The Prince's Proposal by Sophie Weston

Author:Sophie Weston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

‘YOU’RE crazy,’ said Francesca.

She went on saying it. Right up until he left to give a lecture at the Earth Sciences Museum. And then later when he called. And the next day. And the next.

‘Don’t you ever give up?’ she said, exasperated, after a week of evening phone calls.

‘Do you?’

‘Not often,’ she had to admit.

‘Something else we have in common, then.’ He sounded smug.

‘What was the first thing?’ she said coldly. ‘I seem to have missed that.’

He chuckled. ‘The ability to recognise a challenge.’

She didn’t trust him an inch. So tall, so charming. So confident of his charm.

It worked too, dammit. He got her to laugh every time. She could hear him smiling down the phone when she finally succumbed to giggles.

Francesca strove hard to remember that she wanted to wipe that superior smile off his face. Crown Prince Conrad was an arrogant snob, she told herself. A time-server, too.

He thought she was plain and prickly until it suited him to fancy marrying her. And he had castigated her father as a crook. She had been right when she wanted his total public defeat. The only problem was that she had about as much likelihood of bringing it about as she had of reaching the moon.

‘Oh, I recognise a challenge all right,’ she said with grim private humour.

Conrad was as quick as a cat, even at the other end of a telephone. ‘Sounds intriguing,’ he said. ‘Something I can help with?’

She gave a snort of laughter, quickly suppressed.

‘Ah. My head on a charger,’ he said, interpreting easily. ‘I’ve commented on this unforgiving tendency in you before.’

She took the battle into his court. ‘Do you blame me? You were vile all through that horrible lunch party.’

‘You were pretty sharp, yourself. And at least I apologised.’

‘Words are cheap,’ she said darkly.

‘Oh, you want deeds, do you?’ He sounded amused. ‘All right. Set me a task. If I complete it, you marry me. Deal?’

‘Oh, grow up,’ said Francesca, disconcerted at last. She banged the phone down.

But when he rang back the next night she was ready for him. She had even written out her shopping list.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘First of all you’ve got to be nice to my father. I mean really nice. No looking down your nose and making cracks about his Ferraris.’

‘You drive a hard bargain,’ complained Conrad. ‘I’ll try. What else?’

She was biding her time on getting him to admit the deficiencies of his grandparents. But she could force him to tell the truth about dodgy royalty in general. She knew how, too.

‘Admit to me that you traded on your title to get that damned book published.’

There was a blank pause.

‘Excuse me?’ said Conrad frostily.

‘The volcano thing with the pictures.’

‘I suggest you read it. Then ask me that again, if you dare.’ And it was his turn to slam the phone down.

So Jazz found her surreptitiously sidling into the popular-science area next morning.

‘If you’re looking for Prince Charming’s book, it’s on order,’ Jazz said helpfully. ‘We’ve sold out.’

Francesca leaped guiltily.

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