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not even their altercation this morning had dimmed that primal reaction. Though, truth to tell, it was hard to stay angry at him when she knew in her heart he was right and she was wrong. She had prejudged and condemned him, and hadn’t bothered to check her facts.
    She took the seat between him and Jim.
    Alexander gave a signal and the dining room staff efficiently went to work, pouring coffee and tea from a large, ornate samovar on the wet bar. Taking orders for whatever each of the guests desired for breakfast.
    Alexander’s choices were disgustingly healthy, which probably explained his amazing physique. Yogurt and fruit. Egg whites with lox and a smattering of caviar.
    The only thing their meals had in common was the tea they both seemed to favor.
    While Tatiana mimicked her brother’s choices, both Kevin and Jim were like her, favoring a more traditional American choice of eggs, bacon, pancakes, and toast.
    As soon as their orders were taken and beverages provided, Alexander faced the young couple and peppered Kevin with questions. “What are you studying at the university, Kevin?”
    Kevin glanced at Tatiana anxiously for a moment, but as he had before, found inner courage and faced the prince. “I’m a business major. A five year program since I plan to get my MBA as well.”
    “You can’t go wrong with a business degree,” Alexander offered cordially. “What about your parents? What do they do? Siblings?”
    “Sasha,” Tatiana chided, and laid her hand over Kevin’s in a show of support.
    “No, it’s okay, Tatiana,” Kevin urged and quickly rattled off a family history. Nothing out of the ordinary, but likewise nothing Kathleen suspected a prince might find outstanding in his sister’s suitor. Kevin’s mother was a teacher. Father a police officer. Two younger siblings still in school.
    “Solid professions. Did Tatiana tell you our mother was a teacher before she married our father?” Alexander was trying to put the young man at ease, which earned him brownie points with both Kathleen and his sister.
    “No, I didn’t mention it,” Tatiana piped in.
    “What about your father? What was he before?” Kevin asked, his gaze darting between the two siblings, who both chuckled in unison.
    “Father was always a prince,” Tatiana answered.
    “Your father inherited the family businesses, didn’t he?” Kathleen interjected, hoping to elicit more information than what was in her files.
    “He did. Some agricultural enterprises as well as oil and gas holdings. Real estate. Then he decided to diversify into the casino and hotel business.” he said as the wait staff arrived with their meals.
    “You mean you decided, don’t you, Sasha? You’re the one who’s made the casino and hotels such a success,” his sister said with pride.
    That hint of color tinted his cheeks once again, reminding Kathleen that for all his regal lineage, he was a flesh and blood man with very human emotions.
    “Thank you, Tatochka.” He looked down at the plate in front of him for a brief second. That his sibling could ruffle his iron composure with her praise touched Kathleen’s heart. Maybe she really had misjudged him.
    She shook herself out of it. “Why expand into such a different business?” she asked. The other real estate holdings the Ivanov family held, such as the ill-fated warehouse, were business-type locations and far removed from the gaming and hotel properties.
    With a negligent shrug that was becoming all too familiar, Alexander forked up some of his eggs, lox and caviar, but paused with the food halfway to his mouth. “Freedom,” he answered without hesitation.
    Something she took for granted, and had all her life. His family, however, had somehow survived the Russian Revolution and escaped the oppression of a Communist regime. Even with the recent changes in Russia—heck, because of those changes—his royal lineage brought to bear burdens an average person did not have, or probably couldn’t even