Dancing With the Dangerous Prince by Elizabeth Lennox Read Free Book Online Page A

going to be a happy reunion with her father! 
    And she was fairly certain that Zoran would never be satisfied with being her secret lover. 
    She had no idea what she was going to do! 
    “You okay, Ciara?” the camp director asked.
    Ciara realized that she was just standing in the middle of the camp, almost hyperventilating. 
    She closed her eyes and forced herself to calm down.  “Yes.  I’m fine, but thanks.”  Except that she wasn’t fine!  She was miserable and she couldn’t believe that she was in this situation!  It was untenable! 
    “You okay?” the text came through.  There was no name attached to it, but she knew that Zoran was watching her.  How had he gotten her phone number?  Ciara smiled, thinking that the man definitely had a way of finding things out. 
    She looked up at the mountains and across the lake, trying to figure out where he was.  But he wasn’t anywhere to be seen.  Her secret lover, she thought with a smile. 
    “I’m fine,” she texted right back.  “You’re coming back to me tonight, right?” she asked.
    There was silence and she stared at her cell phone, willing him to respond. 
    “Don’t do this to me,” she texted back.  “Please don’t throw this away.  I’m only here until the end of this week.  Let’s share our nights until then.”
    Still silence. 
    “Please,” she texted again.
    She wasn’t proud that she was begging, but she’d do anything to see him again.  They might have known each other for only a couple of days but she knew that she loved him with every part of her and she wanted him for as long as possible.  If that was only a few days, then she wanted to have those days. 
    Ciara almost threw her phone into the lake when the silence continued.  Instead, she stomped into the dining hall and focused on her responsibilities.  She made the drinks, set up the plates, prepared the tables and made sure that things were ready.  When the first set of kids and counselors started arriving, she made herself so busy sweeping and mopping, hurrying around to help out in any way possible, all so that she wouldn’t have to think about Zoran not coming to her tonight. 
    The whole day, she worked hard, checking her text messages over and over again until she finally just shut it off.  He wasn’t coming, she told herself.  He was staying away out of some stupid sense of honor, trying to protect her innocence.  Well, she was the one who should be able to decide on what she wanted and didn’t want.  It was one thing if he didn’t want her anymore.  He should just be a man and tell her that to her face if that was the case.  But for him to decide that they couldn’t be together simply because he thought she might get hurt at the end of their affair, well, he was just being stupid!  And it was pure rubbish!
    By the time the bonfire was lighting up the sky, she was so angry with his continued silence that she stayed with the campers.  They told ghost stories and camp stories, laughed at some of the skits.  The kids all went off to their bunks and she stayed behind, cleaning up the area, making sure that the fire was completely out, then she went to the dining hall, hanging out with the other counselors who were relaxing.  There were only three more days until the end of the summer.  The camp would close down for the season and all of these people would head back to their colleges or jobs.  Many of them were teachers during the school year and spent their summers at the camp to earn extra money.  Others were college students.  She was fairly certain that she was the only princess in the group.  And she’d had to beg her father to let her work here.  If it weren’t for the rising tensions and the kidnapping threat, he probably never would have allowed her to work outside the palace. 
    In the end, he’d been convinced that she was more protected here – where no one would think to look for her – than she was if she were to leave