Memoir of a Royal Consort — Ebony Edwards-Ellis

The quartermaster's assistant measured us all and took down shoe and hat sizes. The quartermaster was loudly despairing of finding uniforms and boots that would fit the six female cadets. Suppressing an eye roll, I happened to look up and see another cadet watching me very intently. The cadet had registered under the name Johnny Healy. However, his father's subjects and (more than a few tabloids affectionately referred to him as Prince Yannick. He was very tall, many centimeters taller than me, which was unusual. Copper blonde hair cropped to the scalp. Deeply tanned skin that was significantly paler around the eye sockets. A smudge of freckles across the high bridge of his nose. A square jaw. And the greenest eyes I had ever seen. Cadet Healy looked away first—I remember that clearly. I looked away, too, trying my damnedest to pay attention to the slow-moving line in front of me. However, I was soon seized by the irresistible impulse to look back at the heir to the throne of Terrebonne. We looked up at exactly the same time. Our eyes held. We both broke the gaze at the same time. Then we did the whole routine again. Twice. I could feel the heat emanating from his body. My throat went dry. My cheeks tingled...When nineteen-year-old Catherine Halsey enrolls in L'Academie Militaire de Terrebonne in 1999, she has only recently escaped the hellish poverty and abuse that marred her early years. Seeking to become one of the first women to serve as an officer in the military of Terrebonne, a small island kingdom off the coast of Naples, Italy, Catherine gives no thought to the fact that the kingdom's sole heir to the throne will also be training at the academy that year. However, the sparks fly when she and HRH Jean-Pierre, Archduke of Terrebonne, lay eyes on each other for the first time.The two embark on a sometimes tempestuous on-again off-again romance. After Catherine is seriously injured on a deployment to Iraq, she ends the relationship for good and embarks on the lonely road to physical and emotional recovery. When the archduke becomes engaged to another woman, however, Catherine realizes her mistake and resolves to fight to reclaim the only man she ever loved.