USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award–nominated author CAITLIN CREWS loves writing romance. She teaches her favourite romance novels in creative writing classes at places like UCLA Extension’s prestigious Writers’ Programme, where she finally gets to utilise the MA and PhD in English Literature she received from the University of York in England. She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest, with her very own hero and too many pets. Visit her at caitlincrews.com.
Also by Caitlin Crews
My Bought Virgin Wife
Unwrapping the Innocent’s Secret
Secrets of His Forbidden Cinderella
The Italian’s Pregnant Cinderella
Once Upon a Temptation collection
Claimed in the Italian’s Castle
Stolen Brides collection
The Bride’s Baby of Shame
The Combe Family Scandals miniseries
The Italian’s Twin Consequences
Untamed Billionaire’s Innocent Bride
His Two Royal Secrets
Royal Christmas Weddings miniseries
Christmas in the King’s Bed
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.
His Scandalous Christmas Princess
Caitlin Crews
www.millsandboon.co.uk
ISBN: 978-1-474-09865-6
HIS SCANDALOUS CHRISTMAS PRINCESS
© 2020 Caitlin Crews
Published in Great Britain 2020
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk
Note to Readers
This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:
Change of font size and line height
Change of background and font colours
Change of font
Change justification
Text to speech
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Booklist
Title Page
Copyright
Note to Readers
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Extract
About the Publisher
CHAPTER ONE
MELODY SKYROS HAD entertained herself for years by imagining that, at any moment, she could embrace her true destiny, become a deadly assassin, and go on a targeted killing spree of only those who really, really deserved it.
But that wouldn’t be ladylike.
She had trained in various martial arts for years. In secret, thanks to one of her gently bred, blue-blooded mother’s few acts of marital defiance. Because Melody’s notoriously unpleasant father, aristocrat and media magnate Aristotle Skyros, could never know that his despised second daughter was receiving anything but the basic comportment classes expected of Idylla’s lofty patricians, who cluttered up the ancient island kingdom with enough hereditary snobbishness to fill the gleaming Aegean Sea.
Aristotle could certainly never know that a daughter of his had been training less in how to sit gracefully at a formal dinner and more in how to neutralize multiple attackers with her fingertips.
He had never forgiven her for being born flawed. He never would. Melody was blind and therefore useless to him—except as a weapon to wield against those who actually cared about her.
Melody’s earliest, happiest daydreams of what she could do with the lethal skills she was learning and then mastering had all been focused on ridding the world of Aristotle.
Who most definitely deserved it.
But her older sister Calista had handled her father, shockingly enough. Calista, born perfect enough to please Aristotle, had worked her way up to become her father’s second in the family corporation, all with an eye toward beating him at his own game. And sure enough, she’d embarrassed and humiliated him by having him removed from his own board and summarily fired from his position as CEO two days ago.
This was in no way as neat, clean, or personally satisfying a solution as an assassination, in Melody’s opinion.
Especially when Melody was the one who had to pay the price of Aristotle’s embarrassment.
Though the price in question had its own rewards, she could admit.
Because tonight she had a new target in mind: His Royal Highness Prince Griffin of Idylla, who was her brand-new brother-in-law, since her sister had married King Orion the night before.
That was bad enough. Melody was still having trouble processing what else the famously oversexed and dissipated Griffin was. To her, personally.
Because it had all happened so fast. Too fast. Dizzyingly fast.
After Calista had become the Queen, the King had swept her off to the tune of cheers and much merriment as the clock in the palace struck midnight. Christmas Eve had ended, Christmas had begun. Glad tidings were exchanged on high, as befit the traditional, arranged marriage of an Idyllian king that Melody knew included deep and genuine emotion on both sides.
It only took a few moments in Orion and Calista’s presence to feel how much they adored each other. A good and proper fairy tale that the whole kingdom could rejoice in and a balm for a nation wearied by the squalid, scandalous antics of Orion’s predecessor, the deeply polluted King Max.
Orion had promised—since long before he took the throne—that his reign would be scandal-free.
When a palace aide had come to escort her away, Melody had assumed
