Royce: An Enemies to Lovers Romance

by Skye Darrel

  “How much? In dollars.”

  The doctor shrugs. “Nine or ten.”

  “Million?”

  “Nine or ten figures. It can’t be done. No one would fund such an endeavor.”

  “I would. And I can.”

  Reijonen mutters under his breath. “I suspected you were either extremely rich or extremely crazy. Or both.”

  I won’t be rich for much longer. And if I am crazy, it’s for a good cause.

  April looks my way, and I take her hand in mine.

  NIGHT HAS FALLEN by the time we return to our hotel in Solmark. Lars Reijonen agreed to help. He’ll be traveling to the States as soon as he can. I haven’t considered the details yet—my habit is to leave details for my assistant, but I don’t have an assistant anymore.

  I’ll figure out a way to make this work.

  Meanwhile, April and I will be flying back home tomorrow evening.

  We snuggle in bed under the covers.

  “Lars could’ve shot you,” she whispers.

  I comb my fingers through her hair, unruly and long. “But he didn't. Lars Reijonen and I have something in common. He loved his wife like I love you.”

  April doesn’t answer.

  We both know the road ahead won’t be easy. Even if Dr. Reijonen succeeds in recreating his treatment, there’s no guarantee it will work. The farthest he had gotten with a cure was in mice, and as April told me once, she’s no mouse.

  Chapter Nineteen

  APRIL

  It’s been more than two months since we came back from Norway.

  I’m standing in our new apartment fifteen minutes away from my parents’ house. The place is a downgrade from Everett’s penthouse and has no pool or terrace, but I like it way more because it’s ours, a nest we built. That means more to me than a thousand terrace pools.

  I look out the windows, watching the first snow of December blanket the parking lot below in white. When you’re not in the cold, snow always looks beautiful.

  Everett walks up behind me, his naked body warm and hard against mine. Gentle hands brush down my arms as his familiar scent calms my nerves. “You okay?” he says, nuzzling my neck.

  He means if my symptoms are acting up this morning. I’ve been having trouble standing longer than thirty minutes. I’m getting weaker, and I know it. Not that I mind lying down at home, because Everett is always there.

  “I’m fine.” There aren’t many times when I mean those words, but this is one of them. I touch his hand on my shoulder. “Fine.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yes. Watching the snow.”

  “Exciting.”

  “Don't tease,” I say.

  “Not teasing. I’ll watch with you.”

  We moved in together at the end of October, a week after my birthday. Everett put an engagement ring on my finger after my parents agreed to it. Mom flipped out and cried with joy and hugged me for an hour while Dad gave me this long, steady look with a faint smile. Everett promised them he wouldn’t disappoint. I don’t think he could if he tried. His mom, Portia, also supported us. She's a nice lady, and we get along well when she visits.

  Everett’s dad no longer speaks with him.

  I feel guilty because his family split apart over me, but Everett tells me every day it’s not my fault. The split happened long before we met. What happened had to happen.

  He thinks it’s fate. We were always meant to be together.

  Dr. Reijonen set up a special lab at St. Jude Children’s Hospital to develop his ALS treatment, which is designed for me alone. Naomi Dixon and the hospital’s leadership were more than willing to help. But money is tight. With Everett cut off from Royce Innovations, he pays for everything out of his own pocket.

  I’m bleeding him dry. I know it. But he always tells me not to worry about money.

  I think he’s pretty much exhausted his personal wealth. He joked the other day he could always sell the Audi. My parents help out with the cost, but they’re only regular people. Their savings dried up long ago.

  Sometimes I wonder what I’ve done to deserve it all. How much good would that money do if we applied it to anything else? I mean, when something bad happens, people always ask what they’ve done to deserve the bad. But what have we done to deserve the good?

  What have I done? I helped Yvonne, yeah, but she’s one kid, and the price tag of my treatments now could probably save a thousand kids. Or build another hospital even. I’m starting to understand Everett’s fondness for statistics all those months ago.

  He doesn’t care about statistics anymore.

  “Nothing else is you,” he told me.

  I worry what he’ll do if the treatment fails. I’m worried he’ll end up like Dr. Reijonen did, living in the wilderness somewhere trapped in the past.

  One night in bed, I put my head on his chest. “If I don’t make it, you’ll go on, right? I mean, you won’t do anything crazy.”

  “Crazy?”

  “Yeah, like live in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a cat.”

  “Nah. Achilles prefers cities. I’ll live in the middle of nowhere with a dog.”

  “I’m serious.”

  He responded how he always does when I press him about the future. He held me close and kissed my mouth and he made love like it was our first time. Every time feels like our first time now.

  During the fall, we spent every hour we could together.

  Days and nights.

  Playing house, acting like we were married. We spent more time in our bedroom than anywhere else. He could read my moods, and I could read his. We made love. Some days, it was slow and sensual, our bodies melting against each other, my knees tucked high around his waist. Lips entwined.

  Other days, it was frantic and rough. He’d put me on my belly or pin me against a wall. He’d wrap his hand around my neck or hair, his cock a piston in my body, owning me, marking me, his hips slapping on my rear. We’d bend together then, locked in writhing pleasure so intense it was agony.

  “Mine,” he’d growl. “Mine.”

  I’d scream out my climax as he claimed me anew.

  He could never get enough.

  On the last day of November, I paid a visit to St. Jude because Yvonne’s scans showed her to be cancer-free. We had a small party at the hospital. It was a happy day.

  But I got stuck in traffic on the drive home, and the battery on my phone ran out.

  Everett was angry when I walked in the door at eight. He had made dinner for us, and it was cold on the table. We ate in silence. Everett glared me at the whole time as if I'd done something wrong.

  He’d been so possessive lately, always worried if I so much as I walk out the door without a coat on. It made me mad and more than a little hot.

  He wouldn’t stop glaring.

  “I just went to the hospital,” I said. “What’s the big deal?”

  “You could’ve told me before you left. You worried me sick.” Everett had always told me not to worry about anything, and now here he was, worrying.

  “You were at work.”

  “I would’ve taken time off to go with you,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes. “That wasn’t necessary.”

  His jaw popped at the corners. “You could’ve gotten hurt. You could’ve stumbled or tripped, it’s happened once before. And your symptoms are worse now.”

  “Gee, thanks for reminding me.”

  My tall, strong, handsome man got up and walked around the table, kneeling at my feet, his black hair tousled back in a sexy mess. He put his hand on my thigh. “Next time you go somewhere, tell me and I’ll take you.”

  “You don’t own me,” I said.

  “I own you,” he growled, “because you own me. I’m your slave and you’re mine.”

  My face flushed as pulses shot through my body. “I can’t believe you said that.”

  He swept me into his arms and carried me to our bedroom. He set me down on the sheets, gentle as a feather. “Take off your clothes,
Princess. Show me what's mine.”

  “You first,” I snapped.

  And he did.

  He unbuttoned his shirt and stepped out of his pants. He yanked off his briefs and everything else. One moment he stared at me like I was a plaything, his and his alone. The next he bowed his head, offering himself like a servant to his queen.

  Everett was perfect.

  He belonged to me, and I belonged to him. My eyes swept over his sculpted physique, those hard abs packed in so tight, the long veined cock so thick between his muscled thighs.

  My lower lip was a chew toy. My face on fire. I squeezed the knob of his erection while my belly melted. I stroked his shaft, the skin soft like velvet but iron hard beneath, throbbing with his heartbeat. The manly musk of his cum wafted into my nose.

  His hands opened and closed at his sides.

  I looked up through my lashes, my fingers playing over the ridge of his cock head. “This is mine?”

  “Yes. Show me what’s mine.”

  And I did, peeling off my clothes until I was bared to him. He towered over me, and his body flexed with tension.

  I looked at him again and opened my legs. “I’m yours.”

  Everett unleashed himself.

  He lifted me by the hips and sat me on his hard cock. I wrapped my legs around him, bouncing and clenching as he thrust. My body sang. Before I could cum, he dragged me down onto the bed. Face to face, he spread me wide open, and his cock hit a spot deep inside me that took my voice away, the silence lasting no more than an instant. My cries bounced off the walls as I came.

  Then he put me on all fours and thrust into my pussy from behind.

  My breasts swung to the force of his body until he latched onto them, squeezing roughly. His hips clapped against my ass, and his mouth found the tip of my ear.

  “I own your pussy.” He reached under to strum my swollen clit. “I own this little clit. I own every part of you.”

  I slammed back to meet his thrusts. “Yes.”

  We groaned and gasped and panted. He shot his seed inside me even though we both knew he shouldn't. We stopped caring. He kept pumping me, fucking through my orgasm and his, both his hands now clutching my hips as his balls slapped my aching clit with every plunge.

  When I came again, drenched in sweat, I pulled away.

  I made him sit back on his heels while I played with his cock, massaging his balls, forbidding him to cum, and Everett obeyed my every word, his swollen length soapy with our juices.

  “Tongue,” I said. “Down there.”

  I lay back down and opened my legs.

  Everett attacked my pussy with hunger, flicking my clit. I arched off the bed and screamed before he climbed over my body and thrust into me again with his cock, and we found our final peaks together.

  It was a ritual. We marked each other, and our hearts beat as one.

  Snow falls thicker outside our window. The memories make me smile.

  “Come back to bed,” he says. “You need to rest for your procedure.”

  My procedure is a day-long ordeal with Dr. Reijonen at St. Jude, already scheduled for the last week of December. Dr. Reijonen will use the treatment he re-created at such great cost. I’ll be cured, or I won't. Doesn’t seem to matter now. I’ve already spent a lifetime with the man I love.

  “Okay,” I say.

  Chapter Twenty

  EVERETT

  Once in a while, you live a day that changes your life. Most of the time, you don’t realize it until the day is over. Mine happened in spring when I met my April. I didn’t know then. And today is another. I know now, sitting in the waiting room with her parents. I check my watch. Her surgery is starting.

  I drove her to the hospital at seven this morning.

  We didn’t talk. There was no need. She had gone through pre-surgery yesterday with no problems. We knew what lay ahead. The last thing I said before nurses took her into the operating room was, “Everything will be okay.”

  I should’ve said something more original.

  Dr. Reijonen and her parents stood beside us. Camila, her cousin, also came. They mean well and love her in their own ways, but I felt alone. They do not love her as I do.

  April put her hand in mine. “Everything is already okay,” she said.

  We kissed one more time. Quick. Fast. This wasn't goodbye, I told myself.

  Then nurses took her away.

  Dr. Reijonen, who looked more like a doctor now with his trimmed beard, shook hands with me.

  “She’s my world,” I told him.

  He nodded and followed the nurses.

  Now I’m waiting with April’s parents.

  They’re sitting in lounge chairs, leaning against each other. Camila sits nearby and chews gum nonstop. We tried to make small talk, but that lasted about two minutes.

  Nothing to do but wait and hope.

  I pace back and forth.

  I scroll through my phone and stare at pictures of April and me together. There aren’t many, mostly from the mountain lodge. A few photos of us in our apartment. Her smile, even tinged with sadness, could light up a room. April loved taking pictures, but I’d always been reluctant. She told me once it’s about preserving memories. I didn’t understand the point of that because I didn’t have many memories I wanted to preserve, but I do now. I wish we’d taken more.

  I look through an older album, from before April. A picture of me in the lobby of Royce Innovations from last year. Arrogant pose. Killer smile. Ready to crush the world to get what I want. Hard to believe that was me. Hard to believe how much the right person can change you.

  Five more hours to go. I won’t last that long.

  The waiting room is empty besides April’s family. I make eye contact with her parents. They nod encouragingly, and I force myself to nod back. Dr. Reijonen had promised a fifty-fifty chance of success.

  I can’t wait five hours.

  The waiting room doors open. A woman wearing scrubs enters, accompanying a girl who looks eleven or twelve. They walk over to me and ask about April. The woman says she’s a nurse from the cancer unit.

  “I’m Yvonne,” the girl says. “April’s friend. Are you Everett? You look like him. April talked about you a lot.”

  “That’s me,” I manage to say. I shake her tiny hand, and a pang of guilt hits me. So this is the Yvonne whose life I almost destroyed. “How do you do?”

  “Nervous. Is April going to be okay?”

  “We’ll know in five hours.”

  “Can I wait here with you?”

  I swallow. “Of course.”

  While they introduce themselves to April’s parents, the doors open again, and what I see next guts me.

  My own family walks in.

  Sebastian, my mother Portia, and the king himself, Edmund Royce. Sebastian and Portia I can understand. They know about April’s surgery. They’ve been getting to know April. But I have no idea what my old man is doing here. I haven’t seen him since September in Baltimore. Our parting wasn’t exactly on good terms.

  He doesn’t belong here.

  At the same time, I can’t remember the last time my family was together in one room.

  “How ya doing, little bro?” Sebastian asks.

  “Never better.” I say that because my supposed father is here. His mere appearance makes my walls go up.

  “A lie if I ever heard one,” Sebastian says.

  “Is April inside?” Portia asks.

  I nod.

  “Edmund has some things he wants to tell you,” she says.

  They go greet April’s parents, leaving me with the old man.

  We stare at each other, three feet of sterile hospital air between us.

  Edmund Royce did raise me. I owe him the first word at least. “Sorry how much I fucked up your plans. But to be honest though? Not sorry.”

  He grunts. “You did it for love.”

  It’s strange hearing that word from his mouth. “Yeah.”

  My father puts his hands i
n his pockets. “Impressive. Finding a cure. I didn’t think it was possible.”

  “All I did was show up in Norway.”

  “Showing up is half the battle. How much did her treatment cost?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “How much?” Edmund asks.

  “My present net worth is less than the price of your suit. But I’ll manage.”

  “No regrets?”

  “None,” I say.

  “I made a mistake when I forced you to choose between Ms. Finch and your family. I underestimated your convictions. I undervalued them.”

  My father has a personal rule he taught me when I was a kid. Royce men never apologize. Especially when we're wrong. Correct the mistake but never apologize.

  “Is that an apology?” I say.

  “Yes. I should like to apologize to Ms. Finch as well.”

  “Hopefully you’ll get the chance.”

  “Are those people her parents?”

  “Yeah. And the kid is a cancer patient April mentored.”

  Edmund nods and starts to walk over, then he turns around and says, “I’m proud of you.”

  Something breaks apart inside me and comes together again.

  He walks away and introduces himself to April’s parents.

  Sitting by myself, I bring up another photo of her on my phone. This one is a headshot from the mountain resort. She’s smiling, but I must’ve done something that had annoyed her right before, because her smile has that quirky flare whenever her temper comes out.

  I touch the screen and leave my fingers there, and I think back to all the memories we’ve shared, the laughs and the cries and everything in between, and I know I should be grateful, that I should prepare myself for the worst possibilities like the hospital’s brochures suggest, prepare with peace in my heart. But I can’t. There is no peace, only loss.

  The trouble with love? One person always loves more. I read that somewhere in one of April’s books. Maybe that’s the trouble for some, but not for us.

  DR. REIJONEN EXITS the operating room, followed by a nurse. He’s still wearing surgery scrubs, and his face is ashen. But I can’t tell if it’s grief or exhaustion.