by Nana Malone
I’d had a string of texts from Blake Security. Tony had slipped the net. He was in the wind. Which meant that Bryna wasn’t safe and I still had a target on my back. It was fine. I could protect her. I wasn’t leaving her side.
I’d also sent a text to my mother, asking her to meet me, and she’d agreed. I’d give her all the money I had, every cent of it, and she could do what she wanted to do. I hoped she would make the right choice, but at least I would have done everything I could for her.
I couldn’t be pulled back into her crazy world anymore.
There was a knock at the door, and I half expected it to be Roone coming to read me the riot act. But it was the woman I’d been trying to save from herself for the last decade. Our doorman, Fred, escorted her. “I do apologize sir, but she insisted you are her son. She showed me a text message from you. I just—"
I nodded. “It’s fine. Let her in.”
My mother took one look at Bryna sleeping on the couch then stared at me.
“Are you insane? What are you doing? You should have skipped town already. He almost got pinched at the ball.”
I dragged her out onto the expansive balcony. “Keep your voice down. She had a long night, and I really don’t want her dealing with anything else.”
“You’re the one who wanted to meet.”
“Yeah, I wanted to meet you on my terms and in a neutral location. You decided it would be best to just show up here unannounced. Let me guess. Tony’s not far behind?”
She frowned. “He doesn’t know I’m here. We caught the heat last night. He almost got pinched with his stash. He had to hide it. He assumed you would be laying low too. You know better. I worry about you. You have to leave. He’s coming for you. I want you safe.”
“You know it’s funny, you toss that word around when it’s convenient. But when I actually needed a mother, you know, to protect me, to give me everything I needed, you weren’t exactly available.”
She crossed her arms, her blond hair blowing in the October breeze. “I taught you how to survive, didn’t I?”
“When I was a kid, I used to wish that you would have just given me up for adoption or something, so I wouldn’t have to spend all my life surviving. I could have run away, but I loved you too much to leave you behind.”
She winced at that, and I felt sorry for the bitter sting of the words. I wasn’t bitter anymore. Now, it was just a statement of fact. “Look, I don’t want to fight with you. I want to give you the money that I owe you and that you deserve. You can make your own decisions about your turd of a husband.”
She blinked away tears. “Your whole life you looked down on me. Like someone was going to come and rescue you from our situation.”
“Oh, I knew no one was going to rescue me. That was your job. For a few years, I thought it was mine to rescue you, to do what I was told, stay out of Tony’s way. I tried to protect you. I tried to keep you safe. And all that has done is cause me pain. Especially as you refuse to leave him. I thought if I could just get through to you… but you don’t want to leave. You’re in this with him. It’s a bed of your own making. And the sooner you realize that, the better off I’ll be.”
“You think you’re so high and mighty in your fancy penthouse? I see the royal trappings, my son.”
I didn’t even flinch. “Why didn’t you just let him take care of me? From what I understand, he wanted to. He wanted me to go live with him. He wanted me to have a life with him. And because of you, I never even got to meet the guy.”
Her bottom lip quivered, and she bit it as if to steady herself. “Is that what you think? That your Daddy really wanted you to go live with him? That palace may look all beautiful and idyllic, but it’s a viper’s nest. His queen wouldn’t have let you have a happy day. I know what it seems like now, but there’s no way that would have happened.”
“That’s not true. I’ve met her, Mom. She was really kind to me when she didn’t have to be. She would have embraced me as a child.”
“You always had a flair for fantasy, Lucas. I’m just here for my money.”
“Fine. Arguing with you is futile. You’ve never been my mother.” I felt like I was swallowing hot coals as I added, “This is the last time you’ll ever see me. Once you walk out that door, we’re done. I don’t want to hear from you. I don’t want to get some 911 rescue call from you. We’re done.”
“You think you can just walk away? Tony is never going to let that happen, especially when the news breaks that you’re a prince. He’s going to be so happy to tell every single one of your stories about all the jobs you’ve pulled and every con you’ve done. He’s going to ruin you. You’ll never know when your life is going to get ripped out from under you. You need to run.”
I shook my head. “No more running. I’ve already disclosed all that, and it doesn’t matter. I’m safe. I’m clean.” Blake Security had basically erased it all. I didn’t exactly know how they’d done it, but apparently since I’d never actually been arrested, the proof was easy to disappear. Everything would fall on Tony. Or so I hoped.
I handed the check over to her. “I hope this helps you find happiness.” She stared at me for a long moment.
“You actually have two hundred grand?”
“Yeah. I didn’t touch the money that I stole from that Mexico job. I invested it. I also got a job. So, yeah, I can pay that amount. But there’s no more where this came from. This is it.”
Her frown deepened. “How did we get so far apart?” She shook her head. “As far as long cons go, this one has been a doozy. I couldn’t have played this more beautifully if I had set it up myself.”
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“This con, you, as the heir to the Winston Isles.”
What the fuck?
“I am a prince. Sebastian found me. My blood has already been tested. You confirmed all of this.”
That was when her eyes went solemn. “Everything you’ve been told, from the moment you asked about your father to this point, has been a lie. You are no prince of the Winston Isles. Years ago, I was in Italy. I was a starving actress. Someone paid me a lot of money and pointed me at the man who would be your father. I had a boyfriend at the time, but it didn’t matter because they offered me a lot of cash. So yeah, I hung out with him. I didn’t mean to care about him. That sort of happened by accident. But, you still happened.”
I stared at her. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
She held up her hand. “Let me finish the story. Well, predictably, he got what he wanted then vanished, and I found myself pregnant. The problem was while I was boning him, I was also boning my boyfriend, and I couldn’t be sure who the baby belonged to.”
Shit. My stomach bottomed out.
“He showed back up and insisted that my baby was his son. Those very same people that approached me in Italy, turned up not two days later offering me another boat load of money to tell him that the baby was his kid. I didn’t ask questions back then. I didn’t want to know. I needed the cash. The next thing I knew, the king of some island was asking to take custody of my kid. I got scared. It was real. Something was wrong with the whole picture. I didn’t want any of that to blow back on me or you.”
“I don’t understand. Someone paid you?”
She nodded. “Things got really bad when he asked for a paternity test. I thought I’d get out of it. I thought I’d be cut free. I didn’t give him a lock of your hair; I gave him a lock of mine. So you can imagine my shock when it came back that you were a positive match for him. The hair they tested, my hair, came back absolutely positive that you were his son. I knew the game was rigged. Someone was using me. Someone was trying to use you. So when he asked for custody, I told him no dice, and then I took you and ran. There was a reason you have been living under the radar your whole life, and it’s not because I’m some horrible person. Your life is like this because I protected you. I’ve always tried to protect you. You might not like my methods, but they were a
ll I had. When you called about your father, I told you the shell of the story. I thought maybe it might be okay. But now, I know better.”
I shook my head, staring at her. “What the hell are you saying?”
“I’m saying someone paid me a whole hell of a lot of money to sleep with the King of the Winston Isles, and then they paid me a lot of money to keep it quiet. They tried to make it look like you were his son, including forging your records, and I don’t know why.”
Adrenaline fired in my veins. What the fuck was she saying?
I couldn’t quite find the words, so I keep shaking my head. Finally, her gaze leveled at mine and she said the words that started whirling around, terrifying me.
“You’re not the Crown Prince of the Winston Isles. In fact, you’re no prince at all.”
Is Lucas a prince or a pauper…FIND OUT in Bastard Prince…
Thank You
Thank you for reading ROYAL BASTARD! I hope you enjoyed this installment from the ROYALS UNDONE Series.
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Don’t miss the other books in the Royals series in reading order
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ROYALS UNDERCOVER
Cheeky Prince
Cheeky Royal
Cheeky King
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ROYALS UNDONE
Royal Bastard
Bastard Prince
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Nana Malone Reading List
Looking for a few Good Books? Look No Further The In Stilettos Series (Contemporary Romance)
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Sexy in Stilettos
Bryce
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Royals
Royals Undercover
Cheeky Prince
Cheeky Royal
Cheeky King
* * *
Royals Undone
Royal Bastard
Bastard Prince
* * *
The Shameless World
* * *
Shameless
Shame
Shameless
Shameful
Unashamed
Shameless Bonus
* * *
Forceful
Force
Enforce
* * *
Deep
Deeper
* * *
Before Sin
Sin
Sinful
* * *
The Player
Bryce
Dax
Echo
Fox
Ransom
Gage
* * *
The In Stilettos Series
Sexy in Stilettos (Alec & Jaya)
Sultry in Stilettos (Beckett & Ricca)
Sassy in Stilettos (Caleb & Micha)
Strollers & Stilettos (Alec & Jaya & Alexa)
Seductive in Stilettos (Shane & Tristia)
Stunning in Stilettos (Bryan & Kyra)
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In Stilettos Spin off
Tempting in Stilettos (Serena & Tyson)
Teasing in Stilettos (Cara & Tate)
Tantalizing in Stilettos (Jaggar & Griffin)
* * *
The Chase Brothers Series
London Bound (Alexi & Abbie)
London Calling (Xander & Imani)
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Love Match Series
Game Set Match (Jason & Izzy)
Mismatch (Eli & Jessica)
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
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Royal Bastard
COPYRIGHT © 2018 by Nana Malone
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
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Photography: Wander Aguiar
Cover Art by: Amy Daws
Edited by: Angie Ramey, Daisy Cakes Editing
Published in the United States of America
About Nana Malone
USA Today Bestselling Author, Nana Malone’s love of all things romance and adventure started with a tattered romantic suspense she borrowed from her cousin on a sultry summer afternoon in Ghana at a precocious thirteen. She’s been in love with kick butt heroines ever since.
Nana is the author of multiple series. And the books in her series have been on multiple Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble bestseller lists as well as the iTunes Breakout Books list and most notably the USA Today Bestseller list.