Series: Willow Winters
Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 72146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Princess Cora has spent her entire life bound by duty—her future already decided. Since her mother’s death, the idea of marriage feels less like destiny and more like a cage she refuses to step into.
But temptation doesn’t ask permission.
It slips through her window in the dead of night—silent, mysterious, and dangerous.
She doesn’t know his name.
She’s never seen his face.
And still… she lets him in.
What begins as a reckless surrender to curiosity becomes something far more intoxicating. Addictive. A secret she aches for in the quiet hours, even as it threatens to ruin everything she’s been raised to protect.
Because one night was never going to be enough.
And while Cora hides her darkest indulgence behind locked doors, another man steps into the light—a prince with power, patience, and a hunger of his own. One who sees more than he should. One who offers her a choice… or the illusion of one.
In a world of whispered secrets and dangerous desires, Cora must decide:
Will she honor the crown she was born to wear… or surrender to the man who owns her nights?
Either choice could cost her everything.
Crowned in Sin is a complete standalone and features an alternative ending after the story!
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter 1
Cora
It’s utterly ridiculous, but I bear through it.
It takes two maidens to lift my gown over my head. All the while I hold my breath and stay as still as I can.
“Do you have it?” Alice says from my right side.
“Give me a moment—” Blanche says from my left as she adjusts the heavy silk layers I’m currently trapped in. “There.”
A muted groan leaves me as they both tug at the same time and the gown slips into place. Its weight mostly settles over my waist. I take my last truly deep breaths of the evening as Blanche moves behind me to do the laces and Alice steps in front of me to check that they haven’t disturbed my hair. She reaches in without hesitation, adjusting the jewels around my neck, then handling each of my earrings in turn to make sure they’re not in any danger of coming loose.
“Beautiful,” Alice murmurs, but she’s not looking at me. She’s looking at the gown, and the jewels, and the powder she carefully applied to my face an hour ago. Her eyes travel over me, assessing, and finally she meets my gaze. “You look even lovelier than last year, Princess Cora.”
Even with all the nerves rattling through me, I smile warmly at her out of habit, letting happiness I don’t fully feel come to my eyes. “All thanks to you.”
Alice blushes. She’s a few years older than I am and has been one of my keepers since I turned twelve. Even back then, she and Blanche treated me with deference, although sometimes I could convince them to tease and laugh with me.
“You are a true beauty, Princess,” she says softly and continues to fuss with my gown. Her own layered linen garment with her long-sleeved chemise in cream is complete with a beautiful burgundy apron. I’d trade places with her anytime she’d wish when it comes to our current dress.
The bodice gets tighter as Blanche ties up the laces. I know it’s not really constricting my breathing—all my garments are made to fit me, not to squeeze me into another person’s shape—but they feel tighter tonight. Heavier.
Maybe that’s because today I’m nineteen. I swallow my desperation with a gulp of air, wishing for this day to be over.
The memories of the last year suffocate me.
I had a touch of hope when turning eighteen, at least. Although the pain of my mother passing two years prior clung to me all evening. No matter how much I wished to shake it off.
I thought I’d meet a prince at the ball held in my honor and fall in love before the evening ended. It’s not only my duty, but back then, as my father mourned and the kingdom looked to the event as a necessity to secure my hand in marriage, I was hopeful. There would surely be someone who wished to treat me with the same love that my father had with my mother.
That didn’t happen. I wore a gown and shoved down my feelings for nothing. All I could think as I attempted to sleep later that night was that my mother would not have missed the ball at all. It’s nothing like she told me it would be. Defeated and depressed, it was the start of realization that this life isn’t at all like the stories we’re told.
Not that I have it in me to complain. It’s just not the fairytale I thought it would be. Perhaps I was blinded all those years by my parent’s love, and with my mother’s passing, it all simply shattered. I’d held on to one hope and poof, it was gone with the evening’s end.
The guests allowed at the ball had mostly been my father’s age. I danced with man after man who held me at a polite distance. I ate sweets with a few highborn acquaintances. And I was tucked up in bed far before midnight, without ever having seen a prince to fall in love with.
Perhaps they would come to the castle and present themselves to my father after the ball, I thought. Maybe it was a show of respect for my mother, the queen, who the kingdom still mourned. Maybe no prince who knew of me wanted to trample on my father’s grief, though it had been two years, and surely it would only help him to know his daughter would be secure in marriage.
Alice moves to my side to adjust a lock of my hair, then steps away to retrieve the sapphire-and-diamond tiara I’ll wear to the ball.
I can see the side of Blanche’s face, her brow furrowed as she concentrates on the complicated top section of laces, but mostly, I see myself.
There have been subtle changes since I was eighteen, but I look nearly as young as I did then. My blue eyes are bright, and my cheeks are delicately pink with blush. The deep blue of my gown brings out my eyes even more, and Alice did a wonderful job with my light, sunny blonde hair.