Page 44 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

Royal Fiancée Required

Kali Anthony

“You should call me Aston.”

“Should I?”

Her lips parted and he drew her closer as they moved in step to the music. She didn’t hesitate, instead melting into him. Who’d have guessed that Princess Anastacia Montroy would be the perfect fit? The crowd seemed to fade as if it were only the two of them and the music, with its sultry lilt.

“What should I call you?”

He craved to hear her say his name, breathy, gasping in his ear as he made love to her for hours. Her lips parted. Could she tell what he was thinking?

“Your Highness would be proper.”

“What if you didn’t want to be proper?”

To Ally, Fiona and Louisa. I can never thank you enough for helping me to wrangle my recalcitrant hero over coffee, cake and a day of writing. And to my daughter. Miss 15. Who told me my texting style was weird and now that she’d fixed it for my story, she deserved some credit (and commission—but that’s an argument for another day!). Here’s to you, my darling girl.

PROLOGUE

STRINGLIGHTSDRIPPEDfrom myriad small trees filling the palace ballroom. Halrovia’s Spring Ball was famed for its opulence, and this year the organisers had excelled with their theme: a Midsummer Night’s Masquerade. Anastacia turned, gazing up at the canopy above her which glittered as if the room were filled with fireflies. The lighting was lower than normal, making the space look somehow mysterious, like a wonderland. Huge urns dotted the room, spilling with flowers and fruits. The assembled crowd drifted through the room masked, costumed in jewel colours, twittering like tropical birds.

The sense of the whole evening was...expectant. As the Halrovian royal family’s middle child, she’d been taught many lessons about how to comport herself with restraint befitting her position as the country’s ‘perfect princess’, which the press and therefore her people had dubbed her. She was sure, if her mother saw her now, another rule would be added to thelonglist: don’t twirl about looking awestruck.

But her mother was in another corner of the room entertaining official guests, among them the Crown Prince of Isolobello who rumour had it, was going to offer for her hand in marriage tonight. Rumour had it wrong. Ana had eyes; she could see what others refused to—that Prince Caspar had no interest in her. Her parents would doubtless be disappointed, but she wasn’t. Caspar was handsome and kind, the type of man she could make a friend. They had similar charity interests, such as in child literacy. She’d be prepared to do her duty, if it came to that, but it never would. A friend was all Caspar would ever want to be.

Now her sister, Priscilla... Ana was sure Caspar didn’t havefriendlythoughts in her direction, given the way he stared at Cilla when she walked into a room as if he’d been clubbed over the head.

To have someone look at her likethat—not with simple appreciation, or even lust, but with a yearning, a consuming...need. Ana didn’t want just agood friendfor a husband, though for someone in her position, whose parents expected the eldest daughter to marry a prince, she should have counted friendship as a bonus. Was it wrong to seek more? Ana scanned the crowd, searching for...

No. Wanting more was a dangerous thing for a woman in her position with expectations placed on her since birth. Yet for her whole, young life of twenty-four years she’d craved it. She’d rapped up her desires deep inside, locking them away. She knew she was lucky, always with a roof over her head, and not any old roof but apalace. She had sumptuous food on her plate and staff to look after her.

With those privileges came great responsibility. She had a duty to uphold, obligations to her family name and to Halrovia’s people. She carried out those duties because it was the right thing to do—such as marrying someone her parents selected because that would be good for Halrovia. It was another way she could serve.

Yet why did she always feel sostarved? No one would ever know. All people took note of was how she appeared, as if that was somehow her measure as a person. There were endless reports of her ‘flawless blonde hair’, following every change in its style with breathless anticipation, people waiting to copy it. Commentary about her famed pale-blue eyes, a feature of the Halrovian royal family, and her skin, over which the beauty magazines waxed lyrical, imagining her onerous routines to keep the march of time at bay. The paparazzi constantly tried to take photographs of her body. Ana’s private secretary had reported that a shot of her wearing a bikini—as if she’d ever be allowed to wear one—would earn a photographer thousands of dollars, and never mind one who could photograph her doing something less than perfect...

She was trapped by her genetics which no one could look past. Everyone saw who they wanted to see with her. Nothing out of place, restrained, smiling on cue, the perfect princess. Yet there was a question she asked herself every morning as she looked in the mirror, staring at her imperfect self. Who was Anastacia Montroy, Princess of Halrovia? She had no answer to that question.

Ana breathed in deeply, shutting her eyes for a moment, allowing the intoxicating scent of exotic flowers to overwhelm her senses. Tonight, she didn’t want to comport herself with restraint. She craved chaos and magic, a little something for herself. To shed the expectations of others like a skin that she’d felt she’d outgrown. Wasn’t that what the spring was all about—renewal?

She’d dressed for it. In ordinary circumstances, her mother would never have permitted her gown. Tonight, she was supposed to catch a prince, so allowances had been made. No neat and tidy hair; hers tumbled in unruly waves wound with flowers. She’d been explicit about her dress. Ana had wanted a cross between Botticelli’s two famous paintings:The Birth of VenusandPrimavera.

Her dress maker had delivered. The fabric was a sheer net covered in silk flowers. The nude lining clung to her body. Cleverly hand-painted with shading, it looked as though she wore nothing other than strategically placed blooms which appeared to wind lovingly around her. Her mask was made of feather butterflies. It was breath-taking. Caused her mother to scowl. Made Ana feel bold. And tonight it wasn’t a prince’s attention she sought to catch.

Ana took a deep breath. She shouldn’t be trying to catch anyone’s attention. She had people to meet, alliances to shore up, a prince to dance with so appearances might be maintained, whilst both of their imaginings lay elsewhere—Caspar’s with her sister, who was oblivious to his attraction, and hers with someone she could only ever view from afar.

‘Your Highness.’

Her belly fluttered as it filled with the feather-winged butterflies of her mask come to life. That male voice... Deep. Decadent, like a fondue of dark chocolate. She wanted to dip herself into it and drown. Its accent was a heady mix of French, the country of his birth, and Australian, the land of his father.

Ana turned, slowly to savour the moment of seeing this man up close for the first time tonight. Would that sensation of breathless anticipation ever change around him?

She tried to repeat the mantra as he came into view: princesses don’t marry commoners. Perhaps in some royal families, not in hers. Yet the reasons for that were hazy, and tonight all a voice shouted in her ear was,why not?

She knew the answer with an unshakeable certainty, for this man at least. A man like him could never be pinned down. He filled her view. Aston Lane. Tall, broad, knockout handsome. Heir to the Girard family champagne fortune. Billionaire businessmen in his own right, his daring was renowned in yachting, mountaineering...a thrill seeker. Her heart hammered in her chest. Aston Lane looked like her every midnight fantasy come to life.

‘Mr Lane.’

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