by Piper Rayne
Sierra whines but sits up.
I rush to her side. “Just sleep, babe, I’ll be right back.”
“Who could it be?”
I shake my head. “I’m sure it’s nothing. I’ll come get you if I need you.”
She falls back down to the bed, more hungover than I am.
Grabbing my phone, I take one last look to see if something there will warn me of the surprise waiting for me on the other side of the door. There’s a text from Evan.
Evan: You’re not fired. Come in for your afternoon shift tomorrow. See you then.
I hammer a text right back, but as I’m in the middle of “cool, I’ll see you then,” another knock lands on the door.
“Adrian!” Rian yells.
Sierra stands, and I salivate from watching her stretch her naked body. I’m not sure I’ll ever grow tired of that visual. She grabs her robe off the hanger in her closet, covering up her beautiful self.
“Let’s see what this is all about,” she mumbles and opens the door.
After snatching a T-shirt from the foot of the bed, I follow her. I’m throwing it over my head when my omission comes crashing down on me like Mount Vesuvius.
“Who are you?” Sierra asks.
“I’m Princess Adelaide, Prince Adrian’s fiancée.”
Oh fuck.
Rian is in the kitchen, preparing breakfast loudly, every movement exaggerated.
“Rian, can you please keep it down? I have a headache.” Sierra rubs her temples.
Did she not hear Adelaide?
“Are you a telegram or something? I mean, this has to be a joke.” Sierra looks at me over her shoulder. Her face falls when she takes in my stricken expression.
“Excuse me. A telegram?” Adelaide says in a haughty tone.
She’s wearing a conservative dress that lands mid-calf and doesn’t mold to her curves. Her hair is blonde, straight, and sleek. Studded earrings and a single chain necklace with her family’s emblem on it. She couldn’t be more opposite of Sierra if she tried.
“What are you doing here? How did you find me?” I ask.
“I knew it!” Rian points her spatula at me. “I knew it was too good to be true. ‘Oh, Rian, I’ll go get strawberries.’” She mimics my words from yesterday in a horrible version of my accent. “‘Let’s do a surprise party for her.’”
Sierra sits on a chair and I’m worried she hasn’t even processed this.
Adelaide raises her chin and looks down her nose at me. “Declan.”
“Declan told you where I was? What kind of security is that?”
She smirks and her hands run down her dress as if she’s preventing it from having even one wrinkle on it. “The kind who understands that you disappearing for a month has everyone in a frenzy. Your parents said you were volunteering in Uganda or something. I knew when there were no pictures of you that something was fishy, but I didn’t think I’d find you in bed with another woman.”
“Whoa.” I hold up my hand for her to stop. “For the record, we are not engaged.”
“We are promised to one another, so we might as well be. But I will not go through with it if you think you’ll be sleeping around on me.”
“So what, you’re marrying her next month?” Sierra asks, too calm for my liking. I worry that she’s going to snap when reality sets in.
“No,” I say at the same time that Adelaide says, “Yes.”
“I knew it. I could give some pointers to Blue Bloods. I can pinpoint the creeps and you’re one of them, Adrian Marx.” Rian points her spatula at me.
“Who are you making breakfast for?” I ask, knowing she’s probably already been up for hours.
“Me,” Adelaide says. “I asked her if there was anything to eat here.”
“No. Go to a hotel or something. This is my life and you’re fucking with it.” I step closer to her.
“Sierra! What is wrong with you?” Rian screams when Sierra continues to sit there and not say anything.
The apartment door opens, and in waltzes Dylan in his boxer shorts, scratching the back of his head. “Damn, Seth was up early, banging around in the kitchen. Do you guys have—” He stops cold when he spots Adelaide. “Who’s this?”
“Adrian’s fiancée,” Sierra answers.
I circle around to face her. She’s cool and calm with an almost smile tipping at the corner of her mouth.
“She’s not my fiancée,” I say.
“That’s not what she says.” Sierra points at Adelaide and I turn back to see Dylan giving her an appreciative gaze.
“Get her out!” Rian yells.
“Ri, come on, my eardrums, babe.” Dylan sticks his finger in his ear and sniffs. “Oh, whatcha making?”
He wanders over to her as I sit on the coffee table in front of Sierra, my hands on her thighs. She doesn’t move, though her gaze shifts from Adelaide to me.
“Give me ten minutes to clear this up and then I’m coming back here so we can talk, okay?” I say.
Sierra nods. “Okay.”
I hate to say this because I know it makes me sound like an asshole, but it’s a little offensive that she hasn’t shown any sign of jealousy like she did when she found me watching TV with Blanca.
“Follow me,” I tell Adelaide.
She huffs but follows me toward the door. “Oh, darling, I do not eat pancakes. And I like my egg whites soft, not hard. Do you have Greek yogurt?”
Rian’s eyes narrow and Dylan smiles, chomping down on a pancake.
“Sorry,” I say to Rian and tug Adelaide’s arm to move her out into the hallway. “You cannot ask my roommates to cook for you.”
“Roommate? I thought she was your servant.” Adelaide’s heels click on the hallway floor as I lead her to the door to the rooftop, the only place we can probably find some privacy. “I’m not going up there. Don’t they have terraces or something?”
“Nope, this is it.”
She huffs. “Fine.”
She climbs the stairs one at a time, like a toddler who doesn’t have long enough legs to go from one stair to the next. I’m practically vibrating with anger by the time she makes it onto the roof.
“Who else knows you’re here?” I ask.
“No one. I came here by myself.”
“Why? Where are your assistants?”
She shrugs. “Are you running out on our marriage for that woman down there?”
At least she cuts to the chase.
“I was going to inform my parents after I return that I will not be marrying you, if that’s your real question. As far as what’s going on with Sierra, that’s none of your business.”
Her eyes narrow. “If you’re going to embarrass me by calling off our marriage so you can marry a commoner, then it is absolutely my business.”
Being away from all the royal bullshit for a month, I forgot how ridiculous it all sounds. A commoner? Like people who aren’t royalty are beneath us somehow?
“I’m not sure why you came here,” I say. “My parents granted me another month of freedom and I fully intend on living here and enjoying it.”
“I’ll stay as well then.”
“No, you will not.” I shake my head and fist my hands.
“Yes, I will. If you want me to keep your little secret.”
“What?”
She pulls out her phone. “See, people are wondering why Prince Adrian hasn’t updated his Instagram account for so long. There’s actually a hashtag of #missingprincespotted where people post photos of men they think are you. Imagine if I tweeted your real location. They’d believe me too, since I’m a princess.”
Her voice is sweet, but her words are evil.
“You cannot stay at my apartment. Sierra is my girlfriend and she’s not going to understand. Not to mention I won’t be marrying you in a month.”
She’s unfazed by my news. “Newsflash, I don’t want to marry you either.”
So Adelaide doesn’t want to marry me, and Sierra doesn’t care that I’m betrothed to so
meone else. Excellent self-esteem boost.
“Then why would you want to stay here?” I ask, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“Declan said you wanted to try a normal life. Maybe I wouldn’t mind trying it as well.”
I run my hands through my hair and grip it tightly.
“What do you do here?” she asks.
“I work.”
“Well, I’m not sure about that, but I want to stay anyway. And just so you know, my dad is going to be very upset if the marriage is called off.”
I nod. I figured I’d be pissing everyone off when I announced that I’m in a relationship and will not be marrying anyone. It means my brother will rule and he’s just a kid. But the one thing I’ve realized while living here is that I’m not going to live by ancient rules any longer.
“So it’s decided? I’m staying?” she asks.
I inhale a deep breath. “Just wait here for a second.”
How are my two lives colliding right now?
“I’m not waiting here like some peasant. I’m going with you.”
She follows me, so I hold open the door and let her head down the stairs first, regretting it as soon as she takes the steps again at the pace of a sloth.
On the way down, I say, “I can’t talk to Sierra about you when you’re there.”
“That girl is making my breakfast and I’m hungry.”
I blow out a breath. “Her name is Rian, and you can go into Dylan’s apartment.”
A line forms between her eyebrows—as much as it can with all the Botox that’s probably been pumped in there. “Who is that?”
“The man with all the tattoos.”
A look of disgust crosses her face and a part of me wants to laugh. It’s the first time I’ve seen a woman have a reaction like that after seeing Dylan.
We walk down the hallway and I open the guys’ apartment door, funneling Adelaide in and telling her to stay seated on the couch.
She looks at it as if she smells something rotten. “I’ll stand.”
“Whatever.”
I’m about to shut the door when Seth comes out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. “Am I dreaming? I beat off and the visual comes to life like that movie Weird Science?”
“Excuse me?” Adelaide asks with a hand to her chest as if she’s been scandalized, and I shut the door.
They can work that out themselves.
By the time I walk back into my apartment, Sierra isn’t sitting in the chair anymore. In fact, she’s nowhere to be found. Rian and Dylan are eating breakfast at the table, both of them shaking their heads at me.
Ignoring them, I cross the room and open the door to Sierra’s bedroom. She’s sitting on the bed, her phone in her hands. No sign of tears or anger. Just indifference. The same emotion I’ve seen between my parents for the last five years.
“Sierra.” I sit on the edge of her bed.
She looks up from her phone. “Do you need help packing?”
I stare blankly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“But…”
“I’m not going to marry Adelaide. There’s a shit-ton I have to tell you, but first and foremost, you need to know that I’m not marrying her. I’m going to tell my parents after this month is up, but…”
Her armor cracks and a bit of her cold demeanor seeps out. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“Because I was scared. I never wanted to marry her. I wasn’t sure what we were and it’s still so early for us. But I should have. I know that. There’s a lot you need to know, and if you hate me afterward, I completely understand, but please know that my feelings for you are real and deep and I don’t want to ignore them.”
She nods.
So far, so good.
“First I need a favor.”
“What’s that?” she asks.
“She wants to stay here. Live here with us for a short time.”
The small crinkles on her forehead indent. I really wish I hadn’t lied by omission all these weeks because it might cause me to lose the one person who means the most in this world to me. And what would be the point of all this if I finally found what I needed, only to lose it?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Adrian
* * *
“I think I need a lot more explanation,” she says.
At least she’s out of the comatose state she was in a moment ago, the one in which she’d shut down her emotions. I hate that. I’d rather have her breaking shit than go dark on me.
“Right. Okay. Let’s get dressed and get out of here.”
“And what? Leave your fiancée in the living room with Rian? She might shove the spatula up that woman’s ass. Oh, that’s right, she already has one up there.”
I laugh and grab her, pulling her into my chest.
She scowls. “What is so funny?”
“You. I mean, you care about me. Losing me.” I draw back, my hands still on her upper arms.
Those small wrinkles on her forehead are still there. I’ve confused her. “What are you talking about?”
“I wanted a reaction from you. You have nothing to worry about, but for a moment, it seemed like you didn’t care. Like you were willing to toss me aside and that what’s been transpiring between us means nothing to you.”
Her hand runs down my cheek. “It scared me,” she says in a soft voice.
“Don’t be scared. I’m not going anywhere.”
She nods, but I wish I could be in her head to know if she truly believes me. From what I’ve witnessed, she hasn’t had a lot of people on her side through the years, telling her how special she is.
“Okay, but I’m not sure Rian will agree to your fiancée staying with us. Not to mention I’m not comfortable with it.”
I nod, knowing she’s right. “She’s threatening to out me on social media. Supposedly there’s a hashtag, #missingprincespotted, happening.”
Her teeth nibble on the corner of her mouth and she looks… guilty.
“You knew?” I ask.
She giggles and nods. “Yeah, I’m following it. It’s great though. They’ve spotted you so many places not even close to where you really are. I wanted to be prepared if someone actually did find you.”
“Prepared for what?”
She shrugs, but we both know for what. I wish I could strip her insecurities away, but that’s going to take some time.
“Let’s just get dressed and I’ll figure Rian out. We’ll figure it out.” As she gets up off the bed, I grab the tie from her robe. “On second thought.”
“Nope. You have a fiancée to deal with.”
“Stop calling her that.”
She allows the robe to fall open and cascade down to the floor.
“Nice ass.”
She chuckles and disappears into her closet, so I resort to leaving the room. The apartment door opens as I’m walking from Sierra’s room to mine, Adelaide walking in with Seth following close behind.
“Someone thinks I’m her servant and wants breakfast,” he says.
Dylan and Rian glare at me.
Rian stands and dishes out a plate of pancakes before dropping them on the table. “We have pancakes. Eat them or starve.”
Adelaide sighs and sits. “I haven’t had a pancake since I was five.”
Dylan blatantly checks out her body. “It looks like you haven’t.”
“Deal with it,” Rian says to Adelaide.
“Hey, Rian, do you mind if Adelaide hangs around here while I take Sierra to breakfast?” I ask.
Adelaide turns to face me. “Breakfast? Like yogurt, eggs, and fruit? I cannot eat this.” She picks up her pancake with her fork.
“You’re kidding me, right? You want me to handle your problem?” Rian jams her hands on her hips.
“She’s not my problem, but yeah, I need to talk to Sierra. Please. It’s really important.”
“I’ll watch her. Do you need to shower after that long flight?” Dylan asks.
“We won�
�t be long, and I promise to explain everything once we get back,” I say to the group.
Rian blows out a breath. “Fine, but you are on my bad list, Adrian Marx.” She points at me.
“You sure like to point,” I say then snap my mouth shut. She’s doing me a favor. “Adelaide, be good.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m not a dog.”
I shut my bedroom door and throw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt with a sweatshirt. Grab some cash from my drawer and decide to actually hide the money in a sock in case Adelaide snoops. By the time I’m out of my room, Sierra is coming out of the bathroom with her hair in a messy bun, wearing yoga pants and a large sweatshirt.
Dylan is asking Adelaide questions about where she’s from and what her plans are.
“Thanks again, Rian,” I say.
She puts a heaping forkful of pancakes in her mouth and gives me a curt nod.
The diner down the street seats us in a two-person booth that’s so cramped, we might have more privacy at the apartment than we do here, but I’m done stalling. Sierra has to know what I’m up against when I go home. Especially if I want her by my side when I do it.
We order our meals: mine an egg skillet and hers an egg white omelet with a muffin on the side.
I take her hands, wishing I would’ve told her last night as we lay under the blankets under the stars. But my procrastination ruined that. “The reason I took this two-month break is because my father cheated on my mom. My sister, Felicia, found him in his office with a woman in lingerie sprawled over his desk.”
She grips my hands. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. I was already arranged to marry Princess Adelaide,” I whisper so no one will overhear. Then an idea comes to mind because I cannot chance that these details of my family’s turmoil will be heard by someone in the public. “So in the story, the king was found with a woman who wasn’t the queen in his office by his daughter.”
Sierra doesn’t pick up right away on what I’m doing, but she looks around and finally nods.
“The queen hasn’t been seen with him in public since. The press knows something is going on, but they have no idea what. The royal family is desperate to keep it hidden because in their country, you cannot rule unless you’re married. There has to be a king and a queen. So if the king and queen don’t reconcile, their oldest son must take the crown and be married immediately.”