His Bride with Two Royal Secrets by Marcella Bell

Author:Marcella Bell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2022-01-20T13:54:14+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

“WHEN I WAS seven years old,” Rita said, “my father got a commission from a collector to transport his 1962 Ferrari GTO from the Bay Area to Los Angeles. It was already my dream car. It had been ever since I saw one in an episode of Scooby-Doo when I was five. When my dad got the order he promised to take me along and he did. We had an amazing time, eating out of gas stations and chatting about cars and the future and electric vehicles. It was so much fun that I promised—to my dad and to myself—that one day I would change the way the world drove, and I would convert a 1962 Ferrari GTO of my very own. My dad laughed at that, pointing out the slim chances of that ever happening.”

“Not so slim after all,” Jag observed.

Smiling, Rita said softly, “About as slim marrying a prince, I’d say.”

“So it is not just a car but a shared dream with your father?” Jag asked.

The innocent assumption chased away Rita’s smile.

Shoulders dropping, she shook her head. “No, not a shared dream,” she said. “Just mine, it turned out. And one I wanted a little too much in the end.”

“How’s that?” he asked.

“You mean beyond marrying a stranger to get it?” she asked dryly, proud of how well she echoed his own honed aridity.

Laughing at her, he said, “Yes, beyond that.”

Not knowing where to start, Rita drew in a long, slow breath to buy herself a little more time.

Then she opened her mouth and said, “I got into college when I was sixteen years old. My parents were elated. For a moment, I was the pride of my family. But they didn’t realize that I had worked so hard and been determined because I wanted to achieve a specific dream, as opposed to being driven to succeed. I wasn’t striving to do well because I wanted my family to be proud—honestly, I wasn’t even striving for anything at all. I was excelling because I was following a passion that had burned within me from before the time I could talk. I strove because I wanted to impact the world working with the objects that I loved most within it, not because I wanted to impress anyone. Out of that well of passion and conviction, the force and determination behind it, I surprised everyone, not only by graduating early, but by being accepted to a top university.”

“You, forceful and determined?” Jag asked, gently teasing.

Closing her eyes, Rita laughed, shaking her head. “I know. It’s not shocking. What was shocking, or at least what shocked my father when he found out two years later, was that unbeknownst to him I had not enrolled in the pre-med track that would put me on the path toward becoming an obstetrics and gynecology doctor, but had instead registered as a dual major in mechanical engineering and computer science. He was also rather shocked by the fact that by the time he found out, I was halfway toward completion as well as one of the top students in both programs.

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