Page 3 of His Forever Princess

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Alessandra couldn't seem to get warm.

Gideon had noticed on the drive up. He'd turned on the heater and the heated seats.

Gideon noticed everything.

She hated that about him.

She didn’t want to be here. To be sequestered with her husband. For him to find out the secret she'd been keeping all these years.

She'd argued for a different solution, but after the attack at Maggie's charity ball, Gideon and Eloise’s security team had overruled her.

"It's only a few days." She barely breathed the words, but it was so quiet here—completely silent, unlike the constant bustle in the Glorvaird palace or the steady stream of cowhands at the Triple H—that her whisper sounded as loud as a shout.

"You say something?" Gideon spoke through the cracked bathroom door—the thing had a faulty latch.

She took her cell phone out of her pocket. She hadn’t turned it on since yesterday, at Gideon’s demand. If she powered it up now, she could guess that there would be no bars. No service.

"Is there wifi?"

She knew the answer before he said it. A remote place like this, more than an hour from the nearest town.

"No." His voice commanding, even with the partly closed door between them. "Keep your cell phone off."

She knew why. Location services could be hacked. But it still rankled to hear him order her around.

"I have the meeting with Ambassador Cain in a week," she said. "There are documents I need to read through. Send changes back through my assistant, Clara.”

"You can mark up the paper copy your aide sent." He was maddeningly calm.

There was a rustle of clothing. And that was it. Just mark up the paper copy.

Her temper sparked. "I can't be out of communication for an undetermined period of time. There are people I need to talk to."

He didn't answer. She looked toward the bathroom, imagining banging on the door until he responded to her—

Then she realized he was shirtless.

It was so unexpected that she lost her composure for the briefest moment.

And he was staring at her, dark eyes unreadable.

"Who?" he asked. His voice held a dangerous undertone.

Who, what?

Afraid he would see her icy mask slipping, she shook her head and turned away.

But that didn't stop her brain from fixating on the memory image of him. Gideon wasn't the kind of rancher who sat behind a desk and ordered his cowboys around. He never had been.

And his years of work showed, even on a fifty-something year old body.

She hadn't aged as well as he had. She'd gone soft in some places, especially after Bea’s birth twenty-four years ago.

Gideon didn't have an ounce of softness on him.

She closed her eyes, willing away the image of his broad shoulders and the ropes of muscles down his abdomen.

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