Stepping into the Prince's World by Marion Lennox Page A

respectable. Yeah . She looked at herself in the mirror. Her jogging suit was baggy and old. She had on her huge sheepskin boots. Her hair was combed but still damp and she didn’t have the energy to dry it. There was no way she had the energy for make-up, either.
    â€˜It’s take me as I am,’ she said out loud, and then winced.
    Take me?
    What was she thinking?
    Rocky was sitting at her feet. He looked up at her quizzically, as if guessing her thoughts, and she gave him a rueful smile.
    â€˜You and I have been alone too long,’ she told him. ‘Four months and one lone guy enters our world...’
    One gorgeous guy. A guy with an accent to make a girl’s toes curl. A guy who was gentle and kind. A guy who’d lost his parents, who knew what being alone felt like.
    A kindred spirit?
    â€˜Yeah, those drugs are really doing something to you,’ she muttered, and adjusted her sling a bit—not because she needed to, but because adjusting it caused her arm to twinge and she felt she needed a little bit of pain right now.
    Pain equalled reality. Reality was good.
    Reality was getting this guy off her island and going back to her stint of self-imposed exile.
    She could smell steak. And onions. Raoul was cooking for her.
    â€˜It needed only that,’ she muttered, and took a last moment to try and grasp at a reality that was looking more and more elusive.
    And then she went to find Raoul.
    â€˜Hey.’ Raoul turned as she entered the kitchen.
    He smiled at her, his eyes raking her from her toes to the top of her head, and his smile said he approved. Of the saggy jogging suit. Of everything. That smile was enough to do a girl’s head in.
    â€˜Well done. Feel better?’
    â€˜I...yes.’ Of course she did. A thousand times better. She was clean and she was warm and she was about to be fed. What else could a woman want?
    Who else?
    â€˜I feel great,’ she said, a bit too heartily, and then blinked as he tugged a chair out for her. All this and manners, too?
    â€˜You don’t need to do this,’ she told him. ‘I’m the servant here, remember?’
    â€˜The servant?’
    â€˜Don and Marigold own the island, but they never come here in winter. They needed a caretaker. Rocky and I applied for the job.’
    â€˜Just Rocky and you?’ He turned to flip the steaks. ‘That’s hardly safe.’
    â€˜There’s also supposed to be a handyman-cum-gardener. What they didn’t tell me was that he’d quit. He left on the boat I arrived on, and Don and Marigold headed to Europe without finding a replacement.’
    He was organising chips on plates. Chips! Yeah, they were the frozen oven variety, but she totally approved. Steak and chips and onions. And baby peas, and slivered carrots sautéed in butter. Wow, she thought. Turn back the rescue boats. I’m keeping him.
    Um... not .
    Drugs, she reminded herself. She really had had a lot of them.
    â€˜Don and Marigold need to wake up,’ he told her, organising the plates to his satisfaction.
    He flipped the steak and veggies on, then carried them to the table, sitting down before her as if this was something they did every day of the week. Then he looked at her sling and leaned over and chopped up her steak. The sensation of being cared for was almost indescribable.
    Yeah, maybe she was bordering on delusional...
    â€˜They’re breaking every rule in the Occupational Safety Code,’ he told her, sitting back down again and turning his attention to his own meal. ‘Leaving someone in such isolation. Or don’t they have those rules in Australia?’
    â€˜They do.’
    â€˜So why are you still on the island? Come to think about it, why were you here in the first place?’
    She didn’t answer for a while. She didn’t need to. The steak was excellent, as were the accompaniments. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast and she’d had a swim and a