Read Princess Wanted - The Complete Book Set: An Alpha Billionaire Prince Trilogy Online
Authors: Autumn Star
Princess Wanted - The Complete Book Set: An Alpha Billionaire Prince Trilogy
Our three billionaire Prince brothers live in a
beautiful small country where their father is the king and they have a large historic castle. They have each grown into very different young men. As they venture into their unique paths. They each find love in the most unlikely ways.
Book one – The Elephant Sanctuary
Prince Luke has no direction. Eldest to the throne much is expected of him, yet he’s not ready to be put in a royal mold. Emma is an American woman who cares about the world and wild life. She travels to Thailand to help save mistreated elephants and ends up finding a partner in a lofty young do gooder named Luke. She never suspects that he is truly the son of a real modern day king and heir to the throne. Luke, afraid of losing her, keeps the truth from her. There seems to be no way to solve the split that occurs in their worlds. But sometimes, when love is involved, miracles really do happen.
Book two – The Race Track Winner
Billionaire Prince Christof sets out to buy a winning racehorse and gamble his money into even more of a fortune. A player with no direction and a lost soul, Prince Christof is no match for the down to earth cowgirl from Texas, Jody, who loves her horses more than he loves money….
Prince Will is the good son. The middle, sweet and loving family son. He is also honor bond to help his small kingdom. The small country has been hurt financially by the price of oil rising and it’s hurting the everyday persons way of life. Prince Will agrees to help at all costs, and ultimately to a royal single ball that will end in a marriage of convenience that will be for the benefit of his country. When Samantha attacks him his world turns upside down.
**** You will love the ending to this lovely romantic saga of three billionaire princes that needed a wife….!!****
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T
he elephant’s name was Tosca.
Emma had not had any intention of naming the baby elephant after an Italian opera - her knowledge of classical music being only slightly greater than her knowledge of elephants – but as soon as she laid eyes on him, she had known that his name was Tosca. From the reports of friends, she understood that this was how babies were often named: you looked at the face and you just knew. In which case it was perhaps just as well that Emma was single and childless: who knew what she might have ended up calling a child.
For his own part, Tosca had nothing to say on the subject of his name. He had problems of his own. Tosca’s mother had died not long after giving birth to him - she had been worked to death, which, sadly, was not all that uncommon in this part of Thailand. Still too young to work, and so of no practical value, Tosca had been left to die until the Bamboo Trust had stepped in.
The Trust was a volunteer organization, working in various East Asian countries, and Emma had been with them for just a week when Tosca came in, malnourished, dehydrated and close to death. Since then she had barely left the little elephant’s side. His odds of survival were given at about fifty-fifty.
“You shouldn’t have named him.” Mike McGill had come out to Thailand for a month long stint as a volunteer about twenty years ago and never left. Now he ran this Trust outpost in his own round-about style.
“I didn’t name him,” Emma insisted. “I just recognized what his name always was.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Does that sound dumb?” asked Emma.
Mike shrugged. “Yeah, but I’ve heard dumber.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m just saying,” Mike continued, “you give something a name, you become attached. Hell, if you give your toothbrush a name then suddenly it’s hard to throw away, let alone an actual living creature.”
“You give your toothbrush a name?”
“This isn’t about me.”
“You don’t like Tosca?”
“I prefer Rigoletto.”
Emma shook her head. “That’s a ridiculous name for an elephant.”
Mike nodded. “I’ve got a new volunteer for you to look after.”
“
I’m
a new volunteer!” Emma had been here a week and a half (she was barely over the jet-lag). Now they were giving her someone new to look after?!
“Things move fast here,” Mike shrugged. “You’re practically a veteran. Ninety percent of volunteers leave in the first week.”
“Why?”
“The heat, the food, the toilets, or something up and dies on them.” People wondered why Mike had been here so long when he clearly cared so little. In fact he cared very deeply, but he had learnt not to be sentimental, not to get attached. It was either that or go crazy. “His name’s Luke. Or Lucas. Or Larry. Something with an ‘L’. Here he comes.”
Emma looked to where Mike pointed, to see a man, around her own age (late twenties), walking across the yard towards the makeshift hut in which Tosca had been housed. Most new volunteers looked terrified when they arrived: unsure of everything, scared of doing something wrong, questioning the moral certainty that had brought them here. Luke (or Lucas or Larry) looked as if he owned the place. He moved with total confidence, shoulders back, inclining his head to those he passed as if acknowledging their presence was the greatest gift he could bestow. He was also, Emma noticed, a very handsome man: trim and fit, blonde haired and blue eyed, with strong features that contributed to the curious air of command he carried with him.
As Luke arrived at the hut, Mike thrust a shovel into the new volunteer’s hands. “Wheelbarrow’s over there. That pile of dung’s not going to move itself.”
Mike could be relied upon to burst the bubble of any wide-eyed volunteer.
Luke stared at the shovel with a face that suggested that he might have to ask which end was which.
“Good,” said Mike, in response to nothing. “You know where I am if you need me.”
“No I don’t,” Luke called at Mike’s fast-leaving back.
“Emma does.”
“Who’s Emma?!”
“I’m Emma,” volunteered Emma, summoning up what authority she could. “This is Tosca.” She indicated the supine elephant.
“What a ridiculous name for an elephant.”
Emma bit back her response, trying to remember that Luke was new, that his presence here spoke of a desire to do good, and above all that she was in charge, and that meant being patient with new people who were understandably nervous at being in this strange new place. Not that Luke showed the slightest sign of nervousness.
“Whatever you need, I can help you with.” That was a pretty expansive claim for someone who had been here so little time and was still trying to figure out how to use the toilet facilities without touching anything, but Emma needn’t have worried.
Luke drew himself up to his full height (which was not unimpressive). “I do not need help from… yourself. I am not a fool. Now, where is this mud that needs moving?”
“Dung,” said Emma, succinctly, pointing at a large pile to which all the Trust elephants had generously contributed.
“I’m not familiar with the word,” said Luke. His accent was English but with a slightly mannered delivery that suggested it was learnt rather than naturally acquired. “Dung is not mud?”
“No.”
Luke took a closer look at the pile. “This is elephant waste.”
“Dung,” repeated Emma helpfully. She would probably have enjoyed this less if he hadn’t been rude about the name Tosca.
“Dung is…”
“Poo.”
Luke stiffened and looked back and forth between Emma and the pile. “You wish me to pick this up?”
Emma shrugged. “You can use the shovel if you like. Most people find it easier that way.”
Luke looked at the tool in his hands. “Do you have one with a longer handle?”
“There’s a pit outside the compound where you can dump it.”
“A pit?”
“Yes.”
“Of dung.”
“Correct.”
“Just the elephants’?”
“Maybe it’s best you think that, for now,” suggested Emma, kindly.
Luke stared at the pile again. “There seems an awful lot of it. I had heard things about the food out here, but I had no idea that the problem was this bad.”
“It’s not going to move itself,” said Emma, just a hint of teacher in her tone.
“How can we be sure if we don’t leave it for a while?” asked Luke, hopefully.
“Nice try.”
Again Luke looked between Emma and the pile, finally coming back to Emma. “Perhaps we could exchange jobs. You seem to be doing nothing. I feel that would better suit me. Whereas you have the stocky frame and calloused hands of a laborer.”
Though the ‘stocky frame and calloused hands’ did not exactly endear Luke to Emma, it was his comment about her ‘doing nothing’ that really landed.
“I am not ‘doing nothing’!” she grated through clenched teeth. “This elephant may be dying.”
Luke absorbed this information. “I would have thought it could do that without any assistance from you.”
It was late, and the rest of the volunteers were in the dining hut. But Emma remained with Tosca. Truth be told, there was not a great deal she could do but… Well, elephants were social animals. She did not want him to be lonely. No one should be lonely.
“How is he?”
Mike approached through the darkness.
“Pretty much the same,” Emma replied. “Did you bring me anything to eat?”
“No.”
“What? Really?”
Mike shrugged. “You know where the food is. I’m not your waiter.”
“But… I can’t leave Tosca.”
“He’s asleep.”
“Still…”
Mike shook his head. “You shouldn’t have named him.”
“You really didn’t bring me anything to eat?”
“Nope.” Mike leaned against the side of the hut. “I see all the dung got moved.”
“Yes.”
“He did a good job, this Luke?”
“It’s just shoveling dung. It’s not rocket science.”
Mike nodded. “Still, there are people who try to shirk it or slack off. He did it all no problem?”
“Yup.”
“Reason I ask,” continued Mike in a matter-of-fact tone, “- and I’m not calling your management style into question or anything - when he finished up, I couldn’t help noticing that he had dung in his hair.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Yes. I was wondering if you could shed some light on that.”
Emma’s eyes remained focused on the sleeping Tosca. “Shoveling dung can be a messy business. And I’m not convinced Luke’s ever used a shovel before in his life.”
Mike shrugged. “Maybe so, but most people, struggling with using a shovel for the first time, do not try to use their face instead. Like you said: it’s not rocket science.”
“Accidents happen.”
“I’m not complaining you understand,” Mike went on, mildly, “- and neither’s he for what it’s worth - the job got done, that’s all I care about.”
“Then why bring it up?”
Another shrug. “Things get dull around here, if you two are going to hook up for some no-strings volunteer sex, then at least have the decency to do it within earshot of the compound. We don’t have a TV and it livens things up of an evening.”
Emma’s mouth hung open, partly through shock, partly through needing to say something but currently finding herself bereft of words strong enough to convey her disgust. “Are you insane?!”
“Well, there was talk back home when I first came out here but…”
“You think I’d ‘hook up’ with that vile, pompous, arrogant, lazy, heartless, worthless excuse for a human being?! What the hell would make you think that?! I rubbed his face in a pile of elephant crap! If you think that’s a chat-up line, then no wonder you’re single!”
Mike laughed. “Hostility is how it always starts. And often finishes. Nothing like a bit of hatred to spice things up. We’re not talking about a long-term relationship; you’re here for a month. People get frisky, there’s a fine line between hate and lust, and passions boil over. You’d be surprised where it all ends up.”
“I assure you,” Emma a spoke with deathly urgency and knife-like precision, “nothing is going to happen.”
“Whatever.” Mike’s interest in the whole subject was clearly not that great. “Just do me a favor and be careful. If one of you gets bitten in an awkward spot by something venomous because you were off doing the nasty in the jungle, then I’m the one left with the paperwork.”
And with that, he was off, before Emma had the chance to spit out yet more stout denials.
She settled down next to Tosca and watched people leaving the dining hut, heading for their beds. As the light in the dining hut went out, her stomach rumbled. Well, it was too late now. Still, there were people who felt this hungry, and hungrier, every day of their lives; maybe it was good for her to know some fraction of what they felt like? On the other hand, her doing something as dumb as skipping dinner to sit beside a sleeping elephant who had no idea she was there, was something of a slap in the face to those people who would have appreciated the meal.
Through the darkness, the sound of footsteps reached her.
“Mike?” Maybe he had taken pity on her.
“It’s Luke.”
Emma stiffened: what the hell did he want? It didn’t matter, whatever he wanted she wasn’t going to talk to him.
“I brought you some food.”
“You did?”
Luke handed her a bowl of rice and assorted something, that Emma could not see but which she planned to eat, whatever it was.
“Thank you,” she said, talking through a full mouth.
“It didn’t look like you were going to leave the elephant.”
“Tosca.”
“Yes.”
Silence reigned until Emma had finished eating.
“Thank you,” she repeated.
Another silence, broken only by the gentle snoring of the baby elephant.
“Did you find the showers?” asked Emma.
“I did.” The plumbing was limited, mostly consisting of a barrel of water with a pipe connected to it, but it did the job.
“Good.”
More silence.
“It occurred to me,” said Luke finally, “that some of what I said, particularly about the elephant…”
“Tosca.”
“Yes. Some of it may have been monumentally thoughtless.”
Emma was glad that it was dark enough that Luke could not see her smile. It was the fact that he had said ‘monumentally’ that enabled her to, tentatively, forgive him. But all she said was: “When did that occur to you?”
“As I was rinsing elephant waste from my hair.”
“Dung.”
“Yes.” Luke nodded. “I must learn this word. It seems to be in more regular usage here than in most other places I have been.”
“Where are you from? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Luke made a dismissive gesture. “A little European country you’ve probably never heard of.”
