The Royal's Obsession Read Online Free

less than three days, and she had already made a fool out of herself. She couldn't wait to see what the next few days were going to bring.
    Augustine looked down at the shrimp cocktail in his hand with bemusement. When his sister-in-law chuckled, he glanced at her with a frown.
    “What?”
    “You shouldn't let the shrimp go to waste. They're quite good.”
    He looked at her impatiently.
    “That's not all you wanted to say.”
    “Not at all,” she said smoothly. “I'm just amused that you seem to have met your match.”
    “Oh? And what do you mean by that?”
    “Augustine,” she said fondly. “I have been going to public functions and fundraisers with you for the past six months, and in that time, I'm pretty sure that I've seen at least two dozen women rage, cry and ice over at the very mention of you. The newspapers call you a playboy, but I'm pretty sure that anyone who falls into your bed takes off pretty darned quickly when they run into that mouth of yours.”
    “Well, that's pointed,” he murmured, eating a shrimp, but she shook her head.
    “It's not even a criticism,” she said cheerfully. “The truth is that most of the people you are so blunt with deserve it. They have been puffed up by yes-men and sycophants for so long that hearing anyone say something close to the truth destroys them.”
    Her eyes looked briefly distant as she remembered some of those women, a slight smile on her face.
    “Honestly, some of those people really did deserve to have the truth walked right up to them. You're honest, and people hate that. Now you've run into someone who doesn't mind honesty, but who hates bullies.”
    “Is that what your friend is?” he asked, keeping his voice casual. Trinity's grin told him that he wasn't fooling her at all.
    “That's Anastasia for you. She does the more good than anyone I know. If it's about water, she's all over it. I once saw her shout down an entire group of people who didn't seem to believe that chemical companies are bad for our waterways, and she did it in a way that it stuck, too. The only problem is that when it comes to anything else, she's a bit shy.”
    “She sounds…utterly adorable,” he said. “Like a kitten.”
    Trinity snorted.
    “Let me let you in on a little secret. I've never gone for the helpless or hapless, either in friends or in relationships. Go on, see how far you get calling her a kitten. I'll be sitting by with popcorn to see how well that goes for you.”
    Augustine eyed her warily.
    “You have a lot of faith in your friend.”
    “Well, yes, but I have a great deal of faith in you, too.”
    “What in the world is that supposed to mean?”
    Unexpectedly, she set down her shrimp cocktail and gave him an enormous hug.
    “You know what? I don't think I'm going to tell you. If you can't figure it out by the end of the trip, come talk to me and we can sort it out.”
    Another one of her friends called for Trinity's attention, and she was off, ever the social butterfly, leaving Augustine standing there with a shrimp cocktail that he had to admit was very good.
    He wasn't sure what to make of his sister-in-law's statements, but he did know that he wanted to see Anastasia again.
    The yacht was a beautiful piece of work, enormous, but with graceful lines that recalled an entirely different age. When Anastasia walked on its decks, she could imagine an era where this was the only way to cross the oceans, when it might be a voyage that would only ever be undertaken once or perhaps twice at most in a lifetime.
    She ended up at the rail, staring out over the water. In the distance, she could make out the dark shore of Greece. If she adjusted her view, she would look out over endless water, dotted here and there with small islands that made up the Greek coast. There was something at once comforting and intimidating about the fact that this was the view that had been seen by Mediterranean travelers for thousands of years.
    “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
    The