All the Best Nights

by Hanna Earnest

  Fuck this. “Excuse me,” he began.

  “Helen, it sounds like the prince may have a bit of a dry throat.” Roxanne Medina spoke, finally, without raising her eyes from her document. “Could you get him a glass of water?”

  “Of course, ma’am.”

  As the nurse headed to a decanter, Mateo said, “I don’t need water. I’m trying to find out...”

  Roxanne Medina raised one delicate finger to the screen. Without looking up. Continuing to write. Without a word or a sound, Roxanne Medina shushed him, and Mateo—top of his field, head of his lab, a goddamned príncipe—he let her, out of shock and awe that another human being would treat him this way.

  He never treated people this way.

  He moved to stand, to storm out, when a water glass appeared in front of his face and a hair was tugged from his head.

  “Ow!” he yelled as he turned to glare at the granite-faced nurse holding a strand of his light brown hair.

  “Fantastic, I see the tests have begun.”

  Mateo turned back to the screen and pushed the water glass out of his way so he could see the woman who finally deigned to speak to him.

  “Tests?”

  She was beautiful. Of course she was beautiful. When you have billions of dollars at your disposal, you can look any way you want. Roxanne Medina was sky-blue eyed, high-breasted and lush-lipped, with long and lustrous black hair. On the pixelated screen, he couldn’t tell how much of her was real or fake. He doubted even her stylist could remember what was Botoxed, extended, and implanted.

  Still, she was striking. Mateo closed his mouth with a snap.

  Her slow, sensual smile let him know she’d seen him do it.

  Mateo glowered as Roxanne Medina slipped her delicate black reading glasses up on her head and aimed those searing blue eyes at him. “These tests are just a formality. We’ve tested your father and sister and there were no genetic surprises.”

  “Great,” he deadpanned. “Why are you testing me?”

  Her sleek eyebrows quirked. “Didn’t your father explain this already?” A tiny gold cross hung in the V of her ivory silk top. “We’re testing for anything that might make the Golden Prince a less-than-ideal specimen to impregnate me.”

  Madre de Dios. His father hadn’t been delusional. This woman really wanted to buy herself a prince and a royal baby. The king had introduced him to some morally deficient people in his life, but this woman... His shock was punctuated by a needle sliding into his bicep.

  “¡Joder!” Mateo yelled, turning to see a needle sticking out of him, just under his t-shirt sleeve. “Stop doing that!”

  “Hold still,” the devil’s handmaiden said emotionlessly, as if stealing someone’s blood for unwanted tests was an everyday task for her.

  Rather than risk a needle breaking off in his arm, he did stay still. But he glared at the screen. “I haven’t agreed to any of this. The only reason I’m here is to tell you ‘no.’”

  “The king promised...”

  “My father makes a lot of promises. Only one of us is fool enough to believe them.”

  She took the glasses off entirely, sending that hair swirling around her neck, and slowly settled back into her chair. The gold cross hid once again between blouse and pale skin. She stared at him the way he stared at the underside of grape leaves to determine their needs.

  Finally, she said, “Forgive me. We’ve started on different pages. I thought you were on board.” Her voice, Mateo noticed, was throaty with a touch of scratch to it. He wondered if that was jet lag from her tropical location. Or did she sound like that all the time? “I run a multinational corporation; sometimes I rush to the finish line and forget my ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous.’ Helen, say you’re sorry.”

  “I’m sorry,” Helen said immediately. As she pulled the plunger and dragged Mateo’s blood into the vial.

  Gritting his teeth, he glared at the screen. “What self-respecting person would have a kid with a stranger for money?”

  “A practical one with a kingdom on the line,” Roxanne Medina said methodically. “My money can buy you time. That’s what you need to right your sinking ship, correct? You need more time to develop the Tempranillo Vino Real?”

  Mateo’s blood turned cold; he wondered if Nurse Ratched could see it freezing as she pulled it out of him. He stayed quiet and raised his chin as the nurse put a Band-Aid on his arm.

  “This deal can give you the time you need,” the billionaire said, her voice beckoning. “My money can keep your people solvent until you get those vines planted.”

  She sat there, a stranger in a tropical villa, declaring herself the savior of the kingdom it was Mateo’s responsibility to save.

  For centuries, the people of Monte del Vino Real, a plateau hidden among the Picos de Europa in northernmost Spain, made their fortunes from the lush wines produced from their cool-climate Tempranillo vines. But in recent years, mismanagement, climate change, the world’s focus on French and California wines, and his parents’ devotion to their royal lifestyle instead of ruling had devalued their grapes. The world thought the Monte was “sleepy.” What they didn’t know was that his kingdom was nearly destitute.

  Mateo was growing a new variety of Tempranillo vine in his UC Davis greenhouse lab whose hardiness and impeccable flavor of the grapes it produced would save the fortunes of the Monte del Vino Real. His new-and-improved vine or “clone”—he’d called it the Tempranillo Vino Real for his people—just needed a couple more years of development. To buy that time, he’d cobbled together enough loans to keep credit flowing to his growers and business owners and his community teetering on the edge of financial ruin instead of free-falling over. He’d also instituted security measures in his lab so that the vine wouldn’t be stolen by competitors.

  But Roxanne Medina was telling him that all of his efforts—the favors he’d called in to keep the Monte’s poverty a secret, the expensive security cameras, the pat downs of grad students he knew and trusted—were useless. This woman he’d never met had sniffed out his secrets and staked a claim.

  “What does or doesn’t happen to my kingdom has nothing to do with you,” he said, angry at a computer screen.

  She put down her glasses and clasped slender, delicate hands in front of her. “This doesn’t have to be difficult,” she insisted. “All I want is three nights a month from you.”

  He scoffed. “And my hand in marriage.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “The king has produced more than enough royal bastards for the Monte, don’t you think?”

  The king. His father. The man whose limitless desire to be seen as a wealthy international playboy emptied the kingdom’s coffers. The ruler who weekly dreamt up get-rich-quick schemes that—without Mateo’s constant monitoring and intervention—would have sacrificed the Monte’s land, people, and thousand-year legacy to his greed.

  It was Mateo’s fault for being surprised that his father would sell his son and grandchild to the highest bidder.

  “I’m just asking for three nights a month for a year,” Roxanne Medina continued. “At the end of that year, I’ll ‘divorce’ you—” her air quotes cast in stark relief what a mockery this “marriage” would be “—and provide you with the settlement I outlined with your father. Regardless of the success of your vine, your people will be taken care of and you will never have to consider turning your kingdom into an American amusement park.”

  That was another highly secretive deal that Roxanne Medina wasn’t supposed to know about: An American resort company wanted to purchase half the Monte and develop it as a playland for rich Americans to live out their royal fantasies. But her source for that info was easy; his father daily threatened repercussions if Mateo didn’t sign the papers for the deal.

  In the three months since Mateo had stormed out of that meeting, leaving his father and the American resort group furious, hi
s IT guy had noticed a sharp rise in hacking attempts against his lab’s computers. And there’d been two attempted break-ins on his apartment, according to his security company.

  Billionaire Roxanne Medina might be the preferable devil. At least she was upfront about her snooping and spying.

  But have a kid with her? His heir? A child that, until an hour ago, had only been a distant, flat someday, like marriage and death? “So I’m supposed to make a kid with you and then—what—just hand him over?”

  “Didn’t the king tell you...? Of course, you’ll get to see her. A child needs two parents.” The adamancy of her raspy voice had Mateo focusing on the screen. The billionaire clutched her fingers in front of the laptop, her blue eyes focused on him. “We’ll have joint custody. We won’t need to see each other again, but your daughter, you can have as much or as little access to her as you’d like.”

  She pushed her long black hair behind her shoulders as she leaned closer to the screen, and Mateo once again saw that tiny, gold cross against her skin.

  “Your IQ is 152, mine is 138, and neither of us have chronic illnesses in our families. We can create an exceptional child and give her safety, security, and a fairy-tale life free of hardship. I wouldn’t share this responsibility with just anyone; I’ve done my homework on you. I know you’ll make a good father.”

  Mateo had been trained in manipulation his whole life. His mother cried and raged, and then hugged and petted him. His father bought him a Labrador puppy and then forced Mateo to lie about the man’s whereabouts for a weekend. Looking a person in the eye and speaking a compliment from the heart were simple tricks in a master manipulator’s bag.

  And yet, there was something that beckoned about the child she described. He’d always wanted to be a better everything than his own father.

  The nurse sat a contract and pen in front of Mateo. He stared at the rose gold Mont Blanc.

  “I know this is unorthodox,” she continued. “But it benefits us both. You get breathing room for your work and financial security for your people. I get a legitimate child who knows her father without...well, without the hassles of everything else.” She paused. “You understand the emotional toll of an unhappy marriage better than most.”

  Mateo wanted to bristle but he simply didn’t have the energy. His parents’ affairs and blowups had been filling the pages of the tabloids since before he was born. The billionaire hadn’t needed to use her elite gang of spies to gather that intel. But she did remind him of his own few-and-far-between thoughts on matrimony. Namely, that it was a state he didn’t want to enter.

  If he never married, then when would he have an heir?

  Mateo pulled back from his navel gazing to focus on her. She was watching him. Mateo saw her eyes travel slowly over the screen, taking him in, and he felt like a voyeur and exhibitionist at the same time.

  She bit her full bottom lip and then gave him a smile of promise. “To put it frankly, Príncipe, your position and poverty aren’t the only reasons I selected you. You’re...a fascinating man. And we’re both busy, dedicated to our work, and not getting as much sex as we’d like. I’m looking forward to those three nights a month.”

  “Sex” coming out of her lush mouth in that velvety voice had Mateo’s libido sitting up and taking notice. That’s right. He’d be having sex with this tempting creature on the screen.

  She tilted her head, sending all that thick black hair to one side and exposing her pale neck. “I’ve had some thoughts about those nights in bed.”

  The instant, searing image of her arched neck while he buried his hand in her hair had Mateo tearing his eyes away. He looked out on the city. Jesus. She was right, it had been too long. And he didn’t need his little brain casting a vote right now.

  She made it sound so simple.

  Her money gave him more than the three years of financial ledge-clinging that he’d scraped together on his own, a timeline that had already caused sleepless nights. The only way Mateo could have the Tempranillo Vino Real planted and profitable in three years is if everything went perfectly—no problems with development, no bad growing seasons. Mother Nature could not give him that guarantee. Her deal also prevented his father from taking more drastic measures. The chance for a quiet phone and an inbox free of plans like the one to capture the Monte’s principal irrigation source and bottle it into “Royal Water” with the king’s face on the label was almost reason enough to sign the contract.

  Mateo refused to list “regular sex with a gorgeous woman who looked at him like a lollipop” in the plus column. He wasn’t led around by his cock like his father.

  And that child; his far-off, mythical heir? The príncipes y princesas of the Monte del Vino Real had been marrying for profit long before Roxanne Medina invented it. He didn’t know what kind of mother she would be, but he would learn in the course of the year together. And if they discovered in that year they weren’t compatible...surely she would cancel the arrangement. After the initial shock, she’d seemed reasonable.

  Gripping on to his higher ideals and shaky rationalizations, he picked up the pen and signed.

  The nurse plunked an empty plastic cup with a lid down on the desk.

  “What the...?” Mateo said with horror.

  “Just the final test,” Roxanne Medina said cheerily from the screen. “Don’t worry. Helen left a couple of magazines in the bathroom. Just leave the cup in there when you’re finished and she’ll retrieve it.”

  Any hopes for a reasonable future swirled down the drain. Roxanne Medina expected him to get himself off in a cup while this gargoyle of a woman waited outside the door.

  He stood and white-knuckled the cup, turned away from the desk. Fuck it. At least his people were safe. An hour earlier, his hands in the dirt, he’d thought he could save his kingdom with hard work and noble intentions. But he’d fall on his sword for them if he had to.

  Or stroke it.

  He had one last question for the woman who held his life in her slim-fingered hand. “Why?” he asked, his back to the screen, the question coming from the depths of his chest. “Really, why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why me.”

  “Because you’re perfect.” He could hear the glee in her rich voice. “And I always demand perfection.”

  Don’t miss Lush Money by Angelina M. Lopez, available now wherever ebooks are sold.

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  Copyright © 2020 by Angelina M. Lopez

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  All the Best Nights

  Copyright © 2021 by Hanna Earnest

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