A Royal Without Rules

“The only thing that matters is making sure you cease to be a liability to your brother for the next two months. My role is to make sure that happens.”

Adriana smiled again, reminding herself that she had dealt with far worse things than an oversexed black sheep prince. That she’d cut her teeth on far more unpleasant situations and had learned a long time ago to keep her cool. Why should this be any different?

“And I should warn you, Your Royal Highness. I’m very good at my job.”

“And still,” he murmured, his head tilting slightly to one side, “all I hear is challenge piled upon challenge. I confess, it’s like a siren song to me.”

“Resist it,” she suggested tartly.

He gave her a full smile then, and she had the strangest sense that he was profoundly dangerous—despite his seeming carelessness.

CAITLIN CREWS discovered her first romance novel at the age of twelve. It involved swashbuckling pirates, grand adventures, a heroine with rustling skirts and a mind of her own, and a seriously mouthwatering and masterful hero. The book (the title of which remains lost in the mists of time) made a serious impression. Caitlin was immediately smitten with romances and romance heroes, to the detriment of her middle school social life. And so began her life-long love affair with romance novels, many of which she insists on keeping near her at all times.

Caitlin has made her home in places as far-flung as York, England, and Atlanta, Georgia. She was raised near New York City, and fell in love with London on her first visit when she was a teenager. She has backpacked in Zimbabwe, been on safari in Botswana, and visited tiny villages in Namibia. She has, while visiting the place in question, declared her intention to live in Prague, Dublin, Paris, Athens, Nice, the Greek Islands, Rome, Venice, and/or any of the Hawaiian islands. Writing about exotic places seems like the next best thing to moving there.

She currently lives in California, with her animator/ comic book artist husband and their menagerie of ridiculous animals.

Recent titles by the same author:

NO MORE SWEET SURRENDER

(Scandal in the Spotlight)

A DEVIL IN DISGUISE

THE MAN BEHIND THE SCARS

(The Santina Crown)

IN DEFIANCE OF DUTY

Did you know these are also available as eBooks?Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Megan Haslam, who was so enthusiastic about this book even before I wrote it, and to Charlotte Ledger,

who claimed Pato might have ruined her for all men.

Thanks for being such fantastic editors!

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS Prince Patricio, the most debauched creature in the kingdom of Kitzinia—if not the entire world—and the bane of Adriana Righetti’s existence, lay sprawled across his sumptuous, princely bed in his vast apartments in the Kitzinia Royal Palace, sound asleep despite the fact it was three minutes past noon.

And he was not, Adriana saw as she strode into the room, alone.

According to legend and the European tabloids, Pato, without the pressure of his older brother’s responsibilities as heir apparent, and lacking the slightest shred of conscience or propriety, had not slept alone since puberty. Adriana had expected to find him wrapped around the trollop du jour—no doubt the same redhead he’d made such a spectacle of himself with at his brother’s engagement celebration the night before.

Jackass.

But as she stared at the great bed before her, the frustration that had propelled her all the way through the palace shifted. She hadn’t expected to find the redhead and a brunette, both women naked and draped over what was known as Kitzinia’s royal treasure: Prince Pato’s lean and golden torso, all smooth muscle and sculpted male beauty, cut off by a sheet riding scandalously low on his narrow hips.

Although “scandalous” in this context was, clearly, relative.

“No need to be so shy.” Somehow, Adriana didn’t react to the mocking gleam in Prince Pato’s gaze when she looked up to find him watching her, his eyes sleepy and a crook to his wicked mouth. “There’s always room for one more.”

“I’m tempted.” Her crisp tone was anything but. “But I’m afraid I must decline.”

“This isn’t a spectator sport.”

Pato shifted the brunette off his chest with a consummate skill that spoke of long practice, and propped himself up on one elbow, not noticing or not caring that The sheet slipped lower as he moved. Adriana held her breath, but the sheet just preserved what little remained of his modesty. The redhead rolled away from him as Pato shoved his thick, too-long tawny hair back from his forehead, amusement gleaming in eyes Adriana knew perfectly well were hazel, yet looked like polished gold.