Damien shifts in his seat—away from Vincent. “We need to win back the people, and in short order. If Janssen does call for a referendum, we’ll only have a matter of weeks to convince an increasingly angry, financially-strained public that they have any use for you whatsoever.”
Well, thank you, Mr. Obvious. Like I didn’t know that already. Think, Arthur, think. I stand and walk across the office to the wall of windows. I look out at the city lights as they twinkle against the darkening sky. A city of critics waiting to dethrone me before I can even sit my arse down on it in the first place.
“Critics.” I snap my fingers and turn to the men. “Who’s my worst critic?”
“What’s that got to do—”
I hold up one hand. “Worst of the worst. Who hates us the most of anyone out there?”
Vincent and Damien glance at each other and at the same time say, “Tessa Sharpe.”
“Really? Never heard of her. What’s up her arse?”
“Blogger. Just really hates the monarchy.”
“Usual reasons? Taxes, patriarchal society, blah, blah, blah?” She’s probably a lesbian. They tend to hate us.
Vincent pulls out his phone. A moment later, he says, “Here it is. Last week, she called the Royal Family ‘a pack of dishonest, inbred leeches.’”
“Ouch. That’s a bit much.” Definitely a lesbian. “How’s her following?”
“She has the widest reach of any anti-royal site out there at the moment,” Vincent says.
“By far.” Damien needs to assert his opinion on everything. I told you he was a twat.
“She seems especially fond of criticizing you, Your Highness.” Vincent holds up his iPad again. “Prince Arthur is the worst of the bunch. A ridiculous man-child who spends his days loafing around and nights drinking up the people’s money. I can just imagine him a few years from now, the crown tipped sideways on his drunken head, leg slung over the arm of the throne, slumped down like a petulant teenager with no fecking clue how to rule a country.”
“Loafing around? Well, if there’s anything I’ve never done a day in my life, it’s loaf.” My hackles go up at the insinuation. I walk over to Vincent, hold my fingers sideways under my nose and look over his shoulder at his screen. A picture of a lovely little blonde smiles back at me. Those long waves caressing her shoulders don’t exactly say lesbian. The glossy pink lips say ‘good to go,’ which quite frankly is my target audience. “She’ll be perfect.”
Both men screw up their faces in confusion. “Sir?”
I walk back to the window and suck in air that doesn’t smell of feet. “We don’t need to convince the entire country. That would be an impossible task, especially if a referendum is called anytime soon. We really only have to convince one critic. The harshest one.” I smile confidently, hoping that this will put an end to this meeting. “I bring her into the fold, show her my best side, and get her to do our publicity for us.”
“I don’t understand.”
Now, I’m really thinking on the fly. Duchess, here I come! “I shall invite this Ms. Harpy—”
“Sharpe.”
“Whatever—to the palace to stay for, say… two months, during which time, I’ll convince her of the necessity of the Royal Family for this great nation.”
“You can’t invite an unapproved member of the press to live at the palace.”
“Of course I can. I’m allowed house guests.”
“But not a tabloid journalist.”
“She’s not a journalist. You told me yourself. She’s a blogger.”
“Too risky, Your Highness. I’m sorry, but no. We can’t let you make this call.” Damien shakes his head as though the matter has been decided.
“You seem to be forgetting in whose house you’re standing. This is the House Langdon. I am the Duke of Wellingbourne and will one day be the ruler of Avonia. This is very much my call to make.”
“Your father is going to be furious.” Vincent’s tone is firm.
“When isn’t he?” I shrug.
“You might fail miserably,” Damien pipes up again.
“Or I might have a spectacular win.” And a spectacular orgasm, because both of them are now gathering their things.
Vincent gives it one last shot. “Sir, if I may suggest, let’s not act until we’ve spoken to your father.”
“Tell you what. Give me the night to think about it. I’ll see if I can reach him.” I won’t bother, but it’ll be fine, really.
What’s that saying about it being better to beg forgiveness than ask permission?
Four
A Shocking Turn of Events
Tessa
It’s nine o’clock on Monday morning. I’m standing in my kitchen next to my best friend, Nikki, who is also my camera woman for all my videos, not because she’s really technically inclined, but because she’s a hairdresser so she has Mondays off, and she’ll work for pastries. The two of us stare silently at the latest device that I’ll be testing out for my running enthusiast site. It’s called the Shock Jogger. It’s a thin band equipped with Bluetooth that you wear around your ribs.
“Certainly looks harmless enough, doesn’t it?” Nikki takes a sip of her tea.
I pick it up off the counter. “Easy for you to say. You’ll be working the camera. I’ll be the one getting shocked if my pace goes below target.”
She tilts her head, which this week bears intensely purple streaks. “I bet it won’t hurt, though.”
“I doubt it’ll feel like a soft caress.” I pick up the pamphlet and flip through it again. “It delivers twenty volts to your mid-section as a reminder to keep up your pace throughout your run, thus eliminating lulls that slow overall progress.”
“Twenty volts? How much is that, anyway?”
“No freaking clue,” I say.
“Hmm.”
“Hmm.” Neither of us takes our eyes off the device.
“I once read that a woman got shocked so hard that all her hair fell out.”
“That can’t be true.” I shake my head. “Can it?”
“Doubt it. It was on the cover of Weekly World News.”
“Then it’s definitely false.”
“Although they were right about that man who had a baby.” Nikki takes a bit of her cheese string. “How much are they paying you to feature it?”
“Three hundred.”
“How much were those Bench boots?”
“One-ninety-five during the half off sale.”
“You’ll have some left over.”
“I could get the scarf.” I take a deep breath as I pick it up. “Okay, let’s do this.”
Nikki picks up the camera and points it at me. I smile into the lens.
“Hi, everyone. Today, on Smart Runner, I’ll be testing out the Shock Jogger by Wellbits.” I hold it up to the camera. “This little guy promises to improve your running stamina and speed by nearly twenty percent in under twelve sessions by delivering a gentle reminder to pick up the pace.”
After we shoot the introductory video, Nikki and I head outside to test it. I run and she drives slowly beside me in her little Citroën. The camera is hooked in place on the driver’s side door, window down, so she can keep her eyes on the road.
“The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and it’s a beautiful almost-spring day for a run! Let’s see if the Shock Jogger can do what it promises.” I grin into the camera, pretending I’m not really freaking nervous. Deciding to save my breath, I face forward and concentrate on technique.
“So, it’s been fifteen minutes,” I pant into the lens. “And I haven’t been shocked once yet. My pace definitely is much quicker than normal, because,” pant, pant, “to be honest, I’m really scared,” pant, “of the jolt this thing might give me.”
When we turn back toward my apartment, I realize I’ve made a horrible miscalculation. My legs are already jelly, and now I have the very steep climb back home again. I explain this to Nikki, who starts to laugh. I’m now overcome by a bout of nervo
us laughter that is only wearing me out even faster.
“Stop it!” I shout, to myself as much as her, but it’s no use. We’ve got a serious case of the giggles. And I’m going to get shocked. I just know it. Giggle. “I’ll never make it up this hill!” Pant, pant. Giggle. “Stop laughing!”
We’re about halfway up the hill when I get my first “gentle reminder.” A sharp zap to my ribs has my knees jerking up to my chest at the same time that I scream in pain. “Mother fucker!”
When my feet hit the ground, they pick up the pace like they’ve never done before. A woman with two young children makes a tsking sound at me.
“Sorry!” I give her a wave. “I’m not really a horrible person!” Pant, pant.
“She’s testing out the Shock Jogger,” Nikki calls to them, as if her explanation will make any sense at all.
Gentle reminder? I nearly peed my pants. Now I’m running up the hill so fast that my lungs are on fire. On every inhalation, they beg me to slow down, but I can’t. I reach a corner. I’m supposed to stop since I have a red light, but I can’t bring myself to get shocked again.
“Oh, my God! A car! Stop, Tess!”
“I can’t!” I make a dash for it. The car honks and swerves out of the way. I glance up in time to see the man behind the wheel shaking his fist. He shouts, “Arrssssshooooollle!” through his open window.
Nikki catches up with me when she gets the green light. She’s not laughing anymore. “You nearly got hit by a car!”
“I know!”
“We should edit that part out.” Nikki’s always the voice of reason.
“I’m,” pant, “so,” pant, “tired.”
“Take it off!”
“What?!”
“The thingy! The Shock Jogger! It can’t hurt you if you aren’t wearing it.”
“Right!” I strip off my shirt—modesty be damned. I do not want to feel that pain again. I toss the shirt through the car window, and it lands on Nikki’s head.
“Eww!”
“Sorry!” Now I’m running and fiddling with the damn clasp, only in my concentration, I slow down. ZAP! “FUCK!!!”
“Got zapped again?”
“That time I really did pee a little.” My entire body tingles (and not the good kind) with aftershocks.
“I can’t get it off!” In my panic, my fingers have forgotten how to unbuckle buckles.
“Uh-oh.” I hear Nikki’s voice and assume she’s talking about the Shock Jogger. I won’t know for another two minutes why she said it.
Zap! “Fuckity-fuck! That hurts!” My knees jolt up while my torso contracts, so I’m momentarily a human ball suspended in the air. “Help me! I can’t get it off!”
Zap! Zap! “Son of a mother fucker!”
My hair feels like it’s standing straight up with each shock. Oh, my God! What if Weekly World News got it right and my hair falls out? No! I can’t get the boots if I have to pay for a wig.
“Not my hair!!!” I scream out as I give the band a sharp tug with both hands. It snaps and shocks my palms once more for good measure before I toss it away from me.
Unfortunately, it hits Nikki in the face. “OUCH! That really fucking hurts!” She screams as she swerves the car. It jumps the curb and stalls out in the shrubs in front of my apartment building. The airbag deploys with a loud bang, and Nikki is trapped in her seat.
“Oh, my God, Nikki!” I yell as I use the last of my strength to run to her. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. I’m fine. I might have a bleeding nose, though.” Her words come out muffled.
And that’s when I notice them.
The vans, the camera crews, the smartly-dressed reporters holding microphones. I stop and stare. They’re silent. All of them staring at me, cameras pointed in my direction.
My mouth hangs open, which really just adds to the dignity of this moment—me red-faced and dripping with sweat, in only my sports bra and running pants, having just jerked and jolted and sworn like a pirate as I ran up the hill home. Oh, yeah, then caused an accident.
“Uh-oh.”
“You finally noticed them?”
“Uh-huh.”
So, let me bring you up to speed, now that things have calmed down momentarily. Nikki’s nose took the brunt of the airbag force. It’s broken, but she won’t need surgery because the very cute doctor at the emergency clinic was able to distract her long enough to snap it back in place. (He does shifts down at the boxing ring every Saturday night for extra cash, so he pretty much has the whole thing mastered.) He got her number, too—after she showed him her gorgeous Facebook profile pic under the guise of him seeing how to set her nose. Dr. Perfect asking for her number definitely helped dial down her rage at me. He also gave her some pretty strong painkillers, which are proving immensely helpful.
While I have not had any of the pain meds, I have downed three quick glasses of white zinfandel to numb my own utter humiliation. Several camera crews remain parked outside my building. If I stretch up on my tippy toes and look out the kitchen window, I can see them on the street, five stories below.
Nikki’s car has been towed to the shop where it will cost me a little over three thousand dollars to fix the damage and reset the airbag. The building management company will be bringing by a bill to replace the hundred-year-old shrubs out front, which should wipe out the rest of my savings, so more good news there. No Bench boots for me.
Oh, and, it turns out Prince Arthur, giant douche-canoe extraordinaire, made an announcement earlier this morning that has drawn the attention of every media outlet in the country and aimed it right at my head. Hence the crowd of reporters who managed to catch the entire last three minutes of the Shock Jogger experiment on film. So, the most humiliating moment of my life is now making its way around the globe via YouTube. Special thanks to Al Gore for inventing the internet in the first place.
But back to the matter at hand. Apparently, the Crown Prince himself has offered to ‘give me the keys to the castle.’ He wants me—his harshest critic—to come and live with the Royal Family for the next two months, in an effort to show the good people of Avonia that he and his family have nothing to hide. He is hoping that if he can ‘convince his harshest critic that his family gives more than they take, that others will soon agree, and his family will maintain their rightful place as the protectors and leaders of this great nation.’
My phone is on silent, but I can see it lighting up with calls every twenty seconds. Nikki and I are sitting on my couch, watching the Avonian Broadcast News Channel (ABNC). It’s on a loop. First, his announcement, then the Shock Jogger video. One reporter has dubbed it my “Shocking Morning.” Very original. That guy has a job at ABNC, and I don’t? There is something very wrong with this world. All I can say is thank God for whoever invented wine. Unlike Al Gore, you do not suck.
I glance over at Nikki and cringe again. “Fresh ice for your nose?” She has two black eyes, and her nose… Well, I honestly had no idea a nose could swell up that much. “I am just so sorry.”
“Forget about it.” She can’t say her r’s now on account of the swelling, so she sounds kind of like a gangster from New Jersey. Faggetaboutit.
I shall not laugh. I shall not laugh.
“Go ahead and laugh. I hud it, too.”
We both burst out into giggles for a second, then she groans in agony.
“Oh, shit! I’m sorry. I’ll get you some more wine. I mean ice.” I get up and make my way to the kitchen. I’ll have more wine, though…
Nikki shuts off the television and follows me.
“So, what the hell are you going to do?”
“I have no fucking clue.” I hand her a fresh towel filled with ice cubes and pour another glass of wine. “I mean, I can’t just go live with the Royal Family for two months. That would be insane.”
I stare out the window. I have a lovely vantage point of the entire city from here. In the distance sits the tiny, lush, green island on the other side of the Langdon River that houses the
enormous palace. “I can’t go live there.” I point with my glass, and wine sloshes onto the floor. I sop it up with my sock and pretend it didn’t happen. Yup, I’m drunk.
“Why not?”
“Because I live here. This is my house. I have a bed, and a TV, and… and… let’s not forget about Chester.” I glance over at my betta fish who is blissfully unaware of any of this morning’s horrors as he naps on his little fish hammock. I walk over to his bowl. “Hey, Chester? I can’t leave you for two months. Who would feed you and change your water?”
As I turn to Nikki, the truth comes spilling out of my mouth. “Think of all of the horrible things I’ve written about them. Horrible, awful things. I can’t go live with them. They must absolutely hate my guts.”
“So what? Think of the boost this will give your career. It could give you another shot as a real reporter. Or maybe, even a book deal. This could change your life, Tessa. Seriously.”
She folds her arms and gives me her best school headmaster look.
“But two months? With people who despise me? You’d never do it.”
Okay, that is totally not true. I’ve never met someone who cares less about what people think of her than Nikki. I once saw her literally steal a handful of Cadbury Buttons from a toddler in a stroller when she thought his parents weren’t looking. But they were looking, and when they confronted her, she just said, “You shouldn’t be feeding candy to a baby. What kind of parents are you anyway?” And when we walked away, I swear she’d already forgotten about them before we even reached the end of the block.
The Royal Treatment: A Crown Jewels Romantic Comedy, Book 1 Page 3