Page 209 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

“Well, it turns out that’s not your name. Though, you didn’t tell me that. Maybe because when you promised the reward you were intending to welsh on it, and you didn’t want me to track you down.”

“Believe me,” he said. “I’m not worried about being tracked down.”

Of course not. His people could track him down if they needed to, and mere peasants would never be allowed entry past his threshold. And yet there he was at hers.

He stepped inside without being invited.

“Stevie, I have come to make amends. I’m sorry it’s been two weeks without contact and without protection from the press. I have been undergoingforced recovery.” He said it like it had been torture. “But I recently decided my recovery was over.”

“You mean you… You just left your sickbed?”

“Yes.”

“Well. They probably frown on that.”

“Undoubtedly. But many things that I do are quite frowned upon. Somehow I persevere.”

She squinted. “It helps when you are insulated by money and power.”

“Undoubtedly. Is there a place where we can speak?” He looked at her sisters. “Privately?”

She bit the inside of her cheek. “No,” she said. “Not in this house. There are eight people living under this roof.”

“I see.”

“Girls, let him in.”

Her sisters parted like the sea and he came in on his cane, looking at ease and practiced as if he had used it all his life.

He looked around the place, and she knew a moment of shame. Which was silly. One thing she had never been was ashamed. Because they had worked for all this. And it might not look like much to somebody else, to a prince, but it was hers. The little ramshackle house with its threadbare rugs, and charming yellow kitchen. It had kept them. Sustained them.

And she gritted her teeth against any rising embarrassment.

“I’m here to speak to you about your reward.”

“Oh.” Her heart rate picked up.

“I’ve been thinking. And I believe that I have thought of just the perfect way to thank you for what you’ve done for me. And to give you a role that I know you will excel at.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. You quite literally saved my life. And that is not something I will ever forget. But beyond that, listening to you speak about your life was…inspiring.”

He lifted his chin, his expression arrogant. “I would do this properly, but the crutches prevent it. However, I have not come empty-handed.” He reached into his suit jacket, and took out a diamond ring. She could scarcely believe what she was seeing.

It was the most spectacular piece of jewelry she had ever seen in her entire life. Beyond anything she could have even imagined. Beyond…everything.

“Stevie Parker, you saved my life. And so I have decided, that when it comes to the matter of who is the most suitable woman to become my princess, it is you. You are going to marry me.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Whatevertrajectoryhislife had been on when he had boarded that cargo plane two weeks ago, it wasnotthat now.

And as he stood there in the small, humble house at the top of a mountain in rural Montana, having just proposed to the most unlikely woman on earth, he felt for the first time that his life was not entirely in his control.

Yes, there had always been the crown, the inevitability of it. But he had vowed to himself as his father had aged that he would do what needed to be done to preserve the integrity of Olympus, and when his father had gotten ill he’d realized the time for change had come.

He had sown his wild oats until it was time to reap responsibility, and then he had agreed to marry a woman who was suitable to the position as princess.

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