So … one year and three months later our wedding date dawns bright and beautiful.
It is the grandest occasion you can ever imagine. I won’t be surprised if they find out that the majority of the population attended. What Dante never told me is just how loved he is. The people had been rooting for him and patiently waiting for the day he would take over and be their King.
They come out cheering and waving flags.
Funny thing is after all that time of planning, it passes in a quick blur. Only a few things stand out in my mind. Star, Cindy, Raven and I drinking champagne and laughing while our hair and make-up is being done. Then, when I walk into church and, though Dante had been told during the dress rehearsal not to turn too early, he turns instantly. A slow smile spreads on his face and he shakes his head as if he simply cannot believe his eyes. I try not to trip.
I am so happy.
I remember the brush of his lips after we exchange rings. I remember Matilda putting my son, Alfred Wilhem De-Beauvouli, into my arms for the photographs. He stole the show. Best looking kid in the world. What can you expect when your father is Dante?
I recall the cake too. White chocolate with raspberry filling, but only because I smear it onto Dante’s face. He is a good sport though. He makes me lick it off. The guests go quiet. They don’t expect that of their King. Ha, ha, they’re going to go quiet a lot in the future. Dante plans to change a lot of things in Avanti.
I remember his Dad. He kisses me on my cheeks and tells me I am the best thing that happened to him, his son, and Avanti. Yeah, I call him Dad. I guess I feel sorry for him. He makes a sad figure. Sometimes I think he still misses for and bleeds for Linnea, though he tries his best not to show it. I guess he truly loved that bitch. We have become great friends. We garden together. The truth is, he should never have been king. He always was, and always will be a gardener at heart.
Unlike him, I never want to see Linnea again. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with strange dreams about her. She caught me at a time when I was so vulnerable she could manipulate me like I was some brainless puppet. Those are the times I think of little Elsa. How she sacrificed that girl as if she was nothing. I still feel guilty about her death. If not for me she would still be alive, but Dante is more pragmatic. He takes good care of her family and tells me what happened is just fate. Some people are born to be princes surrounded by wealth and luxury and other people are born to starve in barren landscapes. She was meant to die on that plane and there is not a thing I could have done to prevent it.
Maybe the person who hurt me the most in all of this was Cassandra. I thought she was a friend. Someone I could have become really close to eventually. How wrong I was. She sent me a card from Dubai, where she and Linnus found refuge. I guess they party there with all the other corrupt despots who have had to flee their countries. The card said: wish you were here. It was a photograph of weathered camel bones in a desert. I don’t dwell on any of them for long, or let them keep me awake. I simply roll over and hug Dante, and everything is perfect again.
Oh, of course, I remember the kiss on the balcony. The crowd roars for one more kiss. I blush with embarrassment, but Dante plays up to the crowd, miming that another might overwhelm him. When they good-naturedly beg him for one more, he obliges with a laugh. He sweeps me into his arms and bending me back theatrically, kisses me passionately. Needlessly to say, the crowd eat it all up. I hear cameras clicking like mad. Princess Rosa. Who would have thought? Better than a kick in the teeth, that’s for sure.
Then he says, ‘Queen Rosa De-Beauvouli they’re playing our song.”
And I say, “That’s not our song.”
And he says, “That was the song they were playing the time I saw you.”
And I nearly cry, because I can’t believe how lucky I am.
For our honeymoon we fly to Paris. To the Plaza Athenee.
“You know you are the most beautiful woman on earth,” he whispers in my ear. I can smell the city in the breeze that blows in through the window.
“You know you are the most handsome man on earth,” I whisper back.
“Yeah,” he says.
I slap his chest. “Stop being so cocky.”
“Why shouldn’t I say it? It’s the fucking truth. Are you going to deny that wasn’t the reason we hooked up in the first place?”
I roll my eyes. “I was very drunk.”
“Bullshit. You wanted me so bad I could smell your arousal.”
“Haven’t you heard of a thing called modesty?”
“Yeah.”
“Ever feel like practicing some?”
“Never.”
I laugh. “What do you think Alfred is doing?”
“I think he’s irritating the hell out of Star.”
“Shall we call and find out?”
He takes his phone out, dials and hands it to me. I take it from him. This is the first time I’ve been away from Alfred and it feels strange.
“Hey,” I say.
“I don’t think I can give your son back to you,” Star says.
I giggle. “He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?”
“He’s so cute, he makes my ovaries hurt.”
“What’s he doing?”
“It’s cute. He’s sticking his fingers into the electricity sockets.”
I sit bolt upright. “What?”
“Just kidding. He’s licking the dog.”
“Star!”
“Okay. He’s sitting in his cot looking very cross, because I’m talking to you, and not allowing him to crawl around and destroy everything in sight.”
“Thank you for taking care of him, Star.”
“No probs. Now you better go suck your husband off or something equally carnal and lustful.”
“Right,” I say. I disconnect the call and turn to my husband.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he says with a cocky grin.
“Just something Star said.”
“What did she say?”
“She said I should suck your dick.”
His eyes glow with pure wickedness. “Sounds like very fucking good advice to me,” the King says, dropping his pants and showing me his big royal rod.
ONE YEAR LATER
I sit at the vanity brushing my hair. A few minutes later I hear him begin to stir. I turn just as he’s getting out of bed.
“Good morning, bella,” he says, his eyes lingering on my breasts. I know what that means. Horny devil.
“Good morning.” I pause. “I want to ask you something.”
“Ask away.”
“Do you think there are any three-day old biscuits anywhere in Avanti?”
At first he looks puzzled, which makes him look absolutely adorable. I almost jump him. Then, his face breaks out in a disbelieving smile. “You sure?” he asks.
“I’m absolutely certain.”
He leaps up, rushes over to me and lifts me clean off the ground.
Our kiss lasts an eternity.
p.s.
I know I did a crappy job of describing my wedding day. If you want more details come over to Avanti, and I’ll show you the video over tea and fruit cake. I must warn you though, I look a bit like the cat that got the cream, but Dante and Alfred look amazing.
THE END
CRYSTAL JAKE
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Acknowledgments
I sincerely hope I don’t leave anyone out, but no doubt I will. And when I do remember I will give myself a hard time and make it a point to mention you in the next book.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart to Nicola Rhead, Caryl Milton, Elizabeth Burns, Sue Bee, Cariad & Nichole from Sizzling Pages, B.J. Gaskill, Rene Giraldi, Chelle Thompson, Sandra Hayes, Terry & Donna Briody-Buccella, Tina Medeiros, Sharon Johnson, Tracy Spurlock, Simona Misevska, Irida Sotiri, Lan LLP, C.J Fallowfield, Drew Hoffman, Nadia Debowska-Stephens, Maria Lazarou & Nancy of Romance Reads.
Ha, ha, ha, bless your soul.
You really think you’re in control.
Well…
—Crazy, Gnarls Barkey
Prologue
Crazy
‘NOOOOOOO,’ I HOWL, but there is gravel or grave soil in my throat, and nothing other than an ugly, dried-up rasp travels out of my mouth. My head shakes back and forth like a mindless wind-up toy. Even my body is denying the horror before my eyes. Without warning my knees buckle under me, and I find myself in a heap at the doorway of his flat. Frantically, I begin to crawl toward him, screaming, babbling.
I can’t lose him! Not him! Oh God, not him. Please. Not him.
Two feet away from his body and it occurs to me: this is just a nightmare. Of course it is. It has to be. Any moment now I’ll wake up. And the first thing I’ll do? Call him and tell him how much I have missed him, how much I love him.
I feel the floor scrape against my bare knees. It isn’t a nightmare. It is real.
We haven’t spoken for two weeks. I had exams and when I called his mobile, it went straight to voicemail… Shit excuse. I should have called again, I should have emailed. Why hadn’t I? I should have known.
I hunker down over his body, my pose ungainly, heavy, that of a suffering beast. My buttocks hit the floor and my legs fold up and cross under me. I press my fingers against my open mouth and stare at him. His lips and fingers are blue and the rest of him is ashen and still. He can’t be dead.
It can’t be real!
The stillness of a dead body is impossible to describe. And yet when you see it you refuse to believe it. You always think it is a trick. A mistake. A ploy…. But a needle is embedded in his arm, which is blackened with the skin stretched and unreal. It looks as if it belongs elsewhere. That is not my brother’s arm. I know my brother’s arm as intimately as I know my own.
My breathing is shallow and trembling. I suck a huge burst of air into my lungs and pull the offending needle out. My stomach twists. It should never have entered his body in the first place. I throw the syringe away. It hits something and rolls on the wooden floor. It also leaves a tiny hole in my brother’s flesh that does not bleed. I swallow hard. My hands are shaking badly.
That means he didn’t suffer, a voice whispers in my head. He did not even have time to pull it out before he was gone to wherever it is he went to.
Oh God! He is nineteen. He can’t be gone.
CPR. I should give him CPR. There must be something I can still do. I grab his shoulders and try to drag him across my thighs, but his body is so heavy, so cold, and so stiff and foreign that my shocked hands fly away from his shoulders as if they have touched fire. I gaze at him as he lies unmoving. The blood that ran without rest during his short life has stilled within his veins. Everything has cooled and hardened. He is like a piece of wood.
With a sob of intolerable, indescribable anguish I reach for him and with every ounce of my might I drag his cold, dead weight toward me and lift it onto my lap. I touch the soft brown hair that flops across his forehead and it feels different. His scalp has hardened and changed the lie of his hair. I caress his hair, his face, his hands. Holding his head pressed against my stomach I close my eyes and begin to rock him the way a mother would comfort her distressed baby.
But there is no comfort—his head is a hard, unfamiliar weight and the action produces an odd thud made by his stiff hand repeatedly hitting the floor. I stop. In a daze I look down on his face.
His mouth is open, the tongue—a strange, dull color—is pushed against his teeth. Without the healthy sheen of saliva it looks gross. I try to close his mouth, but it is locked open. His eyes are not fully shut and through the slits I see the whites. I try to lift a lid to see once more the beautiful blue eyes I have known all my life.
If I could at least see that.
But his eyelids are glued shut. They will not budge. Tremors shoot through my hand as I still the gruesome desire to force his eyelid open. When we were young we used to lick the salt from each other’s skin. I am suddenly filled with the strange desire to lick his skin.
I put one hand under his head and the other under his neck and I put his head on the floor. Then I scoot backwards until I am on my hands and knees and my face is hovering inches away from his. My head moves downwards. My tongue comes out. Inches away a voice in my head urgently cries, ‘No.’
I stop and listen to peculiar silence around us. It is quieter than falling snow. On the tabletop I notice his fingerprints in the light layer of dust, and then something weird happens. For a second I clearly perceive myself not from inside my body but from outside, crouched over my dead brother, more animal than human. I recoil from the sight. And then the moment is gone and I lower my head and lick the last salt on the corpse’s skin.
It is the beginning of my descent into unfamiliar territory. A place you might call madness.
I’m afraid my stay was excruciatingly long.
Can’t read my, can’t read my,
No, he can’t read my poker face
—Poker Face, Lady Gaga
Chapter 1
Lily
‘FIRST STOP, EDEN,’ says Patrick, with a quick backward glance, as he pulls the eight-seater minibus out into the lunchtime traffic. ‘Just give it your best moves, and no worries if ya don’t get picked because we still have Spearmint Rhino and Diamonds after that,’ he adds cheerfully.
He has a boyish face, full of charm and guile, but one look at him and you know. Weasel. And he drives like a mad man. The five of us hang onto our battered seats and smile distantly at each other. We are competitors who have been collected from the designated pick-up point outside South Kensington Tube station and are on our way to an audition. Surreptitiously, I watch them.
Traveling with me are a tall redhead, a black girl with a tight body, a life-size human Barbie doll with masses of blonde hair, a beyond believable tiny waist and enormous boobs, and a sleekly beautiful olive-skinned girl. Each one of us has a large shoulder bag. No doubt their bags hold the same things mine does.
A sexy costume, killer shoes, and strong stage make-up.
I gaze out of the window and digest the information that Club Eden is to be our first stop. Shame. I had hoped to practice my routine on a real life stage in one of the other clubs and see all the other girls’ routines before we got to Eden, but still, it is interesting to know that Eden has to be paying Patrick the highest commission to have first refusal. No wonder it has overtaken all the other strip clubs and become the club to be seen in even though it does not offer full nudity.
In silence we head northwards to the infamous King’s Cross area of London. Once it was synonymous with a grimy train station crawling with prostitutes, and rave parties in disused warehouses, but King’s Cross has cleaned up its act and fast become a cutting-edge
hub for fashion and the arts, attracting even Google to set up its European headquarters there.
Club Eden stands sandwiched between two tall glass office towers.
Patrick drives past the large neon-lit bitten red apple logo and, turning at the next side street, enters the rear car park. He parks close to the back doors where a guy in a chef’s whites is sitting on the steps smoking a cigarette. He watches us through the smoke with uncurious eyes.
‘Here we are,’ Patrick announces, and switches off the engine.
We climb out, adjust our clothes, and follow him around the side of the building to the front entrance. As soon as we enter the glossy black, double doors and my stiletto heels leave their indent on the carpet, I feel a prickling sensation go up my spine. It is so strong it feels as if a spider is actually walking on my skin. Unable to stop myself I snap my head around.
Jesus!
Deeply tanned, badass black hair, and staring straight at me is the legend himself! Jake Fucking Eden. My heart skips a beat. Fuck me! His photographs have not done him justice. Dressed totally in black except for a pair of brown snakeskin boots, he is coming down a broad and rather magnificent stairway with the kind of effortless, lazy power of a tiger.
He is too far away for me to see the expression in his eyes, but the intense, barely leashed tension around him has a thunderstorm effect. It makes the air between us vibrate and crackle like electricity, taking my breath away and throwing my senses into high alert. My spine goes rigid and all the tiny hairs on the back of my neck rise up like those of a cat that comes face to face with mortal danger.
For a few seconds we stare at each other, instant sexual adversaries.
The Heir: A Contemporary Royal Romance Page 20