The Frog Prince
The
FROG
PRINCE
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Jane Porter
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The Frog Prince
© Copyright 2014 Jane Porter
Previously published by Warner Books, 2006
The Tule Publishing Group, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Smashwords Edition
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1-940296-27-2
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Keep Up with your Favorite Authors and their New Releases
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
An Exclusive Excerpt from Christmas at Copper Mountain
The Taming of the Sheenans Series
Brand New from Jane Porter
Love on Chance Avenue Series
Keep Up with your Favorite Authors and their New Releases
About the Author
Keep Up with your Favorite Authors and their New Releases
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Dedication
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For my father, S. Thomas Porter
(1934-1979)
I will miss you forever.
Acknowledgments
A heartfelt thanks—to my family and everyone in Visalia, California.
I love being your small-town girl.
Chapter One
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Here comes the bride, all dressed in white. There goes the groom, running from the room...
And there’s my single mom, spending the next twenty years paying for a lavish wedding for a marriage that didn’t even last a year.
Frick.
What happens now? What happens when you’ve had the fairy tale?
When you’ve done the big wedding? The dream honeymoon? What happens after the fantasy’s over?
You file for divorce. Di-vorce. Such a big concept for what amounts to a little word.
I still can’t quite say it, can’t feel anything when I think it, can’t imagine that we’re now talking about me. But I was the one in the wedding gown, and then I was the one talking to a lawyer, and I was the one who had to ask my brother and my girlfriends and their boyfriends to help me pack so the movers could move me.
I’ve recently changed cities. Jobs. Lives. I’m starting all over again. But of course, it’s not the same. It’ll never be the same. Because I’ve done it. I’ve been married and divorced, and I’m not even twenty-six.
Long and short of it? He was perfect. I was raised in the country; he was French; together that made us French country. Perfect. The house was perfect; the car, a smoky-gray Citroen, was perfect; the clothes and restaurant and champagne... perfect, perfect, perfect!
Not perfect.
Hindsight’s amazing. I can see now there were problems in our relationship—huge problems, like trust, respect, and sexual compatibility. I should have known Jean-Marc wasn’t attracted to me. I should have known he was avoiding physical intimacy. But I didn’t. I blamed it on the wedding, new financial commitments, the stress of my moving into his house.
Maybe if I’d dated more...
Maybe if I’d had more realistic expectations...
Maybe if I hadn’t read fairy tales and then later all those romance novels I bought at the used-book store...
But back to reality, and I’ve got more than enough to deal with in reality, what with my new job, in my new apartment, in my new city, with my new boss who doesn’t seem to approve of anything I do.
In fact, right now my new boss, Olivia Dempsey, is standing next to my desk at City Events here in San Francisco, and she isn’t happy. She’s currently conveying her unhappiness in a very loud, crisp voice.
“I thought we talked about this,” Olivia says, fashionably slim, toned arms crossed. “You have to take charge of your life, Holly. You’re dying on the vine, girl.”
I don’t look up, because I don’t want to hear this, at least not again, not so soon this week. Didn’t I just get the need-to-get-out-more pep talk on Monday?
“You were crying in the bathroom again, weren’t you?”
I open my mouth to deny it, but she holds up a finger and wags it in front of my face. “Oh, no, no lying. No denying.
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