Kandy Shepherd - Crown Prince's Chosen Bride

‘That was a lucky guess, then,’ she said. ‘I must confess I don’t know anything about your country except for the chocolate.’

‘Not many people outside of Europe do, I’ve discovered,’ he said with a shrug.

And that suited him fine in terms of a laid-back vacation. Here in Sydney, half a world away from home, he hadn’t been recognised. He liked it that way.

‘But perhaps our chocolate will put us on the map down-under.’

‘Perhaps after your trip here it will. I think...’

She paused midsentence, frowned. He could almost see the cogs turning.

‘The menu for your reception... We’ll need to change the desserts to showcase Montovian chocolate. There’s still time. I’ll get on to it straight away.’ She slapped her hand to her mouth. ‘Sorry. I jumped the gun there. I meant if you approve, of course.’

‘Of course I approve. It’s a very good idea. I should have thought of it myself.’ Only devising menus was quite out of the range of his experience.

‘Excellent. Let me come up with some fabulous chocolate desserts, and I’ll pass them by you for approval.’

He was about to tell her not to bother with the approval process when he stopped himself. He wanted to see her again. ‘Please do that,’ he said.

‘Eliza shouldn’t be too much longer—the traffic can’t be that bad. Can I take you into our waiting area? It’s not big, but it’s more comfortable than standing around here,’ she said.

‘I am comfortable here,’ he said, not liking the idea of her being in a different room from him. ‘I like your kitchen.’ All stainless steel and large industrial appliances, it still somehow seemed imbued with her warmth and welcome.

Her eyes widened. They were an unusual shade of brown—the colour of cinnamon—and lit up when she smiled.

‘Me, too,’ she said. ‘I have a cake in the oven, and I want to keep an eye on it.’

He inhaled the citrus-scented air. ‘It smells very good.’

She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s a new recipe I’m trying, but I think it will be delicious. I don’t know how long you’re planning to meet with Eliza for, but the cake won’t be ready for another hour or so. Then it has to cool, and then I—’

‘I think our meeting will be brief. I have some more sightseeing to do—I’ve booked a jet boat on the harbour. Perhaps another time I could sample your cake?’ He would make certain there would be another time.

‘I can see that a cake wouldn’t have the same appeal as a jet boat,’ she said, with a smile that showed him she did not take offence. ‘What else have you seen of Sydney so far?’ she asked.

‘The usual tourist spots,’ he said. ‘I’ve been to the Opera House, Bondi Beach, climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge.’

‘They’re all essential. Though I’ve never found the courage to do the bridge climb. But there’s also a Sydney tourists don’t get to see. I recommend—’

‘Would you show me the Sydney the tourists don’t see? I would very much like your company.’

The lovely food director’s eyes widened. She hesitated. ‘I...I wonder if—’

He was waiting for her reply, when a slender, dark-haired young woman swept into the room. Tristan silently cursed under his breath in his own language at the interruption. She immediately held out her hand to him.

‘You must be Mr Marco? I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting—the traffic was a nightmare. I’m Eliza Dunne.’

For a moment he made no acknowledgment of the newcomer’s greeting—and then he remembered. He was using Marco as a surname when it was in fact his second given name. He didn’t actually have a surname, as such. Not when he was always known simply as Tristan, Crown Prince of Montovia.

CHAPTER TWO

GEMMA CLOSED HER eyes in sheer relief at Eliza’s well-timed entrance. What a lucky escape. Despite all her resolve not to act on impulse when it came to men, she’d been just about to agree to show Tristan around Sydney.

And that would have been a big mistake.

First, Party Queens had a rule of staff not dating clients. The fact that Andie had broken the rule in spectacular fashion by falling in love with and marrying their billionaire client Dominic Hunt was beside the point. She, Gemma, did not intend to make any exceptions. The business was too important to her for her to make messy mistakes.

But it wasn’t just about the company rules. If she’d said yes to Tristan she could have told herself she was simply being hospitable to a foreign visitor—but she would have been lying. And lying to herself about men was a bad habit she was trying to break. She found Tristan way too appealing to pretend that being hospitable was all it would be.

‘Thank you for taking care of Mr Marco for me, Gemma,’ Eliza said. ‘The traffic was crazy—insane.’

‘Gemma has looked after me very well,’ Tristan said, again with that faint hint of a bow in her direction.

Her heart stepped up a beat at the awareness that shimmered through her.

‘She hasn’t plied you with cake or muffins or cookies?’ asked Eliza with a teasing smile.

‘The cake isn’t baked yet,’ Gemma said. ‘But I have cookies and—’

‘Perhaps another cake, another time,’ Tristan said with a shrug of those broad shoulders, that charming smile. ‘And I could give you chocolate in return.’

The shrug. The accent. Those blue, blue eyes. The Montovian chocolate.

Yes! her body urged her to shout.

No! urged her common sense.

‘Perhaps...’ she echoed, the word dwindling away irresolutely.

Thankfully, Eliza diverted Tristan’s attention from her as she engaged him in a discussion about final guest numbers for his party.

Gemma was grateful for some breathing space. Some deep breathing to let her get to grips with the pulse-raising presence of this gorgeous man.

‘I’ll let you guys chat while I check on my cake,’ she said as she went back around the countertop.

She slipped into the pink oven mitts and carefully opened the oven door. As she turned the pan around, she inhaled the sweet-sharp aroma of the cake. Over the years she had learned to gauge the progress of her baking by smell. Its scent told her this cake had a way to go. This kind of solid mud cake needed slow, even cooking.

That was what she’d be looking for in a man in future. A slow burn. Not instant flames. No exhilarating infatuation. No hopping into bed too soon. Rather a long, slow getting to know each other before any kind of commitment—physical or otherwise—was made. The old-fashioned word courtship sprang to mind.

She’d managed six months on her own. She was in no rush for the next man. There was no urgency. Next time she wanted to get it right.

Still, no matter what she told herself, Gemma was superaware of Tristan’s presence in her kitchen. And, even though he seemed engrossed in his conversation with Eliza, the tension in the way he held himself let her know that he was aware of her, too. The knowledge was a secret pleasure she hugged to herself. It was reassuring that she could still attract a hot guy. Even if there was no way she should do anything about it.

She scraped clean her mixing bowl and spoon and put them in the dishwasher while keeping an ear on Tristan and Eliza’s conversation about the party on Friday and an eye on Tristan himself. On those broad shoulders tapering to narrow hips, on the long legs she imagined would be lean and hard with muscle.

Catching her eye, he smiled. Her first instinct was to blush, then smile back. For a long moment their gazes held before she reluctantly dragged hers away and went back to the tricky task of finely slicing strips of candied lemon peel.

Okay, she wasn’t in dating exile any more. There was no law to say she couldn’t flirt just a little. But she had spent six months fine-tuning her antennae to detect potential heartbreak. And there was something about this handsome Montovian that had those antennae waving wildly with a message of caution. They detected a mystery behind his formal way of speaking and courteous good manners. It wasn’t what he’d said but what he hadn’t said.