Authors: Janice Lynn
Rob didn’t like taking orders. Not even from JP. He didn’t need to be told to leave Jane alone. Look at how much he’d already sacrificed to put distance between them. The most enchanting woman he’d ever met, and he’d willingly pushed her away.
JP watched him a while, before commenting. “You know, I told you I’d speak up when and if I felt I should.” He paused until Rob glanced at him. “I’m worried she’s gotten under your skin.”
“She’s just another woman.”
Liar.
Rob curled his nose at the pungent smell. Such a nasty habit, but JP often said he thought the cigars gave him an intimidating look. He sighed when JP blew a puff of smoke in his direction.
“Now, tell me about Jane.” JP rocked back in the chair, blowing out another smoke puff. “And I want the truth this time.”
“She means nothing to me except as the star of my latest production. The rest is just physical.”
Really big fat liar
.
“I hope you’re right, because she’s not going to be happy with either of us when she finds out she’s being deceived along with the bachelors.”
Jill plopped down on her bed, being careful not to muss her hair or the delicate, pale yellow, overtly feminine sundress. Gregory had dolled her up, insisted she wear the dress, and attached the microphone between her breasts before he’d left her suite.
Ugh. She’d behaved like a spoiled child during her boxing match with Bachelor #10, Jeff. Shame filled her at memories of how she’d taunted him in her need to relieve her frustration with Rob and the situation she found herself in.
JP had insisted she make amends, but she would have anyway. She’d invited Jeff to accompany her on a walk in the gardens. He’d responded like a gentleman to her temper tantrum.
With reluctance she opened it, expecting one of the crewmembers had come to tell her it was time to meet her mid-morning victim for the promised stroll.
Rob stood in the hallway looking too good to be real in his worn jeans and navy t-shirt. Her heart lodged somewhere in her throat as she waved her hand.
“Come in.”
He shifted his weight almost imperceptibly, but she’d been trained to read people’s body language. At times her life depended on it. Whatever he had to say, she doubted she’d like it.
“I think it better if I stay out here.”
“Coward.”
“Smart,” he corrected, but she’d seen the flash of guilt on his face and wanted to bang her hand against the door as a fresh wave of frustration filled her.
Her eyes widened. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? Surely, he wasn’t telling her to kiss another man? Not after this morning. Okay, so she meant nothing to him except as a woman he wanted to get hot and sweaty with. But he wanted her to kiss Bachelor #10?
“And?” she prompted, hoping she was wrong.
“You have to kiss someone. Today.”
Crap, she’d been right. No matter. She wouldn’t let him know he’d just added insult to injury. With a cocked brow, she smiled sweetly. “Maybe you’ve forgotten. I did kiss someone. First thing this morning.”
“Oh, never mind. Wasn’t much of a kiss, anyway.” Head held high, she pushed past him to go find her garden date before she slugged the man whose kiss had been everything she’d ever dreamed a kiss could be.
Chapter Eight
“I saw Jane on her way out to the garden. She looked like she’d swallowed a lemon. When I asked what was up, she said ‘nothing’. Seems like you’re both reciting the same script.”
Rob rolled his eyes. The last person he wanted to talk about was Jane. Especially after all the lectures JP had already given.
Jane’s arm was linked with Dr. Doolittle, who led her through the well-tended shrubbery. She smiled. She batted her lashes. She flirted. Rob thought he might throw up.
He stared at the computer screen and could stand the silence no longer. He punched a button, and Jane’s voice came over the headset he slid into place.
“You wouldn’t happen to know the name of the bright orange blossoms on our right? They are so gorgeous. No? I’m going to have to remember to ask the gardener one morning,” she practically cooed.
More benign conversation followed. Rob’s ears perked up when she apologized for her behavior during their match.
“I was upset with someone else and shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I think you were very gallant not to take advantage of me.”
The guy loosened his collar. Rob tugged on his own, fanning air beneath the cotton blend of his t-shirt. When had it gotten so hot in here?
“You’re serious? You want me to kiss you?” The poor sucker’s eyes were wide. “You’re not going to punch me in the nose afterwards, are you?”
Jane laughed softly and shook her head, a naughty expression on her pert face. “Kiss me.”
The urge to yell ‘Cut!’ rushed through Rob as the grinning bachelor lowered his head to Jane’s.
Cut. Cut.
Cut
!
Savage urges shook Rob. Her hands belonged on
him
. In his hair. If he went out there and choked the daylights out of Bachelor #10, reality TV would plummet into a whole new market. Murder and mayhem.
Of course, ratings would probably skyrocket. He could see the headlines now.
Hollywood producer strangles bachelor on the make with co-star
. He slammed the button to kill the monitor instead of the unsuspecting bachelor who’d already had one undeserved beating today.
If Rob thought it would help, he’d do exactly that. Not any woman would do. He stared at the blank screen. He wanted
her
.
Rob called him a foul name and walked away, but not before hearing JP’s parting shot. “Just think, you’re only stuck with her for another four weeks.”
Princess Isabella Jane Strovanik paced across the floor of her private quarters in the west wing of Strovanik Castle. What had she done by allowing these crazy Americans into her home?
“Gregory, I think I have made a horrible mistake,” she muttered to the dashing young man she had spent the last month with so he could learn all the things he’d need to impart to the woman impersonating her.
“Your Highness?” he asked from where he sat in a wingback chair that had been her great-great grandmother’s.
“I should never have agreed to this.”
“Why ever not?” He sipped vintage wine from her late father’s wine cellar in a goblet that was three centuries old. Just the sight of the goblet in his careless hands provided a reminder of what she had brought upon herself. All because of a man.
“I am making a mockery of my heritage, allowing another woman to pretend to be me. My father would be outraged if he knew what I have done.”
“The film company is paying you good money for your role in this,” he reminded.
She threw her hands up in frustration. “I am not doing this for the money.” Which wasn’t entirely true. The royal coffers were not as full as they’d once been. Her father’s refusal to modernize the workforce had stifled her country.
Gregory’s shoulders lifted. “Then why are you doing this?”
Good question. She had sold herself a crock full of lies, telling herself the show would be good for her country’s tourism industry as the show would reveal the terrain’s beauty.
Yet, she knew it was much more complicated than that. Her cousin, Jiovanni Alarik, planned to lay claim to the throne if she didn’t fulfill her father’s last bequest and marry within the next three months.
Marriage. Shivers prickled her skin. And not to just anyone. Only a man of royal heritage would do.
Unfortunately, the spoiled playboy royalty she had grown up socializing with left her insides cold.
Which is where the bachelor she’d insisted be sent a personal invitation came into the picture. He did not leave her insides cold. Quite the opposite.
She closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath.
“When a representative from your television network approached me, I agreed for many reasons.” Namely, she’d been searching for a way to see the man she’d not been able to forget while she’d been doing mission work in the name of her country.
“Although Jane is fabulous, I still think you should have done the show yourself. It certainly would have simplified things.”
“No.” She’d had to see him one last time, but being forced to interact with him in front of the prying eyes of the film crew held no appeal. “I am not an actress.”
“To play yourself, you wouldn’t have needed acting skills.”
“But the woman your television is portraying is not me.” She’d watched the films of the woman’s great athletic abilities. Her father would never have allowed her to develop such masculine talents. Charity work and looking beautiful was still the expected behavior of female royalty. Unfortunately, her country had much to learn about women’s rights.
Which is why she couldn’t just walk away and allow Jiovanni to control the throne. Her stoic cousin might set them back a hundred years on equality issues. She owed it to her people to marry soon.
And she would accept one of the offers she had received once the filming had finished. For now, she would continue her period of mourning while hidden away at Strovanik castle.
“My heart is my own, but for a short while longer. My methods may not make sense to one such as yourself, but I will take this time for myself, then I shall do what is right for my people.”
Crap. Would it look bad on National television if she spit to rid herself of Jeff’s kiss? Kissing him just didn’t evoke passion in her blood. It was nice enough, she supposed, but it felt kind of like kissing a brother--if Jill had a brother, which she didn’t. One trouble-making sister was more than enough.
Jill suppressed her inclination to spit--just in case.
What a good little princess she was, she thought in ill humor. Her partner didn’t notice. Seems all was forgiven from her boxing match abuse. She glanced at him and smiled. He had been talking a mile a minute prior to their kiss. Uh-oh. What had he just said to her?
She hadn’t a clue. No matter his lips covered hers again. It was bad enough she’d had to pretend her heart wasn’t breaking because of one man, but she’d bit the bullet and kissed another.
It felt so wrong. As if she was cheating.
She hadn’t had a choice. Rob had won their game fair and square. Okay, so she hadn’t thought he really meant for her to kiss one of the dirty dozen, but obviously he had or he wouldn’t have reminded her. But if Rob had wanted to stop her, he could have. Then she wouldn’t be surrounded by lush and exotic flowers, kissing a man she genuinely liked, but who left her insides cold.