Page 208 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

I don’t think that you’re in danger of accidentally becoming famous.

People worked tirelessly to become famous. She didn’t think it was going to happen to someone accidentally.

And yet, here she was. Embroiled in accidental fame while coping with… She wasn’t going to call itheartbreak. That was dumb. She’d had sex with the guy one time. She was…thwarted because he’d made promises he hadn’t kept. That was all.

To say she didn’t care for it was an understatement.

And yet it was becoming an issue everywhere she went. Even in the grocery store in her tiny town. Normally she would’ve said the citizens of the little Montana hamlet couldn’t have cared less about celebrity. But her saving a prince had made waves.

She growled in a fury, and went over to the stove to look at her dinner. Red beans with bacon and onion and ham hocks.

That just made her think of Adonis all over again. And she got even more furious.

Then she heard a knock on the door.

Her sisters clambered from down the hall, from their shared bedroom, hollering and fighting over who was going to answer the door.

“We don’t know who it is,” she shouted, wiping her hands on a dishcloth as she made her way to the front.

But she could tell that the girls had already opened the door. And then there was a chorus of screams.

“If it’s an ax murderer, I swear to God…”

But then she saw. Her sisters were frozen, staring at the man standing there. And she couldn’t blame them. Because there he was in all his state. And he was still in astate.

He had on black gloves, and one hand was clutching the silver handle of a shiny black cane. He looked imposing and severe. There was no question that he was a man used to being in charge.

Of course.

How had she not realized? Really, how had she notrealizedwho he was?

Because his bearing was something beyond. It wasroyal.

And he was here.Prince Adonis.

“Stevie,” he said, her name so exotic on his lips.

And it made her…

Oh no, she wanted to swoon. She was so, so angry at him and he was still so gorgeous he sent her whole body into a fine fiery frenzy.

She’d come back home and had tried to be the girl who took care of her sisters, the one who handled paperwork and practicalities. The one who fought with insurance companies and lost sleep over the mortgage and paying for health insurance.

But he immediately reminded her she was more than that now.

That she was a woman who’d taken a lover and the impression of his hands on her body still left her burned.

Her sisters turned to look at her, like a chorus of baby owls swiveling their heads, eyes wide.

She was worried, for a moment, that the truth of it all shone brightly on her skin. That what the press was writing about them was true. That they’d had a…liaison out there in the wilderness with nothing but the stars as witness. That she had fallen prey to his charms like every other woman to ever cross his path because she was absolutely the opposite of special.

She was just like all of them.

And for her he’d been…singular.

“Your Majesty,” she said. Because she couldn’t bring herself to say his name. Not out of respect. For her own…sanity.

“Not Clem?”

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