The Keys' Prince (The Royal Heirs) by D. D. Scott Read Free Book Online Page B

reaching for her hand, an apologetic plea coming from his eyes. “Yes, you definitely look healthier and more physically fit. Happier too, I think, if I’ve accurately interpreted your press shots over the years.”
    “No need to feel bad about what you said. I get it. And it’s true. I do look a lot better. And yes, these last few months I’ve been the happiest I’ve been for a long, long time,” she said, secretly thrilled that Dario had been following her life all of these years. She’d certainly followed his.
    She’d lost over fifty pounds and worked with a trainer and yogi to get fit. She’d gone to an all-natural, organic diet with virtually no white sugar or flour and very limited amounts of meat and animal products in general. She couldn’t believe how much better she felt from the changes she’d made.
    She’d also relocated to Sarasota and set up Neptune’s Treasures, a venture she could once only imagine following through with in her wildest dreams. She’d never done something like that, just because she wanted to. She’d finally found the guts to live the way she wanted to live and not solely in the ways expected of her.
    For the first time, instead of doing nothing but pouring over every detail of her father’s businesses, Stella was living life on her own terms, exploring things that truly gave her joy.
    It wasn’t that she wasn’t good at running international businesses. In some respects, she was even better than her father had been. But she didn’t enjoy it like he did.
    Come to think of it, in the end, shortly before his death, Stella wasn’t sure he enjoyed running the empires he’d created. If he had to do it all over again, she wasn’t sure that he’d have taken the same path. She so wished she’d had the opportunity to ask him about that.
    Like her father, Stella loved the seas and oceans and everything related to celebrating their treasures. So setting up a coastal lifestyle and gift shop was her heaven on earth.
    Her father’s tastes, however, went far beyond gifts from the sea beautifully wrapped in small boxes. He paid homage to their mutual interest by buying homes on many of the most beautiful beaches in the world. And he’d left every single one of them to Stella. But they weren’t her homes. They never had been nor would be. They were his.
    Most of the memories she had of the limited time she’d spent in many of them weren’t happy ones. Her mother was an alcoholic and drug addict. Her jet-setting father, even though he loved his daughter, preferred to spend his time with and emotions on the women he entertained around the world. Stella learned at a young age to put very different spins on homes that were supposed to be paradises on earth. They weren’t her personal paradises. They were simply places in which she could try to hide from the lonely and sad realities of her childhood.  
    But here, on beautiful Lido Beach and on Sarasota’s other wonderful keys and beaches, Stella had created a home. For the first time, she was where she wanted to be and was making her own memories filled with a soul-satisfying bliss that belonged to just her and the sea.
    “Perhaps we’re overreacting and this will blow over in a day or two,” Dario said, forever the optimist.
    “That’s about as likely as the home we’re now hiding out in being available for any amount less than twenty million,” Stella said.
    Now that she controlled billions of dollars worth of her father’s properties, she knew the value of this tropical treasure.
    “My security chief says that it’s currently the most expensive home in Sarasota, listed for seventeen million,” Dario said.
    Located at the fancy, north end of Casey Key, the home sat on two and a half walled acres, with its own private beach on one side and the bay on the other. At just over ten thousand square feet, with six bedrooms, six baths and two half baths, it was an Italian masterpiece with rows of arched windows and covered