The Surgeon and the Princess Karin Baine (websites to read books for free .TXT) 📖

“I’ve got you. Just anchor yourself to my waist and take slow, deep breaths.”

Ed’s face was so close to hers she had nowhere to look but into his eyes, his mouth issuing instructions she was compelled to follow.

Georgiana wrapped her arms around his neck, her leg around his middle, which she wouldn’t have done in any other circumstances save for the immediate threat of drowning.

She was relying on him saving her, letting him feel her disability for himself. Yet he was calming her, taking her mind off everything that frightened her by maintaining eye contact and syncing his breathing to hers. Deep breaths in and out. Until the panic subsided and they were left entwined, her chest heaving against his, their breaths mingling, eyes locked. They’d moved on from a potential drowning incident to...well, she didn’t know what.

Eventually Ed spoke, his voice hoarse as though he was the one who’d inhaled half of the pool. “Are you okay?”

She wanted to say no, she wasn’t okay with any of this. Either proving him right that she couldn’t be left alone in here or about this overwhelming urge to kiss him.

Dear Reader,

It’s been a strange and difficult year for all of us, but I hope I can take your mind off everything for a little while.

Ed and Georgiana live in a kingdom where the pandemic doesn’t exist. My hero and heroine are brave, strong and compassionate. Everything we need to be for the foreseeable future.

So strap yourself in for another roller-coaster ride of romance and heartache with my surgeon and my princess. Enjoy!

Karin xx

The Surgeon and the Princess

Karin Baine

Karin Baine lives in Northern Ireland with her husband, two sons and her out-of-control notebook collection. Her mother’s and her grandmother’s vast collection of books inspired her love of reading and her dream of becoming a Harlequin author. Now she can tell people she has a proper job! You can follow Karin on Twitter, @karinbaine1, or visit her website for the latest news—karinbaine.com.

Books by Karin Baine

Harlequin Medical Romance

Pups that Make Miracles

Their One-Night Christmas Gift

Single Dad Docs

The Single Dad’s Proposal

Paddington Children’s Hospital

Falling for the Foster Mom

Reforming the Playboy

Their Mistletoe Baby

From Fling to Wedding Ring

Midwife Under the Mistletoe

Their One-Night Twin Surprise

Healed by Their Unexpected Family

Reunion with His Surgeon Princess

One Night with Her Italian Doc

Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

With love for my lovely editor, Charlotte, who is worth her weight in gold! xx

Praise for Karin Baine

“Emotionally enchanting! The story was fast-paced, emotionally charged and oh so satisfying!”

—Goodreads on Their One-Night Twin Surprise

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

EXCERPT FROM CAPTIVATED BY HER RUNAWAY DOC BY SUE MACKAY

CHAPTER ONE

‘ROBO-PRINCESS. PART MACHINE, part fairy-tale heroine.’

Georgiana could almost hear her squad now, as they’d sat joking around her hospital bed after her amputation. It had been their way of trying to cheer her up. The army way, with dark humour disguising their concern and love for one of their own.

She missed her team and the close relationships she’d forged. Since her op, she hadn’t had a chance to catch up with them again. More from a sense of shame than lack of opportunity. She didn’t want them to pity the person she’d become.

Back then Georgiana had laughed along with the teasing, convinced it was only a matter of time before she’d be back with the others in some capacity as their medic. Now the nickname felt more like a cruel joke. She was neither warrior nor princess. Simply a one-legged failure at both.

There was no way she could go back to the army now, when it was taking all her strength just to live her life unassisted. As for the princess bit—well, she’d never seriously considered that as a career. More of a curse bestowed upon her at birth, being next in line to the throne of Bardot, a small kingdom sandwiched between Liechtenstein and Switzerland that the rest of the world neither knew nor cared about.

The sound of her much-missed squaddies in her head was replaced with the steady thud of her pounding the treadmill. A reminder she was almost back on her feet, even if only one of them was real. At least they were both moving in sync now, so she was no longer walking like an inebriated penguin. Balance was a tricky thing to achieve with only one leg. One and a half if she counted the remaining scarred stump.

She watched herself in the full-length mirror of her home gym. The wounds on her face had faded but she still saw them there, ugly and gaping, like the ones all over her body. Reminders of what she’d gone through and lost.

The explosion rang deafeningly in her ears once more. The safe walls around her were blown away, replaced with clouds of dust and debris, and she was back there. Clawing the dirt out of her mouth and eyes. Trying to stand and falling. Then she was screaming, ‘Medic down!’ while tying a tourniquet around what was left of her leg, injecting herself with morphine and waiting as her team leader called a Medevac to fly her to hospital.

Georgiana increased her pace, closed her eyes and tried to outrun the past. It didn’t work. Nothing did. Even coming back to Bardot, separating herself from that army environment she’d been encompassed in during rehabilitation, hadn’t lessened the pain of what had happened and what it meant for her future. Especially knowing if she’d simply accepted her position here instead of trying to distance herself from the toxicity of the establishment, she’d have remained in one piece.

These were the thoughts she failed to block out day by day in her recovery. Neither the increased heavy pounding of her body on the treadmill nor her laboured breathing could drown them out.

She grabbed the headphones hanging over the handrail and somehow managed to wrestle them on without missing a step. Those tiny,