Crowned: Gowns & Crowns, Book 4 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Crowned

  Copyright

  Also By Jennifer Chance

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Cursed

  About Jennifer Chance

  Crowned

  Gowns & Crowns, Book 4

  Jennifer Chance

  Copyright © 2016 by Jennifer Chance

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-943768-13-4

  Cover design by Liz Bemis, Bemis Promotions

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in encouraging piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase/Download only authorized editions.

  Also by Jennifer Chance in the Gowns & Crowns series

  Courted

  Captured

  Claimed

  (Available now!)

  Cursed

  (Coming in 2017)

  For Mona

  May true love find you wherever you go.

  Chapter One

  The roaring speedboat smashed headlong through the white-capped waves of the Aegean, apparently deciding today was the day it would pick a fight with the open sea. Fran Simmons knew exactly how it felt.

  “Isn’t this great?” Beside her, Nicki Clark gripped the side of the boat, her bright red life jacket more a formality for her than any sort of needed protection. Nicki was part dolphin, part barracuda, and all adventure girl. “The island is even more gorgeous—you’ll see!”

  “Great!” Fran echoed, glad the gale-force wind meant they didn’t have to carry on a conversation. She needed the time to think, to plan. To prepare for how she was going to get out of this most recent insanity to beset her and her three friends on what was supposed to have been a once-in-a-lifetime vacation through Europe.

  A vacation! That’s how this journey had been described. She wouldn’t have agreed to it otherwise. A few weeks traveling through Europe, ending in Paris and starting with the tiny seaside country of Garronia, nestled between Greece and Turkey.

  It’d seemed the perfect place to begin…and a chance to reconnect with the women who’d become Fran’s rock. Six years ago they’d helped Fran become the person she was today in more ways than they’d ever know. She’d lost a bit of that person over the past year. Her grad thesis work with traumatized soldiers had shown her exactly how much she could help others, but it had also revealed some cracks in her own hard-won self-concept. She needed to re-establish her base before she could launch herself into her next challenge: life after grad school.

  But the relaxing girls’ trip through the tourist meccas of Europe had gotten derailed almost immediately upon setting foot in the idyllic seaside kingdom of Garronia. Practically before Fran could catch her breath, Emmaline had fallen in love with the newly-minted crown prince of Garronia, Lauren had taken out a whack-job of an ex-boyfriend with the help of a gorgeous captain of the Garronia National Security Force, and Nicki had set out on a grand rescue adventure with the royal family’s icy cool ambassador.

  Now it apparently was Fran’s turn to get roped into the crazy, and she had to play it smart. The royal family wanted her help for very legitimate reason—and she’d give that help. But only on her terms. She couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.

  Fran stared stolidly at the private island that was their destination and went over her story again. She was a grad student…true. She had a year of working with military personnel suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder under her belt, as part of a psychology thesis program for which she’d earned a scholarship…true. She’d met Lauren, Nicki and Emmaline during her undergrad years and they’d all struck up a friendship that had profoundly strengthened over the years…also true.

  Her name was Francesca Simmons; she’d spent an idyllic childhood in suburbia; and she had a cozy middle-class blended family back in Michigan with her father, his wife and Fran’s two step-brothers, basic cable, hot dogs on the deck every summer weekend, and absolutely no run-ins with the law. False, false, and false again.

  The engine cut abruptly, and Fran flinched back as a spray of water splashed over the deck of the speedboat. She also couldn’t swim worth a damn, so if she went over the side of the boat, her life jacket had better plan on doing its job.

  “Man! We were flying.” Nicki beamed at her. “Hey, don’t be nervous. I’m telling you, there’s nothing serious you have to do here, other than, you know, help.”

  “I can’t truly add value here, I told you that already.” Fran tried to take the sharpness out of her tone, but this wasn’t a lie at least. “I’m not anywhere close to being licensed to work with anyone, and from everything you’ve said, Ari—or Ryker or whoever the prince thinks he is—needs the care of a medical doctor. He’s the king and queen’s oldest son! Surely they can afford the best medical care in Europe.”

  “He has plenty of doctors. And neurologists and shrink people too,” Nicki said, her grin not dimming a fraction. “But they’re all a hundred years old. The queen thought, you know, maybe having someone his own age who at least had some background in PTSD would be good. Someone who wasn’t a doctor. Or about to die.”

  Fran quirked a glance at her. The idea sounded no less lame than when she’d first heard it. “She wants me to be his playmate.”

  “His companion,” Nicki said. “And come on! You’ll be great at this. Ari has been through hell this past year, and you’ve worked with tons of guys like that. With this job you’re not seriously working. More like, you know, hanging out. How hard can it be?”

  Fran grimaced. A hundred different faces slid through her mind…haunted faces, worn and weary and unbearably sad. Soldiers with expressions that seemed to have been taken carefully out of a box and worn like a mask until at last, these men and women could hide again from the real world, returning to the place inside that both soothed and tormented them.

  Nevertheless, Fran could help Aristotle Andris, she suspected. If she’d learned nothing else from her study, it was that sometimes merely sitting with someone in silence, letting him know he wasn’t alone, was the best gift you could possibly give.

  “You said he’d been a prisoner?” she asked finally, and Nicki bounced on her toes, her satisfaction at winning obvious.

  “Yup!” Nicki said, glancing to the dock as the boat cruised in. When she spoke again, her words were lower, more hurried. “He took off from the municipal airstrip in Garronia one night last June, and crashed his plane in a storm off the coast of Turkey. He washed ashore, delirious, and he got caught in some kind of vagrant round-up and pu
t into a work camp. He has no idea he’s the heir to the kingdom of Garronia, thinks he’s some pilot. But according the doctors, his prognosis is good. There’s nothing physically wrong with him. He’s simply sort of…forgotten who he was.”

  Fran couldn’t help her half-choked laugh. “Sometimes that isn’t so bad,” she said wryly. “Though maybe not when you’re a prince.”

  “Hey!” Nicki waved furiously at the men on the dock, and Fran pivoted as well, shielding her eyes from the brilliant Aegean sun. She recognized the Garronois ambassador Stefan Mihal, of course. He and Nicki had been charged with traveling to find the errant prince.

  Fran didn’t like Stefan, but it wasn’t because of anything he’d done to her. The man was simply too smart. He’d run dossiers on all of them when Emmaline had been in the middle of her whirlwind courtship with Prince Kristos, Ari’s younger brother. Fran hadn’t been able to breathe for a few days until everything on her had checked out. She’d covered every base imaginable to create her new life, and it appeared that hard work was paying off.

  She knew more than most, however, it could all be yanked away in a heartbeat. The faster she got out of Garronia and back in the rhythm of her own anonymous life, the better.

  A second man caught one of the tie ropes at the prow of the boat, while the third grabbed the edge and stabilized it. With a delighted “thanks!” Nicki accepted the third man’s outstretched hand and mounted the short step halfway up the side of the speedboat. Then she leapt out of the boat, clearing the short distance to the dock like she’d been born to the sea.

  Fran, on the other hand, widened her stance as the boat rocked, then gripped the back of the passenger seat to steady herself. The man turned toward her and she steeled her nerves.

  “Easy there, it’s a short step,” he said with a thick Mediterranean accent. The boat tipped precariously again and Fran’s balance shifted, but she flashed him a grateful smile, focusing on the step in front of her as she lunged for his hand.

  The moment his rough palm closed around her fingers, a zip of awareness rushed through Fran, sharp enough to make her forget her fear for a split second. She glanced up and found herself staring into the face of quite possibly the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen—which was saying something, since Garronia was chock-full of beautiful men. He was tall, broad-shouldered and intense, his dark hair streaked by the sun. He had a deep tan, dark chocolate eyes and high, sculpted cheekbones. His bearded face broke into a broad grin as she stared.

  “You good?” Captain Hawtness asked as another wave rocked the boat.

  She blinked, recalling herself. “I’m good, it’s just—”

  Before she could finish her words, he tugged her up out of the boat…and into his arms.

  Ryker Stavros couldn’t help it if he pulled the American a little more forcefully out of the boat than he’d intended. There’d been such terror in the woman’s eyes, barely covered by her bravado, that he’d wager serious money she’d never willingly entered a body of water bigger than her bathtub in her entire life.

  What he hadn’t planned on was the shock of pleasure that’d rippled through him the moment he’d touched her hand. She’d clearly felt it too, and that surge of interest had made it easy for him to shake loose her death grip on the passenger seat and liberate her from the speedboat.

  The American was surprisingly compact beneath the bulky life jacket, and for one blessed moment she was a warm and vibrant bundle of energy in his arms. He hated to let her go, but he also hated the sudden flare of wariness that skated over her features, one of a rushing parade of emotions that whisked past in a blink, leaving a breathtakingly beautiful and serene face behind.

  He righted her, then stepped back once he was sure her feet were stable on the deck. “Not so bad, eh?”

  “Thank you,” she said, with a smile he would swear was genuine, despite the caution flags she’d thrown up. She was stunning, there were no two ways about it: flashing green eyes, olive-toned skin and rich dark hair tucked under a scarf. She could almost pass as a Mediterranean herself, until she spoke. Her accent was classic Midwestern American.

  Ryker frowned. How did he know that?

  “Sorry,” she said now, coloring a little under his gaze. “I’m afraid I’m not very good with boats.”

  “All the better you’re on dry land now.” He turned to Nicki. “Why’d you force your friend to come all the way out here if the ocean makes her nervous?”

  “What are you talking about?” Nicki scoffed. “The ocean does not make her nervous.” She wrinkled her brow, shooting her friend a startled glance. “Does it?”

  “Not at all. I simply don’t like to fall into it.” The words were smooth and measured, the way he suspected everything about this woman was smooth and measured. Straightening further, she held out a hand. “Francesca Simmons,” she said. “Thank you for your gallant rescue.”

  “My pleasure.” Automatically, as if he’d performed the gesture a million times in his life, Ryker reached for her hand and bowed over it, grazing her knuckles with his lips. Even her knuckles were perfection, soft against his wind-chapped skin, and he found his mouth watering at the thought of kissing her more deeply.

  Instead he stood, a little abruptly, and flinched as he realized the three of them were staring at him. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “Not at all.” Stefan Mihal stepped forward, clapping him on the shoulder. “Your manners are better than mine, for certain.” He turned to Francesca. “Miss Simmons, allow me to introduce Ryker Stavros, our guest here on Asteri Island. He’s been gracious enough to keep me company while Nicki and I recuperate, much like yourself.” Stefan’s phone rang, and he fished for it as Nicki shifted toward him, the two of them moving in uncanny synchronicity for two people who’d but recently met.

  Francesca’s laughter tugged his attention toward her again. “Well, I’m glad to see I’ll have help keeping Nicki from scaling the walls.” She surveyed the tiny marina, her gaze climbing past the thick knot of trees until she saw the buildings clustered higher up on the mountain. “Is that the guest house?”

  “One of them,” Ryker said dryly. As her startled gaze dropped to his and she grinned, he found himself grinning with her. “Stefan is a friend of the ruling family of Garronia, it would appear. This is their island. The whole thing.”

  Her gaze shifted back toward the promontory and he realized she hadn’t met his eyes for more than a second, as if he made her nervous. Now she shielded her brow with her palm. “You should see the royal palace,” she said. “It has so many rooms, you could get lost in it.”

  The moment seemed to freeze for Ryker, the way it’d been doing since he’d arrived on the island. He sensed there was something he was missing here, something important, a breath from his grasp. As it usually did, the flash of pain accompanying that thought wrenched him all the way to his toes.

  This time, however, a soft hand touched his bare forearm, gentle and soothing. He glanced up and saw Francesca regarding him intently this time, her green eyes soft and considering. “Do you like island living?” she asked, as if nothing had happened.

  He glanced quickly at Stefan and Nicki, but they were both bent over Stefan’s phone and arguing about something in low, urgent tones. Probably proper sailing angles in high wind or some other equally ridiculous measure. He’d never seen two people so certain they were right about so many things—particularly if the other person asserted the opposite. He shook his head, refocusing on Francesca. “Honestly? I don’t know. They’ve told you my story I assume?”

  To his surprise, she frowned. “Nicki hasn’t told me much of anything other than she’s going through a battery of tests after she overexerted herself.”

  Her name must have broken through Nicki’s competitive haze, because she scowled over at them. “It’s not a battery. It’s, like, three.”

  “Let’s head to the car.” Stefan took advantage of Nicki’s distraction to wheel her toward the vehicle, and it was only then that
she reached for her life jacket.

  Belatedly, Francesca did the same, her lips dropping at the corners as she surveyed the jacket with bemusement. “I don’t suppose there’s a quick-release?”

  Ryker laughed. “It’s not too hard. Here.” He pulled the catch on the waistband, then freed the top snap as well, unzipping the bulky garment and helping her out of it.

  “Oh, hooray. I can breathe again,” she said as he tossed the jacket into the speedboat. Nicki’s went sailing after it, and Ryker forced himself to head up the dock with the others instead of stare at Francesca.

  He would have much preferred to stare. Freed from the heavy jacket, Francesca’s figure could have been sculpted by an Italian master, sensually curved beneath her lightweight summer clothes. The breeze kicked up, plastering her tunic top to her breasts, and Ryker’s mouth went dry.

  Fortunately, the American didn’t seem to notice. “How much longer will you be here?” she asked Nicki brightly. “I thought you said you were all right.”

  “I am all right,” Nicki insisted, but her explanation of the complicated round of medical tests Stefan insisted she undergo after her recent fainting spell lasted all the way to the edge of the dock where a limo waited. As he listened, Ryker felt marginally vindicated. He’d also been undergoing a roster of testing since he’d come to the island, the equally onerous work-up ordered by Stefan. Ryker didn’t know how much pull the diplomat had with the first family, but apparently, it was a lot.

  One thing was for certain, they were making damned sure Ryker was no danger to himself…and, he suspected, anyone else. They also weren’t telling him who he really was, though Stefan clearly knew. Ryker supposed it made sense—he should do his remembering on his own, versus simply accept what others told him. Nevertheless, he couldn’t stop the sense of apprehension that was building with each passing moment. There was something he should be picking up on here…something important.

  “Anyway, we’re going to be here for, what, another week you think?”