The Prince's Cinderella Bride Read online

  Operation Marriage...

  Prince Quinton Corlow’s life was turned upside down the day his divorce was filed and his military papers were executed. Seven years later, the embittered soldier returns, only to walk straight back into his ex-wife’s life!

  But when Quinn discovers he’s still married to the one woman who could claim his heart, he realizes he must tackle the past for the future he wants...the future Anais wants, too. But can he convince his Cinderella bride to fight for their love?

  “We are divorced.”

  “Until I put my name on these documents, we’re still married.” Quinn dropped them onto the coffee table and turned to face Anais, ignoring the hitch in his chest that came from her words. “Marrying you wasn’t the wrong decision. Maybe I failed at being a husband in every regard, but marrying you wasn’t wrong. You feel it, too, or you and I would not have ended up on the floor together within seconds of being alone in a room. You still want me.”

  “Chemistry. As I said. And you said that was a goodbye or did you forget that, too?”

  “We have chemistry and a legally binding marriage. Unless you want to take it to court and let them decide.” He couldn’t focus on the goodbye bit. He’d said it at the time more from anger than because he’d thought it through.

  “What could you possibly say in court to make people believe this is a real marriage?”

  So quiet he could barely hear himself over his own pounding heart, Quinn answered, “I’d say I still love you.”

  Dear Reader,

  I am fascinated by the concept of royalty, even if it also kind of horrifies me (I’m American, sorry). I love the drama, the history, the pageantry...and kind of hate myself for it.

  This probably has something to do with why my royalty stories always end up involving duty versus desire concepts. It’s my duty as an American to see the world as “everyone is created equal”—and I do—but I also desire the fairy tale. What can you do?

  This book was probably one of the hardest I’ve written because I had to put it down in the middle to write a different book, then go back to this one...then pretty much rewrite it. A couple of times. But sometimes characters won’t let you go, and I couldn’t put Quinn and Anais away without finishing their story.

  Actually, even after finishing, I’m having a hard time letting go. Quinn’s still talking to me louder than my new hero. And let me say, even though I know it makes me sound insane, I’m sort of hoping he moves out of my head and into the next reader’s head soon so Gabriel (my new hero) has a chance. If Quinn shows up on your mental doorstep, good luck! He’s house-trained, but a bit of a handful...

  xo

  Amalie

  AmalieBerlin.com/Contact

  Facebook.com/AuthorAmalie

  THE PRINCE’S CINDERELLA BRIDE

  Amalie Berlin

  Books by Amalie Berlin

  Harlequin Medical Romance

  Hot Latin Docs

  Dante’s Shock Proposal

  Desert Prince Docs

  Challenging the Doctor Sheikh

  The Hollywood Hills Clinic

  Taming Hollywood’s Ultimate Playboy

  Return of Dr. Irresistible

  Breaking Her No-Dating Rule

  Surgeons, Rivals...Lovers

  Falling for Her Reluctant Sheikh

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

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  Hina Tabassum: Your enthusiasm for my books is something I return to on hard days. Thank you for that. And for your smart reviews. Always a good day when one pops up!

  Laura McCallen: Thank you for two years of hard work, dedication and enthusiasm. You will be missed.

  Praise for Amalie Berlin

  “Amalie Berlin has proved she’s one of the best medical authors of today, and her stories will forever have a place on my reading shelf!”

  —Contemporary Romance Reviews on Return of Dr. Irresistible

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM BRIDE FOR THE SINGLE DAD BY JENNIFER TAYLOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  IT WAS A strange sort of medical facility, but the changes made to Almsford Castle since ex-Princess Anais Corlow’s last visit made it seem almost like a new place. Or at least like an alternate version of reality that she could pretend she’d never been to, and never run away from...

  Sometimes for several seconds at a time.

  Dr. Anna Kincaid—as she was now known—checked her watch. Twenty minutes left in her lunch hour, right on schedule. She climbed onto the gym’s treadmill closest to the exit. She could run for fifteen minutes, shower like lightning, and be back in time for her first patient of the afternoon, same as yesterday.

  As soon as she got the belt moving, she increased the speed until she had to push herself to keep up. Not a sensible way to exercise but, no matter how determined she was to remain in the new job that allowed her to stay in Corrachlean with her mother and the quiet life they’d built, every minute she was at Almsford she felt the need to run. It built over the day, faster when she wasn’t busy helping patients than when she sat alone in her office with just her memories.

  Anais had more or less died the moment she’d left Prince Charming, Quinton Corlow, second son of Corrachlean. Without her husband, she’d had no title—something she’d never cared to have anyway—but she’d also lost her country, her home, for the last seven years.

  Almsford Rehabilitation Center now belonged to Corrachlean’s soldiers, people who wanted her there. People who welcomed her, maybe in even greater proportion to how unwelcome she’d been the last time around. The people made it possible for her to set foot in the grounds. The physical changes to the building made it possible for her to stay, but running in one place kept her from running away.

  Protective sheeting covered the stained-glass window running along the top half of the twenty-foot western wall in the ballroom-turned-gymnasium, adding another little barrier to her past, to keep those soul-crushing memories from overwhelming her.

  To let her—almost—put it all away.

  Laughter, warm and masculine, danced up the corridor that branched off the gymnasium to the first-floor patient rooms.

  A sparkling sensation, like the meeting of a million tiny kisses, sprung to life at the top of her head and spilled in a cascade down her back, tickling across her neck and over her shoulders, all the way to her thighs, effectively wiping every thought from her head.

  Everything but the thrill, everything but the smile she felt over the thrum of her muscles and the murmur of the machine.

  Somewhere inside, part of her soul sat up, and a surge of excitement blossomed in her belly. Images of silk sheets and a field of daisies filled her mind, the brush of green leaves tickled her bare calves as she half ran, half danced through them...

  She knew that laugh.

  Oh, God.

  She stumbled and would’ve fallen off the treadmill if not for the safety bars.

  Not him. Not here.

  She wrenched herself from the machine and careened backwards, her legs boneless and quaking.

  Quinn’s voice came from some distance away, but he might’ve been walking down the corridor towards her. She could poke her head out to check and smack straight into those famed dimples.

  Which way? Gardens?

  Too exposed.

  How awkward would it be if Corrachlean’s beloved, rascally soldier Prince came waltzing down the hallway and saw her there after seven years of self-imposed exile? She’d done her best to change her appearance, even beyond the ways the world and their divorce had changed her. Maybe he wouldn’t recognize her, at least long enough for her to skirt past him?

  The patients hadn’t recognized her, and she’d stayed away from anyone who’d known her except for Mom.

  He wasn’t supposed to even be in the country—the last she’d heard he was still on tour. At the very least, he should be in another country, castle, the palace or somewhere, with a svelte model on his arm, if gossip rags were to be believed... And why wouldn’t they be? They’d been right about their marriage spiraling down the drain, no matter how painful and horrible it had been for them to publicize it in increasingly callous ways.

  She’d been back four weeks. It might be a small island nation, but she should’ve been able to avoid him for a year at least. But one month? Four weeks? Thirty measly days?

  Anna shouldn’t have any feelings about Prince Captain Quinton Corlow one way or another. Maybe—if she followed the pattern of most of the heterosexual women who encountered the caramel-haired devil—she should swoon at his movi
e-star looks if he happened by. Swooning involved paling, so that could seem legit.

  But she definitely should not be breaking out in a cold sweat and considering whether her heart rate had reached a fast enough pace to require cardioversion.

  Before she could muster the courage for a mad dash to her office, another blast of his voice ricocheted up the corridor, cutting escape from her mind.

  Not laughter.

  Not words spoken with joy. His voice trembled with alarm and the hoarse expletive that followed either shook her or the building.

  A breath later came a terrible bellow for help.

  “Quinn...”

  Her heart lurched, and by the time her thoughts caught up with her body she was running again, down the long hallway.

  He’d sounded far away, but she couldn’t tell how far. As she pounded past each open door, she slowed down to peek inside for signs of distress, then spent time dodging people as they limped and rolled out of their rooms.

  The residents turned further down the hallway, and she relied on their reactions to direct her.

  Three rooms from the far end on the right-hand side, a door stood open and people were gathering around it, forcing her to wiggle through.

  “Sorry. Sorry...” she said in passing, and didn’t stop until she was through the door.

  Even from behind, even despite the changes seven years as a soldier had made to the breadth of his shoulders, every atom in her body recognized him, crouched over someone on the floor.

  Her Quinn. Her husband.

  No. Once, maybe. Not anymore. As she absorbed his presence, the rest of the room came into focus.

  The bed sat upended and had a raggedly cut bed sheet tied to the bars of the headboard.

  Hanging.

  She moved around Quinn and crouched over the patient on the floor. His skin was still tinged cyanotic.

  “Lieutenant Nettle?” She said his name and reached to check the pulse of his carotid, narrowing her focus to the most urgent place: her patient, not her ex-husband.

  Before she could count ten seconds, a large hand clamped onto her wrist, yanking her gaze from her watch’s face to Quinn’s.

  The shock of recognition blazed across his heartbreakingly handsome features, made only more devastating by the years that had passed. His caramel hair, once short and smart, had begun to grow out, but it was his stormy gray eyes that slapped her like an accusation.

  She forced her gaze away, down at the patient, mentally scrambling for what she should be doing.

  “Don’t.” She said the only word she could wrench from her mind and, seeing pink returning to Nettle’s face, pulled her arm away and stood back up. “I want him off the floor.”

  “I want his neck stabilized first,” Quinn bit back, but the incredulous way he looked at her said he was having as hard a time navigating this sudden overlap of two realities as she was.

  But he was handling it better. Of course Nettle should be stabilized first. “I’ll... I’ll get a brace.”

  In contrast to the way her body had responded to his laughter, what dug its talons into her now was far darker even than that rise of panic that had bid her run.

  Guilt. Sorrow. Anger. Fear.

  Nasty beasts that tore at her competence, her professionalism.

  * * *

  The familiar tang of fear and rage settled like rot at the back of Quinn’s throat.

  Prior to his tours, that acrid combination had hit so infrequently he couldn’t have named the emotions without examination. Now he knew them the second they descended. The only thing he didn’t know was which person before him had summoned them this time—the best friend he’d found dangling by his neck, or the ex-wife who’d abandoned him.

  He knew one thing: Anais didn’t deserve the space in his head right now, even if she well deserved his rage. Ben was the one who mattered.

  “Be still, man,” he said, as Ben struggled beneath his hands, then looked at Anais. She could come back into his life as quickly as she’d left it, but that slapdash, incompetent disguise wouldn’t fool anyone.

  She stood still, staring at him as if she’d lost all her sense.

  “Collar,” he repeated to break through her shocked expression.

  Don’t think about her shock. It couldn’t be anything more than fear that he’d yell at her—out her, maybe—but right now she only mattered inasmuch as she could help Ben.

  He quickly smoothed his hands down his thighs, drying the suddenly sweaty palms, and then fixing them around Ben’s head to keep him from moving it as she finally broke into motion out of the room.

  Discipline had been drilled into him after the King had ordered Quinn’s divorce and enlistment. He’d learned to follow their orders and he’d taught his body to follow his own. Self-discipline would see him through this, no matter how wrong it had been to see Ben hanging there, no matter how wrong it was for him to finally see Anais again like this, no matter how wrong it was that she’d changed so much. Falsely brown hair, eyes, tanned skin... Wrong. All of it.

  The resolve to speak evenly was all that let him banish his anger as he turned his attention to Ben—who obviously didn’t know who she was. “What’s the doctor’s name?”

  “Anna,” Ben answered.

  A brown name for a bizarrely brown makeover.

  Grasping for the only way he knew how to face such a situation, he attempted some levity to try and take the bleakness out of his friend’s eyes. “The good news is, your arms still work great. I’m fairly certain I’ll have a black eye later.”

  “You should’ve left me be,” Ben said, his voice a painful-sounding rasp that could only come from an injured throat.

  “I don’t think so,” Quinn muttered and then looked at the door. “Rosalie would be doomed to treason if I had, after she’d murdered me slowly in retribution.”

  Where the hell had Anais gone to get the brace—across town?

  “What are you even doing here, Doc?”

  “You’ve been avoiding my calls worse than my ex-wife,” he said just as Anais came back into the room, the sounds of tearing straps accompanying her ripping the collar open, and perfectly complementing the color draining from her face. She’d heard him. Good.

  He focused back on Ben, and that anger instantly diminished. “I came to see you, idiot.”

  Quinn accepted the collar and fitted it around Ben’s neck for stability. Only when it was in place did he help Ben into the wheelchair.

  Having tasks to do helped. Not looking at Anais helped. If he looked at her, the way his heart thundered in his ears, he’d say or do the wrong thing. That was something about the military that had worked for him—he’d never had to worry about how to say something, just whether he should say it or not. Soldiers appreciated blunt honesty more than diplomats. Something his brother Philip would remember after Quinn’s first royal function.

  “You should’ve let me hang,” Ben said again, the words sinking into the middle of Quinn’s stomach.

  He shook his head. “I came to see you before I met with the King, which should give you some idea of my priorities right now. You’re the last person in this room I’d let hang.”

  She’d hear that too. And she’d hear this... “Maybe even the last person in the world, though I might have to make an exception for any of GQ’s cover models. Even May’s, and you know how that ended.”

  Petty. But it felt good to be just a little bit mean. Not that it could be all that mean—she was the one who’d left. And it made Ben almost smile, even the slight quirk of his lips was better than the desolation he’d seen in his friend’s eyes.

  “You’re going to have to suffer me checking you over.”

  She’d returned with a bag, wearing a white jacket over what he could only classify as workout clothes, the shoulder of the jacket embroidered with the lie that she claimed as her name. Dr. Anna Kincaid.

  Kincaid. Family name. Just not her maiden name. Or his name.

  From the bag, she produced a stethoscope and handed it to him without his asking, but not without her hand trembling.