“Just tell me, did you sell the photo?” she asked.
“Of course not!” He raised his voice. “Besides the fact that you’re neglecting one little thing: you were the one asking me to leave the ball. That was your decision, Duchess. So how does that fit into your idea that I planned it all?”
“That doesn’t mean you couldn’t have capitalized on my stupidity. That you weren’t lying in wait for the right moment.”
He threw up his hands. “So you’ve already convicted me? No matter what I say, I concocted this elaborate plan, is that it?” Anger coursed through him, and he had to restrain himself from punching a hole in the wall. He could still hear the paps talking outside, and he wished suddenly he could go out there and pummel each one. “You’re not even going to give me a chance, are you?”
Arabella sighed quietly. “You have the most to gain here, Kyle. I don’t want to believe it, but I’ve been foolish enough already. I can’t be foolish enough not to believe what’s right in front of me.”
He was losing her—or maybe he’d already lost her. Either way, it made his heart break in two. What happened to the woman who’d looked at him with adoration? The one who’d treated him, not like some great football star, but as a regular guy?
“Look, Princess Arabella,” he snarled. “I may not be some nose-in-the-air royal, but I’m hardly a nobody, either. I make plenty of my own money, and the last thing I need in my life is a woman creating drama over nothing. Believe what you want, but I’ll tell you this: I didn’t sell you out. I don’t want your money. And if you refuse to believe that? That’s on you. But don’t come crying to me when you end up shackled to some boring aristocrat all because you were too scared to believe in what we have.” He rubbed his lower jaw and caught his breath.
Defend himself was all he could do.
Red spots had formed on Arabella’s cheeks, and she clenched her fists at her sides. When the newscaster once again began broadcasting about the royal scandal, she picked up the remote and threw it at the TV. It bounced against the wall, as batteries popped out and rolled across the carpet.
“I’m not scared,” she hissed. “I’m merely seeing the light for the first time. My mother warned me about you, but I was too stupid to see what was happening.” Tears fell from her eyes, and Kyle didn’t know whether to take her into his arms or walk out the door. Her mind was made up about him anyway. “I was so stupid! So stupid to think it was real. So stupid to think that I’d fallen in love with you.”
Love? She’d fallen in love with him? He’d had plenty of women tell him they loved him—whether it was true or not—but hearing it from Arabella? It felt like a dream come true, except it was a hair too late. A dream that had shattered into a million sharp pieces, cutting and scraping against his skin.
I love you, too, he thought, heart cracking. But it doesn’t matter now, does it?
“I have to go,” she said suddenly, standing up and grabbing her evening gown, stuffing it into her purse without thinking. She slid into her shoes with jerky movements and almost left her phone on the nightstand before Kyle handed it to her.
He couldn’t just stand there, could he? Like a guilty villain who’d used her for his own gain, as he did and said nothing more? Was he going to let the woman he loved get away because of her mother? He grabbed her elbow. “Are you really going to run away again, Arabella?”
She paused, chest heaving, neck tense, and shoulders tenser. “I’m not running away,” she said quietly.
“Are you sure? Because that’s what it looks like to me.”
“It doesn’t matter what it looks like. I’m not running away. I’m trying to undo a huge mistake.” Her voice was choked, and she swiped at her wet cheeks.
“Oh, so that’s what we are now? A mistake? You fell in love with me, your mom makes an accusation when she has everything to gain by you returning home, and it’s all a big mistake?” He scoffed. “You’re right—you are gullible.”
He wanted her to deny it. He wanted her to fight for them. He wanted her to believe him.
Arabella’s shoulders shrugged, as she ignored the jab. “I thought you were a dream come true, and I trusted in you. But today, you broke that trust. Dreams are for silly children, and I can’t be a child anymore. I have to grow up and take on the duty that I was born to have. Goodbye, Kyle.”
Maybe it was a desperate, stupid move, but before he could think about it, Kyle reached her and pulled her into his arms, kissing her. It was wild and messy and pleading—how can this be a mistake?—and he wasn’t sure if the tears were hers or his or both, but if it was his last kiss to her, he wanted to taste it, absorb it, and internalize it forever.
At first she gave into it, then pulled away. “Please don’t do this.” She pressed her forehead to his chest, clenching his shirt in her small fists.
“I know you don’t want to leave. I know you think your parents and your kingdom are right about me, and you’re right to feel scared. I get it. But I’m a good man, Duchess, and you don’t run away from a good man without living to regret it.”
When she didn’t move, he thought he’d gotten through to her. But then she stepped away, no more tears falling from her eyes. “I’m sorry, Kyle.” She picked up her phone which had begun ringing. “Hi, Royce. Yes, it’s me. Please come pick me up at the Swan Inn. Yes, I understand. Goodbye.”
She took one last look at Kyle—gorgeous emerald eyes filled with pain—then walked away, and he could only stand there and let her go. Listen to her shut the door and walk down the steps, the paparazzi outside swarming around her. And then he heard a car drive up, quicker than he thought possible. Only then did Kyle jolt from his stupor to run after her.
“Arabella!” he called, bursting out of the room, running downstairs through the inn’s front door where the paparazzi were already converging around the princess’s getaway car. “Arabella, don’t go!”
The photogs buzzed with excitement at this development, and Arabella, poking her head out the back door, looked at him and shook her head. He didn’t care. He didn’t care about the photos and the news stories, and he sure as hell didn’t care about her becoming some martyr to a family who didn’t care about her happiness.
Kyle sprinted for the car, pushing past the bustling reporters, but just as he was about to reach for her through the open car door, a beefy hand shot out and stopped him. “Do not touch Her Royal Highness,” Royce growled, his eyes two burning coals. “She’s going home to the palace, and you will not stop her.”
“Fuck off, asshole.” Kyle pushed the guy with enough force to set him off balance. The paparazzi’s cameras flashed in a dizzying array of lights, blinding him for a moment.
“Kyle, please!” Arabella called. “Please don’t do this. You’ll just make a fool of yourself.”
He finally caught hold of her hands and pulled her out, and they stood against the car. “Run away with me. You asked me to go with you before, and now it’s me asking. Do the same. For me. Don’t leave, Duchess. I’m not lying to you.”
She dropped her head and began crying in earnest. Covering her face with her hands, she shook her head. “Oh, Kyle, don’t make this difficult. I…”
Kyle felt a hand at his collar, and he was yanked backward. Royce cleared a spot outside the circle of media and subsequently punched him in the jaw. Down like a tree, Kyle’s head rang, and he heard Royce say, “Touch her again and you’ll pay. Get the hell out of here, Young.”
The flashes of professional cameras sparked all around him, as voices yelled and shouted, and then the town car sped off just as Kyle managed to get back on his feet. He was going to have a huge shiner on his jaw, but he hardly felt the pain. He didn’t care about a sucker punch, he just couldn’t let his girl get away.
“Mr. Young, Mr. Young, a statement! What happened here? Has your affair with the Princess Arabella ended?”
The paparazzi swarmed like locusts, and all he could do was push their cameras and microphones out of the way. He mutter
ed “No comment” underneath his breath and stormed back to the inn. He’d worked with the media for years now and knew damn well that the best answer was no answer when journalists were out for blood.
“Mr. Young! Mr. Young!” they called, as he slammed the front door in their faces, bolting it from the inside and giving the inn manager a sharp look. “Don’t open that door.” Going up to the room he’d shared with Arabella, he sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall. What the fuck do I do now? Would Coach bench him after hearing the news? Would he be charged with kidnapping a princess?
What would make him act this crazy, make him risk his career in this way, but love? Crazy-ass, talked-about love. Now he understood what people everywhere, especially Heath, were always going on about. He was in love with Princess Arabella of Salasia, the woman who’d disappeared from under his nose and returned to the palace.
“Fuck.” Kyle pulled a bottle of whiskey from the bar in the room and poured himself a shot, then another, and then another, until he couldn’t think about it anymore.
Chapter 15
As the days passed, Arabella barely registered what happened around her. The scandal of her and Kyle Young raged on, as news outlets and paparazzi and journalists continued to circle the palace, waiting for an opportune moment to catch her unawares and snap a photo of the dejected princess. The bloodthirsty way with which the Salasian media focused on her running away disgusted her. Did Salasia love the royal family’s scandals more than they did the royal family?
Every day, she read a different description of herself in the media. She was a hopeless romantic one day, a sex-crazed whore the next, an opportunistic fame seeker, a pregnant and desperate girlfriend, and best of all—an insane princess who should be locked up in her tower for her own good like Rapunzel.
Really—Rapunzel? Was that the best the media could do?
Everything was brutal and patently untrue, but Arabella didn’t have the energy to dispute it. Her family kept her under house arrest, not allowing her to leave the palace unless she took not only Royce but three other bodyguards, who watched her every move and essentially made her a prisoner.
A prisoner in her own palace.
None of it mattered. She and Kyle were over. What she thought was the greatest love of her life had been a lie the entire time. Kyle had sold her out for money. Mother had shown her the evidence, gleeful in her vindication, the moment she’d arrived home. “I told you he was no good!” Mother had flailed in triumph. “And here is the proof!”
Arabella had felt no vindication, and certainly no glee. Simply sadness and endless desolation. It would have been one thing had they broken up because they were incompatible, but for it all to end because of Kyle’s betrayal? Had his kisses and words and touches all been lies? Had he played her the entire time? Maybe he’d known she was a princess from the first moment he spoke to her at the stadium.
Then again, maybe it was better to be finding this all out now instead of in the future, had they ever become a public couple. Yes, she thought, better now than later.
She floated about the palace like a ghost, haunting its corridors and making her mother even angrier than usual. Move on, get over it, what are you crying for were just some of the things she heard on a daily basis. But her broken heart couldn’t move on, because she’d loved a man who hadn’t even respected her. She’d trusted a man with her heart and soul, and he’d promptly stomped all over it without a thought.
She hadn’t heard from Kyle. Not one message.
Radio silence. She’d glanced at the American news stories, but although they’d touched on the scandal, they’d gotten bored quickly and had moved on. “Boys will be boys” was the general tone of any story about Kyle Young, and if Arabella weren’t so emotionally exhausted, she’d be livid over the double standard.
The worst double standard, however, had come from her own mother. Elisabetta had been particularly harsh, treating her daughter with a coldness and disdain that Arabella hadn’t seen even when her brother Louis had had his scandal. She’d called Arabella every name in the book, accusing her of ruining them and playing the whore, to which Arabella finally lashed out and told her mother to go to hell. The two were now locked in an icy silence, neither of them willing to break the wall they’d erected between them.
It was a week after the ball, and Arabella was in the sitting room bored to death of her tablet and the news stories when a visitor was announced. But why would there be? She was basically an inmate without privileges. Then, she saw who it was. “Count Frederic to see Her Royal Highness,” her footman intoned with as much enthusiasm as a wet blanket.
Ugh, this would be the first time she’d seen him since the ball. “Thank you, Barton. You may close the door.” Arabella motioned for Frederic to come in, and he subsequently sat down in a plush, velvet chair across from her, looking both tired and concerned.
“How are you, my dear?” He was about to reach for her hand, but then seemed to think better of it. His usually neatly combed hair was rumpled, and his trousers for the first time ever weren’t perfectly pressed.
She was instantly concerned. “I’m well enough. How are you?”
He smiled lightly. “I’m fine, but I’m not here to talk about me. I wanted to make sure you were all right. After…everything.”
Her stomach clenched. She and Frederic hadn’t been engaged, but she’d still felt a measure of guilt for making him an unwitting part of her scandal with Kyle. He may not have been the man for her, but he was still a good person. Once home in the palace, she’d written to him apologizing, but he’d replied saying there was nothing to forgive.
Arabella bit back tears. “Let me again apologize for what happened that night and for dragging you into all of this. I never meant to hurt anyone, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t cause many people a lot of pain.”
“Arabella.” He took her hand gently. “I told you, there’s nothing to forgive. We were never engaged, and in all fairness, I never asked you how you felt about being with me. Besides, the moment I saw you with…well, him, I knew I stood no chance. The last thing I’d want is to marry a woman who was in love with someone else.”
Tears finally fell then. “Oh, Frederic, everything is such a disaster. I thought I loved him, but he never loved me. I was such a fool.”
“Because he sold those photos to the media?”
She flinched, then nodded. “I thought he cared about me. I thought what we had was real, but…” She pulled her hand away. “Obviously, he thought otherwise.”
Frederic pursed his lips, then opened his mouth to speak. Then, he shut it. Then, he opened it again. Reconsidering his words, he said, “And you know he betrayed you because…of something your mother said?”
Arabella caught his heavy underlying meaning. “Yes, she broke the news to me,” she replied. “I realize she had cause to fabricate something like that, but the evidence was enough to convince me.”
“Are you absolutely certain it was Kyle Young, then, who sold the photos? A hundred percent completely certain? Because, I must tell you, I have been gathering information on my own, and I believe that you may have been led to believe it was Kyle when, in fact, he may have had nothing to do with it.”
Her heart stopped. She couldn’t allow herself to hope that Kyle was innocent. She’d already gone down that road and gotten off of it ten times already. None of it could erase seeing the actual check written out to him in his name, she’d seen the emails from the online magazine, everything.
“What do you mean?” She sounded brittle and exhausted, even to her own ears.
“Simply that your mother may have misconstrued the evidence to fit what she wanted. That’s all.”
“Frederic, my mother’s many things, but she’s not a liar.” Even as she said it, she wondered if she’d misjudged her mother all along.
Frederic stared at her, as if hoping she’d hear the unspoken words between them. His coming here and speaking about the Queen in such a way was liable
to get him in a large amount of trouble, not to mention the loss of respect of the entire court, and she was immensely grateful for him for doing so. Even if Frederic were incorrect, she felt how much he cared about her to tell her these things. “My dear, I care about you very much. You must know that.”
“Frederic, I don’t know if what you say is true,” she replied slowly, “but you’ve given me much to think about. I’ll look further into the evidence presented to me. I’d hate to have accused a truly innocent man.”
Frederic looked relieved and happy and sad for them all at once. “I’ll say this: no man who looked at you the way Kyle Young looked at you would ever betray you. No man. I hope you find the answers you seek, Arabella.”
“Thank you. Thank you for coming here.” She smiled. “Now, may I at least get you some tea? A jug of whisky? Absinthe?” She laughed. “Goodness, I can’t imagine this was a conversation you were looking forward to.”
Thankfully, he laughed as well. “No, it really wasn’t, but I want you to be happy, and the thought of you believing the worst about a man you love weighed on my conscience very heavily.”
“Well, I can say this: I didn’t deserve you. I hope you can find a woman who does.”
A flush crept up Frederic’s cheeks, and he coughed into his fist. “You flatter me, dear. But I’m certain you would’ve done the same for me, as we’ve long been friends.”
Arabella’s broken heart began to heal a little at those words. Having at least one person on her side made her feel less alone and adrift. No one in her family had tried to understand why she’d behaved the way she had—her brother had called but was still far away from Salasia—but Frederic’s support meant everything to her.
She rang the bell for tea. If Frederic noticed her wiping away stray tears, he was too much of a gentleman to say so.
Chapter 16
Kyle’s head began hurting before his old man even opened the door to his trailer.
Going Deep Boxed Set (Books 1-4) Page 29