Stolen from Her Royal Wedding, page 1
“I take it my brother sent you?” Marit asked.
“He would like you to return to Svardia.”
Instinctively she took a step back. “I have every intention of doing so, but first—”
“Unwed,” the man all but growled, taking a single step toward her, returning the distance to what it had been.
Fire scorched her. No. She couldn’t return to Svardia until she was married. If not, then Aleksander would have to choose a husband for her. A stranger for her. And she couldn’t let that happen.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I can imagine it easily escaped the notice of one of my brother’s minions—”
“Minion,” the man repeated as if it were some great insult.
“—but this is the twenty-first century and—”
Her words cut short the moment he swept into the room, stalking toward her in such a way that had her stepping back again, or at least trying to. Her heel tangled in the hundredth layer of tulle, and swaying dangerously on the other foot, she was about to go down, when the man appeared before her, bent down and, to Princess Marit of Svardia’s utter shock, hoisted her over his shoulder.
The Royals of Svardia
A family born to rule...
Welcome to the Kingdom of Svardia! Home to King Aleksander, Princess Freya and Princess Marit, Svardia sits in the heart of Scandinavia. Fresh from Aleksander’s coronation, the trio are working harder than ever...and so is the royal rumor mill! From a shock reunion to a runaway princess, is Svardia set for scandal?
Discover the secrets of Svardia in...
Snowbound with His Forbidden Princess
Stolen from Her Royal Wedding
Available now!
Look out for Aleksander’s story
Coming soon!
Pippa Roscoe
Stolen from Her Royal Wedding
Pippa Roscoe lives in Norfolk near her family and makes daily promises to herself that this is the day she’ll leave the computer to take a long walk in the countryside. She can’t remember a time when she wasn’t dreaming about handsome heroes and innocent heroines. Totally her mother’s fault, of course—she gave Pippa her first romance to read at the age of seven! She is inconceivably happy that she gets to share those daydreams with you all. Follow her on Twitter, @pipparoscoe.
Books by Pippa Roscoe
Harlequin Presents
Rumors Behind the Greek’s Wedding
Playing the Billionaire’s Game
Once Upon a Temptation
Taming the Big Bad Billionaire
The Diamond Inheritance
Terms of Their Costa Rican Temptation
From One Night to Desert Queen
The Greek Secret She Carries
The Royals of Svardia
Snowbound with His Forbidden Princess
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
This one is for Tony and Chris,
Dale and Bertie, Bob and Greg.
And for Brenda, Kylie and Gale.
It was worth it, I promise, and I can’t thank you enough.
xx
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM THE SECRET SHE KEPT IN BOLLYWOOD BY TARA PAMMI
CHAPTER ONE
MARIT PRESSED A hand against the white corset of the wedding dress in an attempt to calm the unease sweeping across her stomach. Her heart fluttered in her chest, not with the nerves of an eager bride but with the fear that she was about to make a terrible mistake. Until she remembered exactly why she was doing this. The hand at her stomach formed into a fist. She had made her decision. It might be the last reckless act of the youngest Svardian Princess, but it was important. She knew what she was doing.
Liar.
The voice sounded very much like Freya’s. Marit’s heart thudded guiltily in her chest at the thought of the older sister who had been more like a mother to her than their own. No, Princess Freya most definitely would not approve of what Marit was about to do.
She looked at her reflection in the hotel room’s mirror and clenched her jaw when she saw her lip trembling. Shouldn’t a mother be present on her daughter’s wedding day? Shouldn’t family be gathered? Friends?
Inhaling slow and deep, Marit turned a critical eye on the off-the-shelf wedding dress she and André had bought in the Parisian boutique yesterday afternoon. The sweetheart neckline gaped a little and the dress looked too big for her. The skirt, made of layers and layers and layers of tulle, swamped her and there was something about the colour...the startling white made her look pallid.
It’s not the dress, Marit.
When Aleksander, her older brother and King of Svardia, had called her to his office in Rilderdal Palace two weeks ago, she thought he’d found out about her secret project. That perhaps one of his palace spies had told him about her plans to create an inner city youth orchestra. Marit might not have been allowed to study music at university, but she could never have walked away from it. She’d kept the venture a secret because her family—her parents—would have expected her to fail. Just like they had ever since she’d been an awkward young princess tripping over her own feet, or spilling chocolate sauce on her gown just minutes before the yearly Christmas family photograph, or later, nearly causing an international incident because she had forgotten the correct etiquette with the Taiwanese delegation.
So, two weeks ago, Marit had sat in the King of Svardia’s office—a jarring clash of the latest technology and original baroque interior design—mentally mounting a defence of the youth project she’d been working on for eight months since leaving university.
And when her brother had said, ‘Freya will be stepping down. She has no choice. And neither do you. You will now be second in line to the throne,’ she’d not heard him at first. But her heart had.
It understood, far more quickly than her brain, the precarious position she was now in and, caught between fight or flight, the organ had stopped. Her body’s need for survival had been the only thing that forced a powerful, loud, crashing thud of a beat through her heart to restart it. Her brother’s dominant gaze had needled into her awareness, forcing understanding through her shocked mind. There had been no choice. No discussion. It simply was.
She had met her sister outside her brother’s office, tears gathering in Freya’s beautiful amber eyes, and they had crashed together in an embrace that conveyed the depth and desperation of their love and their fears. Freya was the most loving and generous person Marit had ever known and that she would never be able to carry a child to term was devastating. But that Freya felt she could not remain second in line to the throne because she was not able to produce the spare heirs required to protect the future of the Svardian monarchy felt unbearably cruel. Freya loved what she did with a passion Marit could only ever compare to her own love of music. And Marit feared the loss of that role on top of the children Freya had wanted so much might just be too much for her sister to bear.
Marit’s grief for Freya’s loss was a seething dark, aching thing. But her greatest shame was the twist of selfishness within it that ached for her own loss: her freedom. Through the years it had been made painfully clear that Marit was surplus to requirements. She might have received the required royal training but no one had ever expected, or wanted, her to be involved in royal duties. And the role that Freya was leaving was frankly intimidating to the Princess who had been proclaimed The Rebellious Royal by every single international broadsheet. There had never been any question of her refusing her King’s command. Marit would never abandon her brother or sister in such a way. But there was one last act of rebellion she had left to do. As second in line to the throne, she would have to marry a man with a title, a man of her brother’s choosing.
But she just couldn’t.
The thought of marrying a stranger, of being intimate with a man she’d never met... Her heart quivered in her chest as her breath stuttered around what she was about to do. Because she wasn’t second in line to the throne yet. And if she was already married by the time she took her sister’s place, then the legislation that had tied the hands of Svardian princesses for generations wouldn’t apply to her.
Which was why Marit was standing in front of a mirror in the best suite in Le Jardin Exquis in an off-the-shelf wedding dress, about to marry André Du Sault. Her best friend from university, and the only reason she’d scraped a pass on the business degree her parents had insisted she took, understood why she was doing this. He had his own reasons and the rest, they’d decided in the short time they’d had to pull this entire thing together, they would figure out as they went. But now? Now it was time to get married.
The sound of a commotion outside the suite drew her attention to the door, ruffling the layers of the tulle skirt.
‘Monsieur, arrêtez! Wait, monsieur! You cannot go in there. Monsieur!’
The panicked cries of the hotel’s staff were
* * *
Contrary to popular belief, Lykos Livas was not in the habit of kidnapping women on their wedding days. Not that he hadn’t, on occasion, enjoyed the company of a runaway bride or two. But tracking down and retrieving a runaway princess in the heart of Paris on the morning of what she intended to be her wedding day at the behest of said Princess’s brother was hardly a normal start to the day for Lykos. He checked the address in the message on his phone and returned the mobile to his ear, leaning back against his silver Aston Martin Vantage.
‘Are you sure she’s here?’ he demanded.
‘I’m sure that her phone is there, Lykos. As I’m currently in Norfolk patching drywall—’
‘You’re what?’ Lykos frowned in confusion, unable to imagine Theron Thiakos, CEO of an internationally renowned security company, doing DIY of all things.
‘Finally fixing the hole that Summer put in the wall.’
‘Adelfe, if you and Summer are in the middle of—’
‘Ela, Lykos, that’s the mother of my child,’ Theron groused.
‘And she’s perfect for you,’ Lykos soothed in the most patronising tone he could manage.
‘Nai, she is,’ Theron replied smugly, ignoring Lykos’s tease. Lykos was happy for the man he had all but grown up with on the streets of Greece. Straining at the constraints of the orphanage in Piraeus, the two had raised merry hell throughout Athens until they had been discovered by Kyros Agyros. That his success was even partly down to the man who had both mentored Lykos and betrayed his trust still stung. But it had been an important lesson to learn and one he’d never forget; the only person in this life that he could trust was himself.
‘So, are you going to tell me why you needed me to track the phone of the youngest Svardian Princess?’
‘It’s a palace phone and the King of Svardia gave his permission,’ Lykos replied without betraying the direction of his thoughts.
‘I know that, but what kind of brother hires you to track down a twenty-two-year-old princess?’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Lykos demanded.
‘It means, adelfe mou, I know you.’
‘She is a pampered princess in the midst of a temper tantrum, she’s about as far from my type as possible,’ Lykos growled, indignant at the thought.
‘What are you getting out of it then?’ Theron needled him, clearly aware that Lykos wouldn’t be doing this out of the kindness of his heart. Even the thought of it was laughable. ‘If this has anything to do with Kozlov—’
‘Get back to your drywall, Theron, if that’s what the kids are calling it these days,’ he interrupted, forcing a levity into his tone he didn’t feel in the slightest. It was disconcerting that Theron had identified why he was willing to kidnap a princess.
‘Lykos—’
He hung up the phone before Theron could finish his sentence, knowing his fellow Greek wouldn’t understand the need driving him. Lykos pulled at his cufflinks as he looked up at the four-star Paris hotel where Princess Marit of Svardia intended to get married in little less than half an hour.
‘No amount of dressing up will erase the fact that you are, and always will be, nothing more than a street thief unwanted even by your parents, left to scrabble around for scraps.’
The unwelcome memory of Ilian Kozlov’s words sliced Lykos’s focus in two. He’d come across the Russian when competing for controlling shares in a tech company three years ago. But besting the ‘businessman’ only seemed to inflame the elitist snob. Kozlov had started to come after Lykos’s portfolio and when that hadn’t worked he had crossed the line by impugning Lykos’s reputation. And why? Because Lykos was a threat. He was one of the few men in the world with enough financial acumen and backing to take Kozlov down.
So now Kozlov would have to pay. Personally.
The King of Svardia had finally agreed to sell him the shares Lykos needed to oust Kozlov from his own company. That was, Lykos had decided, the price to be exacted for the Russian’s insult. And all Lykos had to do? Be the thief that Kozlov had accused him of being and steal a princess.
As he entered the hotel, Lykos thought of what he’d read in Theron’s file on André Du Sault. He had enough money in the bank account so generously provided by his rich parents that he could have taken Princess Marit anywhere. The hotel, Lykos supposed as he marched straight past reception as if he were a guest with every right to be there, was quaint. Charming, he’d imagine it being described...but definitely below André’s means.
Lykos added a little more steel to his determination. That was not how to treat a woman. Even if that woman was a spoilt princess who had run away with some university crush. He took the steps of the elegantly curved staircase to where Lykos guessed her suite would be, continuing until he reached the top floor.
‘Monsieur?’
Lykos refused to acknowledge the hotel porter he passed in the corridor.
‘Monsieur!’
His eyes narrowed on the suite at the very end of the hall.
‘Monsieur, arrêtez! Wait, monsieur! You cannot go in there. Monsieur!’
Lykos’s fingers wrapped around the handle of the door and pushed. Standing in front of a mirror in a dress that did absolutely nothing for her figure or colouring was Princess Marit of Svardia. And still she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
It was a moment of pure shock, the realisation turning him to stone. In the space of a single heartbeat he’d taken in everything about her. Blonde hair in angular waves made him think of the way the surf hit the beach at Piraeus. Slashes of crimson across her cheeks, harsh and bright against the pallor of her skin. Eyes, large orbs of hazel with flecks of gold and jade so bright he could see them from across the room. Her mouth, part opened in shock, was somehow the most erotic thing he’d seen in a lifetime of debauchery. He had caught her mid-turn, swamped by tulle, her waist seeming so small he’d be able to cradle it in his hands. But it was the scattering of freckles across her nose that drew him up short, their presence speaking of an innocence he should steer well clear of.
Lykos bit back a curse. Marit was barely twenty-two years old and he ruthlessly marshalled his body’s shocking reaction to her with a severity that was near painful. By the time he’d controlled his startling response he looked up to find that golden flecks had transformed into hissing sparks.
Oh, she was mad.
* * *
Marit turned fully, kicking the skirts out of her way as she did so, fury and fear mixing potently in her blood.
‘I take it my brother sent you?’ she asked. But trying to contain the seething anger only made her sound imperious and she internally cringed as she thought she saw a curl of distaste pull at the man’s lip.
‘He would like you to return to Svardia.’ His accent made her think of salt and money, strangely.
Instinctively she took a step back. ‘I have every intention of doing so, but first—’
‘Unwed,’ the man all but growled, taking a single step towards her, returning the distance to what it had been.
Fire scorched her. No. She couldn’t return to Svardia until she was married. If she was not, then Aleksander would have to choose a husband for her. A stranger. And she couldn’t let that happen.
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
‘I can imagine it easily escaped the notice of one of my brother’s minions—’
‘Minion,’ the man repeated as if it were some great insult.
‘But this is the twenty-first century and—’
Her words were cut short the moment he swept into the room, stalking towards her in such a way that had her stepping back again, or at least trying to. Her heel tangled in the hundredth layer of tulle and, swaying dangerously on the other, she was about to go down when the man appeared before her, bent down and, to Princess Marit of Svardia’s utter shock, hoisted her over his shoulder.
‘What on earth do you think you are doing?’ she cried as her hands scrabbled down his back, desperate for something to hold onto as he bent again to pick up her bag and hook it over his other shoulder. She lifted her head, shaking strands of hair from her vision, trying to ignore the itch across her cheeks from the rush of blood to her head, and cried out for André. As they entered the corridor his door swung open and her fiancé rushed out to a stop.
