Read MAID FOR A PRINCE: (Book 1) (Point St. Claire, where true love finds a way) for Free Online Page A

sugar, milk, and oil to the bowl.
    “You’re a good cook?”
    “I try.”
    Earlier, Darius had spoken with his Aide. Helene’s story regarding college checked out. After finishing high school, she’d enrolled and had completed a degree, and not in journalism. Helene Masters wasn’t a reporter. She was an ordinary woman caught up in his sudden change of plans.
    He’d thought about their situation all morning. Now he wondered if he ought to make another change.
    Standing this close, he could smell the lavender fragrance of her freshly washed hair. Lower down, her bare feet were clean of yesterday’s grime. Each toenail was painted iridescent pink, which stood out against her tan.
    “You said you work for your friend at his tarverna,” he said.
    “I serve meals and drinks, wipe down tables, sometimes mop floors.”
    “You like that kind of work?”
    “I like it more than painting gutters.” Holding the sifter, she squeezed repeatedly, and a mist of flour drifted into the bowl. “I love being with people, hearing them talk and laugh while they enjoy good food.”
    “How would you like to work for me?”
    She stopped sifting. “Work for you how?”
    “This week. Preparing meals. Tidying up.”
    She stared at him before a wry grin kicked up one side of her mouth. “You said yourself—no one is supposed to be here now but you.”
    “Nevertheless, you are here. And I’ve decided I could use the help.” He eyed the bowl and pretended to frown. “Or perhaps I should wait to taste your cake.”
    Looking dazed, she leaned a hip against the counter. “You want me to stay after all the trouble I caused?”
    “The path will clean up. That cave-in would have happened anyhow.”
    “But not with you right there, dodging the rocks.”
    “Perhaps it was a good thing I was there. More rocks could fall. If I hadn’t gotten her out yesterday, the goddess might’ve been lost forever.”
    Absently, she touched first her chin then her cheek. She looked so funny, mulling over his offer, parts of her face dusted with flour. He should probably let her know.
    He indicated his own chin and cheek. “Flour,” he explained.
    She smeared away the patch on her cheek but kept missing the dab on her chin.
    “A little higher,” he said.
    Looking at his face as if it were a mirror, she tried again. Lifting her jaw with a finger, he stroked the spot with the pad of his thumb. As he brushed, he felt her gaze roaming his face—his own chin, his mouth. Then he recognized a telltale stirring in his blood, the kind of pleasant steady pull that left him wanting to lift her chin higher and graze that spot with his lips.
    After taking longer than was strictly necessary, his hand fell away. Her eyes were wide and her voice husky when she thanked him.
    “Guess I’m messy in the kitchen, too,” she joked.
    “We can deal with that. What’s your answer?”
    “Let’s see. Start on my journey back to Maine and reality, or stay on a beautiful isolated Mediterranean island doing light duties for a prince?” She laughed. “I think I’d have to pay you .”
    “Then we have a deal?”
    She stuck out her hand and they shook on it. When his hand came away covered in flour, Helene’s eyes rounded and those same fingers covered her mouth.
    “It’s not too late to change your mind,” she said.
    He went to the sink, brushed off his palm, then headed straight out. He didn’t want to stand there contemplating the best way to brush the flour from her lips.

Chapter 5
    On the third day, Darius returned late in the afternoon to the villa. The main room and kitchen were empty. Then he heard water pipes working. Helene was running a bath. Having walked around the island for hours, sounded like a fine idea.
    After a cool shower, he wrapped the towel around his hips and strolled out into his bedroom. Automatically, his gaze landed on the vault. Every day he brought the figurine out and enclosed her again before leaving his quarters. Back at the