A Princess in Maine

Book 5: Private Europe

by Jen McLaughlin, James Patterson

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy; Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

The McCullagh Inn is hosting the event of the century.

Chelsea Holland is used to dealing in secrets, and this one's proving to be the most exciting one yet: her old friend Grace is marrying a European prince, and Grace wants to host the wedding at the McCullagh Inn. But is Chelsea willing to put herself and her inn in the public eye--especially after being on the run?

BookShots Flames

• Original romances presented by JAMES PATTERSON
• Novels you can devour in a few hours
• Impossible to stop reading

Release date: July 3, 2017

Publisher: BookShots

Print pages: 144

Sample

Prologue

Is this a good idea?

Grace settled back on the couch, smoothing her black dress over her thighs. Across from her, with only a small coffee table separating them, was Chelsea O’Kane—wait, no.

Chelsea Holland. She’d married Jeremy Holland last year.

No big surprise there.

Everyone knew Chelsea and Jeremy were in love in high school, whether the couple admitted it or not. Now, it looked like they’d finally seen the light. Chelsea had on a dusting of makeup, but that wasn’t what provided the ethereal glow on her cheeks, and in her bright blue eyes. No, that had to be happiness.

It was a feeling Grace was ready to embrace.

Chelsea looked at her and smiled, and Grace smiled back immediately. After glancing around the room, she said, “You did great here, Chelsea. The inn is gorgeous. I love the bright-pink door. I’m glad you kept it.”

“Thank you,” the other woman said, smiling wider. “Jeremy and I did a lot of renovations. It was definitely a lot of work, but we’re really happy with the way it came out.”

“I can see why,” Grace said, surveying the living room again.

She picked up the decaf coffee Chelsea had made her, wrapping her hands around it and bringing it chest level. As she reclined against the cushions, her gaze turned toward the foyer. Light-yellow walls. Painstakingly polished wood floors. Elegant furniture. Fancy chandeliers.

This inn could have easily been in Talius.

“So. A wedding? Congratulations!” Chelsea said, clearly trying to steer the conversation where it was supposed to go.

“Yes.” Grace glanced down at her ring with a soft sigh. “We were hoping for something small. Private. Quaint. Romantic. Private.”

It hadn’t been a mistake that Grace said private twice.

Nodding, Chelsea opened her notebook. It had a wedding dress on the front. Grace watched as Chelsea jotted down her name, Grace Grigoris, but then hesitated over the second line. Smiling again, she lifted her head and fixed her blue eyes back on Grace. “Absolutely. We can do all those things, and we’ll get started right away. What is your future husband’s name?”

Grace licked her lips, hesitating, and adjusted her grip on the mug. “About that…it’s not…that is…I’m not…”

Chelsea waited with a patience Grace didn’t remember her having. When she didn’t finish her sentence, Chelsea rested her pen on her notebook. “Or is it your future wife?”

“What?” Grace laughed. “Oh! No, I’m not marrying a woman. My best friend did that a month ago, but that’s not why I can’t seem to put a sentence together.”

“Your best friend…Sherri?”

“Yes,” Grace said, her smile widening at the memory of how pretty Sherri had looked on her wedding day. Both brides had worn dresses. For some reason, thinking of her best friend’s wedding put Grace at ease.

Enough pitter-pattering about. It was time to just say it.

“I’m so happy for her,” Chelsea said, her smile genuine. “She was always nice to me.”

The tension that had been building in Grace’s shoulders went away, and she laughed. “She was nice to everyone.”

“Agreed.” Chelsea pursed her lips. “What’s up, Grace? What do I need to know about your fiancé? Whatever it is, I’ve got it covered—unless he’s an asshole. If he is, you can do better.”

“No, he’s not an asshole,” she said, laughing a little, like Chelsea had probably wanted. “I was thinking about how to word this correctly, but I think it’s best if I just say it. My fiancé isn’t American. He’s…well, he’s a prince, actually. Prince Phillip Michael Marcus Randall the Third, of Talius. And once we’re married, I’ll be a princess.”

Chapter 1

I’ll be honest. It took me a second to recover from that one. It explained the two people standing on our porch, in suits and sunglasses, whom she’d introduced as her “friends” Michelle and Joseph. They were clearly her guards. Ten million things ran through my mind at the same time. How the hell did a girl from the tiny town of Hudson, Maine, land a prince? Where did they meet?

And why the hell were they getting married here, in Maine, if he was a prince? Shouldn’t their wedding take place in a castle, or an ancestral church of some sort? Crap, I didn’t know where royal weddings took place.

But they didn’t happen here.

In Hudson.

“I…uh…I see. Let me just…jot that down.” Clearing my throat, I wrote down “prince” in all capital letters, with five exclamation points, and doodled a crown next to it. “I hope you don’t mind my asking…but why do you want to have a wedding here, in America? I mean, shouldn’t the royal wedding take place in, you know, Talius?”

Somewhere a heck of a lot more exciting than here.

“Traditionally speaking? Yes, it should.” Grace laughed and tucked her hair behind her ear. “But you see, we’re not exactly traditional. Most princes don’t meet American girls who are working at a charity gala, let alone marry them. We’ve already veered from the societal norm.”

I stared at her. Though she said that with a smile, she held her lips tightly in place. I might not be as good at small talk as Jeremy, but I could read people. “I’m guessing there are people who aren’t too happy about that?”

“Conservatives, yes. When news broke about our relationship, the press was all over it. They never leave us alone over there, but here….”

“No one even knows where Talius is,” I finished for her. “Let alone that it’s a country.”

“Exactly.” Grace smiled and smoothed her fashionable black-and-white designer dress over her thighs. Her long blond hair fell over her shoulders in soft waves, and she looked slightly out of place sitting on the cozy brown couch. Her skin was faintly tanned, and she wore a thick white headband that should have looked ridiculous on a full-grown woman, but I secretly wanted to try it on. “Talius is such a tiny country, tucked away near France, that it’s hard to find it on a map. Phillip’s father tries to keep its politics as private as possible, since he likes to think of it as a secret jewel of Europe. Phillip has promised to do the same when he takes over.”

“Is that going to be soon?” I asked.

“Yes, actually. His father is going to step down to enjoy some time in his country, and then Phillip will be a king…” She stopped for a second, and let out a nervous laugh. “Me. Married to a king. It’s crazy, right?”

She wants to talk about crazy?

How about a future princess who wanted to have her wedding at my inn?

I mean, it’s not like our little inn wasn’t incredible. It was. Ever since Jeremy and I had pulled off the wedding of the century, which happened to be our own, business was booming at the McCullagh Inn. We were nearly full most weekends, and we’d hosted a handful of other weddings.

To be honest, I’d found my niche in planning, with a side of flowers and turtledoves. In the back of my mind, I could hear my father’s voice from my childhood: If you have something to love, you have something to lose. But I wasn’t afraid to love anymore. I had Jeremy and the inn, and they both made me happy. I refused to be ashamed about that. Happiness isn’t a weakness. It takes strength to let someone in like that. Jeremy makes me stronger.

It didn’t mean I was blind to the ugly things in life, though.

Dad hadn’t raised me to be a fool.

“So you want to have the wedding here to avoid the press over there?” I said.

Hence Grace’s double mention of the word private.

I hadn’t missed that one.

“Phillip’s political opposition and the press, yes.” Grace took a sip of coffee. Her lipstick was still flawless, and there were no pink lip marks on the rim of the white mug. Just as you’d expect from a future princess. “As I said, complete privacy is a must. Absolutely no one outside the wedding planning circle can know about it…especially your father. No offense.”

“None taken,” I assured her with a smile. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t know.”

Dad was in Florida, out on parole with orders not to leave the state. It was better this way. We’d come a long way, he and I, but I still didn’t tr. . .