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

wireless buds were all the rage these days but her old-fashioned padded ones blocked out more of the world. So she was cocooned, safe, surrounded by the familiar music blasting in her ears. It helped her push through the pain barrier, both physically and mentally. If she was to get back any resemblance of her old life she had to keep going. No matter how much it hurt.

Unfortunately, her damaged body couldn’t quite live up to the promises she’d made to herself. This was her new normal and she hated the powerlessness over her physical self. She wasn’t a quitter, she’d proved that to progress as far as she had in military life. There had been no exceptions made for her, no special favours called in, she hadn’t wanted that. She’d worked as hard as any other recruit. Sometimes harder, to prove that she wasn’t simply a pampered princess. Well, she had been until she’d made a stand against the life she’d been born into. Swapping it for something more fulfilling.

Now that she’d been forced to leave that much-wanted military life she was lost again. With no true direction or sense of self when everything had been taken away from her. The danger of being back in the palace was that she’d get dragged back into that superficial existence of personal appearances and mentions in the tabloids. It was that world that had killed her brother, Freddie, and she wanted to do something more substantial and meaningful with her life. She simply didn’t know what that was any more. Not while she was like this. Half the person she used to be.

Georgiana slowed her speed for the cool-down phase of her workout and pulled off the headphones. As she stepped back down onto the gym floor, her good leg was trembling with the exertion of her punishing exercise. It knocked her a little off balance and she had to reach out for the nearby chair to steady herself, before collapsing into it, taking the weight off her unsteady prosthetic leg. She’d suffer for this later, knowing the pressure of the prosthesis rubbing on what was left of her lower limb would leave the skin raw. Not that she would feel sorry for herself when she was lucky to still be alive.

‘You really shouldn’t be so hard on your body.’ A critical masculine voice startled her and she reacted as she would with anyone who dared to trespass on her private training session.

‘Who are you and how did you get in here?’ She stood up so she wasn’t at such a disadvantage against the tall, broad figure walking towards her. Squaring up to this stranger wearing only her racer-back gym top and shorts exposing her prosthetic leg wasn’t as intimidating as she wanted since it didn’t halt his progress towards her.

She was trying not to freak out but wished she hadn’t dismissed all the staff in the vicinity. Her fight back to recovery wasn’t a spectator sport for anyone, including security or whoever this was. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d had an intruder at the palace, thankfully there out of curiosity rather than for any malicious reason. That didn’t make a possible similar situation any less concerning.

He didn’t look like a tourist who’d walked in off the street, dressed in an immaculate charcoal-grey suit, complete with silver silk tie and real leather shoes. She prayed he wasn’t a journalist either. That would almost be worse than someone simply wanting a selfie with a member of the royal family. Her army training had taught her how to defend herself but it was something she hadn’t put into practice since her traumatic injury and she didn’t want to test it now.

‘I’m Edward Lawrence. I was here for a consultation with your mother regarding her riding accident. Sorry for the intrusion. I just happened to see you in here as I was on my way out.’

‘And you wanted a closer look at the freak show?’ She didn’t bother introducing herself. He didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of social niceties if he couldn’t observe them himself.

He frowned as though he didn’t quite understand her meaning and she waited, arms folded, until the penny dropped.

‘Goodness, no. I was taking an interest merely from a professional point of view. I’m a consultant spinal surgeon and physical rehabilitation is one of the specialities at our mobility clinic.’ He reached into his inside pocket and produced a business card for Move, a private clinic, presuming she’d accept it as proof of his credentials. His name did ring a bell.

‘I haven’t been home in quite a while but I remember a Dr Lawrence here as an older, more distinguished gentleman.’ One who would’ve knocked before walking in. He’d been a tall man but with a thinning silver pate and a bushy moustache. A contrast to the sun-kissed swoop of hair this guy was sporting, blond with a matching golden smile on his handsome, clean-shaven face.

‘That was my father, a GP. He’s retired now.’

If she’d wondered how someone who would’ve looked more at home running barefoot across a beach with a surfboard under his arm had wangled a gig at the palace, now she knew. Nepotism. Regardless of whatever capacity her family had acquired his services, it was nothing to do with her.

‘Yes, well, neither you nor your father have any right to be in my personal space so I’d appreciate you leaving.’ She attempted to show him out with a wave of her hand, uncomfortable at being exposed to anyone like this.

Since returning home she’d purposely avoided contact with the outside world so her current state would remain unknown or at least a mystery to those with an insatiable appetite for royal scandal. Unveiling her broken body was something she wanted to do at her own pace, if at all. By barging in here uninvited he’d stolen some of that power from her and now she just wanted him gone.

Yet again he showed a blatant