I always win, but it doesn’t matter.
I’ve never been closer than a hundred feet from him, never close enough to see his face, but this week, I feel more of a connection with him than I do with anyone else in my life.
At least he’s not talking about the Prince’s Ball. He just wants to run, and I just want to row. We understand each other.
On Wednesday, Dahlia invites our friend Justine over to do a trial run of my hair and makeup for the Prince’s Ball.
As if it’s my freaking wedding, or something.
As if I’m actually going to go.
I let them, because it feels good to be around girls who aren’t cruel. It’s nice to have company that isn’t related to rowing, and once in a while I like feeling like a girl.
“Your hair is growing so fast, Elle,” Justine says to me. “Are you taking biotin supplements?”
“It is not growing fast. I chopped it off ten months ago and it has barely grown past my ears.” Ten months ago, I got a pixie cut and regretted it immediately. For a tall, athletic woman, having a short haircut makes me feel even less womanly than I already do.
“I still think you look amazing with short hair. I don’t get why you’re growing it out,” Dahlia says, sipping a glass of wine. She holds the stem between delicate fingers.
“Amazing?” I scoff. “I look like a man.”
“Oh my goodness,” she says, pushing herself out of her chair and putting her glass down. She turns my head toward the mirror and runs her hands over different parts of my face. “Razor-sharp cheekbones worthy of the cover of Vogue. Angelina Jolie lips. Big, lose-yourself-in-them-forever-and-never-look-away chocolate brown eyes. Massive tits. Girl, you are the sexiest woman in Farcliff.”
My heart warms, but I just shrug in response. I stare at myself in the mirror and I try to see what she sees. Justine sweeps my hair to the side and pins it back in a special kind of way, and my heart skips. Maybe I’m prettier than I thought?
Or maybe not. I just shake my head and turn away from the mirror.
I’m not going to go to the Prince’s Ball. I know I’m not. There’s no point. What fun is it to go to a stuffy party where you only know a couple people—people who you happen to despise? I’ve listened to Olivia, Marielle, and the rest of the team talk about their nails, and their hair, and how much they spent on their outfits and as always, it just makes me feel like I don’t belong.
I just want it to be over. Then, we can all focus on the Spring Regatta and I can do something I’m actually good at. If I win my event, the prize money will be enough to see me through until next year.
I’m just here to row.
On Saturday morning, after practice, Coach Bernard gathers us all together. “Now, tonight is the Prince’s Ball. I know you’re all excited, so I’ve decided to give you the evening off. Practice is cancelled.”
My tired muscles groan in relief. I might even get some real sleep tonight.
But then Coach swings his eyes toward me.
“Except you, Elle. As I understand, you’re not going to the Prince’s Ball, so we’ll have practice as usual. That’s all, you’re dismissed.”
Cruel laughs sprinkle around the team and my cheeks turn bright red. My heart cracks, as if a fault line appears through the middle of it, deep and jagged and unfixable.
Even my coach, who usually treats me exactly the same as everyone else, thinks I’m not worthy of the Prince’s Ball. That I’m not good enough. That there’s no possible way I’d ever be invited to such a fucking ‘classy’ event. That someone from Grimdale wouldn’t have anything better to do than to practice when everyone else is trying to fuck the Prince.
Hurt turns to defiance and I lift my chin. “I’m busy, actually.”
Coach Bernard swings around and stares at me. “Excuse me?”
“I said I’m busy. I thought practice was cancelled for everyone, so I made plans.”
We stare at each other, and he finally dips his chin in a nod. “Just this once. And remember, ladies, curfew is still twelve o’clock. I’ll have eyes at that ball and if I see any of you there past midnight, you’re not racing the regatta.”
A collective groan rises up. “Coach! It’s the Prince’s Ball!”
“Exactly—which is why I’ve extended the curfew from ten o’clock to twelve. Enjoy yourselves tonight.” He walks out of the locker room with the assistant coaches, and Olivia immediately turns to me.
“Plans?” Olivia asks with a raised eyebrow. “What are you going to do? Have lesbo sex with your weirdo roommate all night?”
“You read my mind, Olivia,” I say with an overly sweet smile, rage and adrenaline and defiance still making my whole body tense, “and I’ll enjoy every minute of it.”
The shock on her face is something I’ll relish forever.
I grab my things and stomp out of the locker room. It’s not her words that bother me. People think calling me gay is an insult—it’s not.
What bothers me is that those words are trying to strip away my femininity. I know I’m not willowy and petite with waist-length blonde hair, but that doesn’t make me any less of a woman.
This time, I don’t cry on my way home. I’m mad, but instead of making me a weak blubbering mess, it’s making me stronger. I throw my bags down as soon as I walk in the front door of my house.
“Dahlia!” I call out. “Make me into a pretty princess, because I’m going to this stupid ball.”
She squeals so loudly I think I’ve interrupted another sex marathon, but she comes rushing out of the kitchen and wraps me in a bear hug. “I knew it! Come here.”
My best friend grabs my hand and drags me into her bedroom, where I see bags and bags of online shopping deliveries.
“I took the liberty of ordering a few options. Now, your shoulders are a little bit broader, so I stayed away from anything with a high-neck or a halter top. I was thinking this off-the-shoulder number. It has a really deep neckline that I think would make the girls look amazing.” Dahlia cups my boobs before I can smack her hand away, laughing. “Here,” she says. “Try this one on first.”
By the time I’ve tried on all the dresses she’s bought—seems like hundreds of them, but it’s probably closer to a couple of dozen—I’m a sweaty mess. Then, the doorbell rings and Justine walks in without waiting for us to answer. She’s dragging a big suitcase. “I brought hair and makeup!”
With tears in my eyes, I wrap my two friends in a crushing hug. “Thank you,” I sniffle.
“Go take a shower,” Dahlia orders. “We’ll get set up. I think I know which dress you should wear. This sequined white dress has such a gorgeous blueish shift to it. When you move, you’ll look like a goddess. It also makes your body look insane. That’s the one, definitely.”
I smile. For once, I believe them when they tell me I look pretty.
I take my time showering, shaving everything, soaping myself up and washing my hair meticulously. Even though Olivia was cruel today, I don’t cry in the shower. My heart is soaring.
I might not be accepted by the Olivias and the Marielles of the world, but I’ve found a few special people who love me for who I am. And I’ll be damned if I let any pretentious, fake-royal, wannabe princesses dim the light that shines inside me.
6
Charlie
“What do you think, Nev? Black tie or no tie?”
Neville looks at my reflection in the mirror. “I think, Your Highness, that having no tie would suit you best.”
“And it will probably piss my father off. Good choice, Nev.”
I see the hint of a smile on his face before it’s replaced with his usual mask of professionalism. Neville helps me put my suit jacket on and brushes lint off my shoulders. I’ve never worn a tuxedo in my life, and I’m not starting tonight. A black suit will have to do. I leave the top button of my shirt undone, and my chest tattoos poke out from underneath.
Straightening my jacket, I nod. “Let’s go.”
Before I go down
to the great hall, I duck into one of the unused bedrooms and glance out of the balcony window.
Most of the guests are already here. The Great Hall opens out onto the front gardens, where tents and tables have been set up for the event. Everything is lit with hundreds of twinkling lights, and the gardeners have done a fantastic job covering every surface with flowers.
I sneeze as soon as I poke my head outside.
Lovely.
I wonder if they forgot I had allergies, or if this was another deliberate oversight from my father. Neville produces a packet of antihistamines from somewhere in his jacket.
I grin. “Always prepared, eh, Nev?”
He nods but says nothing. I look back at the crowd below, bracing myself for the next few hours of torture. My eyes dance from woman to woman, wondering which of them I should fuck tonight. They’ll all be crawling all over me, so why not make the most of it? At least I can have a little fun at this torture-fest.
There’s a leggy blonde in a deep red dress. She looks vaguely familiar. Brundle, maybe? She might do. She’s standing with another blonde. Maybe they’d both agree to…
My eyes flick to a redhead in a black gown, and I start thinking that maybe I don’t have to choose just one girl tonight. The most fuckable women in the entire Kingdom are right here, penned inside the castle walls just waiting for me to arrive. Every single one of them is desperate to take the Crown.
Well, there’s another Crown they’ll have to take first.
A smile slides over my lips…
…and then an orange jeep pulls up, and a woman I’ve never seen before climbs out. She says something to the driver and slams the door, and I know who I’ll choose tonight.
I choose her. The goddess in the white dress, that’s sparkling from across the lawn. When she moves, her dress dances around her curves. She pats her short brown hair and I let out a low groan. I fucking love a woman with short hair. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because chicks always think they need extensions on their hair and nails and fucking eyelashes, too.
Not her, though. I hold my breath as she stops at the gates to give her invitation to the doorman.
“Nev,” I say, breathless. “Find out who she is.”
I see him bow out of the corner of my eye. I’m still watching her from the balcony window. She walks through the castle gate, glancing around the grounds and wringing her hands in front of her. She’s nervous.
I need to get closer, but I don’t want to let her out of my sight.
“Come on, girl,” I say to myself, “move a little closer so I can see your face.”
I swear she looks up at the balcony window as if she can hear me. Her hand goes to her chest, where her dress dips down between those gorgeous, plump, juicy tits of hers. I let out a sigh.
Yeah, she’s the one. No question about it. Depending on how it goes, I might even call her back to the castle tomorrow.
I watch her drift to the refreshments table, right beneath my balcony, where she loads up a plate full of food. She scoops at least three spoons of guacamole onto her dish and does a little dance of excitement.
I grin. I like her more and more with every second that goes by.
All the other ladies are far away from the food. They’re preening, posing, sucking their stomachs in and pushing their tits out. The only people around the food are the older guests and the men—and my mystery woman.
I know I’m too far away to hear anything, but the way she closes her eyes when she takes her first bite of food… I swear I hear her moan.
And I need to hear her moan. My whole body is coiled, ready, about to be unleashed on this Amazonian goddess. Finally, I might have found a woman that can handle me. All of me.
I know I’ll be mobbed if I go down the main steps, so I rush down the side of the building down a disused stairwell. It’ll spit me out just around the corner from the caterers, and as long as she doesn’t move, I should be able to talk to her without the whole Kingdom seeing me.
And if everything goes according to plan, I’ll have her back in my chambers before anyone notices. And I’ll drink her up and fuck her to pieces. I want her broken on my bed. I want her whimpering my name as I tear her apart. The excitement mounts inside me as I make my way to the ground floor and burst through the door.
But the one thing that makes my life simultaneously easy and completely impossible is the fact that my face is plastered all over the Kingdom. As soon as I turn the corner, all eyes turn toward me.
Including hers.
I freeze, taking her in. Taller than I thought from upstairs. Curvy as hell, with her dress nipping in at the waist in a way that makes me want to wrap my fingers around her and pull her down on top of me. Her breasts are fucking glorious. I’m rock hard the moment I lay my eyes on them, already imagining sliding my cock between them and spraying my cum all over her chest.
She’s staring at me with those irresistible, brown doe eyes, with lips so soft and pink…
She licks them, and my cock throbs.
I don’t know what I want to do to her first, I just know that I need her. Now.
“Nice of you to join us,” my father says, and I jerk my gaze away from her. The King clamps his hand on my arm like a vice and drags me to the center of the grounds. I glance over my shoulder, and my goddess is still staring at me. Her eyes flash. A flush creeps up her neck, and then she looks away.
A guy puts his hand on her hip and whispers something in her ear, and she shies away from him. The instant his hand touches her perfect body, a deep, roaring well of rage starts to erupt inside me. His hand is still on her waist, his lips close to her ear. I rip my arm away from my father, ready to pounce toward him and smash that smarmy jaw with a right hook.
But then she steps away from him and the pumping of my blood in my ears quiets down. My father is staring at me, wide-eyed. I clear my throat and straighten my suit jacket.
My father leads me to the center of the grounds, and all eyes turn to us. The King makes a speech, but I don’t hear a word of it. The guests crowd around me and I lose sight of her, but I can’t move. I’m trapped in a throng of needy guests, all clamoring for a bit of me.
I’m trapped. I just know that I’ll find her again before the night is done.
Before that happens, though, I’ll have to deal with all these other chicks pressing their tits against my chest and whispering desperate things in my ear. An hour ago, I would have loved it.
Well, maybe not loved. I would have played along.
Not now, though.
When the two blondes I spotted earlier walk up to me, one of them says, “Hey Charlie.”
I snap. “That’s Your Highness to you, girl.”
Her eyes widen in shock, and then a grin curves her lips again. “I’ll call you whatever you want me to call you, Your Highness.” She bats her eyelashes at me and my stomach turns.
I need to get out of here. I need to find my goddess. But I circle the grounds three times, and she’s nowhere to be seen. I do laps of the Great Hall and I still don’t find her. I even wait outside the restrooms for fifteen fucking minutes, but she never emerges.
She’s just vanished into thin air, and I don’t even know her name.
7
Elle
Now, I understand what Dahlia was saying when she was talking about instant connections with strangers on the subway. Except, in my case, it was in the middle of the Prince’s Ball that I wasn’t even supposed to be attending. And the stranger on the subway? Prince. Freaking. Charlie.
The Crown Prince, and Farcliff’s most notorious bad boy. The man whose face is plastered on a tabloid every weekend, who has a new girl warming his bed every night. I’ve seen pictures of him everywhere, but seeing him up close…
Whoa.
I’m burning up. I can’t think straight. I can’t even move. I stare after him, just like every other pair of eyes in this place. The only difference is, the Prince is staring right back at me.
When another man
puts his hand on my hip and says something in my ear, I need to step away from him. I feel dizzy. A man has never looked at me the way the Prince just did.
Wild. Possessive.
My thong is completely drenched and my heart is beating erratically. My heels are sinking into the grass and I curse Dahlia for convincing me to wear them. I’m already towering over everyone, I don’t need heels to make it worse.
I squeeze my thighs together as heat teases between them. I’m suffocating. Everything is out of focus. Is this what a panic attack feels like?
I need air. I know I’m outside, but I need air that no one else is breathing. I need to be alone. I walk away from the food, from the party, from the King and the Prince and I head for the door that Prince Charlie just walked out of.
It’s unlocked, thank goodness. As soon as I’m inside, I let out a breath. I squeeze my eyes shut and lean against the door.
Coming to the Prince’s Ball was a horrendous idea. Damn Dahlia and her plans! Why did I ever listen to her?
As soon as I walked into the ball, I saw Olivia and Marielle, and the rest of the crew team. Staying away from them was easy—I just had to stand close to the food.
Everything was going to plan, until the Prince did that thing with his eyes that made me feel naked and hot and alive.
As I lean against the door, I take a deep, shuddering breath and open my eyes again. I’m in a stairwell. I should probably go back outside, but I can’t face all the people there. There’s way too much noise and I can’t keep pretending to know how I’m supposed to act.
Instead, I do something that I never thought I would ever do. Something that could probably get me jailed.
I take my heels off, hold them in my hands, and walk up the stairs, deeper into Farcliff Castle.
At the top of the stairs, I hesitate. I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be anywhere here. If any of the crew team sees me, or if a castle worker sees me, or if anyone recognizes me…
Royally Unexpected: An Accidental Pregnancy Collection Page 4