The Princess Predicament Read Online Free PDF Page A

overstuffed carry-on bag for the fake ID that Charlotte had provided along with the cash.
    She couldn’t even remember the name under which she’d traveled. Brigitte? Beverly? As she searched her bag for the wallet, she stumbled and collided with a body. A beefy hand closed around her arm—probably to steady her.
    “I’m sorry,” she apologized. She glanced up with a smile, but when she met the gaze of the man who’d grabbed her, her smile froze.
    It wasn’t Whit. He had probably already boarded the bus on its return trip to the orphanage. She didn’t know this man, but from the look on his deeply tanned face, he knew her—or at least he knew of her. Most people thought her life a fairy tale; she had always considered it more a cartoon—and if that were the case, this man would have dollar signs instead of pupils in his eyes.
    “Excuse me,” she said and tried to pull free of the man’s grasp.
    But he held on to her so tightly that he pinched the muscles in her arm. “You will come with me,” he told her, his voice thick with a heavy accent.
    She was thousands of miles from home, but it had come to her. First Whit and now this man, who sounded as though he was either from St. Pierre Island or close to it, probably from one of the neighboring islands to which her father had promised her. Well, he’d promised her to their princes, but she would belong to the island, too. Like a possession—that was how her father treated her.
    And it was how this man obviously intended to treat her. She glared at him, which, since she’d taken off her sunglasses in the dimly lit building, should have been intimidating. Charlotte hadn’t had to teach her that glare—the one that made a person unapproachable. Gabriella had learned that glare at an early age—from her mother, or the woman she’d always thought was her mother.
    The man, however, was not intimidated, or at least not intimidated enough to release her.
    So she pulled harder, fighting his grip on her arm.
    “Let me go!” she demanded, the imperious tone borrowed from her father this time. No one had ever dared refuse one of his commands, no matter how very much she had wanted to.
    The first time he’d offered her as a fiancée she’d been too young and sheltered to understand that arranged marriages were archaic and humiliating. She’d also been friends with her first fiancé—she and Prince Linus had grown up together—spending all her holidays home from boarding school with him.
    But the night of the ball her father had broken that engagement and promised her to another man, a prince who’d already been engaged to one of Gabriella’s cousins. So her father had actually broken two engagements that night. He hadn’t cared about the people—not that he’d ever considered her a person—he’d cared only about the politics, about using her to link St. Pierre to another, more affluent country.
    The man moved, tugging Gabriella along with him. He pulled her through people—toward one of the wide open doors that led to the airstrip in the back and the private planes. The planes for which a person didn’t need a ticket or even a flight manifest in this country...
    And if Gabriella got on that plane, she would probably never get off again. Or at least she would never be free again. Panic overwhelmed her, pressing on her lungs so that she couldn’t draw a deep breath.
    Don’t panic .
    Charlotte was undoubtedly still thousands of miles away, but it was her voice in Gabriella’s ear, speaking with authority and confidence. And hopefully, in this case, the truth for once.
    Gabriella exhaled a shaky breath and then dragged in a deep one, filling and expanding her lungs with air. It was stale and heavy with the humidity and the odor of sweaty bodies and jet fuel and cigarette smoke. There was no airport security to help her. She had to take care of herself.
    Assess the situation.
    Despite the lies, Charlotte had helped her. Perhaps she had even considered her