The Controversial Princess (The Smoke & Mirrors Duology #1)

by Jodi Ellen Malpas

  “Pay attention,” she barks as my phone crashes to the ground. The back of my mobile cracks and the screen shatters as it jumps around my feet. I gasp and lower to gather it up, my crouching body obstructing the pavement. I’m kicked by someone passing, and someone trips up my arm as I reach to snatch up my phone.

  “I’m sorry,” I murmur, being cursed at from every direction, the annoyed voices all morphing into one beastly scorn. I need to call Josh. I need someone to come find me. I’m becoming more and more panicked. The irony doesn’t escape me. Here’s me, always fighting the constraint, and now I have freedom—actual freedom—and I’m terrified. What if someone recognizes me? What if a photographer snaps a photo of me? I rise and hurry on my way, at the same time trying to turn on my phone, praying it’s not broken. My fumbling hands refuse to stop trembling, and when my phone comes to life, all that greets me is a green, fuzzy screen. I swallow, feeling tears burning the back of my eyes, and break into a jog, desperate to escape the chaotic streets of London.

  BY THE TIME I MAKE it to the hotel, I’m shaking no less, but my racing heart slows to a safer pace with the relief that washes over me. I hurry toward the entrance, but my Uggs pull me to a stop when my mind registers the crowd of people blocking my way. Some have cameras. Some have phones. Some are screaming Josh’s name. My steadying heartbeat rockets again. There’s no way through, not without being seen. I back away, quickly turning before any of them look in this direction, and hurry around the side of the building.

  More people, dozens of them, are crowding the pavement with more cameras. I stutter to a stop, panic racking me again. What was I thinking? That I could just wander on into a hotel and ask reception to call up to Josh’s suite? I suddenly feel so very foolish, my anxious eyes darting, searching for a way through all the people. There isn’t one.

  Without checking for traffic, I rush across the road toward a doorway, searching for cover. I hear tires skid, and then the angry sounds of a car horn blaring. My body freezes, my legs failing, leaving me standing in the middle of the road with the bonnet of a car virtually touching my knees. “You stupid woman,” the driver yells out of the window, smacking his horn a few more times. I look up through the windscreen, startled, and just as quickly shoot my eyes back down again, forcing my muscles to engage and remove me from the road before the driver registers who he just nearly run over. Falling into a doorway, I will my hands to stop shaking, swallowing repeatedly to stop myself from crumbling under the pressure.

  “Please work, please work, please work,” I chant, turning my phone off and on again, waiting for some signs of life. The cracked screen illuminates, flashing green again. I can’t see a damn thing past the fuzz, only the edges of a few icons. “No,” I sob, sagging against the dirty brick wall inside the doorway.

  And that’s where I remain for a good five minutes wondering what I do now. How could I have been so stupid? I truly have no idea how to navigate the real world. My education was based on my need for knowledge as a royal in a world protected by status and power, not my need for knowledge as a real person in the real world. Because I’m not a real person. I’m not supposed to be in the real world.

  I look left and right, my despair building. And then my mobile rings in my hand, and I shoot my eyes to the distorted screen. There’s no prompt to answer, and I can’t even see who is calling me. I wildly punch at the area I know the answer icon to be. And then I hear him.

  “Adeline? Adeline, are you there?”

  “Josh!” I’m way beyond the ability to control sounding so freaked out.

  “Adeline, for fuck’s sake. Where the hell are you?” If it’s possible, he sounds even more panicked than me.

  “I’m outside. I can’t get through the crowds. There are too many paparazzi and fans.”

  “Where’s Damon?”

  I flinch, shouting at myself for being so irrational. “I’m alone.”

  “Jesus, woman,” he all but breathes, and I hear the sounds of his footsteps in the background. “She’s outside,” he says, his voice muffled, like he is covering the phone with his hand. “Where outside? Tell me exactly where you are.”

  “I don’t know.” I can feel my voice cracking, the situation getting too much. “At the side of the hotel. I can’t see a street name.” I scan the side of the hotel opposite, desperately searching for a sign to tell me where I am.

  “Adeline, listen to me,” Josh says calmly, though I know he’s anything but. “When you were at the front of the hotel, which direction did you head, left or right?”

  It’s a straight-forward question. An easy question, but it takes my brain a stupid amount of time to recall.

  “Adeline.”

  “Right.”

  “Don’t move.” The sound of a door slamming in the background pierces my eardrums.

  “There’s press everywhere.” My eyes dart left to right constantly, terrified that any one of them will see me huddled in the doorway at any moment. “What’s going on?”

  “They’ve been camping there since I came back from an interview. Just stay where you are.” His breathing becomes a bit labored. He’s running. “Just keep talking to me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Christ, Adeline, what were you thinking?”

  “I just wanted to see you.”

  “How did you get here?”

  I’m cringing again, aware that I am about to get a thorough telling off. “Damon’s car.”

  “So where is he?”

  More cringing. “He didn’t know I was in his car.”

  There’s silence, like Josh is trying to comprehend what I just confessed. “You hid in his car?”

  “It was the only way I could get out of the palace without being seen.”

  “Fuckin’ hell, Adeline. Do you know how stupid that is?” Another door slams, and the background noise is suddenly deafening.

  “Now I do,” I admit. “I’m sorry.”

  “You fuckin’ will be. Look to your right across the road. The hotel garage entrance.”

  I glance up, not sure what I’m expecting to find, maybe one of his security team, but instead I see Josh, being followed not too closely by two of the huge men who protect him, though today they’re not in suits, but casual jeans and T-shirts. I exhale down the line, unable to appreciate the risk he’s taking. I’m too relieved he’s here.

  Watching as he takes a wide berth around the crowds, I register his sweats and a zip-up hoodie, and he has a baseball cap pulled low on his head too, the hood of his sweater pulled over it. He looks up, his phone to his ear, as he strides toward me. He’s tense, shoulders high, an effort to conceal his identity as best he can. “Can you see my face?” he asks down the line.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Then you can see how fuckin’ mad I am with you.”

  I shrink. “I’m sorry,” I say again, feeling so very remorseful. All this risk, to both of us, because I had a silly harebrained plan, a plan that has backfired on me in the most spectacular way. I’m an idiot. “The last twenty-four hours have been horrible. Polo yesterday, Eddie today. I just needed to see you,” I whisper.

  “Well, now you can.” He reaches me and drops his phone to his side, looking up from under the peak of his cap as he pulls back the hood.

  His face, no matter how cut it is with anger, sets off my emotions, and my lip wobbles uncontrollably. “It was a good idea at the time.” My voice breaks and the burn at the back of my eyes wins, turning into tears. There is no point holding them back now. The alleviation of anxiety is too much. So I cry. In the dirty doorway on a London street, tears stream down my cheeks. Because I didn’t look a big enough wreck already.

  Josh sighs, reaching for my nape and tugging me into his welcoming warmth. “This doesn’t mean I’m not still mad with you,” he whispers, enveloping me in his arms. I cling to him, my body softening in his arms. Strangely, this is enough. His hug. Genuine affection, something I ordinarily live without. It should feel foreign to me—being en
gulfed in someone’s solid arms—but instead it calms me. I never knew what I’d been missing until now. Contact. Warmth over lust in a man’s touch. Everything is so much better.

  “I don’t care what mood you’re in as long as you’re here.” I mean it, too. He could rant and rave at me for all I care. I would still be thankful I’m with him. My nose burrows into his neck and breathes him into me.

  “Josh, we need to get moving,” Bates says, forcing Josh to break away. “Before you draw attention.”

  At that exact moment, the sound of a shrill female screaming Josh’s name seems to bring the whole of London to a stop. “It’s him. Over there!”

  “Fuck.” Josh quickly unzips his hoodie and shrugs it off. “Put this on.” He forces my arms into the sleeves and pulls the hood up over my cap. “Keep your head down, do you hear me?”

  “What about you?”

  “Head down, Adeline,” he whisper-hisses, rearranging the hood so it is nearly touching my lips. “They’ve seen me already. We need to make sure they don’t see you.” I let my head drop, feeling Josh’s arm curl around my shoulders, pulling me in. My whole body bunches forward, making myself as small as possible. “Walk.” His command is curt, and his body turns into mine as he guides me across the road, shielding me from the crowds as much as he can.

  “Straight ahead,” one of his men says, his boots only a few feet in front of mine.

  “We can’t let them see her, Bates,” Josh warns, pulling me in tighter, like he expects someone to try and pry me from his arms at any minute.

  “Just keep her close. We’ll get you through.”

  There are suddenly many more shoes in my downcast view as I’m huddled along, questions being fired relentlessly.

  “Josh, who’s under the hoodie?”

  “Is this the new girlfriend?”

  “How are you finding London?”

  “Can we get a smile, Josh?”

  “Let us see who’s under the hood.”

  My fear amplifies, and my head jars back, a result of someone behind yanking at the hood. “Get your fuckin’ hands off her,” Josh yells, shoving them away.

  “So it’s a her, huh? Come on, Josh. Relieve everyone’s curiosity and give us a name.”

  Josh’s pace increases, as does mine, flashes going off everywhere. A camera appears in my downcast vision, and I turn my face into my arm to try and hide. “Back off!” Josh smacks the camera away, and it crashes to the ground at my feet. “All of you, back the fuck off.”

  I close my eyes briefly, my remorse returning tenfold. This will be tomorrow’s news. What have I done? Looks like I didn’t need my father to ruin this for us. I’ve done it myself. I’ve never been this stupidly irrational.

  We break into a jog once free of the crowds, making it into the garage relatively unscathed. “Are you okay?” Josh asks, following his two men. I just nod, completely bewildered by the whole episode. Is this what it’s like for him all the time? This chaos? My encounters with the press and fans are generally calm situations, their respect high. That out there was crazy.

  Josh waits until we are in the service elevator, the same elevator I used the last time I was here, before he slowly pushes my hood back, bringing me into the light. He examines my face as I stare at him with wide, stunned eyes. I have never experienced anything like it. That was unbelievable.

  I’m not looking at Josh’s men, but I don’t need to see them to know they are displaying immense displeasure. I’ve caused a circus. My lips press together to try and stop another wobble of my lip.

  “Well,” Josh starts, his face serious. “That was—”

  “Horrible.” He must think I’m a brainless idiot, and he would be right. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know there would be press—”

  His finger lands on my lip, hushing me. “I tried to call to tell you.”

  “I dropped my phone, and it broke, and then I panicked because people were bumping into me, and I was worried I’d be recognized. I didn’t mean to cause such madness.”

  “It’s always madness.”

  “But I fueled it.”

  He softly smiles, his palm smoothing down my cheek. “Could you imagine if they knew who was hidden under that hoodie and cap?”

  “Don’t.” I shudder, it all becoming very real. The madness our relationship will cause, on so many levels of our lives.

  “You look gorgeous, by the way.”

  “What?” I look down my disheveled form to the Uggs gracing my feet. I’m wearing no makeup, and my hair is flattened under the cap. “They probably wouldn’t have recognized me even if they did get a peek.”

  Josh moves in for a kiss, but the peaks of our caps clash, jarring both our heads. I laugh on a flinch, as does Josh, who then swipes off both of our caps and takes my lips, swallowing down my chuckle. Our kiss is fragmented and clumsy, both of us smiling too hard to seal our mouths. “I’m glad you’re here,” he tells me, wiping away all the stress.

  Then our kiss finds a smooth rhythm, our tongues lapping lazily on hums of contentment. Until a cough interrupts us. I pull away quickly, feeling a blush color my cheeks. It’s so easy to forget my surroundings when Josh possesses me so completely. “Sorry,” I mutter, my head now low for other reasons. The two men move to the side to open our path when the doors slide open, and Josh takes my hand, leading the way. We pass the door to his suite, and I frown.

  “They’re still clearing up the mess someone kindly made,” he says as we reach another room. “I’m in here.” He opens the door and ushers me into an equally lavish suite. “So since you’ve put me through hell tonight, how do you intend on making it up to me?”

  He’s been through hell? What about me? I had a meltdown in the middle of a busy London street, just so I could snatch a moment with him. “How would you like me to make it up to you?”

  Kicking his trainers off and tossing our caps onto a table, a devious smirk forms on his face. My trauma is forgotten with the hint of suggestion flickering in his eyes. Without a word, he strolls casually forward, the temperature of my body rising with each step that brings him closer to me. Josh Jameson is a god. He’s perfection on every level, all wrapped up in a body that’s built for sinful things. He’s built to be worshipped, and he’s built to be worshipped by me. Just me. And I want to so badly worship him.

  Stopping before me, he sizes me up, taking in every piece of my bedraggled form. Maybe I should be conscious that I look such a wreck. Maybe I should be wishing I was standing here before him in a killer dress, my hair and makeup as perfect as they always are. But I’m not. Josh sees past the painted woman. He sees deep into my soul, past the forced exterior. He sees me. He knows me. He also knows what I want. Him. I want him with every fiber of my being, desperately so. I’m willing to walk through fire, and eventually, that is exactly what I’ll have to do. But not now. Now we are locked away safely, away from the prying eyes of the world. Nothing else exists, except him, me, and the electricity sizzling between our wanting bodies. My heart pumps erratically in my chest while I wait for him to tell me what he wants. Not that I need to hear it. His body is speaking to me all by itself. But I want him to say it. I want to hear the words that will tell me he is as hooked on these feelings as I am. That he’s becoming as addicted and obsessed as me. And I wait. And wait.

  “Fuck, you’re divine,” he murmurs, his eyes greedy, still roaming up and down. When they finally reach my face, my lips have parted and my breathing is shallow. I refrain from touching, from taking him, because this is his move to make. And he suddenly makes it. On a growl worthy of a lion, he seizes me and tosses me over his shoulder with little effort, stalking toward the bedroom, a man on a mission. Fire blazes inside me and every stressful minute of my quest across London to make it to him is certified worthwhile.

  I sail through the air when he launches me from his arms, landing on the bed on a gasp of delight. His T-shirt is virtually ripped over his head, his sweats kicked off just as aggressively. And then he’s naked, an
d it’s my turn to be greedy in my observing. That body. It’s on thousands of billboards across the world, plastered in endless magazines, but nothing, and I mean nothing, compares to the vision of him in the flesh and blood. Nothing. “Oh my . . .” I breathe, mentally licking every single glorious piece of him, my fingers mentally tracing the waves of his hard stomach.

  Stepping forward, he takes an Ugg in each hand and pulls them off, casting them aside. I’m stripped down, his hands working slowly as I watch him focus on his task, my skin hypersensitive to every brush of his fingers on my flesh. I’m laid out before him like a sacrificial lamb, and it’s apt in its symbolism. Because for him I would sacrifice everything.

  As my bra is drawn lazily away from my aching breasts, he dips and kisses each nipple in turn, and my body curves upward in response, spiking a faint smile to ghost his lips. And once my knickers are pulled down my legs, he pushes my thighs apart, spreading me open, and that faint smile vanishes, his expression serious as he stares at the juncture of my thighs. “There are so many things I want to do to this beautiful body.” His voice is thick and husky.

  “Then do them.” I’ll take anything from him. Let him do anything to me.

  “I wasn’t asking for your permission.” His fingertip rests lightly on my clit, and I feel my pulse pushing into it consistently. My hands ball, fisting the sheets at my sides. “I will do with you as I please, and you will beg me to do it.” Collecting a belt from the nearby dresser, he pulls the leather through his fingers, regarding me closely as I comprehend exactly what he means. “I need to loosen us up.”

  My eyes light up, as does his. “How so?” I know exactly how so.

  He snaps the leather together, one eyebrow hitched. “Off the bed.”

  I edge to the end of the bed and find my feet. “And now?”

  “Turn around and give me that fine ass.”

  I turn, bending over the bed and jutting my bottom out in invitation. Closing my eyes, I fill my lungs, already feeling that weightless sensation take over me. Thwack! I grunt and jolt forward, the biting sting of the leather chasing away every solemn thought, peace replacing it. Thwack! My eyes roll behind my closed lids, my body rolling, too. The burn spreads and penetrates me to my bones. Thwack! I cry out, the sound desperate and hungry. Thwack! They’re getting harder, each strike more powerful than the last. My flesh is on fire. His breathing is heavy behind me, each lash delivered on a shout of victory. Thwack! This one connects with the backs of my thighs, spanning both, and sends me to my knees, my body pooling the end of the bed. Part of me wants to scream enough! But a bigger part of me wants him to go on, to thrash me until I’m weightless.