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  "I'm sorry, Merry, this is Renee at the front desk."

  "What's up?"

  "I have a gentleman here who doesn't have reservations."

  "Do we have a room available to give him?"

  "Yes, but he keeps asking for a Princess Meredith Bessart. He says he's her father." She paused, then added in a whisper, "And that he's a king."

  Merry's eyes widened and she bounced out of her seat. Her father was here! Oh, Lord! Now what? She needed all her time to make a match, but she certainly couldn't ignore her dad! Not only that, but she hadn't seen him in seven long years and she'd missed him!

  "I'll be right out!"

  Merry ran up the corridor to the lobby, but with every step she took her leg muscles protested a bit more, reminding her that she was cursed, and interacting with her dad probably was not necessary to making her final match. So as with her original bout with the curse, she knew he might not recognize her. Still, she'd spoken to him by phone and he'd known her. She wasn't letting negativity cause her to miss the chance to talk to her dad.

  When she reached the lobby, she saw her father and her stepmother, Mathilda, standing at the front desk. Though he was dressed in casual slacks and a polo shirt for comfortable travel, with his dark hair, dark eyes and regal comportment, Merry's dad was every inch a king. Similarly attired in casual slacks and a boat-neck sweater, Mathilda was also regal, beautiful, perfect, and Merry suddenly realized the full impact of their love. Her father had never looked this good, this happy, with her mother.

  And no one ever looked so good to her! She knew her dad had come to the front desk himself because he didn't trust a servant to find his daughter. The seven-year separation had been as hard for him as it had been for her. He was so eager to see her that he put protocol on hold.

  She cleared her throat and curtsied. "Your Majesty," she said, using the formal greeting she'd been taught as a child.

  King Karl turned from the front desk. "Finally, someone who understands decorum!" He took the two steps that separated them and put his hand on her shoulder, indicating she could rise. "Your name?"

  Your name ?

  Merry's heart sank. She might look the same to everyone else, but something about her curse blocked her father from recognizing her and, as she'd already suspected, talking to her dad was not something necessary to making her twenty-first match.

  She refused to accept this! She hadn't seen her father in seven years and she ached for him. He might not physically recognize her, but if she explained Lissa's curse and told her dad enough about their past together, she might be able to convince him she was Princess Meredith.

  She cleared her throat, determined to give this a try. "Renee, why don't you take your break right now and I'll check in King Karl?"

  Renee nodded, clearly eager to be relieved of the duty of checking in a king. "Thanks, Ms. Montrose."

  "You're welcome," Merry said, taking Renee's position behind the desk.

  Renee scurried away. King Karl said, "You used the name my subjects use. King Karl. Do you know me?"

  "I've actually been to Silestia." As Merry's fingers flew across the computer keyboard, she readied herself to try her plan. Though inability to talk about the curse was part of the curse, she had spoken to Alexander about it and her words had been normal, not gibberish. Which meant being able to talk about the curse must be necessary to making her final match. But that was good because that meant she could tell her dad, and unlike Alexander, King Karl knew of Silestia's magic. As soon as she explained the curse, she could tell him who she was and at least spend some time in his company.

  "Really? Are you a friend of my daughter. Princess Meredith?"

  Merry nodded. "Yes. You could say that." She drew in a fortifying breath. "Actually, I'm tree hormones dice flea."

  Her father stared at her. "Excuse me?"

  Merry's eyes widened, but she refused to accept failure. "I'm your groundhog baker sun ocean."

  "Now see here, young lady!"

  "I'm sorry, sir," Merry quickly apologized as tears filled her eyes. Damn it! It didn't seem fair that she could tell Alexander about the curse and not her dad…

  The thought made her pause in her typing. Unless being able to tell Alexander somehow helped in getting her last couple together?

  Oh, Lord! It was so simple. He was the person she was to be matching.

  In that second, with her beloved father staring at her as if she were a stranger and knowing her fate was to match the man she loved with someone else, Merry decided this curse was hateful. If she didn't match Alexander, she would lose her life and her father forever. But if she matched Alexander, there would be no point to getting her life back. She would have handed the only man she had ever loved to another woman.

  Tears filled her eyes again, but she took a long breath of air to get through her father's reservations, typing as fast as she could.

  Finally, he said, "Since you know my daughter, I'm assuming you also know where I can find her."

  "Yes. She's here at the resort."

  "Can you give me her room or villa number?"

  She looked her dad in the eye. She couldn't tell him about her curse. Physically, he didn't recognize her. But maybe since he was expecting to find her here, she could talk to him on the telephone as long as she didn't mention the curse. She could explain any change in her voice as a cold, which would also get her out of meeting him.

  "I'm sorry, I can't give out that information, but I will leave a message for her to call you. She probably won't get the message until morning," Merry said. "But I'll make sure she calls you."

  The telephone was her only hope of talking to her dad again, unless she matched Alexander with someone. Then she'd have a lifetime with her beloved father, but lose the man she loved…to someone he really loved. Because the curse would not be broken unless Alexander truly loved the woman Merry found for him.

  Because Merry worked until dawn, she slept until eleven. But she awakened surprisingly rejuvenated and in a much better frame of mind. She wasn't going to lose her dad or Alexander! Surely, her twenty-first groom didn't have to be Alexander. She could find two suitable people on an island full of singles!

  Not wanting her father to think she was avoiding him, she phoned him even before she got out of bed. He didn't recognize her voice, but she told him she had a cold, then told him enough about her past to convince him she was his daughter. They talked for forty minutes and, again, Merry's confidence lifted. But when her father invited her to lunch, Merry remembered her limits. She reminded her dad of her cold, told him she'd see him when she felt better—which she would when her curse had been broken—and quickly disconnected the call.

  She rolled out of bed, feeling stiffness in every joint and knew she couldn't let the lack of changes to her physical appearance fool her. Aside from gray hair, a few lines on her face, wrinkled hands and unsightly bunions on her feet, there may not be obvious changes she could see in a mirror, but inside she was changing. Lissa might have gotten her a reprieve of sorts, but it wasn't permanent. Her time was running out. She didn't even know if she would keep her good looks for the entire four days she had left. For all she knew she could zap back into Merry Montrose in the middle of a meeting, while wearing a bathing suit at the Oasis pool, or during a dance at the nightclub.

  After brushing her teeth, she padded through her sitting room. Still deep in thought about the possible embarrassing ways and places she could change back into Merry Montrose, Merry jumped when she entered her kitchen and saw Alexander standing by her refrigerator.

  "Where the hell have you been?"

  Because she was dressed only in pink-and-blue plaid silk boxers and a pink camisole, she clutched her chest. "Alexander!"

  "Don't Alexander me! I've left messages but you haven't returned my calls. I've summoned you to my quarters. You simply haven't shown up. Are you asking to be fired?"

  Merry gasped. In all the confusion about the curse and what was changing and not changing, an
d then the arrival of her dad, she'd forgotten that annoying Alexander could cause her to lose her perfect matchmaking grounds. "I'm sorry. I've been busy."

  "Doing what?"

  She anchored her hands on her hips, deciding the best defense was a good offense. "Trying to manage your resort!"

  She saw Alexander's gaze slide from her face to her neck, to her camisole and boxers. Now that his immediate crisis was over, it appeared he finally noticed she was scantily dressed. His gaze rolled down her legs to her bare feet, then made a slow return journey up, pausing on her face.

  Again, the best defense seemed like a good offense. "Don't say one word about my clothes! This is what you get when you surprise a woman first thing in the morning."

  "I wasn't going to complain."

  Merry's face puckered in confusion. He still found her attractive? She knew her wrinkles, gray hair, worn hands and bunions weren't horrendous, but a guy like Alexander surely liked his women perfect, in this state, she was far from perfect.

  Still, the sunlight shining in through the sliding glass doors behind her could be camouflaging her crow's feet and highlighting the parts of her hair that hadn't yet grayed. Braless in a silky camisole, with her flaws hidden in the bright rays of the sun. she could have sparked his interest.

  And dressed in his usual attire of a sport shirt and khaki trousers, with his hair ruffled from the breeze off the water and his blue eyes filled with fire, he definitely sparked an answering attraction deep inside her. Unfortunately, as quickly as she felt that, she got a surge of intuition. Alexander was the person she needed to match to break her curse.

  The sudden surety she felt stopped her cold. With him standing in front of her, and her intuition running as high as she had ever felt it, there was no denying destiny. Alexander was the man she was to match.

  She fought the urge to squeeze her eyes shut in misery and gruffly said, "I'm going to make coffee."

  He whispered, "Okay."

  Merry slid past him to get to her coffeemaker and she watched his eyes follow her, glowing with the sheen of sexual fire.

  She had to get him out of her kitchen. He might be attracted to her, but he wasn't in love and she was. She had deep feelings for him that made her want to do anything for him. If she weren't a cursed crone living in a twenty-nine-year-old's body, she might even gamble with making love if only for the experience and to have a memory. But she couldn't. To break her curse, she had to find him the love of his life.

  "So where have you been for the past week?" Alexander's voice came from a few feet away and Merry turned to see him standing right behind her.

  She wouldn't yell at him for crowding her. She couldn't even politely ask him to leave. She had to stay on his good side so she could be around him enough to pair him with the right woman. And that, she decided, was why the curse had let her keep her appearance. Merry Montrose had spoken with Alexander, but as young Merry, she and Alexander had a close, personal relationship. That was her ticket to getting him to take her advice when she introduced him to the women at the resort.

  So instead of asking him to step back, she pretended his presence didn't cause gooseflesh to rise on her arms or her heart rate to accelerate, and casually said, "I told you, getting the early departure numbers down."

  "But you haven't even been at your office…"

  "I've been mingling with the guests at night and sleeping into the afternoon."

  "Ah."

  "Though I haven't exactly made a match, guests have been having enough fun meeting each other that no one's leaving early anymore. Plus, I have my candidate now. I think I know who I'm supposed to match."

  "This is about your curse, right?"

  "Yes." She sighed, realizing that having him know so much about her and her curse meant she wasn't going to be able to fool him with a sneaky match. The first time she introduced him to a woman he would guess he was her intended groom.

  "You know," Alexander said, strolling away from her to the counter, where he plucked a grape from a dish of fresh fruit. "The easiest thing might be to simply bring back your aunt."

  "I…" She almost said "can't," then realized that Aunt Merry would need this job. If Meredith Bessart didn't make her final match, she wouldn't be a princess anymore. She would be a crone forever. Without this job. life as Merry Montrose would be unbearable. "I did hear from her and you were right. She is getting bored in retirement."

  Alexander brightened. "I told you!"

  Merry smiled sadly. "Yes, you did."

  But Alexander suddenly became serious. "I'm going to be very glad to get your aunt back, but that's not the reason I came here this morning. There's something else we need to discuss. Something I have to tell you."

  The sincerity in his voice touched Merry's heart. She'd never heard Alexander sound so humble or contrite. She considered for a second that his feelings for her had grown, but dismissed that possibility. How he felt about her didn't matter. Once she found him a match, he would be off-limits. The final awful reality of her curse was that to become the princess she was supposed to be. she had so suffer the worst fate of all. She had to lose the person she held most dear.

  "Alexander, I'm actually very busy today and very much behind schedule. Could we save this for another day?"

  "No. This is something I should have told you days ago—maybe even when I first met you—because it pertains to us personally."

  Though it confused her that there might be something personal they could have discussed when he first met her. it didn't matter what he had to tell her They were doomed. And she knew how to force Alexander to recognize that because she'd done it before.

  "Alexander, do you love me?"

  He sighed. "Merry, wasn't it. hard enough the last time you asked this?"

  "Do you love me?"

  He closed his eyes wearily, then opened them and said. "No."

  "Then we don't have anything to discuss. Nothing personal, anyway."

  "You don't understand—" Alexander began urgently.

  Merry interrupted him. "Really? You really don't think I understand? How stupid do you think I am? Your parents had a crappy marriage. Some little brat hurt you by publicly humiliating you. For the past several years. women have pursued you only for your money. You're jaded. Alexander. You don't believe in love and I do."

  "Of course you do!" Alexander charged. "I might make fun of your curse story, but if you really matched twenty-one couples, you saw love twenty-one times. You know what love is. I haven't been that blessed."

  Merry had never looked at her curse as a blessing before, particularly since it meant losing the man she loved, but in many ways she supposed she had been blessed by her seven years as a crone. It was a blessing that she could no longer be spoiled, selfish Princess Meredith. A blessing that she understood her father's second marriage. A blessing that she couldn't curse Prince Alec to a life without love. It was even a blessing that she was wise enough not to curse herself to a life with a man who didn't love her. In fact, it was even a blessing that she was willing to match him to another woman.

  "I suppose I am." Saying that aloud, Merry felt her courage return and her spirits lift. He was the man she had to match and it was time to begin that process. "But Alexander, the curse is real." She stepped out of the sunlight, allowing him to see the lines on her face and the graying of her hair.

  "Parlor tricks."

  She shook her head. "No. A curse. A curse that's returning because one of my couples divorced. But this curse is far easier to live with than the curse of being with someone who doesn't love you. And you don't love me. But more than that, you deserve love…"

  "I…"

  She shook her head fiercely. "Look how close we came. You may not love me but you've talked with me openly and honestly. The next woman you meet could be the woman you will love."

  Alexander felt his mouth fall open in horror and everything she had said that morning suddenly fell into place for him. "You're going to match me with someone!"
>
  "I don't think I'm going to have to. I think you're ready to fall in love on your own. All I'm going to have to do is introduce you around."

  He could feel his eyes widen with horror as he saw her walking him around the pool like her pet poodle. "No, Merry, I…"

  She brushed him aside with a wave of her hand. "While the coffee is brewing. I'm going to get dressed."

  With that, she walked out of the kitchen and to her bedroom, and Alexander felt the final straw break the back of their relationship. She'd refused to get involved with him as Alexander. She'd decided to terminate her betrothal to him as Prince Alec. Now she was matching him to another woman.

  A man didn't need any more confirmation that a woman didn't like him, but Alexander never believed that being finally, unequivocally dumped by Princess Meredith would hurt so much..

  He turned and left her villa. He was suddenly glad she'd blocked all his efforts to confess who he was. She didn't like him as anybody.

  Chapter Ten

  Alexander was gone when Merry returned to her kitchen, but it didn't matter. She knew what she had to do and now he knew, too. So when Merry not too subtly introduced Madeline Grasselle to Alexander, Alexander might have fumed, but he didn't embarrass himself or her by causing a scene.

  Unfortunately, Madeline trotted off, looking for excitement. Alexander, it seemed, was boring. Disgusted, Alexander walked away. Merry went back to the guest list.

  The next morning Lea Trusik and her cousin Stephanie Beyer checked in. Lea had all-American-girl good looks, with gorgeous blue eyes and long flaxen hair that hung to the middle of her back. Merry knew Alexander couldn't help but be attracted to either Lea or her cousin Stephanie, a tall, trim blonde with a perfect smile and infectious laugh.

  But when Merry offered to introduce the two women to the owner of La Torchere, a gorgeous, available man, Lea politely refused. She took Merry aside and quietly admitted that they'd come to La Torchere for a rest because her cousin Stephanie, a doctor, had just had her heart broken and the two women were looking for sun, surf and maybe some tequila, but no men this time around.