by Pippa Grant
My hands clench before I can stop them. Fucking Viktor would make a better parent than I would.
She looks to me. “Peach, tell him he’s full of shit.”
“It’s time to go.” Not that we should go. The last time she spent the night at my house, she snuck out her window, climbed down a tree, and dashed over to the Winchester farm, where she shaved alien symbols into all of the goats.
There were Martian investigators all over Goat’s Tit for weeks.
The time before that was the lawn mower incident, but since I caught her before the high school principal could see that she’d mowed penises into his yard, I was able to convince him that she was doing a good deed preemptively in mowing his whole yard to make up for what she’ll undoubtedly do wrong next year.
It’s only a matter of time before those midnight trips turn into drinking and sleeping with boys.
According to fucking Bitsy Jacobson, she might have already started.
Swear to Thor, I just sprouted three dozen gray hairs.
Papaya tugs on her handcuffs. “Can’t go. I’m stuck.”
“Can I keep those?” I ask Viktor.
“I rather doubt you’d find them effective,” he replies as he moves to unhook her. He’s well over six feet tall—taller than the prince, though not as tall as Joey’s hulking mass of a fiancé—and solid as a dark-haired, square-jawed, serious-eyed mule.
He’s also unfortunately not wrong. She needs handcuffs and someone constantly watching to make sure she hasn’t figured out how to pick the lock. “That wasn’t the question.”
“Merely pointing out the truth, my lady. And while I’m observing truths, military boarding school may be an option you should consider.”
And again, he’s not wrong.
And it irritates the snot out of me that he thinks he gets to have an opinion. Gracie told me once that he grew up solidly middle-class with two awesome parents and two successful siblings and that he would’ve joined the army if Stölland had had anything more than a ceremonial military.
Isn’t he special?
He helps Papaya to her feet, and the four welts on his neck almost make me wince.
Almost. “How about I let you know when I need your opinion?”
He turns, but I catch the smirk.
He knows I know he’s right, and he knows I’ll never admit it.
I gesture to Papaya. “Come on. Let’s go see the baby before we head home.” Where I need to have a long heart-to-heart with her about stealing balloons and not being able to hang out with Brantley anymore and hormones and condoms and life decisions you can’t take back.
And a judge wants me to add a husband to this mess?
I can’t even control the kid who isn’t mine yet, much less keep a husband in line too.
We step out into the heat, and I hold Papaya’s arm while I march her toward the big house.
“For a guy who could be a king, Viktor’s really strong,” she says.
What in the blazes is she making up now? “Keep talkin’, young lady. It’s not getting you out of dishwashing duty from now until the cows come home. What in the world possessed you to attempt to steal a hot air balloon?”
“I wasn’t stealing it. I was trying to keep it from going too high while Brantley distracted its owner.”
I stifle a howl of rage, because I’ve seen this game before. Poor girl and spoiled rich boy hang out together, poor girl takes the blame for everything.
It’s how the fucking world works.
“Papaya—”
“So, you and Viktor like each other, right? Because from what I heard, he needs a wife to claim his kingdom or whatever, and do you know how cool it would be to walk into high school and be able to tell people I’m royalty? I mean, related to royalty, but still. That beats Caroline Abernathy and her my great-granddaddy was a general in the War of Northern Aggression baloney. Just because I can’t trace my kinfolk back that far doesn’t mean we didn’t suffer at the hand of the Yankees either.”
“You keep spray-painting cows and shaving the mayor’s poodle, you’ll be bragging about being related to royalty while you’re in juvie lock-up, and I don’t think that’s gonna score you any points.”
She rolls her eyes. “Like you weren’t a holy terror when you were my age.”
I was, but I don’t need to give her ideas. Especially when she has easier access to the internet than I did.
The internet is full of bad ideas.
“Papaya. What in the hell would you have done if that balloon had taken off with you inside? You could’ve been halfway to Canada by now, with no food, no phone, and probably not warm enough clothes once you got north of Tennessee and high enough in altitude. And when you ran out of fuel—”
“Although, you really shouldn’t marry Viktor, because he’s such a hard-ass, neither of us would ever have fun again,” she muses.
I shush her and knock on the front door, and Gracie herself ushers us in. Her dark hair looks like it hasn’t been brushed in days, there’s baby spit-up on her pink T-shirt, and despite the worry in her brown eyes, she’s glowing the way only a happy woman in love with her little family can.
She grabs me in a huge hug. “Oh my dog, Peach. Are you okay?”
A lump lands in my throat. I don’t answer, but I squeeze her back.
Hard.
“Do y’all want to stay here tonight?” Gracie asks. “The guest rooms are all finished, and the windows are all armed to go off anytime anyone opens them. Plus we can turn on the electric fence tonight.”
“We wouldn’t want to intrude,” Papaya says sweetly.
She looks so freaking innocent when she smiles.
“Yes,” I blurt before I can stop myself.
Because I do want to stay somewhere with a security system and armed guards, and at the moment, I don’t care that one of those guards is Viktor and that it’s total overkill to have four guards making sure the occasional random paparazzi doesn’t snap any unauthorized photos of His Royal Happypants.
Much as Viktor annoys me, I need help. And as much as my pride tastes like shit when I’m swallowing it with all the worries clogging my sinuses right now, I need an easy button.
I might hate myself tomorrow for hiding behind Gracie’s rich, titled boyfriend and his cadre of unnecessary guards, but the judge is right.
I can’t do this by myself.
“Great!” Gracie says. “Since the weather won’t let us head out to the Grits Festival tonight, I’m making fried chicken. And you two are going to sit down at dinner, and you’re going to like it.”
“You know what I love about chicken legs? The shape reminds me of—”
I put a hand over Papaya’s mouth before she can finish that sentence.
Sometimes I forget she knows what Gracie used to do for a living.
And that I used to be in the videos she’d use to advertise her dirty cookies all over social media.
“Fried chicken sounds delicious,” I tell Gracie. “Thank you.”
“Good. Because Joey and Zeus are coming over, and I have about six chickens I’m frying up.”
I wince at Joey’s name.
At best, I’ll be on a short administrative leave while she and Weightless take care of my PR nightmare. At worst—nope.
Not going to think about worst.
Because worst involves being jobless and husbandless and losing any chance of giving Papaya a normal life.
God. It’s like I need to just start over. Go somewhere new. Both of us. Just—just escape from all of this.
“Fried chicken with biscuits?” Papaya asks.
“No, silly, with cheese grits. I make ‘em better than you can get down at the festival anyway.”
That’s the truth. Gracie might be known around town for her baked goods, but there’s little she can’t do in the kitchen.
Thunder rolls behind us, and I look out the window in time to catch two more rapid flashes of lightning in the thick clouds piling in from the southwest. G
racie winces, and a baby wails somewhere in the house.
“Be right back. Make yourselves comfy—in the kitchen. Yes. In the kitchen.” She gives me a look that suggests whoever came to visit Manning is still here in the salon—which we call the salon mostly because it’s hilarious to all of us that Gracie lives in a house fancy enough to have a salon, even if it’s super comfortable and where we usually hang out. So I’m guessing they don’t want Papaya—or possibly me—to get in the way.
I grab the back of Papaya’s Half Cocked Heroes T-shirt and tug her toward the back of the house. “Yep. The kitchen.”
We pass the closed double doors to the salon, but two voices ring out clearly.
One is Manning’s.
The other belongs to what sounds like the world’s most cheerful woman. “Oh, Your Highness knows Amoria! I usually have to explain to people that we’re tucked into the Alps between Italy, Austria, and Switzerland. Original country of love, you know.”
“Hence the reason Viktor needs a wife if he’s to take the throne,” Manning says.
Papaya smirks. “Told you,” she whispers.
My entire left eyeball is twitching. Are eyeballs supposed to twitch? Like all the way back in the back of your eye socket? Because mine’s twitching against my brain. I drag her faster down the hall. “Hush before you get us kicked out.”
“You know, we could have a lot of fun if we joined forces instead of you telling me no all the time.”
I pull her through the kitchen door and turn on her. “Papaya. Do you know what I did today?”
“Flirted with Judge Liverspot?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I did. I made moon eyes at him and promised to kiss him if he’d sign off on your adoption paperwork.”
She wrinkles her nose. “You love me that much?”
My heart squeezes, because I’m not sure anyone has ever loved this kid. Tried to, maybe. But succeeded? “Yes. I love you that much.”
And I want her to have a chance at growing up and doing something amazing with her life.
I can’t tell her about the charges. About the bad news undoubtedly coming from Joey. About having to get married if I want to have any chance of having the judge sign off on the adoption.
About the threats from Brantley’s mother.
She doesn’t need to know any of that.
She needs to know I’m not going to dump her on someone else just because she’s pushing limits.
It’s what I needed—and got—from Meemaw.
And there’s no way I’m introducing a random man into her life.
But what does that mean? That she’s just going to bounce here and there until she’s eighteen? I don’t know if she’s still on her father’s insurance. I don’t know if she’s enrolled in school for the fall. I don’t know if she needs a physical or if she wants to play sports or if she has any friends other than Brantley or how in the world I’ll keep her away from the bad influences.
Or keep her from being the bad influence.
We both need to start over.
Go somewhere else, and just start—
Oh.
My.
Lordy.
Goodness.
Thunder shakes the foundation, and a gullywasher attacks the windowpanes without warning.
Manning bursts into the kitchen, glancing around as though he’s looking for Gracie and the baby.
Who wakes up screaming every time there’s a thunderstorm.
So, basically, every afternoon.
“Gracie’s already checking her,” I tell him. I snap my fingers. “You keep Papaya. I got something I need to do.”
“I—” he starts.
“Just sit on her,” I call. “And if she gets out, I’ll kill you, even if it means taking my chances on that taser Viktor’s always threatening me with.”
Because this is insane.
It’ll probably give me indigestion on an hourly basis.
But it might be the only thing I have left that can save Papaya.
And that’s what’s important.
6
Viktor
With the storm brewing and Papaya off our hands, Kristofer has left for the main house to double-check the security system and the backup generators, leaving me alone once again. I text Alexander and ask if he’s found any loopholes while I pull out my own laptop to conduct some research.
His answer isn’t reassuring.
No. And it turns out the horse won’t work. The people have to actually believe you to be in LOVE with your wife. Can you imagine?
For a man completely smitten with his husband, he’s rather gloomy on the subject of love.
Perhaps it’s merely the woman aspect he objects to.
Or possibly his humor doesn’t come through well in text form.
A crack of lightning and the subsequent boom rattling the windows makes the lights in my quarters flicker and die. At the same moment, there’s a pounding on the carriage house door.
Who the devil would be out in this weather?
I race to the door, expecting Kristofer or one of the other team. News that Papaya has dashed off into the storm.
Instead, Peach is on my doorstep, a drowned blond rat with an idea glinting madly in her crystal blue eyes. The rain has soaked her tank top, showcasing her hard nipples and the hollow of her stomach beneath her ribs, and there’s a steady path of water disappearing into her cleavage.
My bollocks stir.
She does rather redefine the definition of wet dream.
Until she opens her mouth. “You need to get married.”
“I beg your—”
She shoves a wet clump of hair off her forehead and barrels past me, which I allow only because this has been quite the day, and I daresay I’d enjoy a good verbal sparring.
“You need to get married,” she repeats. “And as horrible luck would have it, so do I.”
It takes me a full moment to gather my wits. “I don’t believe horrible luck is a strong enough term, my lady.”
“Viktor, that may be the smartest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
A flare of temper licks through my veins. “Then perhaps you should listen better, my lady.”
She presses a palm into her eyeball, as though to stop it from suffering a seizure. “See? This is perfect.” She grits the words out as though they’re battling professional sumo wrestlers to get through her throat and to her tongue. “We get married, you get to be king, I get custody of Papaya, you go live in your magical mountain country without us, and everyone’s happy.”
I briefly wonder if my tea was spiked, because her logic is nearly sound, and this idea is suddenly not nearly as ludicrous as it was moments ago, though it is still rather unappealing. “What has Papaya to do with this?”
“The judge won’t let me adopt her unless I get married.”
My body tenses. “That seems highly unlikely and illegal, my lady.”
“Then you apparently haven’t had the displeasure of meeting His Honorable Liverspot yet. I can fight him in court, but by the time it’s all said and done, Papaya will be done with high school. If she gets that far without a steady parent.”
Her other eye has begun to twitch, and she covers it as well. She’s dripping water onto the vinyl floor, gooseflesh rising down her toned arms to the red tips of her fingernails. The denim of her pants clings to her shapely thighs, and I have to swallow twice before I can speak.
It seems I’m acquiring a stress-induced erection.
There can be no other explanation, as nothing about this situation is remotely inspiring.
“I still fail to see the connection, my lady.”
She drops both hands and sighs at me. It’s a whole-body sigh, the kind that makes her round breasts—and thus her pointed nipples—rise and fall with a slight jiggle while her shoulders droop in direct proportion to the droop in her plump lips. “The fucking judge doesn’t think a woman with a full-time job has the bandwidth to monitor such a creative teenager.”
>
“That’s quite a gracious description of your sister.”
She sighs at me once more, and for a moment, I wonder if her shoulders might actually droop to the floor. “We get married. You go off to ride your white horse into your new kingdom. I stay here, hire one of Zeus’s old hockey buddies to follow Papaya when I’m at work—if I still have a job after this morning—and we tell people I’ll be following you to wherever you live once Papaya graduates high school. In the meantime, you pass a law to let divorced kings rule your little kingdom, and then we both go on our merry ways. We don’t even have to talk. Just pose for a couple pictures. Zeus has some friend in the romance novel industry. We’ll get him to find someone to write us a good cover story.”
The idea isn’t without merit. It would require some tweaking, but Peach?
Alexander’s horse-in-a-dress idea was on par with the idea of this woman being the queen of anything. I’ve been witness to her overprotective threats of bodily harm to His Highness, to today’s debacle, and to the aftermath of a spider incident she instigated with Zeus Berger.
The woman might walk more on the side of the law than her sister, but she’s still a bloody terror.
And every misstep by her—and by Papaya—whether here in the States or in Amoria, would be captured, scrutinized, and reflected upon the name of the royal family.
And that’s before any consideration of the amount of contact we should have were we to indulge in this crazy scheme.
Per Alexander, we would have to be convincing in acting as though we were in love.
I reach into the fruit bowl on the counter, snag a paring knife, and slice into a peach while I mull the idea. There would be complications of such a union, but having been witness to Peach’s discouragement of Miss Gracie in getting involved with royalty, I rather suspect she has as few other options as I do.
Namely, zero.
Unless she’s a hypocrite and has secretly always longed to be royalty, and merely objected to Gracie having a prince whilst she was still a commoner.
Though I rather believe her disdain for royalty was real.
And still is.
I pop the slices off the pit and into my mouth one by one. Peach’s brows are lowering by the minute, as though she’s irritated by my silence.