Bad to the Throne

by Gardiner, Jenny

  “I seriously wondered if we would ever get your sorry ass back to Monaforte,” Pippa said. “You had my boy so heartbroken I didn’t know if we could put him back together again.”

  Andi gave Zander a sheepish look. “I’m sorry, Z. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She pulled his lapels toward her and gave him a kiss just as a flash went off, startling her and making her jump back.

  “Relax, wildcat,” Zander said. “It’s merely one of the photographers documenting the event. All good.”

  Andi felt her hands almost trembling, it had scared her so. “About that whole paparazzi thing.”

  “Yes, it is going to be a factor for a while,” Zander said. “But I think you’ll get used to it pretty quickly. It’s just easiest if you let them get off a shot and then walk away.”

  “Don’t worry, Andi,” Pippa said. “We all take care of each other here. You won’t be bombarded by anyone trying to get at you. Just a little here and there. Otherwise we cut ’em off at the knees.” She jokingly made a slicing motion across her throat.

  “Plus,” Zander said, extending his arm as his younger brother came toward them. “Soon this strapping young man will find himself a woman and the paps will latch on to him instead. Even though I am the much-better-looking brother.”

  Topher looked at him like he was crazy. “Yeah, right. Besides, don’t hold your breath on that,” he said. “The chances of my marrying any time in the next millennium are slim to none.”

  “That’s what I said, and look at me now,” Adrian said as he walked up to the group. “Zander, looks like finally your invisible girlfriend here took pity on you?”

  Zander introduced them all, and Andi congratulated Adrian, all while feeling downright starry-eyed that she was among this group.

  “Andi, we’re just grateful that you can be in charge of keeping Zander under control now,” Adrian said. “We’ll all be lucky if the only photographs of Zander we see now involve him making out with you.”

  Andi blushed.

  “We weren’t making out, douche,” Zander said.

  Adrian cocked his eyebrow at him. “Oh, really. What do you call that then?”

  “We were celebrating. Right?” He looked at Andi, trying to enlist her support.

  She nodded her head. “Yes, we were celebrating that we didn’t die when we jumped from the airplane. Since we had no glasses of champagne at the moment—”

  “We had to find our own way to celebrate,” Zander said, finishing her sentence.

  “Hate to see what you’d do in public if you didn’t have an entire bottle of champagne,” Topher said.

  Zander spread out his arms. “Welcome to the family, Andrea,” he said to Andi. “Prepare yourself for these clowns giving you all sorts of grief.”

  “What about me?” his sister Isabella, gorgeous in a lavender beaded bias-cut gown, said as she joined the group. She reached over and gave Andi a two-kiss greeting. “You’ve met the worst of the family, now you can meet the best,” she said, laughing.

  Andi was feeling overwhelmed. “Thank goodness at least one of you isn’t giving us a hard time!”

  They all laughed.

  “I figure if you are going to be with Zander, you’ll have a hard enough time of it on your own,” Bella said. “Far be it from me to contribute to your strife.” She winked at the two of them and squeezed her brother’s cheek in jest.

  Zander looked over to see Caroline and Darcy approaching, hand in hand.

  “Well, well, well. If it isn’t the stubborn lovebird, come home to his nest,” he said to Darcy as Caroline reached over to kiss him.

  “I’m pleased to see a much more chaste kiss than last time I saw you two together,” Darcy noted. “By the way if I ever see your mouth on my fiancée’s again, I’ll kill you.”

  “Fiancée?” Zander said, looking at Caroline, then applauding. “Looks as if our performance worked! Brava to us!”

  Caroline laughed. “Honestly, was he dense or what? And I see you managed to impress this one with your charming ways,” she said, pointing at Andi. “Isn’t this the woman you raced away from me to find at Pippa’s party?”

  Pippa pretended to be horrified. “All of this going on right under my nose at my party? Perhaps someone should start calling me Cupid, what with my having a hand in these matchups.”

  “I’ll give you a hand,” Zander said, pretending to slap her.

  “I must say, most intriguing of all is little Topher here,” Pippa said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you since you were a scrawny kid. You’re looking awfully filled out.” She eyed him up and down with a look of hunger on her face.

  “Down, boy,” Zander said, tapping on Pippa’s head. “I think Topher is allergic to girls.”

  His brother discreetly flipped him the finger.

  Emma, who had been running the gauntlet of greeting guests, finally came around. She was a breathtaking vision in an organza silk gown with lace overlay and a fringe diamond tiara.

  “So, Zander,” Emma said after proper introductions had been made. “This is the woman who had you so sad and depressed? Thank goodness she came back for you. I don’t know how we’d have managed with you being so out of sorts.”

  “Thanks, everyone, for reinforcing what a pathetic slob I was once Andi left me,” Zander said. “I know, I know, my life is not complete without her.”

  “Did you pay him to say those words?” Topher asked with a laugh.

  Zander held his hands up. “Enough already, people. I get it. I deserve this mockery. But tonight is a solemn occasion, celebrating the union of this lovely couple,” he said, placing his hands atop Adrian and Emma’s heads. “This is not the time to rip into Zander for all his stupid mistakes. So let’s all lift our glasses to the couple of the hour.”

  The entire group all raised their champagne flutes and toasted.

  Soon they all drifted away from the conversation. But Zander still wanted to talk about unfinished business with Andi.

  “So, uh, you think you’re willing to deal with the public side of life with me?” he asked Andi as they walked, fingers entwined, to the seating for dinner. Andi was a little intimidated to be included in the long table at which the wedding party and intimate family members were seated. This all seemed so strange, particularly as she’d just arrived here from Kenya only a day earlier.

  Andi nodded. “I’ve made my peace with it, Zander. It’s not necessarily what I’d choose, but I get that it comes with the territory. But one thing I was wondering...”

  Zander cocked his head and raised an eyebrow.

  “How soon till we can go back to visit Josiah, together, maybe?”

  “Are you kidding?” Zander said. “I try to get over there every six weeks or so, if even for a day or two. You won’t have to force me to do that. It’s high on my list of priorities. Besides which, I miss my little buddy.”

  Andi wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight, then looked into his eyes. “You’re pretty amazing, you know?”

  Zander shrugged. “Not so much. I’m just me.”

  “So is it really true you cried when I left?”

  Zander’s eyes grew wide. “Where’d you hear that from?”

  “Oh, nowhere in particular,” Andi said. “Maybe I was just hoping you cared that much for me.”

  Zander leaned over and pulled Andi closer and gave her a long kiss. “My sweet girl, Andi. You know you’re the most important thing in my world.”

  And as they walked toward the area where dinner was to be served, they passed a corralled area for the media. A host of flashes went off, accompanied by the whirr of digital cameras clicking a series of pictures of the two of them.

  Andi took a deep breath, bracing herself as they strode through the gauntlet.

  “It’s you and me, from Z to A?”

  And Zander touched her nose with his. “From A to Z.” And he squeezed her hands tightly as they smiled broadly for the waiting press.

  ~*~

  About the Author


  Jenny Gardiner is the author of the #1 Kindle Bestseller Slim to None and the award-winning novel Sleeping with Ward Cleaver. Her latest works are the It’s Reigning Men series, featuring Something in the Heir; Heir Today Gone Tomorrow; Bad to the Throne; and the upcoming Love is in the Heir. She also published the memoir Winging It: A Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who's Determined to Kill Me, now re-titled Bite Me: a Parrot, a Family and a Whole Lot of Flesh Wounds; the novels Anywhere but Here (soon to be re-released); Where the Heart Is; the essay collection Naked Man on Main Street, and Accidentally on Purpose and Compromising Positions (writing as Erin Delany); and is a contributor to the humorous dog anthology I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship. Her work has been found in Ladies Home Journal, the Washington Post and on NPR’s Day to Day. She has worked as a professional photographer, an orthodontic assistant (learning quite readily that she was not cut out for a career in polyester), a waitress (probably her highest-paying job), a TV reporter, a pre-obituary writer, as well as a publicist to a United States Senator (where she first learned to write fiction). She's photographed Prince Charles (and her assistant husband got him to chuckle!), Elizabeth Taylor, and the president of Uganda. She and her family now live a less exotic life in Virginia.

  Visit Jenny at her website and sign up for her newsletter

  http://www.jennygardiner.net/index.html, her blog, http://jennygardiner.net/blog/, or find her on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/jennygardinerbooks and Twitter https://twitter.com/jennygardiner

  Stay tuned for more stories from Monaforte, with book four of the It’s Reigning Men series, Love is in the Heir, coming September 2015.

  Read on for a sample of Book four of the It’s Reigning Men series:

  LOVE IS IN THE HEIR

  Chapter One

  PIPPA Grimaldi, a decidedly modern Monafortian duchess and all-around life of the party, didn’t normally ogle men. It so wasn’t her style. And she certainly never held up any man in the royal family as anything but friend material. That is, until she ran into His Royal Highness Prince Christopher, Duke of Esmeralda, third in line to the throne of Monaforte—Topher, for short—for the first time in many years.

  Pippa and Topher had a history, and not such a great one. Back when he was fourteen, Pippa, best friends with Topher’s brother Zander and a regular at the palace, wandered in on Topher with his pants down, in mid, uh, self-service mode.

  Mortified, Pippa burst into a nervous laughter, then hightailed it out of his room so fast that Zander glanced up from his Playboy magazine and immediately realized something was wrong. And once Zander—long the bad boy prince in the family—latched onto what she’d encountered, he never let it go. Poor Topher was dubbed “The Wanker” by his older brother, and teased mercilessly by his siblings for years.

  Over the years Topher took great pains to avoid Pippa’s presence, because aside from his continued embarrassment over the episode, whenever the two of them were together, invariably the whole thing was dredged up yet again, much to his deep chagrin.

  And so when Topher encountered Pippa at the reception following the royal wedding of his brother Adrian, he could only hope that royal decorum would trump his siblings’ propensity for jocularity. The last thing he needed while suited up in his regal princely military garb for this shindig was to be reduced to that shamed teenager of years earlier with a round of guffaws and elbows to the side while the siblings all referenced Topher’s manual dexterity. Sometimes even his usually-sweet sister Isabella got in on the act. And it would only make matters worse if his new sister-in-law Emma joined the fray.

  He really just hoped that after being gone for so long that maybe at last the event had been tucked away in the cobwebbed attic of family lore, finally forgotten, laid to merciful rest. It always amazed him that no matter how old you got or how accomplished you became, you were always brought to your knees by some stupid happening in your life you wish you’d never committed. Or at least wished you’d locked the door for.

  Of course one thing he always, always, always held close to him about that day was this: the only reason he was in the midst of the deed was that Pippa had showed up at the palace in a particularly skimpy skirt and tight tee that highlighted her burgeoning assets. What gangly, awkward teenaged boy could resist? As the two-years younger brother, Topher always had a little bit of a crush on his brother’s friend, but he also never confided this to a soul. And so in deference to her dignity, he realized all the more it needed to remain tucked away in his mind only, as it would merely serve to humiliate Pippa.

  But from then on, he forever associated Pippa with his shame from that event, and rarely entertained thoughts of Pippa as anything but a family friend.

  ~*~

  Topher had just finished his drink at the wedding reception when his brother Zander pulled him into a conversation unwittingly.

  “Plus,” Zander said to his girlfriend Andi, extending his arm as his younger brother came toward them. “Soon this strapping young man will find himself a woman and the paps will latch onto him instead. Even though I am the much better looking brother.”

  Apparently Andi was fearful of the paparazzi, which had caused her to flee her blossoming romance with Zander, and Zander had only somehow lured her back to Monaforte just in time for the wedding.

  Topher looked at him with wide eyes like he was crazy. “Yeah, right. Besides, don’t hold your breath on that,” he said. “The chances of my marrying any time in the next millennium are slim to none.”

  “That’s what I said, and look at me now,” Adrian said as he walked up to the group. “Zander, looks like finally your invisible girlfriend here took pity on you?” He nodded toward Andi, who blushed.

  Topher was thrilled the conversation was focusing on Zander’s romance, but only then did he notice that Pippa was lurking on the fringe of the conversation. Pippa, looking so damned hot in a halter gown that Topher tried desperately not to stare at, because it highlighted her breasts and her shapely waist and all he needed was to deal with those thoughts and where they’d lead him at this point. Her hazel eyes seemed to sparkle against the warm melon color of her chiffon gown.

  Two times two is four, four times four is sixteen, sixteen times sixteen is two hundred and fifty six, he repeated in his head, tamping down all potentially damning sexual thoughts involving the woman, including the time he’d seen her naked when she came out of the shower of the palace pool house when she was seventeen. Two times two is four, four times four is sixteen, sixteen times sixteen is two hundred and fifty six,

  Topher could feel the front of his dress blues getting just a little bit snug and he continued distracting himself with simple mathematical equations until he could extricate himself from present company. He glanced out of the corner of his gray eyes to see that Pippa’s cascading brown curls—which as a teenager looked so sexy on her, tumbling over her shoulders—had been pulled up in a loose chignon, her hair topped with the obligatory tiara that most women of royalty wore to such events. Hers was interlaced with tiny flowers, and soft strands of curls framed her face that had grown only more beautiful with age. He thought she looked like quite the princess herself, even if she was actually a duchess. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but in the pecking order of royalty, she wasn’t a princess. Even if she looked like the fairytale version of one.

  “Don’t worry, Andi,” Pippa said, piping into the conversation. “We all take care of each other here. You won’t be bombarded by anyone trying to get at you. Just a little here and there. Otherwise we cut ‘em off at the knees.” She made a slicing motion across the throat, jokingly.

  Topher knew only too well how everyone took care of each other around here, even when it involved totally dicking on your brothers. Slicing across the throat indeed. That might have been easier for him if they had just slit his throat. Lost in thought, he rejoined the conversation as Pippa continued talking.

  “I must say, most intriguing of all is little Topher here,�
� Pippa said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you since you were a scrawny kid. You’re looking awfully filled out.” She eyed him up and down with a look of hunger on her face.

  “Down, boy,” Zander said, tapping on Pippa’s head. “I think Topher is allergic to girls.”

  His brother discreetly flipped him the finger.

  Awfully filled out?

  If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought he was perhaps a baby wildebeest, and Pippa a very hungry leopard about to pounce.

  Topher said a mental prayer that this was not the segue he’d been dreading, and breathed a sigh of relief when not a half a minute later was saved by the arrival of Adrian’s new bride. This time he was spared.

  ~*~

  Pippa tried to concentrate on the conversation at hand. Something to do with Adrian and Emma’s wedding, and then something more about Caroline and Darcy showing up, engaged, of all things. Which apparently happened after Darcy’s sister Clementine orchestrated a fabulous fake-out at a party at Pippa’s family estate, which left Darcy thinking Zander was hitting on Caroline. At this very party, Zander then ended up hooking up with Andi, with whom Pippa had worked at a refugee camp in Africa months earlier.

  Pippa couldn’t help but wonder why everyone around her seemed to be finding soul-mates, while she only seemed to find another excuse to host a party or play cupid with her friends’ relationships. Not that she was looking or anything; she was too busy to really worry about dealing with a boyfriend. But sometimes it seemed like it would be nice to have someone to maybe just go on a date with. Or make out with. Or more. She hadn’t scratched that itch in as long as she could remember. It wasn’t one that presented itself an opportunity to scratch when working overseas in various philanthropic capacities, which Pippa did as manager of Zander’s Prince’s Trust foundation.

  Her thoughts migrated to Topher, standing several feet from her—though she knew if he’d had his way, there’d be several hundred feet separating the two of them. It had always been that way. Well, not quite always. But certainly since The Episode. Honestly, to this day Pippa could still close her eyes and conjure up the image of Topher in that compromising position. It had always left her feeling conflicted—embarrassed, no doubt, but kind of hot and bothered, too. She’d never seen such a thing before, and it was the first time she’d ever seen one of those things live and in action. God, she still felt like a rookie in the sex department. She’d had a handful of less-than-compelling relationships in college and since, but nothing that aroused much, well, arousal. Most of the guys she’d dated were kind of boring, often trying to rub shoulders with royalty, and rarely interested in Pippa as a person.