Washed Up Royal

by Karr, Kim

  I was a fling.

  And I’m jealous of myself.

  How perfectly ridiculous.

  “Oh, my God, that gives us less than six hours to prepare.” Ava starts swiping across her phone if looking for something. “What are you going to wear?” she asks, still looking down.

  “What are you doing?” Rachel asks her. “You look worried.”

  “I’m going through the outfits we ordered online and checking their delivery status.”

  “Oh,” Rachel looks guilty.

  “You didn’t expediate the shipping like I asked.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  I’m not even listening to anymore of their argument over my wardrobe because I’m too busy worrying about how tonight is going to go.

  Good.

  Bad.

  Angry.

  Sad.

  Will my life ever be the same after this?

  Something tells me it won’t.

  BAD BLOOD

  The Eastwood Examiner

  Breaking News

  THE KING HAS CUT HIS TOP SAILOR

  By Dominick Wilfork

  Before gambling, yachting was the King’s true love, although if you ask him, he’ll say it’s Eastwood. He has to.

  With the breaking news, though, I have to wonder what foils are in the sails for his team, pun intended.

  The Eastwood Globe Series is a legendary event started by the King’s father and brother. This double-hander offshore race has qualified Eastwood for the Vespa Isles Globe Series for ten years in a row.

  The King himself used to participate, along with his slightly younger cousins, Adrien and Truman. Once the King took to his royal duties, though, his cousins held tight and brought the win every year.

  So it is a surprise to hear the Eastwood Yacht Club has cut Prince Adrien from the team.

  Dare I say it, there’s bad blood between these royal cousins and the high seas may never be the same again for Eastwood.

  OH, WE’RE RICH

  After sailing for most of the day, I showered and changed into formal attire to meet my other cousin, Truman, at a fundraiser.

  After a freak accident on the speedway put him out of commission, he met up with me in Paris, and we both headed this way.

  The bastard is lucky he only sprained his shoulder when his brakes failed on the track. It could have been so much worse.

  Some chill time in the sun is what he needs, so he’s staying at the Laurent estate with the full staff.

  After my run-in with our other cousin, King Rutherford, I refuse to stay there. Besides, my boat is a much more suitable place for me. It’s docked at Gurney’s and makes getting out on the water early in the morning very easy.

  The affair we’re attending is to raise money for underprivileged boys to learn to sail. Good cause, so I figured I’d show up and make a hefty donation. As a plus, it’s taking place at Newport Shipyard, the hub of the legendary regatta circuit, and probably one of my favorite places in this small New England town.

  Today, though, after wandering through the leather-upholstered galleys and past the master suites and hot tubs of a half-dozen yachts, I can’t seem to care.

  The truth is, my mind is still on her.

  The girl who up and left me in her hotel room without a last name or a phone number.

  Fuck.

  For some reason I can’t forget her.

  I glance around at the swarms of people talking about the most ostentatious crap. Women in printed palazzo pants and men with Hermès pocket squares are sipping their spiked punch and talking about the yachts they just breezed through while a band plays a cover of “All Summer Long.”

  At the table next to us, a gentleman in a seersucker suit casually asks the waiter if he knows if a yacht called Wanna Be Heir is for sale.

  “Every yacht is for sale around here,” the waiter tells him with a tinge of boredom in his voice.

  I can’t help but roll my eyes. Spencer Churchill Lexington is in town, and the prick can’t stop flaunting himself all over the fucking place. The Wanna Be Heir is a luxury yacht built by Oceanco especially for him. The eighty-six meter ship features a cinema screen and infinity pool with a fifteen-foot glass wall, and there’s no way he’s parting with it.

  “Tell him to piss off,” my cousin Truman tells me.

  I glance up from my phone. The press release I just finished reading making my ears steam. “I think he told me to do that first.”

  “You want me to speak with him? Make him understand we’ll never win without you on the team.”

  “No fucking way,” I tell him. “I’m done with him and being his show pony, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “Okay, how about another drink then?” my cousin Truman asks me, his eyes scanning the event for all the single women.

  “Yeah, sure why not.”

  He shakes his head at me. “So you’re not going? Are you?”

  A quick glance down at my watch and another up. “Nah, I don’t think I am.”

  “You should.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Because hunting down this Rachel Smart girl to get the details on the chick you’re mooning after is fucking ridiculous. Stop the obsession. She left you, man. For you all know about her, she’s married. Stop obsessing.”

  I down the rest of my whiskey and slam the glass down. “I’m not doing that.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m not. I’m moving on.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since about an hour ago when I found out there are over five thousand Rachel Smarts in the United States, and I’m not even sure she’s from here.”

  Truman glares at me over the rim of his bourbon. “And yet you’re still sitting here and not heading to the interview.”

  I run a hand through my hair. “She has to be so fucking uptight.”

  “Who gives a shit? I checked her out myself. Have you seen her picture? She’s hot.”

  Leaning back on the legs of my chair, I force anything but the bored look I’m feeling on my face. “Sure,” I say, although I haven’t really even given her more than a quick glance. “If you like chicks with perfect hair and miles of fabric wrapping their tits, then yeah I guess you could use that word.”

  Lowering his voice, he tells me, “Marrying the Princess of Alexandria will bring you notoriety. Look at it as a career move. You’ll be in the spotlight and all those business ventures you’re endeavoring on and all those causes you’re championing will be, too.”

  I level my dark stare at him. “It’s like putting a fucking noose around my balls.”

  Laughter spits from his mouth like rain. “Yeah, I’m going to have to agree with you there. Do princesses even fuck?”

  “Guessing only often enough to get pregnant.”

  “Well, so what, your sex life will suck but there’s one significant thing you’re forgetting.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Marrying the Princess of Alexandria will put you on a level playing field with Rutherford.”

  Rutherford.

  Fucking Rutherford.

  Full of misdeeds and mistruths.

  “I know that, why do you think I even entertained the idea in the first place?”

  Making a show of checking his watch, he then glances over at our waiter. “Two more.”

  Looking out at the calm water, I loosen my tie, which has grown way too tight around my neck, and decide why the fuck not. “Make that one. I have an interview to get to.”

  He fist pumps me. “Let me know how it goes.”

  “Oh, shit,” I tell him as I stand and spot a familiar face across the way.

  Truman shifts his eyes to where I’m looking. “What the fuck is he doing here? I thought he’d taken to summering in Monte Carlo?”

  With a shrug, I tell him, “Ten to one he’s in town to interview.”

  “Motherfucker.”

  I grin at my cousin. “Look
s like this just turned into an extreme test of speed sailing skills and seamanship. This time, though, I won’t be pulling back on the throttle.”

  Raising his glass, Truman says, “And may the best man, or dick, win.”

  Yeah, too bad this dick isn’t going to be getting any action from miss little queen-to-be uptight.

  Not that I care.

  Even my dick is mourning the girl I called Sweet Thing.

  UNFOLD YOURSELF

  Ava curls my hair and then arranges it in an elegant upsweep, allowing a few strands to fall loosely at the nape of my neck. As soon as she steps back, I pull the clip and watch my locks fall in a tumble around my shoulders.

  “What are you doing?” she shrieks with more than a hint of annoyance in her tone.

  “I don’t want to look stiff or rigid. I want to look like the girl he met in the airport.” I point to her. “Like you look. Wild and free.”

  “Oh,” she smiles, her fingers now combing through her own hair. “Why didn’t you say so to begin with?”

  Busying herself, she gets to work using a flatiron to smooth out the curls she made. When we are both satisfied with the simple hair style, she applies light makeup on my face, going with mascara and a pale gloss that makes my lips shine but nothing more.

  “Do you trust me?” she asks, setting down the makeup bag.

  I look at her in the dressing mirror. “I believe I do.”

  “Stay right there.” She disappears into the closet where she’s stowed most of her clothes, plus the things she bought yesterday, and comes out with a pair of white dressy shorts with metallic threads running through them and a slinky gold top. “I think you should wear this.”

  Rachel picks that moment to walk through the open door. “He’s just confirmed that he’s on his way, and you cannot wear that.”

  “Why not?” we both ask at the same time.

  “It’s not suitable for the soon-to-be Queen.”

  “Maybe I want to bend the rules,” I tell her as I get to my feet and take the items from Ava.

  She shakes her head. “My sister is rubbing off on you, and not in a good way.”

  With a slight shrug, I waltz behind the dressing screen to put the items on and smile to myself. I rather like the idea of being a rebel.

  “Here, wear these, too,” Ava tells me, dropping a pair of golden four-inch wedges at my feet.

  Taking my time, I get dressed and then stare in the mirror. My legs appear long and shapely with the aid of the shoes and the top is so sexy with only two strings crisscrossing the back to hold it in place. The rest of me is bare and the fabric dips daringly low to hover just above my bum. I’m wearing no bra and the neckline reveals just a hint at the upper swells of my breasts.

  I look hello sexy or is it hella?

  Whichever it is, I look it. I feel sexier than I’ve ever felt.

  The clock strikes eight and with each dong I realize he’s going to be late. “Rachel,” I call. “What do you mean he just confirmed? I thought we were set for eight?”

  Royals should never be late.

  “I didn’t want to worry you, but he never responded to the confirmation text I sent him earlier this afternoon until five minutes ago.”

  Stepping out from behind the screen, I twist my lip. “Oh, so he was wavering.”

  And that does funny things to my pulse even though it shouldn’t. I’m competing against myself for goodness sake.

  “In his defense,” Ava says, “he doesn’t know the woman he’s coming to see is you, so yes, perhaps he was.”

  “Yes, I know,” I tell her. Now, I’m even more worried because the girl he met in the airport disappeared without a proper goodbye and he could be angry about it.

  Rachel glances at her dinging phone. “It’s the gate. I’m buzzing him through now.”

  With my heart beating like a bird about to take flight, I hurry out of the room, down the stairs, and toward the front door.

  “Princess Victoria! What are you doing?” Rachel races after me. “Royals do not answer the door.”

  William is already in the foyer, and he and I are practically dueling it out for whose hand is going to touch the knob first.

  As he is more practiced than me, he takes control and slowly, calmly, opens the door. “Your Royal Highness,” he bows, “You may step outside now if you wish.”

  Adrien Laurent is getting out of his shiny black sports car and my breath catches at the sight of him.

  Those butterflies in my belly are back. He looks too good to be true. The man isn’t just gorgeous. There are plenty of good-looking men in the royal circle. He’s more.

  In a black suit and without a tie, the top button of his shirt open and his hair a bit rumpled, he’s all man. I can tell he doesn’t give a hoot what anyone thinks about him and although disregard for protocol should not inspire me, on him it looks incredible.

  When he slams the driver door shut, I swear I can hear my heart banging in my chest and my pulse ringing in my ears.

  Just as he takes his first step, I make my appearance on the front porch. His gaze shifts in the night, and when his eyes land directly on me, he stops moving.

  Does he recognize me?

  That intense gaze flashes and his mouth pinches into some kind of unfound resentment I really want to ease.

  I feel the intensity in that look. It’s a dose of pure adrenaline straight to my heart. Recognition is there, and it’s raw, carnal, and perhaps more than a tad angry. Being courageous has never been my thing, but tonight I’m a lion ready to roar and I prove this to myself when I take step after step in his direction.

  What if he won’t forgive me?

  Suddenly the atmosphere is so heavy around me that I can’t breathe. My lungs feel like rocks weighting me down and I can’t find any air.

  What if he turns his back on me?

  He rakes his dark eyes over me in one fast, complete sweep that makes my stomach grip nervously. After he takes me in from my high sandals up to my long dark hair, I become very aware that his eyes have gone cold as ice.

  Oh, no.

  “Adrien,” I whisper in the night.

  Light shines on him from the huge house behind me and I can see everything. The way he blinks, blinks again, as if trying to unravel the secret of me. I force myself to take another step forward and then another, each one causing my heart to beat faster and faster the closer I get.

  Adrien strides around the car. He’s the embodiment of everything I’ve ever wanted in a man. Polished and rugged at the same time. Not afraid to bend the rules. Sin and sex and decadence. This is like a gift I don’t deserve, and I’m going for this.

  Wind blows across my face, the taste of salt and sea filling my senses, and soon him, too. My bravery starts to wane, but still I don’t stop until I’m standing mere feet from him.

  Taking a cautious approach, he leans against his car and crosses his arms over his broad chest, putting his long legs on full display. “Princess Victoria,” he muses, shaking his head. “How the hell didn’t I see it?”

  “I didn’t want anyone to know who I was, so I changed my appearance.”

  The moonlight shines down on him and even in the vast space of the outdoors, the area around me shrinks due to the power and authority he commands. “Tori,” he snickers. “Victoria. Princess Victoria. Sweet thing. Fuck me.”

  Closer…I want to be closer.

  To feel his hands on me.

  His lips.

  Him.

  All over me.

  With an extra magical braveness cast upon me, I close the distance between us and slide my hands up his hard arms, relishing the muscle covered by all that cloth.

  His body goes taut, and I’m unsure what he’s thinking.

  Glancing up, I meet his gaze and feel the impact of it all the way to my toes. My belly clenches, and for a moment it’s hard to breathe.

  His eyes bore into mine with an intensity that both thrills and frightens me. There is interest. Clear interest. B
ut there’s hesitation there, too.

  I stare back, unable to look away from the force of his gaze. Black. His navy eyes are as black as the night, glittering with question. His dark hair is groomed and yet still a wild mess and his skin gleams golden brown in the soft light of the driveway torches.

  His jawline is firm, set, a strong tilt that denotes his arrogance, a quality most befitting for the situation we’ve found ourselves in.

  For a long moment I continue to hold my breath, fearful he is going to walk away from me, but then his lips curve upward into a slight smile. “You left without leaving me your number or your full name. No one has ever done that to me before.”

  Not expecting anything but animosity, I shake myself and mentally scold my tongue for knotting up so badly. “I had to. And now you know why.”

  His gaze lifts to the house behind us. “Yes, I guess I do.”

  I cock my head to the side, allowing a tiny smile to relax the tension bubbling inside me. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

  He lifts one imperious brow, a gesture that seems more challenging than convincing. “And neither can I.”

  I grip his shoulders and then wrap my arms around his neck, trying to close whatever distance remains between us. “Am I to assume I’m forgiven?”

  Reaching behind his neck, he unpeels my hands and places them back at my side. “Forgiven for Paris, yes, but I’m not so sure about anything else.”

  “What do you mean?” I take a step back and trip over my heels, tumbling onto the ground and landing on my bum.

  The flurry of chaos that surrounds me within seconds makes my head spin. Dante is attempting to put Adrien in a headlock and he isn’t allowing any such thing. The two are practically wrestling in the drive. Rachel and Ava are animatedly asking me if I’m okay, and William is about to call 9-1-1.

  “Stop,” I call out, and everyone freezes. “I am fine. For goodness sake, I just tripped over my new shoes.”

  Everyone glances down at me as I assume a sitting position and place my palms behind me on the drive. Everyone except for Dante and Adrien, who are staring down each other like rivals.