The Surprise Princess Read Free Page A

talking of almost nothing else since the story broke.”
    “What story? All she’s been talking about is—
Oh
. This happened around the first of the year?”
    “Yes.”
    “That explains it. Heading into the meat of the conference schedule. I wasn’t paying attention to any news.”
    Katie wanted to fling her arms around C.J.’s neck. Amid all this talk about a princess, he remained the same.
    He continued, “I remember Steph talking about Washington. I thought it was weird she was so interested in politics. A princess makes a lot more sense. Especially a missing princess. But I thought she said they found this missing princess. Lose her again?” He shot at Hunter.
    “No. She wasn’t—isn’t—”
    Carolyn stepped in. “The young woman some people speculated was the king’s long-lost granddaughter had befriended the king and kept him company during the holidays. She became so close to the king, in fact, that he is going to give her away when she marries Hunter.”
    Of
course
. That’s why he’d looked familiar. How had Katie not remembered after the hours she’d stared at those pictures? The pictures of the king of Bariavak with April Gareaux, some including the man she was going to marry – Hunter Pierce.
    “Have I got that right?” Carolyn asked Hunter.
    He grinned, revealing an entirely different man beyond the serious agent. “You hit the high points, ma’am.”
    Carolyn smiled back at him. “The high points of the official story, but is it the whole story? Or the real story?”
    “Ma’am,” he said, making it clear he wasn’t going to divulge anything beyond that official story.
    She nodded her understanding. “Congratulations to you and April Gareaux. We hope you’ll be very happy.”
    “Thank you.” He looked confident that they would be.
    C.J. spoke up. “Okay, but what makes you think our Katie’s this missing princess?”
    “I’m
not
.” None of them paid attention.
    “That’s what Hunter was about to tell us when you came in, dear,” Carolyn said.
    “I can tell you that similarities have been noted. Similarities of looks with the Bariavak royal family, for instance.”
    “She and your April do look very much alike,” Carolyn said.
    “We don’t.” This time everyone turned to Katie. Perhaps she’d been too emphatic. “She’s lovely and polished and sophisticated. I don’t look anything like her.”
    “Surface.” Carolyn dismissed the surface as only someone naturally lovely and polished and sophisticated herself could do. “Bone structure, coloring, and features are strikingly similar.”
    Katie tried a dry laugh. “I don’t think April Gareaux would appreciate hearing that.”
    “April agrees with the professor. She’s seen your picture.” A twitch eased the neutrality of Hunter’s mouth. “She’d also tell you the polish came lately. In addition—” His face went neutral again. “—there’s the Bariavak Hand. It’s a strong trait in the royal family.”
    Automatically, Katie covered her left hand with her right. But C.J. and Carolyn had been seeing that hand for years, and clearly Hunter Pierce knew about it before he arrived. So what sense was there in reverting to that childhood habit? None. She deliberately removed her right hand.
    “It shows up in the general population,” she said.
    “April Gareaux has the trait, doesn’t she?” Carolyn asked.
    “Yes. It runs in her family. Did Bob or Anna Davis have the trait?” Hunter didn’t wait for Katie to answer. “No. Neither of them.”
    “It’s a recessive gene.” She had done a school research project, curious about the peculiarity of her left little finger being as long as her ring finger.
    “We would go back another generation or two to check if the gene runs in the Davis family—” The way he said Davis spread unease over her. “—but we can’t because there is barely any record of your parents until they arrived in Ashton with you as a child.”
    “That’s not right. There are