Raye Morgan - The Rebel Prince

“Who told you that?” Monty asked with interest.

But Will waved it away. “They always say that about royalty. You know the media. Always trying to hype their main product. They give royals attributes they don’t deserve, just to make them more interesting to the public.”

Emma frowned. “I don’t know if that’s true.” Her face cleared. “Oh, you’re teasing. I know he’s very handsome. I don’t think I’ve ever seen pictures myself—I don’t really follow the society pages. But I’ve heard it from others, people who pay attention to these things. I’m sure he’s quite good-looking.”

“Well, don’t you believe it,” the doctor said cheerfully as he packed away his instruments. “I know him personally. Lazy layabout, that’s what he is. Never done a day’s worth of work in his life. Always off on some yacht in the Mediterranean or the Caribbean.”

“Isn’t that pretty much the way they all are, those royals?” Emma asked him, looking for confirmation. “At least, from what I hear.”

Monty scowled but Will nodded wisely. “Over-endowed libido, under-endowed intellect,” he noted. “That’s our boy, the prince. Take my word for it.”

Monty’s head swung around at that and his mouth opened in protest. “Hey!”

“Yes, my dear,” Will droned on. “Centuries of inbreeding.” He made a face. “Leaves them a little bewildered, you know. You’ll catch a glimpse of one now and then wandering mournfully about the castle like a lost sheep.”

“That does it,” Monty said, springing lightly to his feet and lunging for the doctor. “You’re going into the pool.”

EMMA gasped, feeling dizzy. She was used to verbal rages between people. They happened all the time in her very volatile family. But physical confrontations were different. Were these two very large men actually going to fight?

Monty’s body seemed to be a symphony of muscles all working together taking a form a Greek statue would have envied. His legs looked like steel and his arms bulged in places she hadn’t known she liked to see bulges. And the sense she got of things barely covered by that tiny black swimsuit made her blush and suddenly, to her surprise, she had to catch her breath.

But she couldn’t tear her gaze away. Monty was just so beautiful. The only flaw seemed to be a long ridged scar from just beneath his ribs down toward his hip-bone, as though a knife had…

She shuddered, not wanting to think what might have made it. And at the same moment Monty grimaced and seemed to clutch at the scar area.

Will stopped wrestling immediately. “That still bothering you?” he asked, frowning.

Monty shrugged, straightening slowly. “It grabs now and then. Mostly it’s okay,” he said dismissively. “It doesn’t stop me from doing much.”

Still, it was obvious that the so-called fight was truly over.

“You ought to get the scar tissue massaged periodically,” Will told him. “It’s probably building up calcium deposits. A little massage with Vitamin E should help break it down again.”

Monty nodded, rubbing the scar with his hand as though that were relieving pain. “If it hadn’t been for this, you’d be in the pool by now,” he said, threatening his friend mockingly.

Will grinned and turned to Emma.

“It’s touching how protective he is of the prince,” he explained to her as he held off the other man’s by now halfhearted attack. “I’m afraid I take a more realistic view.”

“Your view of everything will be quite damp if you keep it up,” Sebastian warned him. “You got off easy this time.”

Will didn’t look particularly chastened, but he did glance at the pool, then grinned at his friend.

“Okay, you win. No more about the prince. I’ve got doctor stuff to do. Let me talk to the young lady, if you please.”

Monty let him go with some reluctance, glared at him a moment longer, then stood back and made a sweeping bow. “Be my guest.”

Emma sighed with relief as Will stepped around him rather gingerly, then smiled at his patient. Even though their entire battle had had the choreographed look of something they had done many times before, probably beginning in childhood, she was glad it was over.

And she was glad it was Will who was coming to her side. There was something nice and comforting about the doctor. She was pretty sure she was going to like him.

Monty, on the other hand, was beginning to make her distinctly uncomfortable. There was something sharp and edgy about him. He was nice to look at, but in a hard, scary way that disturbed her. His golden eyes seemed to see too much and to scorn much of what he saw. His full, beautifully defined lips seemed to stretch more often in disdain than in smiling. There was a ruthless, wild quality in him, something she’d first noticed when he was wrestling with Will. She suddenly thought of what he reminded her of—an untamed horse, a stallion that was beautiful to watch, but frightening to get too close to.

“Well, Emma, your vital signs seem normal. You’ve got a lump on your scalp. I assume it marks the spot where you hit the ground rather than where the ball hit you. Either way, it’s a rather simple scalp trauma and you’ve sustained a bit of a concussion. You’ll need to be checked on over the next twenty-four hours.”

She nodded. That seemed to fit with her picture of what was going on here.

“I don’t see anything especially serious. However, your lethargic reaction is a bit troubling. Before making a diagnosis, I always like to ask the patient himself what he…or she…thinks has brought something like this on. What do you think might have caused it?”

She shrugged. “Overwork, I guess. Lack of sleep. Stress.”

He frowned. “What are you doing that might be causing all this stress?”

That was an easy one. Ever since she’d been offered this contract, she’d been obsessed with every detail, working as hard as she ever had in her life to make sure she came through and didn’t embarrass herself, her restaurant, or—most of all—her father.

And there was more, of course. It had been a crazy summer so far, with her beloved grandfather William dying in June. Because of strained relations with her own father and a schizophrenic connection with her mother, she’d clung to the older man at times, soaking up his love and responding in kind. His death had been natural, but a sorrowful one for his huge extended family. His sad funeral had been a sort of reunion for the remaining Valentine clan, conjuring up all sorts of emotions that had been papered over for years. With so much going on, sometimes she felt as though she were running at full scream level without the sound.

But she couldn’t tell him all of that. Much easier to keep it simple.

“My job,” she said, nodding confidently. “I’ve been staying up late preparing for this special assignment for weeks now. I work all day as chef at a restaurant in London and study half the night. Then when I finally do go to bed, my heart is still racing like a hamster on his little wheel, running faster and faster. I don’t seem to be able to slow down again.”

“So the more tired you get, the less you sleep.”

“It seems that way.”

“Yet you had no trouble falling asleep on this hard tile floor.”

She crinkled her nose, thinking. “It was…pleasant. Sort of like taking a vacation from real life, lying here with my eyes closed.” She managed a weak smile. “I started to think a little temporary coma might be nice.”

He shook his head. “No comas. You might start liking them too much.”

He was right. She needed to get back into reality. Gathering all her strength, she sat up fully.

“Hey, take it easy,” Will said, reaching out to steady her.