse of land, Lili nearly bounced out of her seat. She’d spotted green trees and golden-hued fields far below. Those had to be the “amber waves of grain”—a phrase that had piqued her curiosity far more than “purple mountains majesty.” She’d seen plenty of those in her homeland, a pocket-sized principality tucked between the Swiss Alps and the Austrian border. America was a thousand times the size of Grunberg, whose citizens were so stuck upon their traditions they didn’t even have the Golden Arches.