Seduced by the Royal Heir: An Illegitimate Prince, a Defiant Virgin and a Scandal of Diamonds and Affairs

The crown is worth a kingdom. The diamond at its heart is worth nothing at all.

Gemologist Clara Whitmore has spent twelve years trying to clear her late father's name, and she has never once lied about a stone. So when she's summoned to the island kingdom of Castellane to authenticate its legendary Crown Jewels, she tells the truth. The famous Castellane Star is a fake.

She tells it to the wrong man.

Alessandro Valcourt is the late king's illegitimate son, a diamond cutter from Antwerp who never set foot in the palace until his father's funeral. In thirty days he'll be crowned, if his uncle doesn't destroy him first. And a counterfeit Star is exactly the scandal that could do it.

He doesn't ask Clara to lie. He asks her to wait. Thirty days to find the real diamond and the person who stole it. In return, he offers the one thing she has never been able to buy: the truth about what happened to her father.

Clara doesn't trust princes. Alessandro doesn't trust anyone. But between moonlit palace terraces, a secret summer villa and the rain-soaked streets of Antwerp, the attraction they both swore to ignore becomes impossible to resist.

The palace has other plans for its future king. The Council wants a royal wedding to a woman of noble birth, not a commoner whose family name is still a scandal. The newspapers are already calling Clara his mistress, the same word that once followed his mother. And someone powerful is watching every move they make.

Clara has spent her life looking past beautiful surfaces to find what's real. Now she has to decide whether the man who taught her to want more is worth the risk, before a crown, a council and a dangerous enemy force him to choose.

He can have the throne, or he can have her.

But can a prince born in secret ever love in the open?