Excerpt from Persy and the Prince
For more fun romance
from Jane Myers Perrine,
keep reading for an excerpt from
her contemporary romance
Persy and the Prince,
available now!
Persy Marsh is as quirky and feisty as she is beautiful. Born into a wealthy family and raised for the good life, she walked away from it all to help others in her local Texas community—and to just be herself. Taking on any job she can land at the glamorous Gulf Prince Hotel, Persy’s just trying to make ends meet and live on her own terms.
Jordan Prince is the no-nonsense scion of the Prince family and heir to the vast family hotel chain. Stiff and formal, he carries himself with upright rectitude and expects his employees to do the same. When Persy makes one misstep too many and crosses the line, Jordan decides he must take disciplinary action—until he looks at her and a completely different kind of action comes to mind.
Locked in a battle of wits and fighting an undeniable attraction, Jordan must decide whether he can let down his guard and open his heart to this infuriatingly outspoken woman, and Persy, the Cinderella who chose to walk away from the ball, might just discover that not all riches are bad, especially when they come in the form of a heart of gold.
Chapter 1
The feet stopped in front of where Persy Marsh knelt. Large feet, shod in Gucci loafers, size 11½ D, she guessed, and they meant trouble. To her left, she was aware that the cocker spaniel’s tail had begun to wag and knew what would happen as soon as the person with the expensive feet stopped in front of Cricket. Quickly, Persy grabbed a magazine from the gold glassed-topped table and slid it under Cricket’s predictable bottom. As had been foreseen, Cricket’s joy at seeing a new friend caused her to forget she was in the sumptuous lobby of the Gulf Prince Hotel and—although it was doubtful the little dog realized this fact—that the rug beneath her feet and undependable bottom cost more per square foot than Persy would earn in a month of dog walking. When the shoes turned toward the little dog, the inevitable happened. Persy gave a sigh of relief as she realized she had trapped every drop of the accident on the cover of the glitzy fashion magazine. Then she looked up at over six feet of dark elegance, the first time she’d ever used that word to describe a man. And me holding a soggy magazine with a damp pool on the charming face of a high-priced model, she thought. Isn’t that the way it always happens?
Even if she hadn’t recognized him, the nameplate on the broad male chest—L. Jordan Prince, Manager—proclaimed that he was on the hotel staff. At the top, really. Persy grinned into icy gray eyes. His classically handsome face wore an expression of almost Victorian disapproval. Before Persy could attempt an explanation, his incongruously sensual lips opened.
“Are you aware,” a cold voice with a slightly eastern accent issued forth, “that the lobby is off-limits to dogs?”
“Yes, I am, and I do apologize,” Persy began. “I’m the dog walker. . . .”
“Are you not supposed to use the rear elevator and exit?” He used an even icier tone when he realized she wasn’t a guest.
“Yes, and I do. But this morning Cricket’s leash broke.” She tried to show him, but holding the cocker by the collar with one hand and the oozing magazine in the other, she could only nod her head in the direction of the broken chain. “Before I could grab her, she came in here. I’m afraid I had to chase her for a few minutes before I could catch her. I’ll pay for any damage such as”—she nodded again—“this magazine. If you’ll give me a hand, I’ll get her out of here.”
“Very well. What can I do?”
She stood with Cricket under one arm and handed him the dripping magazine. “If you would just dispose of this.” She smiled up at him. “Then we’ll leave.”
She was almost to the rear exit when the arctic voice reached her ears. “I’d like to see you in my office when you return from the walk. Without the cur, of course.”
“Yes, sir!” she shouted back. “Be careful! That glossy paper doesn’t absorb much liquid.” As the door closed behind her she relished a final glimpse of the manager’s pursed lips.
“Imagine meeting Jordan Prince under such circumstances!” she laughed, then turned. “And, you, you’re such a problem,” she lectured the squirming puppy as she forced the links of the chain together by pressing the cheap metal against the wall. Completely unrepentant and not even recognizing the need for such, Cricket wagged her tail and stared up at Persy, her head to one side. “But you do help pay the bills, so we might as well get your walk finished.”
• • •
When Jordan Prince first spotted the slight figure, all he could see was a riot of gold curls. He thought the person was a young boy with execrably cut hair wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt and, therefore, sniffed patronizingly at the sight of such a ragamuffin in the lobby of the Gulf Prince. But then he spotted the dog and stalked toward the pair, becoming more furious with each step that this urchin would have a creature in the lobby of his hotel. When he opened his mouth to blast this being, he looked down into a pair of cornflower blue eyes peering out of a face of unusual loveliness, surrounded by those ridiculous uncontrolled curls. He guessed that her figure would also make her gender obvious but couldn’t tell until she stood. Yes, she was tiny and certainly wasn’t a young boy, thought this connoisseur of feminine pulchritude. He noted instantaneously that she was slender through the hips with a tiny waist but the T-shirt was filled more than adequately. One might almost say abundantly, then he sighed to himself, realizing that this delicious little armful, no matter how beautiful and well endowed, was not for him. No, she wasn’t for Lesley Jordan Rutherford Prince, a young man around whom the loveliest female guests and young socialites hovered due to his family name, physical attributes and comfortable fortune.
He saw her glance at him and guessed this waif was assessing him. He knew she’d find him handsome because all femininity had assured him since he passed puberty that he was, well, to be earthy, a hunk. He had stood there, supremely confident of his ability to intimidate this young woman, only to have the disgustingly saturated magazine shoved into his hand. Furious at her lack of respect and the drips that marred the shining elegance of his shoes, he’d shouted for her appearance in his office, then bellowed, “Bellman!” and shoved the slimy periodical at him. “Get rid of this and find out the name of that dog walker!”
• • •
Jordan made Persy wait five minutes after his receptionist announced her. He expected her to be ill at ease but she entered his office walking with a grace that was both seductive and innocent—how could she do that? Jordan wondered—and sat. In the enormous chair, she looked like a child, sublimely indifferent to the picture she made, but he wasn’t. He couldn’t keep his eyes away from her full lips, free of makeup but still of a soft, delectable pink. Nor could he keep his mind off her curves, although his iron control didn’t allow him to gaze where his thoughts wandered.
“Yes?” Persy asked with confidence he hadn’t expected to find in a dog walker. She squirmed in the chair, attempting to find a position in which she didn’t slide down the slippery surface. Her contortions only confirmed his earlier opinion that she had a beautiful, desirable body. Nevertheless, he reminded himself, she’s a temporary employee of this hotel and I’m L. Jordan Prince.
“I see”—he turned the pages of her employment file—“that you’ve been employed by the hotel off and on for three years: dealer in the casino, lifeguard, waitress, maid.”
“Anything that comes up, sir.”
Jordan lifted an eyebrow and looked at her. He couldn’t believe the “sir” was a genuine sign of respect but her face betrayed nothing. “Why haven’t I seen you before?”
“I work odd shifts and I always try to stay in my place, sir.”
“I doubt you have any idea of what your place is!” he snapped.
She smiled, obviously enjoying his discomfort. “You’re probably right, sir. My mother always told me that I’m woefully lacking in manners.”
“Miss Marsh—” He continued to leaf through the pages of her file but found little other than a list of jobs she’d filled and the fact that she was single and lived in El Valle, the blighted area behind the hotel where many of the employees lived.
“Yes, sir.”
“Would you explain your presence in the lobby?”
“What part,” she asked with great respect, “of what I explained earlier didn’t you understand?”
“How did you get in the lobby?”
“Cricket ran in there after her chain broke.”
“How did the dog get through the double doors.”
“Oh, the double doors. The doors that keep the riffraff on one side, away from the guests. Well, some careless person left them open, I guess, because we riffraff just walked right in.”
“You realize that you weren’t supposed to be there?”
“I did, sir, but Cricket seemed a little confused. Of course, she’s a cocker of very little brain. . . .”
He was beginning to feel more and more absurd and he thought she was laughing at him. He caught a trembling of her lips and a sparkle in her eyes before she brought her features under control. He had nothing more to say to her; in fact, he’d never had anything to say to her but she was so lovely, he hadn’t wanted her to get away.
“Do you want me to pay for the magazine?” She opened her purse. “I don’t believe there was any other damage.”
“No, no, that won’t be necessary.” They sat in silence for a few moments, her looking at him expectantly and his pretending to look through her file. Finally he looked up and surprised himself by asking, “Would you go to dinner with me this evening?”
She sat up straight and her eyes opened wide. “What did you say?”
“I asked you to go to dinner with me this evening.”
“Why?”
“God only knows!” he blurted.
“How flattering.”
She was laughing again, he thought, and he dare not tell her why he wanted to see her, that he was terribly attracted to her body, although she must know what the sight of her in a T-shirt did to a man. “Well, I’d like to have dinner with you. Do I need more of a reason?”
“I can’t imagine why. After all, you’re the manager of the hotel and your family owns the chain. I’m just a dog walker.”
“I doubt you’ve reached the age of . . .”—he consulted the file—“twenty-five without a great number of men wanting to take you to dinner. I’d imagine my reasons are little different from theirs.”
“I imagine you’re right!” Persy had an enormous grin. “I know exactly why most men want to take me out. Are you saying your reasons are purely physical? That you want me? I mean, we’ve hardly had time to develop another type of relationship.”
“Well, no, I mean . . .”
“I really doubt if we’d have much to talk about. I’m only the dog walker and you’re the manager. Not even the assistant but the manager,” she said with emphasis. “Your family owns twenty Prince Hotels. You’re really important, whereas I enter and leave by the rear entrance,” she said humbly, head down. Then she looked up and he could see her wide and, he decided, completely delightful smile.
“Yes, I do find you attractive. Would you have dinner with me tonight?”
“I’d like to have dinner with you. . . .”
“Why is that?” He hoped to make her as uncomfortable as she could make him feel but obviously failed.
“I want to find out what people like you eat. But I can’t have dinner with you tonight. It’s bingo night. I can tomorrow night.”
“You play bingo? I thought that was for the elderly.”
“Agatha does. Is tomorrow night all right?”
“Fine, I’ll pick you up at seven at . . .”—he looked at her file again—“one-oh-six La Paloma?”
“That’s right. In El Valle. Please don’t plan anything too fancy. I don’t have the clothes to go to the roof garden.”
“Fine.” He stood and walked her to the door. Opening it, he said, “And don’t let the dogs into the lobby again,” for the benefit of his secretary.
“Right, sir,” she answered.
• • •
Persy looked at her watch: almost three. She still had to check on another job, pick up soup, get home to fix dinner for Agatha and Raul, then . . .
When she completed the errands and opened the door of the small but well-kept house, it was five o’clock. She could hear Willie Nelson’s latest complaint in counterpoint to some rapper, each voice fighting the other for dominance.
“Hi, Mom!” Raul jumped up to help her but didn’t turn down the sound that issued from the box that had been beside him on the floor. He was a dark child, handsome and obviously of Latin background, still thin and sometimes nervous, although much calmer than he had been, she thought with a smile as she hugged him. “Agatha’s worried. She likes to be at bingo by six. I think she’s got a boyfriend.”
“Agatha, I’m home.” Persy knocked on the door of the front bedroom. “Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.” She headed toward the kitchen and opened a can of soup.
Agatha had owned the house before Persy rented it. Persy had thought Agatha’d be gone when she moved in, but she wasn’t. A nephew—the executor of Agatha’s deceased husband’s estate—had made arrangements for Agatha to enter a nice nursing home but the nursing home refused to take Barbarella, her skinny, fussy cat, and Agatha refused to go without her. Agatha lived in the front bedroom and paid for room and board from the rent money Persy paid the nephew, who sent it on to Agatha; Persy stayed in the back bedroom; and Raul slept on the sofa.
“I was afraid you weren’t going to be home in time. You know I don’t like to get to bingo late.”
“Yes, Agatha, I know. Dinner’s almost ready. Will you please set the table?” She stirred the soup. “Has Susan been by?”
“Yes, she left you some information on the literacy campaign and the new candidate for city council. She wonders if you can sit her kids tonight.” Raul turned down the radio and helped Agatha with the napkins.
“Of course. What else do I have to do?”
“Tutor Frank. He needs help in trig tonight.”
“Wonderful! I was afraid I’d have an evening to myself for once.”
“You’d be really bored, wouldn’t you, Mom?”
“Don’t know. I’ve never had one.”