King Phillip Gregory Humbert Alcott knelt beside his favorite vintage Indian motorcycle, grease coating his hands, and wished he could stay there forever. Or better yet, finish fixing it up and then just ride off into the sunset. Unfortunately, the sun’s current angle in the mid-afternoon sky put the kibosh on that plan—not to mention the gaggle of women halfway down the drive, any one of whom he was supposed to marry.

Phillip loosened the rear axle nut with a grunt, putting more effort into it than was strictly necessary. A strand of his long blond hair swung loose and he pushed it aside with his forearm. Fixing up his motorcycles usually brought him peace, but lately, with his thirtieth birthday looming, there was hardly any peace for him in the whole of Danovar. According to his country’s law—not to mention his mother’s insistance—he was supposed to choose his queen by the time he turned thirty. And seeing as he’d managed to successfully ignore that law for the last twenty-nine years and nine months, now he had exactly three months left to pick a bride. His mother’s way of “helping” him achieve that goal was to gather all the eligible ladies for a weeks-long party at the Summer House, so that he might pick one to marry before the impending deadline.

The ladies had been arriving all day, and the group at the other end of the drive was among the last of the bunch. Dressed in their jewel-toned finery, they looked like a flock of peacocks, fluttering around and clucking amongst themselves while they assessed the Summer House with openly calculating gazes, not even noticing him kneeling there covered in oil and engine grease.

His mouth twisted. One of those oblivious women might well be his future wife.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to get married. In fact, he’d always been enamored with the idea of growing old with a woman he loved—but that was the problem. During this party he wasn’t so much picking a wife as he was choosing a queen, someone who was capable of ruling Danovar at his side. That meant he would never marry for love, and having seen his parents and grandparents live through loveless marriages, he knew it was nothing to look forward to. He wished there was a way for his duty and love to go hand in hand but it just wasn’t in the stars, and being king meant putting his country before his own desires.

He allowed the rear wheel to slide in the swingarm a bit, blowing out a breath and rolling his shoulders to try to get the tension out of his muscles as he returned to his bike. It wasn’t what he wanted that mattered, he reminded himself. It was what his people needed. And if his people needed one of these scheming peacocks to be his wife, then that’s what they would damn well get.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy himself a bit first. Sneak off, spend a few hours on the road, just him and the sunset and the cherry-red bike roaring beneath him. Once he could manage to focus long enough to get the damn drive chain tightened, this beauty would ride like the wind. He’d be sure to get back in time to give the opening speech tonight, of course—shirking his duties was no way to start his search for a queen—but he just needed a little freedom, a little time to himself.

One last limo pulled in, carrying the final load of ladies who were here to vie for the royal engagement ring. Two women who looked like sisters climbed out and stared up at the Summer House, but at least they looked more like they were appreciating its beauty than calculating how much money the crystal chandeliers and extravagant stables were worth. These two were attractive enough, he supposed, and in other circumstances he might not have minded flirting with them. In fact, maybe he could simply pretend he was his brother Eric tonight—then he could flirt with anything in a dress and it could all be fun and games, rather than the official business of the crown.

The women’s servant was standing at the rear of the limo, efficiently unloading the designer luggage. Now with her, he’d love to do more than flirt. She was sexy as hell from behind, clad in a crisp outfit that screamed personal assistant. It also screamed I have a nice ass. Her golden hair was caught up in a bouncy ponytail, and the second he saw it he couldn’t stop thinking about what it would feel like to wrap those golden locks around his hand, tug her head back and angle her just right for a scorching-hot kiss, to run his other hand across those delicious curves and then down, down, down even further, until she was panting and trembling and neither of them could remember their own names.

He tightened the axle back in place and set his tools in their box, wiping his hands on a rag as he contemplated her. It had been a long time since a woman had affected him this strongly, this quickly—but judging from the efficient, completely un-self-conscious way she was juggling her bosses’ luggage, she had no idea she was drop-dead gorgeous. Her innocence was refreshing after all the stuffy gold-diggers he’d watched drive up, who he’d now have to spend the next few weeks courting.

He stood, dropped the rag, and straddled his bike. He’d just been thinking he needed an escape, and now he couldn’t conceive of a better one than shirking tonight’s duties to spend some quality time with the gorgeous creature in front of him. Usually his flings had to go through layers of security checks before he was alone with them, but he was feeling restless and reckless, and the beauty in front of him would be the perfect cure for that.

Decision made, he revved the engine.

Ella had her hands full, literally and figuratively. She’d finally managed to find a way to carry all five of her and her stepsisters’ bags at once, but now Daphne was blocking the front entrance while she admired a pretty chandelier, and Anna had caught a servant and seemed to be interrogating him about the location and contents of the house’s library. Judging by her older stepsister’s disappointed slump, it didn’t house the medical journals she’d likely been hoping to sneak off and read.

Ella bit her lip, shifting one of the overnight bags to get a better grip on it. If she couldn’t keep those two focused, there was no way either of them would walk out of the Summer House Party with that giant royal rock on their finger, and she needed one of them to lock down the king. It was the only way Ella would be free to finally live her own life.

She gave in to temptation and paused to stare longingly at the most dazzling thing she’d ever seen. A groom was exercising a beautiful Arabian stallion in a round pen, and the high-strung animal was stunning. He was a dazzling bright white with a fine-boned nose, mincing his steps and tossing his head like he was royalty himself. She hoped the king appreciated his wealth of horses. When Ella married off one of her stepsisters to him, her stepmother would no longer need her as a backup plan for her own social climbing, and Ella’s first order of business would be to return to the States to train horses and eventually run her own riding school.

Behind her, an engine revved, snarling thunderously. She squealed and jumped and the thirty-year-old Louis Vuitton bags went flying out of her arms. One hit the pavement at just the wrong angle and the zipper split wide open, spilling kitten heels and stilettos all over the royal driveway. She groaned, carefully setting down the one bag she’d managed to hold onto before kneeling on the pavement to scoop up the scattered shoes. “I knew we should’ve bought new bags,” she muttered as she chased down a strappy sandal. “Target even had them on sale.”

Behind her, the limo’s door creaked as its last occupant, her stepmother, climbed out. She’d almost certainly heard the Target comment but didn’t grace it with a response as she stepped past Ella toward the Summer House. She didn’t like acknowledging how far the Fernstone family had fallen, and she certainly would never advertise it to the rest of the nobility with bags from a big box retailer.

Ella scooped up the last shoe and dropped it back in the bag. As she stood and dusted off her pinstripe skirt, the Darth Vader theme emitted from her pocket—her stepmother’s ringtone. She groaned again. Other members of the Danovian nobility had been calling all day to talk about the Summer House Party, and if Ella had to speak to another snooty duchess she would scream. She spotted a parked motorcycle at the other end of the drive, probably the one that had revved earlier and scared her, and briefly considered just climbing on and zooming away on her own. Surely it couldn’t be that different from riding a horse.

The beep of a voicemail brought her back from her daydream, and she snorted. Who was she kidding? Ella Fernstone was all about duty and helping others and following the rules, and right now her duty was to fix this damn zipper and get her ass in the Summer House so she could foist one of her stepsisters on the king. Then, and only then, would she finally be free of the obligations that had ruled her life.

She yanked at the zipper again, but it stubbornly refused to zip. “Fine,” she snapped, and lifted her chin. “Have it your way.” She bunched up the fabric on the top of the bag so the shoes wouldn’t spill out and then hefted it. She would just have to come back for the others.

Someone tapped on her shoulder. She twisted her head to look back but didn’t move the rest of her body, because one twitch in the wrong direction would send the shoes scattering across the pavement again. A man was standing behind her.

She paused and reassessed. A hot man was standing behind her. A sex-on-a-stick hot man, with biceps nearly as big as her waist and long, tangle-your-fingers-in-it blond hair pulled back into an awesome man bun. He looked a little like a superhero, one with perfect hair and even more perfect abs. The dark streak of oil on his right cheek somehow only enhanced his appeal and she imagined all kinds of fun ways to get him even dirtier. It was easy, especially with him standing right behind her like that, so close she could picture him stepping just a little closer, wrapping those strong fingers around her hips, holding her in place as he bent her over the nearest piece of furniture and made her moan his name. Whatever his name was.

She cleared her throat. “Yes?” she said, and was amazed it came out sounding normal.

“I believe this is yours,” he replied. The words were round and musical in his deep voice. Mmmm, that Danovian accent would sound downright delectable in bed when he was telling her what to take off.

She cleared her throat again—maybe she should’ve brought a bottled water—and glanced down. He was holding a shoe out to her, a glittery silver pump that looked tiny in his broad hands. He touched it gingerly, trying not to get it dirty, and the absurdity of the scene made her smile. She balanced the shoe bag on her hip, freeing up one hand to reach for the pump.

But the mechanic pulled it back, a sexy smirk touching the corner of his mouth, and angled his head at the bike. “I was thinking,” he said, “taking a ride with you sounds like a hell of a lot more fun than some stiff royal get-together.”

They were flirting now? She could so do flirting. “Oh—oh yeah?” she stuttered.

She winced. Okay, maybe she couldn’t do flirting. But it wasn’t her fault she was out of practice—her last boyfriend had been a rodeo cowboy who’d only deigned to drop by when the circuit was passing through, and he hadn’t been all that into flirting.

The mechanic’s half-smile widened, showing his dimples and crinkling his eyes. Oh God, he even had an adorable grin. She felt her knees weakening and surreptitiously leaned her hip against the limo to keep herself upright and give her a chance to catch her breath. Maybe she should do more calisthenics. Calisthenics and flirting drills.

“Yeah,” the mechanic said. “You and me, a sunset trip down the coast. You sound American—how do they say it there? Let’s blow this popsicle joint.”

She laughed. She’d been born in Danovar, but it was true she’d been raised mostly in the States after her father’s remarriage. “One problem. It’s not sunset.”

He stepped closer. Just a few more inches and he’d be right up against her. She leaned back toward him a little, telling herself it was to avoid the neck strain from twisting so far to look at him behind her. “It will be when we’re done,” he said, his tone suggesting all kinds of things that could happen between them before sundown.

She grinned—then, too late, smothered it. Her stepmother was always telling her she had a goofy grin, all toothy and awkward. Hopefully the hot mechanic hadn’t noticed. She plucked the shoe from his hands and tried to restrain herself to a close-lipped smile. “I’d love nothing more,” she started to say, then the phone in her pocket beeped again, reminding her of the new voicemail and shaking her out of her fantasies. She sighed. “But I can’t,” she finished. “I’ve got prior obligations. I have to pawn one of those two off on the king,” she nodded at her stepsisters, “then I can escape this whole country, not just the Summer House Party. And there’s no way we’d make it out of Danovar on that old thing,” she added in what she hoped was a flirty way, nodding at the bike, trying to ease the rejection.

The mechanic’s smile fell and he gazed up at the Summer House. “Ah,” he said, suddenly sober. “I suppose I’d better see to my own duties as well.” He stepped back—the day seemed suddenly colder and a hell of a lot less fun—and swept her a surprisingly aristocratic bow. “Lovely to meet you…”

“Ella,” she supplied, and waited for his name.

But “Lovely to meet you, Ella,” was all he said. He took a rag from his pocket and wiped his fingers clean, then lifted her hand for a kiss. His lips brushed across her knuckles, careful not to get any grease on her, and she leaned a little more heavily on the limo as her heartrate fluttered in her ears at the gentle touch. And then he was gone, striding back across the drive and straddling the bike. When it roared around and disappeared into the royal garage, she slumped. Damn, Danovar made some fine mechanics. The way he’d straddled that bike already had her regretting her choice. She’d bet they didn’t have mechanics like that in America.

She pushed herself off the limo, dropped the silver pump back in its bag, and straightened. What they did have in America was a total lack of royalty. There would be no noble duties waiting for her when she started her new life there, no social climbing, no stepfamily, no rules. All she had to do was win the king for Daphne or Anna and she would be free to have all the sex-drenched sunset rides she wanted.

Back straight, she marched into the Summer House.