McKinnon's Royal Mission by Amelia Autin Page A

that had bound her for years to a false conclusion—that her father hadn’t loved her because somehow she was unworthy of love. Yes, Andre loved her, but her brother had always been a perfect, God-like being in her eyes, so far above mere mortals that she had discounted his love for her as the exception. Andre’s love was like God’s love—immutable. It was her father’s lack of love she’d always struggled to overcome. Her father’s assessment of her as worthless she’d always fought to disprove.
    If that wasn’t true...if her father had been wrong...if she could be loved for who she was...not as a princess, but as a woman, loved by a man...
    A picture of a man rose in her mind—a tall, handsome man with dark hair and bluer-than-blue eyes, with a smile that made her heart ache and her body tingle. A man who handled a gun and a baby with the same easy competence. A man who made her keenly aware of herself as a woman, with a woman’s body, a woman’s heart, a woman’s emotional needs. A man who looked and was dangerous, but who also paradoxically made her feel safe.
    Trace.
    Mara turned over restlessly, the silk sheets rustling.
Trace.
He already filled her thoughts, day and night. He even filled her dreams. But until now she had accepted his dislike for her as just something that
was
, the way she’d accepted her father’s hatred.
    If she could pick one man to love her, she would pick Trace. Not because he was drop-dead gorgeous, although he was. Not because he had a body that rivaled Michelangelo’s David, although he did. Not even because he made her feel safe, although that was true, too. She would pick him to love her because there was a deep well of love within him he kept hidden from most of the world, love such as the overwhelming love he showed Alyssa, a child not his own. If Trace loved a woman, there would be nothing held back. Nothing he would not do for her. Nothing he would not share.
    Could she win his love? Was it possible? She’d never been able to win her father’s love, but now she knew it was because he had no love to give—his love had died with her mother. But Trace wasn’t like that. There was love in him to be won...by the right woman. And if she was worthy of being loved, why not try?
    Determination grew in Mara, the same determination she’d once dedicated only to riding and mathematics.
Yes,
she told herself with a new confidence. Keira had understood—Mara had
earned
the title of Dr. Marianescu by dedication and hard, grueling work. She could
earn
Trace’s love the same way.
    Starting tomorrow she would map out a plan of campaign. Starting tomorrow she would put that campaign into action. But now...just for tonight...she would let herself dream of him. She would let herself imagine what it would be like to be loved by him in every way a man could love a woman.
    She needed to visualize the goal in order to achieve it, just as she’d done when she’d learned to ride. Just as she’d done when she achieved her PhD. And she desperately wanted to achieve this new goal of earning Trace’s love...because she was fast falling for him.
    * * *
    The next morning Mara woke early. She propped herself up against the pillows and set her mind to work planning her campaign. She briefly considered getting a complete makeover—turning herself into the glamorous woman her mother had been. She could probably do it. She knew she resembled her mother closely enough that it was possible to achieve that polished, beautiful veneer, but she discarded the idea almost immediately. If she changed herself in obvious ways, not only would she be uncomfortable with herself, she might draw unwelcome attention from others, especially the paparazzi. And besides, Trace would see it for the ploy it was. A man with a face and body like his probably had all kinds of women angling for his attention.
    No, it had to be something subtle, something that would make him look at her in a new light, but in a way that