SUSAN MEIER

      is one of eleven children, and though she has yet to write a book about a big family, many of her books explore the dynamics of “unusual” family situations, such as large work “families,” bosses who behave like overprotective fathers, or “sister” bonds created between friends. Because she has more than twenty nieces and nephews, children also are always popping up in her stories. Many of the funny scenes in her books are based on experiences raising her own children or interacting with her nieces and nephews.

      She was born and raised in western Pennsylvania and continues to live in Pennsylvania.

      The Tale of the Cursed Princess

      Not so very long ago there lived a princess with the reputation for being short-sighted, immature and spoiled rotten. Even her betrothed found her to be barely tolerable.

      The princess’s temper tantrums and selfishness eventually became too much for her family to bear. Her reaction to her father’s marriage was the proverbial last straw. The king’s only daughter loved being daddy’s little girl, and the appearance of a potential stepmother threatened to change all that. The young princess tried to sabotage the engagement and the wedding. Her schemes were unsuccessful, but they convinced her godmother that the princess needed to be taught a lesson in humility and the power of love.

      Her godmother cursed the princess with immediate advanced age, a severe bout of crankiness and exile from her country. The only way the princess could break the curse was to choose twenty-one potential couples and—using stories and a little magic—bring love into their lives, a bond sanctified by marriage. Once the last marriage was performed, she would turn back into a princess and be welcomed home—as long as the last couple was joined before her thirtieth birthday.

      If she failed to secure the marriages before time ran out, she would live in exile as a crone until her death. If she succeeded, however, she would return home to marry the prince she had been promised at birth, with a well-learned lesson of what it meant to truly love….

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter One

      Nearly purring with joy over making her twenty-first love match, Princess Meredith Montrosa Bessart, known to the guests of La Torchere Resort as Merry Montrose, stood on the sidelines of the dance floor at the wedding reception of Cynthia Rawlings and Rick Barnett. Resplendent in his black tux, typically dark and brooding Rick gazed down at his beautiful blond bride as they glided along the dance floor, Cynthia’s satin gown floating around them.

      They looked like Cinderella and her prince, which to Merry was ironic considering that she was the real princess on Torchere Key, though a curse had changed her from a young, beautiful royal into a crone. Even dressed in her pretty blue gown, with her gray hair swept into a twist and wearing the diamond earrings and necklace—part of the collection of jewels belonging to Silestia’s royal family that she’d been allowed to keep to remind her of home—she didn’t look anything like a princess.

      “Not dancing, Merry?”

      The smooth baritone voice of Alexander Rochelle, owner of southwest Florida’s La Torchere Resort and Spa, flowed over Merry from behind. Tingling with awareness, she took a second to compose herself before she turned around to face him.

      Dressed in his black tux, his blond hair casually styled in sexy disarray and his blue eyes dancing, Alexander was so gorgeous, so tantalizing, that the breath in Merry’s lungs disappeared, her chest tightened and her knees weakened. But the first fifteen seconds in Alexander’s company were always like this. Not just because he was gorgeous, but because he had an air of excitement, power and sensuality about him that Merry hadn’t seen matched. Not even in the court of Silestia, where her father was king.

      He’d even had that air when he’d posed as a handyman.

      “As resort manager I don’t dance,” she said slowly, forcing herself not to flirt with him. As a homely crone she would look ridiculous flirting with a handsome man. Though she had to admit that when she believed he was just a handyman, she had wanted to do more than flirt. He’d disguised himself to discover the secret of the resort’s recent love matches, but he soon revealed himself as the resort’s owner, first to her privately and then at a staff meeting. That same morning, he moved from a cramped employee efficiency apartment into the best villa on resort grounds, and he had been on La Torchere ever since, not really watching over her shoulder, but a hands-on owner to be sure. So, any thought she had of flirting had long ago died.

      Still, that didn’t mean she couldn’t smile. Maybe even joke a little. “But if I did break protocol and dance at a guest’s wedding, I certainly wouldn’t do it in front of the boss.”

      Alexander laughed. Again, the smooth sound of his voice seemed to pour through Merry, touching her when she didn’t want to be touched—

      Well, that wasn’t precisely true. She’d like nothing better than to be touched by this man. Tall and broad shouldered, with a deep and masculine voice that reminded her of dark liaisons and whispered secrets, Alexander Rochelle was so physically male that Merry couldn’t imagine anything more feminine than being his lover. Just once in her life, she yearned to experience romance as intense, as perfect, as she was sure it would be with this man.

      But she couldn’t. Rick and Cynthia’s marriage made their commitment official, finalizing the twenty-one matches that would break Merry’s curse. She didn’t know what would happen next. Literally! Right now, she stood before Alexander as a twenty-nine-year-old princess in a crone’s body, but any minute