Her Royal Husband. Cara Colter

betrayal that had nearly torn her soul from her body five years ago, the betrayal that had turned her from an innocent and idealistic child to a cynical and wounded woman in the blink of an eye, just because he had the most mesmerizing eyes of any male on the planet.

      “Well, Your Royal—” she hesitated, tempted to call him Your Royal Muck-muck, to show his title did not impress her in the least, did not make up for his great failings in character, but she thought he might think she was playfully referring to their shared past, so she bit her tongue and called him Highness. “I guess your identity explains a great deal, up to and including this dream contract of my aunt’s.”

      “Jordan,” he said quietly, “my identity explains nothing, least of all the abysmal way I treated you. Obviously seeing you again has come as a shock to me. I don’t know your aunt, or anything about her contract.”

      “Well, whatever,” she said, trying to shrug carelessly, knowing she could not allow that sincere tone to disarm her.

      “Jordan, why are you in Penwyck?” he asked.

      How dearly she would have loved to tell him she was here for a meeting of municipalities. That she was the best mayor in the world and she had come to receive a medal.

      Childish to want to build herself up like that, just because he was a prince and she was a kitchen assistant. “I’m working with my aunt on the banquet preparations for next Saturday. Whitney, we have to leave.” This room, this castle, this island.

      Whitney gave her an amazed look. “I not leaving. You leave.”

      Not now, she begged inwardly. This would be the worst possible timing for that stubborn streak to put in an appearance. “Whitney,” Jordan said, using her sternest mother voice, “we are leaving right now.” She held out her hand.

      Whitney ignored it, studying the chess players with single-minded intensity.

      “Don’t you dare laugh,” Jordan warned Ben. Owen. The prince. His Royal Highness. She had to get out of here.

      “I’m not laughing,” he denied. “Whitney, please do as your mother asks.”

      “I’m Princess Whitney,” the tyke decided.

      “All right by me,” Owen said easily. “Princess Whitney, I think you should go with your mother.”

      Jordan wondered uneasily if her daughter really was a princess since her father really appeared to be a prince.

      She didn’t like how his gaze lingered on the child, and then a frown creased his forehead.

      “Whitney—” she said.

      A sudden light came on in his eyes, and with breathtaking swiftness he had crossed the distance between himself and Jordan. His fingers bit into her elbow and he looked straight into her eyes.

      “My God, is she mine?” His tone was quiet, intense, loaded with that same princely authority that had made the young nanny quake.

      Jordan felt both frightened and furious. “If you were that interested, you should have taken a miss on the melodrama with your middle-of-the-night departure all those years ago.”