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to Khryseis. Like crazy stuff that she couldn’t consider.
    Like asking a prince of the blood whether he’d like to sleep on her living room settee, she thought suddenly, and the idea was so ridiculous she almost smiled.
    He was leaving tomorrow. He’d stopped talking about the possibility of Zoe coming with him. Maybe he’d given up.
    She glanced into the rear-view mirror and he looked up and met her eyes.
    No, she thought, and fear settled back around her heart. Prince Stefanos of Khryseis looked like a man who didn’t give up—on anything.
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    The township of Waratah Cove had two three-star hotels and one luxury six-star resort out on the headland past the town.
    Without asking, she turned the car towards the headland and he didn’t correct her.
    Money, she thought bleakly. If she could have the cost of one night’s accommodation in this place…
    â€˜Can you stop here?’ Stefanos asked and she jammed her foot on the brake and stopped dead. Maybe a bit too suddenly.
    â€˜Wow,’ Zoe said. ‘Are you crabby or something?’
    â€˜Or something,’ she said neutrally, glancing again at Stefanos in the rear-view mirror.
    â€˜Your nanny thinks I spend too much money,’ he said, amused, and she flushed. Was she so obvious?
    â€˜Elsa’s not my nanny,’ Zoe said, amused herself.
    â€˜What is she?’
    â€˜She’s just my Elsa.’
    My Elsa. It was said with such sureness that he knew he could never break this bond. If he was to take Zoe back to Khryseis, he needed to take them both.
    He had to get this right.
    â€˜So why did you want me to stop here?’ Elsa asked.
    â€˜Because the ambassador to the Diamond Isles leaked to the media that I was coming here,’ he said bitterly. ‘That’s why I had to find myself a uniform and attend the reception. I’ve already had to bribe—heavily—the chauffeur they arranged for me so he wouldn’t tell anyone my location. I imagine there’ll be cameramen outside my hotel, wanting to know where I’ve been, and I don’t want a media circus descending on Zoe. I can walk the last couple of hundred yards.’
    â€˜Maybe you should check your trousers,’ Elsa said, and there was suddenly laughter in her voice. ‘Cat fur isn’t a great look for a Royal Prince.’
    â€˜Thanks very much,’ he said, and smiled.
    And, unaccountably, she smiled back.
    Hers was a gorgeous smile. Warm and natural and full of humour. If he’d met this woman under normal circumstances…
    Maybe he’d never have noticed her, he thought. She didn’t move in the circles he moved in. Plus he liked his women groomed. Sophisticated. Able to hold their own in any company.
    She’d be able to hold her own. This was one feisty woman.
    He needed to learn more about her. He needed to hit the phones, extend his research, come up with an offer she couldn’t refuse.
    Unaccountably, he didn’t want to get out of the car. Thebattered family wagon, loaded with lobster pots, smelling faintly—no, more than faintly—of fish, unaccountably seemed a good place to stay.
    He thought suddenly of his apartment in Manhattan. Of his consulting suite with its soft grey carpet, its trendy chrome furniture, its soft piped music.
    They were worlds apart—he and Mrs Elsa Murdoch.
    But now their lives needed to overlap, enough to keep the island safe. The islanders safe.
    Zoe safe.
    Until today he’d seen Zoe as a problem—a shock, to be muted before the islanders found out.
    Now, suddenly that obstacle was human—a little girl with scars, attached to a woman who loved her.
    They were waiting for him to get out of the car. If he left it any longer a media vehicle might come this way. One cameraman and Zoe would run, he thought, and it’d be Elsa who ran with her.
    Elsa wasn’t family. It wasn’t her role to care for Zoe.
    Forget the roles, he