The Rebel Prince

by Raye Morgan

Overview

Chef Emma Valentine is just an ordinary girl, doing an ordinary job. Okay, her new boss might be a gorgeous future king, but Emma's determined to stay professional…isn't she?

As the second son, jet-setting playboy Prince Sebastian of Meridia never thought he would be king. But to save his country, Sebastian reluctantly puts his wild days behind him. It's only when he meets shy, beautiful chef Emma that he begins to learn the real meaning of duty, honor and…love. The mischievous prince has one last act of rebellion in store. He's going to promote this common chef—to princess!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781460366998
Publisher:	Harlequin
Publication date:	08/15/2014
Sold by:	HARLEQUIN
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	336 KB

About the Author

Raye Morgan also writes under Helen Conrad and Jena Hunt and has written over fifty books for Mills & Boon. She grew up in Holland, Guam, and California, and spent a few years in Washington, D.C. as well. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature. Raye says that “writing helps keep me in touch with the romance that weaves through the everyday lives we all live.” She lives in Los Angeles with her geologist/computer scientist husband and the rest of her family.

Read an Excerpt

JET lag—maybe he could blame it on that.

Or maybe on the general state of simmering anger he'd been in since he'd been told life as he knew it was over and he was to submit meekly to living his brother's life instead. That might have thrown his aim off.

Whatever.

He'd missed the shot and he'd hit the young woman by mistake. And that was when everything began to spin out of control.

Prince Sebastian wasn't used to missing a shot—he had an arm like a rocket launcher and had once even been urged to join his country's Olympic water-polo team. He'd never injured anyone with a shot before—except other players in the generally rough play of the game he loved. But he seemed to have the reverse Midas curse these days—everything he touched went bad.

For a fraction of a heart-stopping second, he was afraid he'd killed her.

Pacio, one of the young footmen who'd been playing the game of water polo with him, said as much, swimming over to the side of the indoor castle pool behind him. "She looks like she's dead. Muerta," he added for good measure.

"She's not dead," Sebastian corrected sharply, though his nerves were still jumping from that momentary fear.

Vaulting out of the pool, he kicked the still-bouncing water-polo ball out of the way and crouched over her, shaking away the water that dripped from his sleek body.

"Is she breathing?" Pacio asked with interest, climbing out of the pool as well. "Wow. She went down just like a rag doll."

Sebastian didn't bother answering. She seemed to be unconscious. Not a good sign.

"Hello," he tried, touching her shoulder. "Are you all right?"

There was no response.

He put two fingers to the pulse at her neck, glad to find it strong, then noted her chest move. She was breathing, but she looked so pale and vulnerable lying there in her cutoff jeans and sleeveless jersey top. He wanted to gather her up and get her off the cold floor. But he probably shouldn't move her. Had she hit her head on the tile? Maybe she was in shock.

Snagging a large towel someone had hung on the railing, he draped it over her and bit back frustration. Why the hell wasn't she moving? And why the hell couldn't he remember more of his decade-old life-saving classes? It was obviously time to recruit someone who knew what he was doing.

"Go get the doctor," he ordered as two others who'd been in the pool with them came up, shivering and dripping water everywhere.

"You mean Will?" Pacio asked hesitantly.

Sebastian looked up at the three young men who were staring at him blankly. "Of course I mean Will. Get him. Now."

The three of them looked surprised, but they jerked into action, hurrying off. He felt a fleeting sense of satisfaction that he'd managed to conjure up a tone of command. That was something he was going to have to do often and better if he was really going to end up as the king of Meridia—if this really wasn't just a bad dream he was going to wake up from and laugh at.

Meridia—the crazy little country that knew him as Sebastian Edwardo Valenza Constantine MarchandDumontier, prince of Meridia and second son of King Donatello and Queen Marguerite, both deceased. And now that his older brother Julius had abdicated the throne, Sebastian was crown prince and heir apparent. If he actually let them do this to him.

He looked down at the young woman he'd decked and swore softly, his heart doing a quick stutter. She had to be okay. If she was seriously injured...

"I'm not dead," she murmured suddenly, though her eyes didn't open.

His heart lurched in relief. She could talk. Thank God, he said silently, but aloud he was less reverential.

"Then why are you pretending?" he asked, not really keeping the exasperation from his voice.

"I'm not pretending," she said drowsily. "I'm resting." Sitting back on his heels, he stared at her. "Strange place for a sudden nap," he noted dryly.

She opened large blue eyes at that, eyes that widened at the sight of his bare, muscular chest, jerked up to meet his gaze, then quickly snapped shut again.

"Too much, too soon," she muttered softly, snuggling down under the towel as if she were holding the world at bay.

Her words were barely audible and he frowned. She wasn't making any sense.

"What was that?" he said sharply.

She didn't respond. She was lying so still he could almost believe he'd imagined her talking a moment before.

He wanted to run his hands over her, looking for injuries, but he was fairly sure she wouldn't accept that without protest. And he couldn't blame her. After all, if he found an injury, what was he going to do about it? Better to wait for Will, who was supposed to know what he was doing in this arena.

At least her color was returning. She was beginning to look less like an accident victim and more like a perfectly healthy young woman. No visible signs of harm. So why was she just lying there?

Women. Who could figure them out under the best of circumstances? Luckily, for most of his life he hadn't had to. Women came and went like the weather—a different type for every season. Very early he had learned to keep his emotions out of relationships. That way he didn't have to try to analyze motivations. When you didn't expect much, you didn't feel shortchanged.

Still, she wasn't bad to look at. He'd never seen her before, but he assumed she worked here in the castle—and as he hadn't been around lately, he no longer knew all the staff. She seemed small and defenseless, all rounded corners, no sharp edges. No makeup, either, which made her seem awfully young at first glance. A second glance revealed a young woman in her late twenties. Honey-colored hair curled around a face that was pretty in a girl-next-door sort of way.

Not his type, though. Not at all. "Listen, you're going to have to communicate with me," he ordered firmly. "I've got to know if you're badly hurt."

She stirred. "Hurt?"

Opening her eyes again, she risked another quick look in his direction, her face scrunched up in bewilderment. Then she looked around as though she'd forgotten where she was.

"Wait a minute. Where am I? What happened?"

She didn't remember? That seemed odd. Despite her claim to be resting, she'd obviously been stunned. He supposed a blow to the head could knock the memory center for a loop—but hopefully it was just temporary.

"You're at the indoor castle swimming pool where you very inconveniently placed yourself in the path of a stray water-polo ball," he told her lightly. "Next time, I advise you to duck."

Her gaze settled on him and her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I see," she said, her hand going to her head, probing for lumps. "And who threw this stray ball?"

He ignored the sudden unaccustomed flash of guilt. "To tell you the truth, I guess I did."

She blinked as though trying to figure something out and he realized her mind still wasn't really clear.

"Were you aiming at me?" she asked, her voice slightly slurred.

His wide mouth twisted. "If I'd been aiming at you, the ball wouldn't have bounced first."

The look of bewilderment deepened and he quickly added, "No, of course I wasn't aiming at you. I was trying to shoot around a defender and the shot got away from me."

"So it was an accident."

"Of course."

She nodded and closed her eyes again.

"Actually, it feels so good to just lie here," she murmured drowsily. "I'm so-o-o tired. I haven't slept for days."

Neither had he, for that matter. Ever since he'd been told to wrap up his affairs and head back to Meridia to prepare for his own coronation, sleep had been elusive at best.

He'd flown in to Chadae, the capital where his ancestral castle stood, only a couple of hours before. Hitching a ride on a friend's private jet had allowed him to arrive unheralded and given him the time to unwind with a short water-polo game before facing his uncle and the rest of the council.

"What's your name?" he asked her gruffly.

"Emma. Emma Valentine."

She was peeking at him from beneath thick eyelashes. He stared right back at her.

"Do you work here at the castle?"

"Sort of. I'm a chef. But I just arrived last night." Pacio came skidding back into the pool area as she spoke and Sebastian noticed she closed her eyes more tightly instead of looking up to see what was going on. She still seemed to want to ward off reality. He wondered what she was afraid of.

"Hey, Monty," Pacio cried, calling Sebastian by the nickname, short for Dumontier, often used for him. He was grinning and motioning toward the scene he saw, with Emma still stretched out before the prince. "This is just like Sleeping Beauty. Maybe all she needs is a kiss from..."

Sebastian shot him a quelling look before he'd finished that sentence and cut him off with a demand. "Where's the doctor?"

Pacio stopped short and shrugged. "We can't find him." Sebastian thought for a moment. "Have you checked the stables?"

"No, we—"

"Try the stables. You can call down there from the hall phone."

"Okay." Pacio paused, looking down at Emma, then grinned and made a kissing motion, but Sebastian shot back a murderous look that had him hurrying away again.

He turned back to the limp figure on the shiny tile. Her breathing seemed a bit shallow to him.

"Are you falling asleep?" he asked her, incredulous.

"Just a little," she murmured softly. "I'm so sleepy. Just let me sleep."

Staring down at her, he wasn't sure if he was annoyed or amused.

"I don't think you should do that. You should probably keep talking."

"I don't want to talk. You talk." She pulled the towel up around her shoulders, then opened one eye just a bit to look at him. "Tell me a story," she suggested sleepily. "I'll bet you're good at that. You're the type."

He looked at her sharply, wondering if she was more aware than he'd thought. Maybe he was being thin-skinned, but her comment sounded like derision to him.

"I think I resent that."

She shrugged. "It's a free country."

"Meridia?" he muttered cynically. "What gives you that idea?"

She didn't answer but he hadn't meant her to. He had mixed feelings about his native country. A love-hate relationship of sorts. Meridia was his home and now his legacy. But it was also a place that had deeply damaged too many in his family—a place where his father had died under suspicious circumstances. A place that now wanted him as king.

"When are you going to start?" she asked.

He turned, looking down at her. "Start what?"

"Telling stories."

He stared at her, wondering if she was always this strange or if he'd caused it. "Do you seriously expect me to sit here and tell you stories?"

"Sure. Why not? We're in a castle, aren't we? Fairy tales would seem to be in order."

"Have you been drinking?" he asked suddenly as the possibility occurred to him.

"Just the cooking sherry," she shot back, then giggled.

"Only kidding. No, I have not been drinking. But I'm feeling kind of...I don't know...kind of punchy." She gazed at him through squinted eyelids. "Can getting hit on the head make you punchy?"

He shrugged. "We'll ask Will when he gets here. If he ever gets here."

She frowned, shading her eyes as she looked up at him. "Who is Will?"