Arne tossed the morning paper aside with an irritated huff and rubbed his hands over his face. The euphoria of his date with Emma had carried him through an overheated, restless night and into a beautiful dawn. He’d lay in bed, gazing out the massive picture window of his flat on the waterfront—he could have had a suite in the palace, like some of his other brothers, but he liked the independence of the bay-side residence—imagining what it would be like to have Emma curled up under the sheets with him. He wasn’t the kind of guy who sought to get a woman in bed right off the bat, so the heat of his feelings surprised him. And his feelings were red hot. He’d had to get up and take a colder than usual shower to push his brain into a place where he could concentrate on work.

But seeing the headline in the morning paper and reading the subsequent story chilled him to the bone in a hurry.

The headline read, “What Is The Royal Family Thinking?” A full-color picture of Fuchsia tripping and dragging the queen down with her splashed beneath the headline. The article went on to talk about the faux pas the Americans had made and how conservative, Aegirian values were being undermined by the influx of flashy, American culture. The article ended with the statement, “Prince Arne, as Minister of Culture, has let the entire nation down by allowing these barbarians through our defenses, and should be ashamed of himself for eschewing fine, Aegirian talent in favor of these foreign hacks.” Worst of all, it wasn’t the only article criticizing America and the royal family.

Arne muttered a curse under his breath and went to fix himself a second cup of coffee. He put it in a thermal travel mug, knowing that there was no time to sit and enjoy it. He wanted nothing more than to lounge on his balcony, daydreaming of Emma and all the places he might take her on their second date. The concert was only three days away, and after that she’d be leaving with the rest of Fuchsia’s crew, so their time together was severely limited.

His frown deepened. Yet another reason to dislike that overblown, overproduced rock star. The faster he was rid of her and her crew the better…except for Emma. Maybe he could convince her to quit her job and stay behind for a while.

He laughed to himself and shook his head as he took the elevator down to the garage where his Bugatti Veyron was parked. It was ridiculous to think that a woman would drop her job and her life to see where things might go with a guy she’d had a couple dates with. That didn’t stop him from musing about the possibilities as he pulled out of the high-security garage and drove through the streets of Solrighavn toward the arena, nor did it stop him from thinking about how amazing a kisser Emma was. Her body had felt so right against his. Everything about her was perfection.

For the second time in as many hours, his fantasies were squashed by reality as he parked his car in the arena’s VIP garage and stepped out of the elevator into the chaos of work. Where he expected to find the arena’s staff busy building the stage and setting up Fuchsia’s equipment, he found an empty stage, piles of girders and wires strewn through the arena floor, and a bare fraction of the workers who should have been setting things up.

On top of that, somewhere near the stage, Fuchsia’s horrible manager—only Americans would name their child “Hoss”—was shouting up a storm. “Who is responsible for this? I’ve never seen incompetence like this before. Is everyone in Europe this dense, or is it just this backwards, nobody of a nation whose name I can’t even remember?”

Arne’s temper shot through the roof in seconds. He was on his way to the arena manager’s office, but as soon as he heard his country insulted, he turned and headed for the stage.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded as soon as he’d woven his way through narrow backstage corridors and onto the bare expanse of the stage that had been constructed for the concert.

“I’d like to know the same thing.”

Arne stopped short as Fuchsia stormed onto the stage from the opposite side. Her appearance brought him up short. Yesterday, her hair had been bright turquoise. Today it was wild pink. Instead of a slinky, glittery dress, she wore skin-tight, magenta track pants and an iridescent top with a keyhole thing that highlighted her cleavage…which was painted purple and had rhinestones glued in a sunburst pattern. A matching pattern covered half of her face, which appeared to be airbrushed with a rainbow of colors. On top of that, she wore six-inch platform shoes that had some sort of swirling liquid in the base.

“Where’s our equipment, Hoss?” she demanded, marching up to the paunchy manager.

Hoss twisted from Arne to Fuchsia and back again, his flabby jaw hanging open, looking like a hippo about to charge as he decided which demand to answer first. Unsurprisingly, he turned his hippo rage on Arne.

“I’d like to know the same thing,” he said, marching to meet Arne. “We unloaded our equipment at the airport and oversaw it being loaded into that truck of yours ourselves, but apparently the truck never got here. Are you folks so stupid that you can’t find your way through your own city’s streets?”

“Hoss,” Fuchsia muttered, but she didn’t look much happier about things herself.

“This is the first I’m hearing about it,” Arne answered. “I was told that—” He stopped mid-sentence, in the middle of glancing at Fuchsia. There was something in her eyes that was far from the anger and frustration of her posture. Even with her fake eyelashes and thick, pink eyeliner, he could see a sparkle in her gaze. It was disconcerting to say the least. He cleared his throat and went on. “No one reported any irregularities with the trucks bringing your equipment to the arena to me.”

“Well, they had to have reported it to someone, because our stuff ain’t here,” Hoss huffed.

“We need to track it down,” Fuchsia said. “Trucks don’t just disappear, and this place isn’t that far from the airport.”

“You’re right,” Arne said, irrationally irritated that the garish rock star seemed to know what she was talking about.

He turned away from her, and the uncomfortable sparks that shot through him from having her so near, and searched for anyone from the arena’s staff. The huge space was oddly empty, which only added to the itching feeling down his back.

“Where is everybody?” he called out, walking to the end of the stage.

“On strike,” someone in the shadows replied. A moment later, the short, blond figure of Sven, the arena’s manager, marched into view from a side entrance. “They’re all out in front of the stadium striking.”

“Hogwash,” Hoss snorted.

Arne ignored them, finding the stairs and stepping down from the stage to meet Sven in the mess of cables and girders strewn around the arena floor. Loud clomping behind him told him Fuchsia had followed. He winced at the thought of the woman getting involved in what was his problem to solve.

“Why on earth are the arena workers striking?” he asked, rubbing a hand over his face as he and Sven met next to a coil of cable as thick as his wrist.

“Something about not being paid fairly for the concert,” Sven answered. The suspicious glint in his eyes told Arne that Sven was on the side of the workers.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “What’s changed since the last concert was held here?”

Sven narrowed his eyes, studying him as though something didn’t make sense. “But they’re not being paid the same amount. They’re being paid forty percent less.”

“Why would you pay your workers forty percent less for this concert?” Fuchsia demanded, standing with her arms crossed just behind Arne’s shoulder.

Arne glanced at her. Her heels put her at eye-level with him, which was disconcerting, considering how made-up her eyes were. “We’re not paying them less.” He turned back to Sven. “We’re paying what we always pay. Why does the arena staff think they’re taking a pay-cut?”

Sven flinched. “That’s the word that got around yesterday.”

“Yesterday? So this is new?”

“After the problem with the electrical grid, word got out that the crew was being blamed, and their paychecks would reflect the fact,” Sven explained.

Irritation gnawed at Arne. He shifted his weight and planted his hands on his hips. “Will someone please explain to me what the hell is going on with this concert? All day yesterday, I was on the phone with Alek and everyone else who kept telling me there were technical difficulties. What technical difficulties?”

“The power cables went missing,” Sven said.

Hoss snorted. “You lose our equipment—and if it doesn’t come back, I expect to be fully compensated for the lot of it—and you can’t find your own extension cords?”

“Electrical cables for a show this size are a little more than mere extension cords,” Fuchsia told Hoss, crossing her arms.

“How can they be gone?” Arne asked, tempted to rub his temples to stave off the headache forming behind his eyes. “I’m assuming we’re not talking about one or two cords.”

Sven shrugged. “The crew had already started bringing them out of storage and laying them out here so they could be plugged in to the production designer’s map. We broke for lunch, and when we came back, everything was gone.”

“Are you people some special kind of stupid?” Hoss asked with a sneer. “Who loses an entire arena full of electrical cables?”

“Do you have surveillance video?” Fuchsia asked. “Do you have any way to see who might have taken them?”

“That’s the thing,” Sven said. “The closed-circuit cameras hadn’t been turned on yet. There’s no recording of anyone taking anything in or out of the arena that isn’t already accounted for.”

“So the power cables, and Fuchsia’s equipment, just vanished into thin air.” Arne ground his teeth, no idea how things could have gotten so messed up. It was like someone was deliberately setting out to make sure the concert didn’t happen.

The thought was meant to be casual and flippant, but once it passed through his mind, it wouldn’t leave. Someone was trying to stop the concert from happening. And if the concert didn’t happen, his mother and Dr. Hayes wouldn’t be able to make the announcement of their engagement to the people of Aegiria. At least, they wouldn’t be able to do it in a grand, celebratory style. It didn’t sit right with him. And for some reason, it conjured up all the headlines about how horrible the Americans were from that morning’s newspaper.

Hard on the heels of those thoughts came others, far more sinister. He turned to Fuchsia, eyes narrowed. “Did you have something to do with this?”

She’d been looking at him with those soft eyes of hers, but the second he rounded on her, she balked. “What? Me?”

“To gain publicity,” he said, in no mood to play nice with the woman. “Any press is good press, right? Did you orchestrate this whole thing to promote your presence here?”

“No!” She gaped at him, and behind all her make-up and glitter, Arne had the impression that she was genuinely hurt. That surprised him, but it wasn’t enough to make him back down. “I’m committed to making this concert a success for you and your family. To suggest otherwise is….” She pursed her lips and glanced off to the side. “I didn’t think you were like that.”

The comment hit Arne all wrong, but he didn’t have time to deal with the hissy-fits of a pampered rock star. “Let’s get to the bottom of this,” he said, turning back to Sven. “Starting with the striking workers. They are not being paid less for this concert because of any problems or for any other reason.”

“Oh.” Sven blinked. “Good.”

“Take me to them,” Arne demanded.

Sven nodded and gestured for Arne to walk with him toward one of the doors to the hallway that belted the arena and would take them to the front door. Once again, Fuchsia clomped after him in her ridiculous heels.

“I can handle this on my own,” he told her over his shoulder, knowing that irritation was probably spilling off of him but not caring. “I don’t need some dolled-up rock star tagging along for a photo op.”

“Excuse me,” Fuchsia snapped, picking up her pace to walk by his side. “I happen to care about the people working for me as much as you do, even if they aren’t my own crew. And you might stop and check your prejudices at the door before you get out there, Your Highness.”

“My prejudices?” Arne glared sideways at her as they walked. “What prejudices.”

“I saw the headlines in today’s newspapers,” she said, her voice flat…and suddenly oddly familiar. “If I had known Aegirians hated Americans so much, I wouldn’t have agreed to the concert.”

A twist of guilt hit Arne’s stomach. They were near the front door, and he could hear the workers chanting their demands, but he stopped, turning to Fuchsia. “I’m sorry,” he said. He hated swallowing his pride, but sometimes it was necessary. “I had nothing to do with those articles. I’m as upset about them as you are. They’re unconscionable, and I’m sure my brother is already having a word with the papers involved.”

Fuchsia arched one of her glittered, pink eyebrows and crossed her arms.

“And I’m personally sorry for snapping at you,” he went on. “My family has a lot invested in this concert. It’s important to us and to the country. I’ll admit that my temper is a little short because things are going wrong so inexplicably. We’re scheduled to have a meeting on Thursday to reveal our true plans for the concert, but until then, I can’t talk about the reasons why it’s vital that everything go smoothly. All I can do is stress that my bad reactions are not directed at you, they’re because the stakes are so high, and because nothing that’s going on makes any sense.”

He wasn’t sure his apology was any good, but the softness returned to Fuchsia’s eyes…and with it, something that hit that familiar place in his heart again.

“It’s okay,” she said, touching his arm with one gloved and painted hand. “I understand what—”

“Fuchsia! What’s going on here?” Hoss demanded, storming up the hall after them.

Prickles raced down Arne’s back, half because of the annoyance of having Mr. Rhinestone Cowboy back in the thick of things, but half because something about Fuchsia’s voice had been suddenly, very familiar.

“What do you want, Hoss?” Fuchsia asked, her voice back to the high, annoying tone that Arne had come to expect from her.

Arne shook himself. The stress of the concert must have been going to his head.

“I need a word with you,” Hoss said, staring hard at Fuchsia.

Fuchsia sighed and marched off to meet her manager. Arne watched them for a moment before heading out the door.

As soon as he joined the crowd of striking workers, they erupted into shouts of protest. Arne listened to them for a moment before raising his hands in a bid for quiet. Luckily for him, they calmed within a few seconds.

“I understand there’s been some misinformation about your pay for this concert?” he said.

A few people tried to answer at once, but one young man near him caught his attention. “It’s an insult for us to be asked to take a pay-cut to pay for equipment that none of us misplaced.”

“No one is being asked to take a pay-cut.” Arne nipped the problem in the bud. “Where did you hear that?”

The angry, restless men and women around them glanced around.

“I heard it from Rolf,” one person said.

“Martha told me,” another answered.

“Ollie was the one who told me.”

“I didn’t tell you anything.”

“Where did this rumor start?” the man near Arne asked.

“I’m not sure it matters,” Arne said to him and to the crowd. “Please be assured that everyone will be paid their full salary. The royal family cares for you and your families. I’m inclined to throw in bonuses for the trouble you’ve all been put through. What’s important right now is that we find the missing equipment, both from Fuchsia’s people and the power cords that belong to the arena.”

“They must still be in the facility somewhere,” someone spoke up.

“I didn’t see anyone take anything out of the arena,” someone else added.

Within seconds, the chatter had switched from being about striking to wondering where the equipment had gone to.

“Can you promise us that you won’t go back on your word and cut our pay?” the man near Arne asked, loud enough to draw attention, as the chatter spread.

“Yes,” Arne said. “You have the word of the royal family, and if you need more, I can put it in writing. But I ask you to please focus all of your efforts on finding the equipment for now.”

A few people answered in agreement right away. The positive response spread through the crowd until the workers headed back into the building. Arne waited until they had all gone before him, shaking a few hands and making a few individual promises for full payment as people went. His mind still roiled over how things could have fallen apart so spectacularly, though. The arena’s crew were all good workers. They wouldn’t jump to conclusions unless they had just cause. He had to figure out what that just cause was and put an end to it so that the show could go on.

“Sven.” He waved to the man as he reentered the arena. “While everyone is searching for the missing equipment, I need you to track down where the rumor started for me.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“I also need you to cordon off the arena as much as possible. Document everyone who comes in and out between now and the concert. No one gets in who shouldn’t be here. I’ll double the security detail, but I need you to keep an eye on things on the ground.”

“Absolutely, Your Highness,” Sven answered with enough determination to convince Arne he would go out of his way to protect the concert. “But, Your Highness.” He glanced to Fuchsia and her manager, who were watching from the side. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to rehearse today like we’d planned. We’re too far behind on building the stage and setting up the electrical grid. Even if we found the cords right away, it would still take most of the afternoon to complete the construction.”

Arne sighed, rubbing his face. “Will we still be able to pull off the concert on Friday?”

Sven winced. “If we work around the clock, and if Miss Fuchsia there doesn’t mind coming in to rehearse at odd hours.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” Fuchsia said, proving she was listening in. “Even if I have to rehearse in the middle of the night. I’m so jet-lagged I don’t know what time it is anyhow.”

Arne nodded to her. Maybe she wasn’t so bad as he thought. “Thanks. I appreciate it.” He turned to Sven. “Get things done as best you can. Keep me informed about the progress.” He broke away from Sven, who rushed to do his job, and strode over to Fuchsia. “I’m sorry about all this, but I guess it means you have a free day. I could arrange for you to have a tour of Aegiria, if you’d like.”

“My crew might like that,” Fuchsia said, glancing to Hoss, who nodded. “But if I’m going to be up in the middle of the night rehearsing, I think I’ll pass.” She looked at Hoss in a strangely deliberate way and said, “I think I’ll go back to the hotel and sleep away the afternoon.”

“You do that, sweetie,” Hoss answered. “I’ll let everyone else know we’ll be painting this podunk town red.”

Arne frowned. He didn’t have a clue what “podunk” was supposed to mean, but he doubted it was anything good. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, nodding and starting off down the hall after Sven.

His headache was squeezing tighter, and rubbing his temples wasn’t helping. He should take responsibility and escort Fuchsia’s team around Aegiria himself, but as soon as he sorted out the mess at the arena, the only thing he wanted to do was join his family for the yachting excursion they had planned for the afternoon. He needed to spend just a few hours relaxing in the sun before diving back into the stress of the concert if he was going to keep his sanity.

That possibility instantly had him thinking of inviting Emma to forego the tour he would arrange and instead join him on the yacht. The only thing better than relaxing by himself would be relaxing with her.

No sooner did that thought come into his head than his phone rang. He pulled it out of his back pocket, and his heart turned a somersault at Emma’s name flashing up.

“Hey,” he answered, putting as much of a smile into his voice as he could, even though he wasn’t feeling it.

“You told me to use your number, so I’m using it.” Emma’s voice was exactly what he needed to hear right then.

“I’m so glad you did,” he said. “I can’t even pretend to be suave and princely right now. It’s started out as a terrible day, and I’m so happy to hear the sound of your voice.”

“Aw, that’s sweet.” He could tell from her voice she was smiling. “And I heard all about your bad morning.”

“You did?” Word got around fast. Super fast. He shouldn’t be surprised.

“Yeah. I heard that rehearsals were called off,” she went on. “I thought I’d see if maybe you wanted to do something?”

The question in her voice was so sweet, and everything she said matched what he’d been thinking so exactly, that he couldn't play it cool at all. “I want nothing more. In fact, I was just going to see if you would be interested in joining my family on our yachting lunch this afternoon.”

“Wow.” She paused. “Joining your family?”

“Too soon to meet the parents?” Arne grinned. He intended to be nonchalant with his comment, but, in fact, it felt like he was genuinely asking her to meet his parents and all that implied.

After a short pause, she said, “I’d love to.”

“Thank you so, so much for saying that,” he sighed. “You don’t know how much I need to just hang out with you today.”

“I can guess,” she said, then quickly added, “From your voice, I mean. I can tell how tense you are.”

He frowned slightly, wondering where her burst of anxiety came from. “I’ll pick you up at the hotel again? In, say, two hours? That ought to give me time to sort things out here.” He paused. “Unless you’re already here at the arena.” He glanced around, but the only people he saw were Aegirian.

“You’d better pick me up at the hotel,” Emma said, still with anxiety in her voice. “And two hours is good. I’ll, uh, see you then.” She ended the phone all as though she were in a hurry.

Arne pulled his phone away from his ear and stared at it in surprise. Part of him wondered what that was all about, but most of him didn’t care. He was about to spend the afternoon with the most wonderful woman he’d met in a long time.