Royal Stripper

by Sienna Valentine

  As she wondered whether or not she should bother unpacking, Harrison arrived, looking fresh-faced and positively sunny. He made a happy noise and blew her a kiss with both hands when he came into the bedroom to find her rummaging through her luggage.

  “Hello, darling,” he said. “Is the room alright?”

  “You can’t seriously be asking that question,” laughed Clarice. “I can’t imagine this place has a nicer suite than this.”

  “We do, but that’s the one father will be staying in.”

  “Oh, well, naturally.” She made a glance behind her, towards the king-sized four poster bed draped with silky purple fabrics. “I hope you don’t think sharing this bed is automatically part of the bargain.”

  Clarice had a feeling he had practiced looking not disappointed in the mirror a few times before he got here, because there was something rehearsed about the way he threw his hands up. “Oh, give me a little credit. I hope you really don’t find me so ungentlemanly, of course not. The couches in these suites are almost as comfortable as the bed, and if I get really desperate, I’m sure I can sneak back out to my actual room for a quick nod.”

  She made a noise like she disbelieved him, and he playfully glared back at her.

  “Unless you want me to stay in the bed with you,” said Harrison, putting his hands on his hips. “Which it seems like you do, quite frankly, since you’re the one who brought it up. If you want me to, I can definitely make arrangements for that. I’m a bit of a sleep-talker, though.”

  Clarice made a shocked noise and let out a harsh laugh. “Oh, you wish! I’m not about this random, casual sex place, remember? That’s the whole reason you hired me to pull off this crazy idea?”

  “But we’re engaged, so it wouldn’t technically be casual sex with a stranger…” He took a few sly steps forward.

  “Harrison.” Even as she rebuffed him, Clarice could feel heat between her legs begging her to take his offer. She tried to fight it down before he could see it on her face.

  “Right, right,” he acquiesced with a laugh and checked the enormous gold watch on his wrist. “I have a few more things I need to attend to before they arrive. I also have something I need you to do.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  From his jacket pocket he pulled out a small unmarked envelope and handed it to her. “Here are the details of your mission, Agent Bond.”

  “If one of us is Bond, I’m pretty sure it’s you.” Clarice giggled and took it from him. “Is this your life story?”

  “More or less. The highlights. Things you’ll need to know to pull this off.”

  “I didn’t make you a dossier on me.”

  “Maybe you could?” he said. “It would certainly help. And the other thing I need you to do is get down to the boutiques and get some shopping done.”

  “Uh, what?” she said. “Are you serious?”

  “Quite,” he said. “I need you to look the part, darling. It’s not an insult to your current wardrobe, of course. You are a vision. But my mother would take me over her knee again if she thought I wasn’t drowning my future wife in the finest jewelry and clothing available. Go fill out your wardrobe for the week and tell the staff to charge it to my account.”

  “That sounds like a legit story,” said Clarice. She pretended to be talking to a shop-girl. “Oh, yes, that’s what I said, charge all of this to the owner of the resort, he totally said I could do it!”

  “I like the way you think ahead. It’s one of the things I’m good at, too.”

  “Are you sure? Because I don’t think we’d be here making this deal if you were.”

  Harrison playfully glared at her. “You’ve got quite a tongue on you, haven’t you?”

  Clarice gave him a saucy grin. “What can I say? You seem to bring it out in me.”

  His gaze turned to something more admiring and a little bit lustful. “I’ve already phoned ahead and told the shops to expect you, so there shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “If I do, can I throw a fit like a pampered housewife and demand that they get my future husband, the owner, down here this instant?”

  Harrison laughed. “By all means, the more obnoxious the better. You’ll fit right into my mother’s social circle.”

  “Yeesh, maybe I don’t want to do this.”

  Harrison wrapped his arms around her in a sweet, innocent embrace. “There’s no turning back now, darling. You made a solemn pretend commitment to me to be my faux wife.” He took her hands in his with a straight face as Clarice tried her best not to bust up laughing at him. “You can’t get imaginary cold feet, not now.”

  “As long as it’s not pretend money in my bank account when all this is said and done,” she winked.

  “If it is, then my father has much bigger problems than my marital status.” Harrison gave her hands a squeeze before he dropped them. “I’ve got some business to attend to before he arrives, but do give me a ring if anything comes up. I’ll contact you as soon as his plane touches down and let you know when we’ll be meeting.”

  “Knock, knock,” Trudy’s voice rang through the main suite, followed by an impressive whistle. “Jesus Christ, please tell me this is the wrong room.”

  “In here, Trude!” called Clarice. Seconds later, her best friend popped into the bedroom with wide eyes and an approving smile.

  “This place is incredible,” she said, whirling around. Her pretty pink sundress twirled around her tan legs as she did. “I am jealous.”

  “Only the best for my pretend girl,” said Harrison. Then he turned to Trudy with a frown. “Wait, you are aware of what’s happening, aren’t you? Or is that what you call a spoiler alert?”

  “We got the Cliffs Notes last night after your surprise proposal, although I plan on extracting as many more missing details as possible, and I’m prepared to use any means necessary,” said Trudy with a playful glare leveled at Clarice. “But I do approve of you spoiling my girl here, for any reason. She needs it more than anyone I know.”

  Clarice huffed. “Gee, thanks, you make me sound delightful.”

  “Personally, I think all women need more spoiling,” said Harrison, placing a gentle hand on each of the women’s arms. “In fact, Trudy, you help yourself to whatever you’d like at the boutiques as well. Put it on my tab. I’d be happy to spoil Clarice’s friends.”

  Trudy’s mouth dropped open. “You are truly going to regret that.”

  Harrison laughed. “I doubt that very much. Now, I must be off.” He turned to leave the room, but then stopped and came back to Clarice. He leaned down to give a small peck on her cheek.

  She turned red and felt her chest tighten up, but when she looked up at him with questioning eyes, he just said, “Practice makes perfect, right?”

  Clarice nodded, fighting a grin. “Right, of course. We’ll see you in a couple hours.”

  Harrison winked and gave Trudy a nod before disappearing out of the suite.

  “That man is dangerously charming.” Trudy turned back to Clarice with a loving yet judgmental look, shaking her head slowly. “Girl, I still don’t get how all of this happened.”

  “I already told you guys last night, there really isn’t much else to it,” protested Clarice, trying very hard to make it sound like less of a big deal than it was. She was still feeling less than stable about this whole adventure, which she tried to convince herself was half the point. She was worried her sensible, protective best friend would still try and talk her out of it just when she was getting the fires back in her engines.

  “I still find this whole thing so hard to believe since it came out of nowhere,” said Trudy, throwing her big designer purse onto the plush bed and then following it with her body. “This guy seriously just… asked you to be his pretend wife? What the hell kind of twilight zone did we land in?”

  “You’re the one that dragged us here, I take zero responsibility for any zones or twilights,” said Clarice with her hands on her hips. “Like I said, I met him yesterday whe
n he helped me back to the elevators, and the next time I spoke to him was when he pulled me away from dinner last night. He asked me to pretend marry him last night, and I agreed to do it this morning.”

  “How… romantic?” said Trudy with a laugh.

  Clarice gave a sarcastic, dramatic sigh. “Yeah, I know, isn’t he great?”

  “This is all really goddamn weird, hun,” said Trudy with a serious voice. “It’s not exactly your style lately to just run off with strange British men and their needlessly complicated life schemes. Harrison seems like exactly the type of fuckboy we’ve always hated and avoided — or is that just me?”

  A bit of shame bubbled up in Clarice’s gut, and she admitted, “Yes, I know and I see what he is, that’s why this is all just a business arrangement. I’m not actually dating or marrying him after all. I’m just getting paid to pretend I’m a princess for a week. Clearly he’s a guy who loves his job, and his job is being king of a sex resort, so… I’m not letting myself get hurt, Trude. Promise. Anyway, you all told me to come here and have an adventure. Like I said last night, I’m not into the random hookups, so this is my adventure.”

  Instead of the berating she was expecting, Trudy tilted her head and gave Clarice a sly smile. “Some serious pride welling up in me to hear you talk like that, girl. I’m finally seeing shades of the old Clarice who used to hop the fence at Coachella and flirt her way out of trouble with the security guards. I like it when you’re all fired up. You always end up landing miles ahead from where you were before in life.”

  She let out a small laugh at that memory. “That’s exactly what makes me want to do this, Trude,” admitted Clarice. She sat on the bed next to her best friend with a huff. “I know it seems ridiculous to be a part of this scheme, trust me. When he first offered it to me, I wasn’t jumping on board right away. He sort of talked me into it.”

  “With his dick, right?”

  “No!” said Clarice with a laugh. “No, we’re not banging.”

  “Yet,” said Trudy.

  “It’s not like that!”

  “I give you two days.”

  “Anyway,” said Clarice with an eye roll. “He talked me into it with promises of luxury, I’m not too proud to admit. I wasn’t feeling totally great about this hedonistic party stuff anyway, so now I have something different to do… and something that’s going to make me richer. Plus, it will be a fun challenge to see if I can pull it off, and if I don’t, who cares? I’ll just never go to England for any reason, I guess, so as to not run into his parents afterwards.”

  “Give me a break,” said Trudy. “I know you, girl, and I know you don’t give a flying fuck about being rich. What’s the real reason you’re giving into these shenanigans? And don’t try to bullshit me again.”

  Clarice sighed and stared at her friend. She should have known better than to try and pull one over on Trudy in the first place. They knew each other too damn well. “The truth is, Trude, I haven’t felt like myself — my whole self — since Tanner left me. It’s like he took some part of me with him, the part that was brave and tried new crazy things and only wanted to be happy and active. I know it sounds silly to suggest he could have done something that damaging to me just by leaving me, but… he really did. And honestly, I’m terrified he took it for good… that I lost that part of me forever… I have to see if it’s true. I have to know if it’s still in me or if I’m stuck being afraid of living for the rest of my life.”

  “Afraid of living? What do you mean?”

  “Afraid of taking chances and risks, afraid of doing things that look ridiculous or insane. Some of the best things in my life have happened because I took chances on something foolish. If I can pull this off with Harrison, do something crazy and wild, maybe I’ll start to feel better. Maybe I can finally get out of this funk and remember back before Tanner, when I was just me, and I wasn’t afraid of anything. If I can trick some high society people into thinking I’m moving into their world without them knowing, maybe that would mean my instincts are still good and I’m not a useless pile of failed human being after all. Maybe it means the old Clarice is still in here somewhere.”

  Trudy made a deeply painful noise and wrapped her arms around Clarice. She pulled her best friend down to the bed and embraced her tenderly. Warmth and love traveled like a slow tide down Clarice’s nerves.

  “You are not a failure,” said Trudy. “You never were, hun. I hate to hear you talk like that about yourself. You’ve been my best friend my whole life, I don’t know what I would do without you, and any guy who can’t see how amazing you are is truly a pile of shit. Tanner has never and will never define you. You’ll always be who you are, you just need to get out of this funk and come back and enjoy life again.”

  Clarice laughed, but it was punctuated with emotional tears. “Thanks, babe. It means a lot to hear that, honestly.”

  “I’m serious. I’m sorry Tanner fucked you up so badly. None of us saw that coming and I know it broke your world apart. All I want is for you to get back on your feet, because you’re an amazing woman and you have so much to offer the world. That’s the whole reason I set up this trip in the first place, you know? I could see you struggling and I wasn’t about to sit there and do nothing.”

  “Trude,” sniffled Clarice. “You’re too good to me.”

  “I wasn’t just giving Harrison lip service. You deserve the best,” said Trudy. “And if this little comedy of errors with that studly British babe is what’s going to help make you happy, girl, then I support you one hundred percent. After all, like you said, that’s what we came here for, isn’t it? A little adventure? I don’t care if your adventure is the same as mine or the others, so long as you have a good time and come back to the world shining like you always have.”

  Clarice kissed the top of Trudy’s hair. “Thank you, hun. This will be a lot easier to pull off with your support. We’ll just need to fill in the others or they will never forgive us.”

  “They’ll never forgive us for the shopping spree we’re about to take, either. Ask me if I give a damn.”

  Chapter 11

  Harrison

  It had been ten, maybe twenty years since Harrison had felt as nervous as he did now. A schoolboy’s fear, that’s what was charging through his veins right now — a schoolboy’s fear of his imposing father arriving to scold him and tell him all the ways he has failed. It made him feel weak, insignificant, and small. It was not a feeling Harrison was accustomed to having, and he wasn’t sure how to deal with it.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Usually he dealt with it by getting drunk or getting his dick wet — or both. He didn’t have time to find someone to fuck, and meeting his father drunk would obviously make things much more difficult. But he did duck into one of the bars just off the lobby and pour himself few shots of rum to calm his nerves. It was early and the place was mostly empty, so he didn’t even feel a bit self-conscious about it.

  His father’s plane had touched down at the local private airport over two hours ago, but the elder Moore had immediately gone off to attend to business on the island instead of meeting Harrison first. He owned several resorts in Bali and would never fly halfway around the world without stopping in to grace them with his presence.

  The delay was a tactic Harrison recognized as a power trip, an intimidation move meant to make his own time look more important than the time of whoever he was meeting with. It was probably a subconscious, even reflexive action ground into his father’s habits from decades of dealing with the world’s most powerful and ruthless businesspeople. Yet it still stung Harrison to see those same kinds of tactics used on his own son. He had some sliver of hope, after all these years, that things could be different between them. So far, it didn’t seem that hope would be rewarded.

  Familiar resentment began to bubble up in his blood like poison bile, and he immediately tried to clamp it down with some meditative thinking, a trick he had been trying to master for the last few months. He had an extraordi
nary scheme to pull off this week, and it wouldn’t do to have his deep-seated feelings about their relationship rear up and make things worse. He had to look respectable, changed. He was getting married, becoming the man his father wanted. He had to play the part down to the letter or it would never work.

  Part of the bitter bile in Harrison’s mouth was certainly due to his wish that he didn’t have to play a part at all. He would rather simply not resent his father in the first place, have his father respect him for who he was and the choices he chose to make on his own, but that was an even more improbable happening than him getting engaged. His father made it clear a very long time ago that there was only one path he expected Harrison to follow, and any deviation from that would be viewed the same as failure.

  For many years in his youth, Harrison had tried to have his cake and eat it too — to be the rebellious, fuck-up heir who didn’t care about his father’s boring traditions, and also to make his father proud through his personal achievements. It never worked, of course. His father never gave a damn about any accomplishments Harrison made that weren’t in service to the family or its businesses. He never encouraged any interests Harrison had in the arts or culture.