The Disgraced Princess Read Free

aroused, readying herself for a passion that would never be returned, never be appeased.
    And then Gerd drew back and she felt the distance between them like a chasm.
    Determined to break the sense of connection, the feverish hunger, she said bleakly, ‘You know Alex better than I do. My mother banished him to boarding school before I was born, and we rarely saw him.’
    â€˜He told me you’re having difficulty finding a job.’
    Startled, she lifted her head, parrying his coolly questioning survey. ‘For someone on the opposite side of the world from New Zealand you certainly keep your finger on the pulse,’ she said forth rightly. ‘Yes, the downturn in business has meant that in experienced commerce graduates are in over-supply, but I’ll find something.’
    â€˜Surely Alex could fit you into his organisation?’
    â€˜Any position I get will be on my own merits,’ she told him abruptly.
    â€˜I’m flattered you allowed him to pay your way here. He said he had to almost force you to accept the offer.’
    Her brother had dropped in on her the day she got the invitation, and when she’d told him she couldn’t afford to go, he’d lifted one black brow and drawled, ‘Consider it your next Christmas present.’
    She’d laughed and refused, but a few days later his secretary had rung to ask if she had a passport, and given her instructions to meet his private jet at Auckland’s airport. And her mother had applied pressure, no doubt hoping that a holiday among the rich and famous wouldmake Rosie reconsider her next move—to find a job in a florist’s shop.
    â€˜You might just as well be a hairdresser,’ Eva Matthews had wailed. ‘It was bad enough when you decided to take a commerce degree, but to turn yourself into a florist ?’ She’d startled Rosie with her virulence. ‘Why, for heaven’s sake? Everyone says you’re clever as a cartload of monkeys, but you’ve done nothing—nothing at all!—with your brains. You were a constant disappointment to your father—what would he have thought of this latest hare-brained scheme?’
    Rosie had shrugged. Starting with the fact that she’d been born the wrong sex, she’d never been able to please her parents.
    â€˜This is something I want to do,’ she said firmly.
    Her years at an expensive, exclusive boarding school had been for her mother. University had been for her father, although he’d made his disapproval clear when she’d chosen a commerce degree instead of something more academically challenging that would befit the daughter of a famed archaeologist.
    Neither of her parents had known that she’d always planned to work with flowers. The degree had been her first step, and during her holidays she’d worked in a good florist’s shop, honing her skills and a natural talent for design. A few months before the end of the university year the shop had closed down, a casualty of the recession, and, with the financial world on the brink of panic, now was not the time to set up. Even if she’d had the capital, which she didn’t.
    Rosie had discussed her situation with Kelt. He’d advised finding a job, saving like crazy and waiting for an upturn in the situation.
    Good advice. Her expression unconsciously wistful, she turned her head and watched him dance with Hani. They looked so perfect together…
    Just as Gerd and the Princess Serina had looked—a matching pair.
    â€˜They are very happy together,’ Gerd said, an abrasive note in his words startling her.
    â€˜Oh, yes, so happy. But who wouldn’t be, married to Kelt?’
    Kelt didn’t write her off as a lightweight or treat her as though she had the common sense of a meringue. A growing girl couldn’t have had a better substitute brother, but his marriage to Hani had taken something from the special relationship he and Rosie