CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Royal Collection
Royal Affairs
Rebecca Winters, Cara Colter and Jessica Hart
Royal Sins
Maisey Yates, Caitlin Crews and Dani Collins
Royal Temptation
Carol Marinelli, Michelle Celmer and Brenda Harlen
Royal Babies
Nina Milne, Susan Meier and Cat Schield
Royal Protector
Caitlin Crews, Dana Marton and Catherine Mann
Royal Weddings
Annie West, Leanne Banks and Kandy Shepherd
The Royals
COLLECTION
Royal Affairs – January 2019
Royal Sins – February 2019
Royal Temptation – March 2019
Royal Babies – April 2019
Royal Protector – May 2019
Royal Weddings – June 2019
Royal Affairs
His Princess of Convenience
Rebecca Winters
Her Royal Wedding Wish
Cara Colter
The Secret Princess
Jessica Hart
Rebecca Winters
This book is dedicated to every woman
who was once a little girl
with a dream to be a princess.
August, Monte Calanetti, Italy
THE FLOOR-LENGTH MIRROR reflected a princess bride whose flowing white wedding dress, with the heavy intricate beading, followed the lines of her slender rounded figure to perfection. It probably weighed thirty pounds, but her five-foot-nine height helped her to carry it off with a regal air.
The delicate tiara with sapphires, the something-borrowed, something-blue gift from the queen, Christina’s soon-to-be mother-in-law, held the lace mantilla made by the nuns. The lace overlying her red-gold hair, to the satin slippers on her feet, formed a whole that looked…pretty.
“I actually feel like a bride.” Her breath caught. “That can’t be me!” she whispered to herself. Her very recent makeover was nothing short of miraculous.
Christina Rose, soon-to-be bride of Crown Prince Antonio de L’Accardi of Halencia, turned to one side, then the other, as past memories of being called an ugly duckling, the chubby one, filled her mind.
From adolescence until the ripe old age of twenty-eight, she’d had to live with those unflattering remarks muttered by the people around her. Not that she really heard people say those things once she’d grown up and had been spending her time doing charity work on behalf of her prominent family. But she knew it was what people were thinking.
In truth her own parents were the ones who’d scarred her. They’d left her with nannies from the time she was born. And as she’d grown, her father had constantly belittled her with hurtful barbs by comparing her unfavorably to her friends. “Why is our daughter so dumpy?” she’d once heard him say. “Why didn’t we get a boy?” They’d picked out the name Christopher, but had to change it to Christina when she was born.
His unkind remarks during those impressionable years had been wounds that struck deep, especially considering that Christina’s mother had been a former supermodel.
Christina didn’t know how her father could have said such cruel things to his daughter when she had loved both her parents so much and desperately wanted their approval. Between her unattractive brownish-red hair she’d always worn in a ponytail, to her teeth that had needed straightening, she’d been an embarrassment to her parents, who moved in the highest of political and social circles in Halencia.
In order to keep her out of sight, they’d sent their overweight daughter to boarding school in Montreux, Switzerland, where forty-five girls from affluent, titled families