by Ana Ashley
How to Catch a Prince
Chester Falls Book 1
Ana Ashley
Contents
1. Kris
2. Charlie
3. Kris
4. Charlie
5. Kris
6. Charlie
7. Kris
8. Charlie
9. Kris
10. Charlie
11. Kris
12. Charlie
13. Kris
14. Charlie
15. Kris
16. Charlie
17. Kris
18. Charlie
19. Kris
20. Charlie
21. Kris
22. Charlie
23. Kris
24. Charlie
About Ana
Also Available
How to Catch a Prince - Chester Falls Book 1
© 2019 by Ana Ashley
First Edition: December 2019
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopy, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
How to Catch a Prince is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover design: Rhys, Ethereal Ealeain
Editor: Victoria Milne
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To everyone that has been on the other end of me moaning, crying, despairing, laughing, hoping, working, dreaming.
To those close friends… cough… Rhys… who have been there for the above and more.
Your friendship and support means more than you’ll ever know.
Ana
x
1
Kris
I paced the length of the music room, my dress shoes making far too much noise on the wooden floor. The faces of my ancestors looked down at me from their portraits.
I admired the image of my paternal grandfather. I'd been told I looked just like him ever since I'd learned to recognize his face from the dozens lining the room, but he'd been a ruler, a king, something I hopefully would never be.
This room was my favorite, as it had been his. The grand piano, positioned so I could look out into the grounds of the palace when I played, was my escape from the expectations that came with being second in line for the throne of one of Europe's smallest, but richest, monarchies.
The door on the far side of the room opened. I didn't have to turn around to know who was coming in. The familiar click-clack of my older sister's heels gave it away. "Kristof, what have you done this time?"
At only five foot five and with the skin and face of a porcelain doll, Aleksandra looked delicate, almost breakable. She was often underestimated, a mistake many had made, because once Aleksandra spoke, anyone in her presence would not dare doubt why she would one day be the reigning queen of Lydovia, a small European country sandwiched between Greece and Bulgaria.
"Would you believe me if I said it wasn't me?"
Aleksandra gave me a poised stare and sat down graciously on one of the sofas adorning the room.
"Kris," she said, her voice softening, bringing back the sister I'd been so close to growing up we may as well have been twins. "I've seen the papers, so I know what the press thinks. Why don't you tell me what really happened?"
"I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of in my twenty-nine years, but you know I've never done drugs." In fact, I rarely did any of the things I was accused of doing by the press.
"Sergei?" Aleks asked.
"What do you think?"
"I'm going to fucking kill him."
I laughed at my sister's outburst. I sat next to her on the sofa and pulled her into my arms. The moments when we could be just brother and sister and talk with no one listening were becoming rarer since our father had expressed his wish to abdicate the throne as soon as Aleksandra married.
"I'm going to miss this, big sis."
"Me too, Brat. Me too." She sighed. Aleks calling me by my childhood nickname made me feel at home like few things did these days.
Despite Lydovia's geographical position, it had adopted English as the official language more than a century ago when a Lydovian princess married into the British royal family.
Most Lydovians were also fluent in Greek and Bulgarian. As a child, Aleks had adopted the Bulgarian word for brother, brat, as my nickname because she thought it was funny, and it had stuck.
"How's Phillip?" I asked.
Aleks's expression softened even further at the mention of her husband-to-be. "Do you remember when we were twelve and ran away because we didn't want to be royal anymore?"
I laughed because I did remember. Phillip was the son of distant cousins who, although not in direct line to the throne, were close to the king and queen. Sergei, on the other hand, was the son of our nanny. We'd all grown up together, running around the grounds of the palace like it was our own playground. For Aleks and I, the palace was more like a prison, and we'd desperately wanted to know what it was like on the other side of the walls. We'd wanted unsupervised access to the people of our country, so at Aleks's demand, we'd decided to run away and had nearly gone through with it until Phillip had intervened.
"He was looking out for you even then." My chest tightened. I wanted to make my father and our people proud. I also wanted to find the one person that could be to me what Phillip was to Aleks, the matching half of my heart that would stop me from jumping the wall.
The problem was that my best-friend-turned-boyfriend, well, ex-boyfriend, was causing all sorts of trouble.
"Why is Sergei doing this?" Aleks asked.
"He's hurt since we broke up last month."
Aleksandra got up from the sofa and walked toward the door leading to the terrace and the gardens beyond.
"Come for a walk with me," she said.
The snow-capped mountains in the distance were in contrast to the bright wildflowers and green grass of the palace gardens. Two opposites that were in perfect harmony. I often felt I was like the mountains and the flowers, winter and spring. But unlike the landscape of my country, I hadn't yet found that same synergy between the prince and the man.
Aleks wrapped her arm around me as we walked side by side toward the lake at the bottom of the gardens. I respected and admired my sister more than anyone else in the world, our father included. That said a lot because I'd always had a great relationship with the king, especially after my mother had passed away due to an undiagnosed heart condition when we were still children.
"You know this can't carry on, Kris. I know you prefer to keep your work to yourself, but you need to give the press something positive to talk about."
I sighed. I knew my sister was right. The reason I'd resisted so far was because the people I helped didn't deserve to be brought into the ugly limelight of click-bait journalism.
No one wanted to know that Prince Kristof of Lydovia worked as a business consultant for a number of charities to make sure they were able to continue helping people. No one wanted to know how many hours I spent with kids on the soccer fields, training them and patching up those bruised knees and egos.
I knew the press would twist it and find some way to turn my uninteresting desk job into a sensationalist headline.
"These are people's lives we're talking about,
Aleks. I will speak to Sergei."
"This isn't just about Sergei, and you know it. We didn't choose to be in the position we're in. We were born into it, which comes with a lot of privilege but also with a reality most people never have to face."
"I'm sorry. I know this isn't easy on you, either. I'll do better, and I'll sort things out with Sergei, okay?"
I gave my sister a kiss and held her in a tight hug. "You're going to be a great queen."
"Damn right I am."
We both laughed, but I didn't miss how Aleks's posture changed. I knew what that meant, but there was nothing I would refuse my sister, so I prepared myself for the incoming request.
"I need you to attend the president's annual ball in Washington."
I stared at Aleks, trying to see if she was playing a joke on me. It wasn't her style, but then again, I knew she was quite annoyed that my name was once again in the press for the wrong reasons.
Her expression remained unchanged. No, not unchanged. She'd put on her "I'm talking to you as future queen" face.
It had been four years since Lydovia had had any kind of representation from the royal family at the President of the United States' annual ball. Of course, since the newly elected president had reintroduced more inclusive laws and was openly supportive of LGBTQ people, sending a representative from our country was a show of alliance and would re-establish the good relationship we'd always had with the country.
"Why me?" It didn't make sense that Aleks or our father would want me to go, considering the press kept asking for a statement on what had happened at the club. I took a step toward a statue that faced the small lake and leaned against it, facing away from my sister.
"See it as an opportunity to show our people that you can be a good representative of the royal family."
"I am a good representative of the royal family, Aleks. Do you not see all the work…" I ran my fingers through my hair, hoping the move would help calm me down.
"Brat."
I knew it was pointless arguing with Aleks, so I accepted my fate.
"I'd be happy to attend the ball," I said.
Aleks nodded, a tight smile arising as she started walking toward the palace.
"What else is there?" I saw the apology in her eyes and moved to fall into step with her. "Are you going to ask me to also go into hiding until this press thing goes away before I attend the ball? You know I don't have the hair to pull off a good Rapunzel."
She gazed down for a brief moment as if she was searching for the right thing to say.
"Are you serious?"
"We need to manage this, and I think it would be good if your name wasn't printed on the headline of every newspaper for a while." Aleks took a deep breath and clasped her hands. "Why don't you fly to the States and stay somewhere discreet until the ball? Use that time to think about what you want to do when you come back."
It wasn't a request, and I knew it, but maybe it was just what I needed.
"I suppose I need to speak to the king about this," I said with resignation.
"He wasn't the one who called you here today. I was."
I shouldn't have been surprised that once again my sister had come to my rescue, and like a true leader, she'd known exactly how to exercise her power. I knew the same conversation with the king would have resulted in a different outcome, one less pleasant than spending a few weeks in some American hideaway where no one would know who I was.
"Oh, and you should speak to Mimi," Aleks said, a small smile gracing her lips.
"She's here?"
I didn't wait for an answer before running back up the steps to the terrace in search of the woman who'd been there for me since I was born and whose arms I'd cried into when I'd lost my mother.
As I turned into the main corridor leading to a number of function rooms, I walked past a very irritated head chef, which meant only one thing, Mimi was in the kitchen. During the time Mimi had lived at the palace, her place to relax and wind down had been the kitchen. She'd loved to cook, bake, and create almost as much as she'd loved her job as the royal nanny.
"Mimi?" I called from the kitchen door, reluctant to go all the way in.
"In here, darling." She was halfway inside a cupboard, no doubt looking for the only cake tin that would yield the perfect cake or something equally as ridiculous.
"You know we have people that can do that for you."
Her head came out from inside the cupboard so quickly I wondered how she hadn't bumped her head.
"Kristof Ivan Maxim, have you learned nothing from me?"
"′God gave me two perfect hands. I can use them as well as the next person.′" I repeated the lesson my nanny had drilled into me since I was a child so I wouldn't forget that the title was an addition to the person and not the other way around.
"Can I give my nanny a hug?" I said, pulling her up by her hand and lifting her in a hug that raised her feet off the floor.
As soon as I put Mimi down, she scanned me from top to bottom before she took a deep breath. I held her hand up to my lips, placed a soft kiss, and guided her to the table where there was a fresh pot of coffee and china laid out on a tray. No doubt the chef had been in the process of preparing the king's afternoon coffee before Mimi had unceremoniously kicked him out of his kitchen. That meant our time alone would come to an end shortly.
"Kristof," she said, her voice full of worry, "the papers are saying horrendous things about you and Sergei. Is it true?"
"Sergei and I broke up last month. I haven't seen him since. I guess this is his way of showing he's hurting, or that he's really angry with me."
Mimi looked surprised. "Why did you break up? You've been together since you were teenagers."
I took a deep breath. "I love him, he was…is my best friend. But I am not in love with him."
If I was honest, I'd say I hadn't been in love with Sergei for a while. Sergei had been my best friend for as long as I could remember. We'd been each other's first kiss at the tender age of fourteen, followed by all the other firsts. In the safety of the palace and away from the eyes of the press, we'd explored our sexuality, fallen in love, and grown into the men we were today.
Even when Sergei had left to start his career in the royal army, we'd managed to stay together. At the time, I'd hoped Sergei would move into the palace permanently in-between the times he needed to be abroad serving in the name of our king.
Sergei was the safe option. He'd been around the royal family long enough to know the protocol. He would fill the shoes of the royal prince's husband perfectly, and that was the problem.
In the last year, the thrill I'd felt being with Sergei when we were young wasn't there anymore, and, quite selfishly, I wanted more. I wanted the love I'd seen between my parents, the love I saw between my sister and Phillip. All-consuming, never fading, once-in-a-lifetime kind of love.
I took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. "I'm going to be away for a while. I need to speak to Sergei, but he's not answering my calls."
Mimi looked sad but resigned.
"I will see what I can do, my dear."
"Thank you, Mimi."
I looked at my beloved nanny. She'd never taken sides between me and Sergei. Not that I'd blame her if she did, after all, Sergei was her son and only blood relative. A pang of sadness hit me.
2
Charlie
I looked at my wristwatch and sighed. It was nearly six o'clock. I should have finished my shift at four.
The mild weather always increased footfall in the menswear department at Clarence's, but in the last few weeks, it seemed every man in the city had run out of clothes. Which was why I'd stayed on to help my team with a delivery that had arrived later than expected.
Another hour of checking emails and speaking to some of the team, and I'd finally be able to head home to pack for my week-long vacation.
I'd been looking forward to my sister Hannah's wedding since she'd announced the engagement to her girlfriend, Ellie.
&nbs
p; I hadn't had proper time off from work in months, so the wedding, apart from giving me the rare opportunity to spend some quality time with my family, was also a much-needed break.
"Charlie, can I have a word?" my manager, Frasier, asked, walking into the stockroom.
"Sure."
"Holly in Fragrances called in sick. She's going to be off for a week. Would you be able to come in this weekend to cover her department?"
I tried to keep my face neutral, which was a miracle of nature considering inside my blood was boiling. Not only had I overheard a conversation between Holly and a colleague about calling in sick to go to Cape Cod with her boyfriend but my vacation had been booked for months, for goodness sake.
"I'm afraid I can't, Frasier. It's my sister's wedding, so I'm going to be off for the next week."
Frasier's eyes bulged. "Who authorized this vacation?"
"You did. Months ago."
I enjoyed working with Frasier when it was us against the world on the store floor, serving customers and managing the team. But when Frasier went into manager mode, he was a downright jerk, no two ways about it.
"Do you need a whole week? Isn't the wedding just a day?"
"Well, yes, but…" I tried to remember if the train ticket I'd booked could be amended. I hated the pressure to say yes all the time, and sometimes it felt that I did it a lot more than any of my other colleagues who seemed to be picked for certain projects or for promotion.
"I'll check if I can change my train ticket." I relented. "I may be able to come back a few days earlier." I hated seeing the small smirk of victory on Frasier's lips.