The Blue Collar Bachelors Box Set: The Complete Blue Collar Bachelors Series

by Miller, Cassie-Ann L.

  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy sex as much as the next wealthy, handsome royal heir. But I don’t indulge as often as I could since it has one major drawback; it sometimes involves communicating—actually engaging in dialogue with another human being—which is usually rather annoying and completely not worth the trouble.

  After a tense beat, my secretary adjusts his glasses and shuffles some papers around on the antique hand-carved tabletop in front of him. Then he resumes his current bout of verbal incontinence. “Moving along. The Queen’s office sent a reminder that she’ll be expecting your presence when she hosts the Hand Embroidery and Crocheting Preservation Society brunch next week. The Palace wants to make a bold statement. To let the people know that the Monarchy fully supports efforts to preserve this dying craft.”

  She’ll be expecting my presence...

  The expectations. That’s my biggest peeve, honestly. As future titleholder to the Crown, I’m expected to observe onerous royal customs and represent the Monarchy at world summits and show face at frivolous social events.

  But here’s the thing…I’m all expectations’d out. I’m done.

  I refuse to participate in even one more high society gathering where a bunch of self-important aristocrats go all Peeping Tom on the national goose—and gander—as they get their freak on. Or one more Parliamentary circle jerk where idiot MPs puff up their chests and grandstand while no meaningful legal reform gets passed.

  I. Am. Done.

  And Grandmum is just going to have to find a way to deal with it.

  My attention moves back to the window and the little American woman in the courtyard. My sanity (and by extension, the future of the nation of Ridgeland) rests on her narrow, hunched shoulders and she doesn’t even know it.

  The low heel of her shoe catches on the stair and she stumbles just a bit but Harold’s sure arms are there to catch her. While she giggles good-humoredly at her clumsy misstep, the man remains unaffected, his usual indecipherable expression steadily in place. The pair of red-vested foot guards at the palace doors don’t react, either. They stand perfectly immobile and stare unflinchingly ahead.

  Collective resting bitch face at its finest.

  “…Unfortunately, we’ll have to reschedule your visit to the National College for Bagpipe Studies so as not to coincide with—”

  Grunting irreverently, I interrupt Thomas’s blathering. “Did you see that?”

  Of course he didn’t.

  He’s posed studiously at a small desk in the corner of the room, completely oblivious to anything that isn’t printed on official royal stationery and stacked in a pile in front of him. He’s been moving appointments around all morning, trying to arrange my official schedule for the upcoming weeks.

  He’ll soon learn that all that fussing was a colossal waste of time.

  At the sound of my voice, he immediately pauses the paper-shuffling and looks up at me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that, Your Highness.”

  I snatch the crystal decanter from the heavy oak bar cart along the wall and refill my glass. I tip my chin in the direction of the foot guards. “Tell me—how often do we change the batteries in those poor, soulless nutcrackers standing by the front entrance?”

  Thomas’s eyes grow wide with alarm and his voice tremors at not knowing the appropriate answer to my question. “Sir? I’m not sure I understand…”

  An exasperated sigh pours from the depths of my gut. Oh, come on, bloke. Live a little!

  “That was a joke, Thomas. A joke.” I take a gulp of my drink and plop down on the edge of my desk. “Does no one in this damned place have a sense of humor?”

  “Oh, yes, Sir. Of course. A joke.” Eager to please me, a stiff sound vaguely resembling a laugh sputters from his mouth. “Har-har!”

  That’s the problem with this place. The theatrics. Everyone around here is so good at playing his role and filling his part. The minute anything goes off script, they’re like a school of fish out of water. I’m sick of all the people around me lining up to kiss my arse because it’s what they’re supposed to do. Even when they’re older or smarter or stronger than me.

  They believe it’s a sign of respect but frankly, I take it as an insult. Like they think I’m too dumb to realize that they’re only playing up to my ego, pandering to my long string of titles. I can’t understand what the hell they’re so afraid of.

  Never once have I ordered a beheading. Totally not my style.

  The formality, the decorum, the rules and regulations—they’re driving me bloody insane. I have a household staff catering to me hand and foot. I have a bevy of personal assistants and secretaries and guards planning my every breath, my every move, my every trip to the crapper. But not one of them ever sidles up to me and says, "Heya mate. How ya doing these days?" Not one of them notices me. Not one of them realizes that beneath my disarming smiles, my sarcastic one-liners and my blustering bravado, I’m drowning in a shallow pool. I have been for the past eleven years…ever since the accident. I need to breathe. I need a goddamn minute to come up for air. But every time I stick my nose above water, the weight of the crown I’m set to inherit drives me back under.

  Thankfully, I’m not next in line. My father is ahead of me to get a go at the Throne of Ridgeland. But according to Grandmum, the hip-hop dance lessons he’s been taking to keep up with Youthful Bride Number Three may kill him first. (My current stepmother used to be a choreographer for Jason Derulo, I’m told.)

  I’ve known all my life that I’d eventually rise to the throne. The duty owed to my people and to my ancestors has been malletted into my head from before I was even old enough to grasp what it all meant. But it was always sort of theoretical. Sort of like how the Earth could theoretically get hit by an asteroid or spin off its axis. Or how you could theoretically go blind from wanking off too much. But with the Queen’s health quickly worsening over the past few months, my place in line to the throne is not so theoretical anymore.

  Shit is getting real.

  I’m brutally honest with myself. I took a good, hard look at who I am and who the country needs me to be. The two don’t match up. To make things worse, Grandmum and I haven’t been seeing eye-to-eye lately. She finds me impulsive, unpredictable, unreliable. She’s intent on whipping me into shape before she kicks the proverbial bucket. Definitely not my idea of a good time.

  How do I deal with it all? I drink brandy. I drink all the brandy. Day drinking. Night drinking. Evening, weekend and especially bank holiday drinking.

  But this coping mechanism isn’t working so well these days. And I just want to run…So, I’ve decided, that’s exactly what I’ll do.

  My gaze moves back outside. The old lady disappears into the building and I back away from the window. My heart beats riotously. There’s a slight tremor to my hands.

  Am I doing the right thing?

  I know the answer to that question is irrelevant. The ‘right thing’ and the ‘necessary thing’ are starkly at odds in this situation. With my poor choices, I’ve painted myself into a corner. If I don’t take drastic measures, I’ll break. And then, what good will I be to anyone?

  Thomas’s head snaps up when there’s a knock at the door. I spring to my feet. “Enter.” My voice is firm, commanding, masking the fact that I’m about to shit a brick into the trousers of my bespoke suit.

  The door widens and Harold stands in the open doorway. “Your Highness, I present to you Missus—”

  I don’t have time for the formalities. Eager to get this plan in motion, I cut him off in a brisk tone. “Leave us.”

  Without a wrinkle in his expression, he takes a quick step backward into the hallway. The fact alone that he’s put up with my curtness all these years without kicking my regal behind makes him worthy of a medal. One sharp glance in Thomas’s direction and he’s scurrying out of the room, hot on Harold’s heels. The door closes with a soft thud.

  My attention turns to the woman. Her eyes shine with excitement. “Your Highness.” Bowing her hea
d, she bends her knees as low as her achy joints will take her which isn’t that low, truth be told. As she’s straightening up, she starts to tip over sort of like those famous fainting goats, except in slow motion.

  I rush to her side just in time to keep the old lass from face-planting. I gently escort her to one of the plush wing-backed chairs arranged across from my desk and she lowers herself carefully.

  “It’s almost too good to be true,” she gushes, her head snapping left to right as her keen stare eats up every inch of the room.

  The few people who gain the privilege of visiting my private offices here at Folkshire Palace are usually impressed. The room is spacious, furnished in the finest artwork and gilded porcelain with one-of-a-kind antique accents and furniture preserved over centuries.

  Very fancy for a prison.

  But I’m not here to be a tour guide. I’m ready to get down to business. I sink into the massive chair behind my desk, clearing my throat to get her attention. “Our arrangement stands unchanged?”

  “On my end, yes Sir.” Her eyes glimmer as they examine the gold-trimmed drapes hung from the high stone ceilings.

  “Good.”

  Then she looks at me, her brows lifting with worry. “Is there anything to sign? Like a non-disclosure agreement? Or a contract?”

  Ah, shit! In my haste to get this done with, I may have overlooked that tiny (read: huge) detail. So I improvise. “No, the Airbnb terms of service are quite sufficient.”

  Oh-no-he-didn’t, say you.

  Oh, yes I did.

  I swapped out my palace on Airbnb. My wing of it, at least. Don’t get your knickers all in a twist. I need a break, a self-imposed time-out. And while most in my position would probably book an all-inclusive resort somewhere in the Caribbean, to me, a holiday isn’t really a holiday when the overenthusiastic European paparazzi are perched in the coconut tree outside of your bedroom window, waiting to catch you in a compromising position with an attention-starved D-list celebrity.

  What I really need is simplicity, anonymity. Some time by my goddamned self. Without Thomas’s schedules and Yolanda’s propositions and the Queen’s expectations. That’s why I plan to disappear into a backwoods American town where no one will find me.

  My gut nudges me again. Am I doing the right thing? it insists. Hell if I know.

  I appraise the woman one more time. She looks harmless but you never know with people these days. I need some further assurances that she'll keep quiet about our arrangement. I stretch my little finger across the table to her. “Let’s throw in a pinkie swear for good measure.” I wink.

  Laughing, she locks her weathered little finger around mine, the promise thus sealed. “I won’t say a word, Your Highness. I swear.”

  I nod in acceptance.

  Lord Kent, the Palace barrister, would wring my neck if he could see me now.

  Her gaze peruses the antique portraits on the wall yet again. She smiles widely, her face pleating like sundried tomatoes on a crumpet as her eyes prance from wall to wall. “I just can’t believe I get all this…” Her voice trails off as she sweeps her stiff arm across the room, “in exchange for letting you stay at my apartment for ninety days.”

  “Everything is exactly as promised in the advert,” I tell her and I push a set of skeleton keys across the table toward her. The keys to the kingdom quite literally.

  She nods. “Of course.”

  I stand and check my watch. Enough chitchatting. It’s time for me to go. I whip my suit jacket from my shoulders, yank off my tie and haphazardly roll the sleeves of my Oxford shirt up to my elbows. “My secretary Thomas will take care of anything you need. He doesn’t know the details of our arrangement but don’t worry—I’ll text him from the car.”

  A look of caution comes across her face. “Won’t people ask questions? What if I get in trouble?” Her brows draw tightly together. “You should at least tweet the Queen from the airport.”

  I kick off my leather French loafers and slip my feet into the worn running shoes stashed beneath my desk. “Sounds like an idea.” I tell her with a smirk. God—I love Twitter. Concise, efficient, blunt. Gets the job done in 140-characters or less.

  Rushing over to the window, I flash the old lady a wink and throw one leg over the ledge. Ignoring the way her eyes widen with shock, I grip tight to the sturdy, sloped buttress on the exterior facade. She yelps as I loosen my grip and allow myself to slide down like a fireman. I’m about two floors up when I let go and drop hard into the bed of fragrant tulips in the gardens below. I have an Uber guy waiting in the wooded area a quarter mile off from the palace’s side entrance. My luggage is already in the trunk, as arranged. The man drives off like a bat out of hell the minute I close the car door.

  We make it to the airport before the palace security realizes I’m gone. A dashing smile here, a disarming compliment there, a flash of my passport and next thing you know, my royal butt is squeezed into the middle aisle of economy class. Nine hours later, the jet touches down and I’m elbowing my way through the sea of arriving passengers at Chicago O’Hare Airport.

  I accidentally wheel my luggage into a mother trying to herd her flock of reckless kiddies. Despite my apology, the woman bares her teeth at me and growls. “Watch where you’re going, fucker!” She thrusts her middle finger at me with crude abandon.

  I beam, my chest ready to explode with contentment. Oh sweet anonymity…

  Chapter One

  Sadie

  "Are you sure you want to do this?"

  Keeping my focus trained on the mirror, I jab determinedly at my blonde roots with the coarse bristles of the applicator brush. "Of course I want to do this," I say forcefully, tipsy bravado smothering the anxious coil taking root in my belly. "It's protocol."

  Natalie's voice comes through my speaker, crackling with a mix of skeptism and worry. "Protocol?" As per usual, my voice-of-reason best friend is trying to kill my vibe. But not tonight.

  Tonight, my unconquerable impulses and my shamelessly rash decisions shall reign supreme! I'm a woman scorned, after all.

  "Yes, protocol." I drop the brush into the bowl of hair color and swipe my coffee mug off the edge of the sink with a dignified flourish. "Post-breakup protocol." Bringing the cup to my mouth, I'm careful not to smudge the thick layer of hair removal cream sitting on my top lip. I swallow about a gallon of the extra-tart red wine in one gulp and cough, choking a little as it goes down.

  I can almost hear Natalie roll her eyes over the telephone line. I don't blame her. I am what experts refer to as 'full of shit'.

  Labelling tonight's mini-meltdown as post-breakup protocol is kind of misleading.

  Protocol. The word implies that the decision to submerge my blonde hair in a bottle of Permanent Purple #38770 dollar store hair dye might be reasonable, warranted, part of a well-thought-out plan based in logic...It’s not.

  The inevitable makeover that comes on the heels of a nasty breakup is a biological response. An unspoken law of nature. A woman's instinctive reaction to being shafted by the guy she was kinda/sorta starting to have feelings for.

  It's cathartic, it's freeing but it's also a rebellion of sorts. An I-Am-Woman-Hear-Me-Roar kind of thing. The practice dates back to the beginning of human civilization. I’m sure if we time travel back to the Stone Ages, we would find our jilted cavewoman ancestors grunting out the angsty lyrics to You Oughta Know while shaving their furry legs with sharpened rock fragments...Or something like that. What I'm doing—hair color and trim plus full-body depilation with mani-pedi before a wild night on the town—is really nothing all that original.

  Tell that to Natalie.

  "So you're just gonna cut off all your hair?" Her words are lilted with worry as they leave her lips.

  The flickering bathroom light catches the steel blade of the scissors on the grimy counter next to my phone. I haven't decided yet if I'm going with a pixie cut à la Cher circa 1984 or more of a Jake Gyllenhaal post-Brokeback Mountain crew cut. I guess it'll depend
on how far this bargain bin wine takes me.

  "Well, maybe not all of it." I pull a plastic shower cap over my head while my locks marinate in the cheap hair color.

  Nat goes quiet for a while. Horn-honking filters through the line along with the sound of her adorable little rugrat singing some Disney Network song from the back seat of the car as they navigate their way through late afternoon traffic. The ride from the city back to Copper Heights, the middle-of-nowhere town we call home, can be brutal sometimes.

  After a long pause, she asks the elephant-in-the-room question, "So what exactly happened with Cobi?"

  The sting of my ex's rejection is so sharp it feels like a physical wound in my chest, right beneath my ribcage where my ego lives. My shoulders slump as the pathetic confession starts pouring out. "We had movie plans. That indie movie I've been dying to see. He cancelled at the last minute because all of a sudden—" I draw air quotes "—his mom decided to host the church choir's weekly bible study at their house so she needed him to stick around and help make the finger food."

  "How convenient," Natalie mutters on a sarcastic chuckle.

  Pasting hair removal cream up and down my legs, I nod. "Yes, I just got cockblocked by a hoard of bible-toting grannies eating bite-sized egg salad sandwiches while they rediscover the Old Testament." On a woeful grunt, I dab a fat dollop of depilatory lotion along the stubborn hairs on my bikini line. "That was the last straw for me. He refuses to stand up to that woman while she deliberately tries to sabotage our relationship. He's never gonna grow his balls. And I'm sick of it!"

  "As you should be," she proclaims in solidarity.

  "I get it. I'm not the type of girl an overprotective mother would be thrilled to see with her precious, pampered man-child.” I wag the lotion tube angrily as I mouth off. “But twenty-five is well past the legal age so his mother's opinion shouldn't be the determining factor in whether we spend time together. I need a guy who's going to stand by his choice to be with me, regardless of what any third party has to say about it. A guy who'll encourage his family to get to know me beyond my tattoos and my grungy band T-shirts and my occasional failings at social etiquette. A guy who'll defend my honor instead of asking me to army crawl across the moonlit lawn and squeeze in through the doggie door so we can hook up in his childhood bedroom like hormonal teenagers." I'm breathless by the time I'm through ranting.