Nobody's Princess

Nobody's Princess
Jennifer Greene

MR. AUGUSTPrince of a guy: Alex Brennan. Honest, loyal… a fairy-tale hero. Damsel in distress: Regan Stuart. Jaded, cynical… detests fairy tales.ONCE UPON A TIME…there was a free spirit named Regan who believed in Prince Charming and happily-ever-afters. Then she kissed one frog too many. So instead of searching for knights in shining armor, she armed herself with hard-edged realism to ward off would-be Romeos… .Alex knew that love hurt, but he also knew Regan needed to be saved. And though he was nobody's hero, he wanted to prove to this stubborn beauty that she was his princess… .MAN OF THE MONTH: This guy proves chivalry isn't dead!

He’d Always Been A Romantic, (#u82958ddf-096e-58cb-aad3-90665ed9c923)Letter to Reader (#u08d0797f-406b-5072-852e-6cd5a4ee51d1)Title Page (#u6b6eea75-e9a6-58f9-9930-0da364761d89)About the Author (#u4e7161e9-9c91-51e6-88c4-a4c6bd585496)Chapter One (#uffccf6e7-c760-52cd-8872-e710d2d0ea7e)Chapter Two (#u315b7309-00ad-5555-ba94-98e52537769c)Chapter Three (#u57eab590-8fd6-5b65-8315-a62514408802)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

He’d Always Been A Romantic,

always liked every part of loving a woman, from the teasing to the wooing to the savoring power of pleasing a woman in passion. Until Gwen’s defection, he’d never had a reason to doubt his ability to satisfy a woman. But with Regan, those needle pricks of doubt were full-scale daggers. He had to be nuts to think of falling in love with her. She was a sensuous woman, right down to her fingertips. He wouldn’t have a clue how to please her.

And the thought of failing her rammed a tight feeling in his chest. She was vulnerable. She’d been hurt by men before. And, dammit, he wasn’t going to be another in her long list of so-called heroes who’d turned out to have feet of clay....

Dear Reader,

This month we have some special treats in store for you, beginning with Nobody’s Princess, another terrific MAN OF THE MONTH from award-winning writer Jennifer Greene. Our heroine believes she’s just another run-of the-mill kind of gal...but naturally our hero knows better. And he sets out to prove to her that he is her handsome prince...and she is his princess!

Joan Elliott Pickart’s irresistible Bishop brothers are back in Texas Glory, the next installment of her FAMILY MEN series. And Amy Fetzer brings us her first contemporary romance, a romantic romp concerning parenthood—with a twist—in Anybody’s Dad. Peggy Moreland’s heroes are always something special, as you’ll see in A Little Texas Two-Step, the latest in her TROUBLE IN TEXAS series.

And if you’re looking for fun and frolic—and a high dose of sensuality—don’t miss Patty Salier’s latest, The Honeymoon House. If emotional and dramatic is more your cup of tea, then you’ll love Kelly Jamison’s Unexpected Father.

As always, there is something for everyone here at Silhouette Desire, where you’ll find the very best contemporary romance.

Enjoy!

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: PO. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

Jennifer Greene

Nobody’s Princess

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

JENNIFER GREENE

lives near Lake Michigan with her husband and two children Before writing full-time, she worked as a teacher and a personnel manager. Michigan State University honored her as an “outstanding woman graduate” for her work with women on campus.

Ms. Greene has written more than fifty category romances, for which she has won numerous awards, including two RIT As from the Romance Writers of America in the Best Short Contemporary Books category, and a Career Achievement award from Romantic Times magazine.

One

Alex Brennan had never considered himself a hero, but he believed that a good man lived his life by certain unshakable rules. The strong had a responsibility to protect the weak. A decent man never backed down from a principle. A guy without honor was lower than pond scum.

That code of values was so ingrained that Alex rarely even thought about it. Until recently.

Two weeks ago—specifically the day his bride stood him up at the altar—Alex had accidentally started noticing that a bunch of heroes throughout history had a common problem.

Good guys had notoriously bad luck with their girls—and it was never more obvious than in the movies. Bogart, for instance, was left standing alone at the end of Casablanca. Gable never did get Scarlett. Costner went through all that bodyguarding nonsense with Whitney and ended up with a song instead of the girl.

Late-afternoon sunshine speckled light and shadow on the dusty bookshelves of the public library. A winsome, whispery breeze redolent with magnolias drifted through the long, tall windows. The library was as lively as a morgue—which suited Alex’s mood to a T. No place on the planet beat Silvertree, North Carolina, on the first of May—every sane person in town had succumbed to the irresistible “spring fever” day and was out playing hookey. The deserted library offered him an ideal place to brood. He thumped a pencil end-to-end on the old, scarred oak table, as he further considered the problem.

Those old tales seemed...well, telling. Heroes might conquer dragons, build a couple of empires, save mankind from some horrendous evil. But being good guys didn’t seem to guarantee success with their best girls. Maybe honor wasn’t sexy. Good guys just didn’t seem to stir a woman’s heart the way the bad boys did. A taste of wicked not only seemed to appeal to the delicate female gender...but they seemed to find good guys downright boring.

A loud kerthump made Alex’s head shoot up. Someone had dropped a book in one of the nearby aisles. The thump was followed by a colorful expletive in a throaty female alto. Except for the librarians at the front desk, Alex had thought he had the place to himself. But beyond being temporarily startled by the noise, he paid no attention.

Research tomes were precisely stacked in an impenetrable blockade all around him. Technically he’d popped into-the library to prepare for tomorrow’s class. High school kids today hated learning history as much as he had—which was why he’d broken with all Brennan tradition and done a damn fool crazy thing. He’d become a teacher.

Alex never really felt he had a choice. Someone had to make history exciting to the kids. Someone had to convince them that history was more than dry dates, but a record of drama and courage and the power of the human spirit. Unless the kids understood how the human race screwed up, the next generation was just going to repeat the same mistakes. Teaching history was about making heroes come alive and serving them up to kids in the way of role models.

Of course, a teacher had to keep the bubble gum generation awake to instill any of that. It was challenging to keep a dog awake on the semester covering medieval history, but Alex theorized that he could spice it up with some King Arthur lore—hence the weighty research tomes piled on the table around him. The ideals in the Arthurian legend were the stuff that lifted mankind from the Dark Ages—honor, loyalty, justice, chivalry. Camelot was meant to be a land where fairness and truth were nurtured, where beauty thrived, where love was an ideal.

But Alex had barely opened the first text before the dark, broody mood kidnapped his attention. The problem was the legendary King Arthur. He was another blasted hero who’d lost his best girl. Another good guy who hadn’t done one thing wrong. But because honor couldn’t compete with a younger, sexier stud named Lancelot, Arthur had lost everything.

Alex wasn’t inclined to take the comparison too far. He was no King Arthur. Still, he knew that precise feeling of loss. Painfully, intimately well.

Another kerthump sounded from the next book aisle over. Then another. Followed by a trail of extremely loud and colorful curses from the same throaty female alto.

Alex shot an exasperated scowl in the general direction of Ms. Klutz. No one, but no one, ever hung out in the myths and legends section but him. And especially on this to-die-for spring day, he should have been guaranteed a private refuge in this back corner of the library. Couldn’t a guy wallow in a deep, dark case of self-pity in peace and quiet?

Apparently not. He’d barely thrown down his pencil before the lady abruptly charged around the corner, juggling a good dozen hefty books and heading for him at a dead run.

For a second Alex froze like the iceberg in the Titanic’s path. Not that the woman was so big—the tonnage of books teetering in her arms looked bigger than she did. But she was obviously hustling to get them to the table and set them down before they all toppled and fell. The mission was doomed. Alex caught a fleeting impression of flashing scarlets and wild silky hair before disaster struck.

She made it to the oak table, but not before the volumes started shifting and spilling. Her river of books crashed into the sea of his. Several sailed to the floor; one ended on his lap.

Curses followed. Not his. Being out of breath didn’t seem to limit her vocabulary, and totally incomprehensibly—once she got rid of her armload—she started laughing.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! You just can’t imagine the day I’ve had. It’s been one thing after another. ... Here, I’ll get that. You don’t have to help—”

Alex instinctively sprang to his feet. Helping a lady in trouble was second nature, an integral part of the Southern gentleman’s code he grew up with—but in this case, basic survival instincts were the far more powerful motivator. God knew how much more damage she could do if left to her own devices.

She was breathlessly huffing and puffing as she bounced down to pick up the fallen books. On one of her bounces back up, her elbow came mortifyingly close to a poke in his crotch. He opened his mouth, closed it faster than a fish and caught a noseful of some spicy, exotic perfume. By the time he’d rescued the last of the fallen books, she’d managed to knock over more of his meticulously neat research stack.

“I’ll get it, I’ll get it. Sheesh, I’m sorry—”

“Nothing to be sorry about. Accidents happen.”

“All I had to do was make two trips, but no, I was trying to save time and carry all the books at one time. It’s just that they were all so heavy—”

“I can see that.”

“I must have sounded like a bull in a china shop, but I never expected to find anyone else back here. I’ve come to think of this as my sacred spot because no one else is ever back here. My air conditioner at home went on the fritz, and I just needed to get in a couple hours’ work where it was cool—you don’t mind if I sit at the same table, do you?”