He needs a fiancée to save his crown. She needs a fortune to save her family’s bakery. Neither expects the lie to become the most dangerous truth of their lives.
Rafael de Castellane has eleven weeks to become engaged—or lose the throne of Castelmar to the cousin who has been waiting for his chance to seize it. A lifetime of royal duty has taught Rafael one thing: feelings are liabilities, and the crown always comes first.
Then a storm sends him into a tiny harbor bakery, where he meets Josephine Fontaine.
She has flour on her arms, debts on her books, and absolutely no interest in bowing to royalty.
Josie knows exactly what Rafael is offering when he returns with a contract: a temporary engagement, a spectacular payment, and a carefully controlled fairy tale designed to protect his succession. It is everything she needs to save Maison Fontaine and protect the harbor community she refuses to abandon.
So she agrees—with rules of her own.
Separate rooms.
Separate lives.
No promises.
No feelings.
But palace walls have a way of turning pretend intimacy into something dangerously real.
As Josie is transformed from struggling baker into the woman the entire principality wants to adore, Rafael begins seeing the person behind the public performance: the fiercely loyal woman who refuses to be bought, the baker who believes in honest work, and the only person who can make him forget he is supposed to be a prince.
And Josie discovers that beneath Rafael's polished restraint is a man carrying grief, duty, family expectations, and a lifetime of being treated as an instrument of the crown.
Then the court begins to close in.
👑 A powerful royal heir fighting to protect his throne
💍 A fake engagement with very real chemistry
🥐 A determined heroine who refuses to become anyone’s ornament
🏰 Palace secrets, ruthless family politics, and high-society pressure
❤️ A slow-burning attraction neither of them is supposed to admit
🌊 A beloved harbor community threatened by ambition and greed
🔥 A battle between duty, deception, and the truth of the heart
The closer Rafael and Josie become, the harder their carefully constructed rules are to maintain. What began as a transaction starts to feel like belonging. What was supposed to last eleven weeks begins to change everything they thought they knew about love, loyalty, and the lives they were born to live.
Because a crown can be inherited.
A reputation can be manufactured.
But love cannot be negotiated into existence.
And when the truth finally threatens to destroy the fairy tale, Rafael and Josie must decide whether protecting the lie is worth losing the one thing neither of them ever expected to find.
If you love powerful heirs, fake relationships, royal intrigue, opposites-attract chemistry, emotional slow-burn romance, and a fiercely independent heroine who refuses to be swept quietly aside, The Prince's Deception will pull you behind the palace doors and keep you turning pages until the very last secret is revealed.
Open the door to Castelmar and discover what happens when a temporary engagement becomes impossible to keep pretend.