by Amelia Wilde
She lights up the room.
They’re only there for a few minutes before Jax breaks away from Christian, coming back to the table where he slips his arms snugly around Cate’s waist. “We’d join you, but it’s date night,” he says, cobalt eyes glowing.
Cate blushes and gives a little wave, the two of them disappearing quickly into the crowd.
Rick doesn’t seem to notice that I’ve mentally checked out.
“Kayaking,” he says.
“What?” I say, my forehead wrinkling. What is this strange little man talking about now?
“That’s one of my hobbies.”
“Oh,” I say lamely, picking up my drink and taking another sip. “Yeah, kayaking is good.”
“Don’t be so shy, Jess!” Christian’s voice booms across the table. “Tell the man about your hobbies. I know you have some.”
“I know you have one, Chris,” I shoot back, smiling at him. “It’s something you can do all by yourself, once your date goes home…”
“My dates never want to go home,” he says, wrapping his arm tightly around his current flavor of the week. She cuddles into him, eyes shining with awe and delight.
“Oh, but they always do,” I tease. “And then, when you’re all alone in that fancy apartment of yours, your hobby is all you can think about…”
Christian raises one hand in the air. “Is that so bad? Huh? Is that so bad, Jess?”
How is it possible that I’m getting more banter out of my old friend Chris than the date he set me up with who he swore was going to be interesting? At the very least, he was supposed to be “smoking hot.”
We laugh along with the rest of the table, but my mind has already wandered, over to where Jax and Cate are seated at one of the best tables in the place, a two-person affair on the second tier of seating. Jax is leaning toward her across the table, his hand on hers, saying something that must be amusing because she smiles and laughs, her face lit with love.
I want that. How do I get that?
Not by chatting awkwardly with Rick, that’s for sure.
Inside of ten minutes, I’ve worked up an excuse to leave and slipped out the back entrance, heading off alone into the night.
2
Alec
My father slams his fist down onto the hardwood table in the private council chamber situated behind the throne room, his cheeks burning beet red with frustration.
“Damn it, Alexander, get your head out of your ass.”
He’d never use this kind of language in public, but I’ve pissed him off enough that he’ll say it to me freely behind closed doors.
“I’m seeing perfectly,” I spit back at him, so angry that what little self-control I’ve built up over the years is beginning to slip away. “You’re not going to barter my time like I’m some princess from the sixteenth century.”
His eyes flash in fury.
My older brother—perfect in every possible way—chooses this moment to interject. “It’s a few dates, Alec. You’re blowing this completely out of proportion.”
“Is there something I’m missing, Marcus? Maybe you can explain it again so we can be certain that your idiot brother Alec understands.”
Marcus, infinitely calm and forever infuriating me, holds up his hands. “There’s no need to be so volatile—”
“I don’t see,” I scowl, my voice remaining deadly calm, “how the two of you can decide to set me up with not one but a series of dates for political gain. What’s the endgame? That I marry the girl so you can trade intelligence information with her father at the wedding brunch? I don’t think so.”
My father, the reigning kind of Saintland—a job that, if I’m being completely honest, has aged him thirty years since he took the throne a decade ago—lets out an exasperated sigh.
“We’re simply trying to leverage our available assets to make international connections.”
“Oh, so I’m an asset now.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“The language couldn’t have been plainer.”
“Your brother—”
“My brother,” I say, jabbing a finger toward Marcus, “has had an incredible amount of control over his personal life, despite being heir to the throne. How do you explain that, your majesty?”
Marcus looks at the ground, saying nothing. My father cuts his eyes across to him, then looks back to me.
“Your brother has always had the interests of Saintland at heart.”
“So have I.”
“Then why won’t you—”
“At the end of this,” I say through gritted teeth, “I’ll still be playing second fiddle to Marcus. If I agree to this ridiculous dating scheme, you two will use it against me until I’m dead.”
It’s all true, yet there’s more that I can’t say to my father, the King, and my brother, his favorite.
The truth is that one day I’d like to settle down, eventually moving my wife into the royal apartments at Sainthall Palace to live out my days with her. I’ve long since accepted that most of my life will be dedicated to honorably playing my role as the spare prince, but I’m not willing to give up everything.
For one thing, I’m not willing to be trotted out like a royal whore so that my father and brother can make connections. This isn’t the Middle Ages.
The greatest fear I have, the one I keep buried so deeply that it will never, ever see the light of day, is the possibility of falling for someone on one of these sham dates.
What do I do then? Cave to my father and Marcus and marry whoever it is, playing right into their hands? God only knows what they’re thinking. Maybe this is some ploy to turn me into a permanent bachelor, someone who they can send out to restaurants across Saintland and the rest of Europe to make “political connections” whenever it suits them.
Not a chance.
This time, we’re reaching beyond the limits of propriety, and my father is surely running out of time before his next meeting.
I want to keep shouting, keep fighting, slam my own fist onto the table, but my years of royal upbringing are kicking in, much to my disgust. In spite of myself, I’m taking in calming breaths, running through their arguments in my mind.
I don’t want to understand their point of view, but I can’t help it.
Saintland is the result of a tense civil standoff, and its position will forever be precarious. My father needs to use every avenue at his disposal to make allies in the surrounding countries, even though it’s the year 2016 and we should be past that shit by now. The fact that we have a functioning monarchy is still a bit of a miracle, although with the current climate among superpowers like the United States, is it any wonder?
What I see, and what they apparently do not, is that this romantic strategy is almost sure to backfire. It’s one-and-done. Once my reputation as a playboy gets out to the other countries in Europe, that’s it.
As much as I hate it, the easiest way to end this argument is to agree.
This time.
I’ll come back to this issue soon, when I can present myself calmly and rationally, to deal with it once and for all.
I blow a harsh breath out through my lips. “Fine. I’ll take the girl out. For one date.”
My father’s shoulders drop a couple of inches with relief, and Marcus smiles at me indulgently. In response, I roll my eyes.
“I don’t consider this matter settled,” I say.
“We’ll revisit it later,” my father says dismissively, already returning his attention to the papers on the desk, my brother turning away from me.
That’s my cue that we’re done, at least for now.
What I don’t say, as I turn on my heel and head for the door is that this shit is making me crazy. I don’t say I need a vacation. And I don’t say I’m already making plans to get the hell out of here for a week, maybe two, and there’s nothing they can do to stop me.
3
Jessica
My ass has hardly met the fabric of my chair at the office whe
n my boss materializes behind me, nearly scaring the shit out of me and delivering news nobody wants to hear on a Friday.
“Jessica, you’re here,” she says. “A last-minute thing came up, and I need you to stay until 5:00.”
I refrain from slumping my shoulders, but barely. Meghan is a no-bullshit kind of boss who, more often than not, wears her hair fixed in a tight bun on top of her head, a trait I consider to be an accurate reflection of her uptight nature. There are worse bosses in the world—I’ve had a few of them—but working for her is not my dream job by any means.
I should be more generous. It’s not Meghan’s fault that my job at Colton-Hayes, one of New York’s premier ad agencies—if you believe their own marketing message—isn’t what you would call low-stress.
“Okay,” I say, keeping my tone neutral as I watch my afternoon plans disappear like a panhandler when the police make their rounds. Poof. There they go. “What’s up?” I ask, shifting my attention back to my boss.
Meghan launches into a long-winded spiel about the so-called emergency that landed in her inbox late last night. The client is a major fast-food chain that can’t be ignored, otherwise—I see a flicker of irritation in her eyes when she says it—”they might go with another agency.” She doesn’t have to say that both my job and hers are on the line with this one.
As soon as she left my office, the day devolved into an endless cycle of emails and phone calls as I tried frantically to wrestle last-minute creative concepts out of various designers, copywriters and graphic artists.
Even while I called in every last favor from my colleagues and pleaded with them to please do one more thing instead of heading out at noon—summer Fridays could be so good when we actually got to use them—my mind strayed miles away.
Maybe I need a break from more than my ritzy social circle…
That’s the thought pulsing against my skull as I make my way through the sultry summer air to the nearest subway entrance, two long-ass blocks away from the Colton-Hayes headquarters, my black high heels tucked into a Gucci purse my roommate Carolyn got tired of and passed off to me. I wouldn’t have bought it for myself, but I love how it’s so big I could carry a full set of extra clothes and still have room for my lunch and the buttery texture of its leather on my fingers.
I run my thumb over the strap as I walk, the heat settling on my shoulders as the sun beats down, the heavy humid air slipping through the layers of my clothes, and consider the uptick in impatience I’ve been experiencing.
If I’m being truthful, I’ve been feeling restless, filled with wanderlust even though I can’t afford it. I’m not sure I even want to travel. All I know is that my routine is becoming stale. Whenever that happens, my first instinct is to move on, which is probably why I changed my major four times and universities twice.
I could do it. I could sell some of my things and pack up and store whatever was left. I could use some of my savings to buy a used car and drive until I ended up someplace that felt right. I have friends from boarding school and college scattered around the country.
As I descend into the subway, the rush hour crowd pressed in tight around me, fleeing by car seems more appealing than ever.
Then again, there’s a lot I’d miss about New York City. The city that never sleeps drew me in with its constant motion, the way its energy and excitement continually ebbs and flows.
“Hey, gorgeous,” a slimeball standing at my elbow says, slipping a hand around my waist. “Where you goin’? There’s room at my place for a piece like you.”
Without sparing him a glance, I slap sharply at the intrusion. “Fuck off.”
On the other hand, maybe I wouldn’t miss a thing.
I’m buzzing with energy when I reach the apartment I share with Carolyn, a friend I’ve roomed with since boarding school days. She and I and Christian made up our original little triad, and the three of us stayed close even as others joined our group. For Carolyn, working in New York is more of a lark—she has a trust fund and will never worry about money—but the fact that she foots the bill allows me to live in a decently swanky place without selling body parts to afford it.
When I push open the door, the air is cool and still. I toss my bag on the table in our entryway, listening, while I kick off my shoes.
Carolyn isn’t home.
There’s a note on the fridge, the words spelled out in her perfect looped handwriting: Date tonight!!!
I was hoping to convince her to go out with me. Drinks. Dancing. Cutting loose. Push this longing to leave town out of my mind for another day so I can think about it rationally like an adult.
Roommate or no, I’ve got to do something. My usual routine simply will not do this time. I need something exciting. Something hot.
I pad back to the entryway and dig through my purse for my phone. A couple of swipes and I’ve pulled up a seldom-used dating app. More of a hookup app, really.
For a couple of years in college, I was a regular haunt on these kinds of apps. That’s when I developed one of the only hard-and-fast rules of my life: one date only, unless you’re sure that he’s going to be worth your time.
Though I guess technically the one-date-only rule came about because of…
Never mind. I shake my head to clear the bad memory from my mind quickly while I update my profile picture with a more recent one, and then swipe over to the list of men who might be my ticket away from this day of stress and boredom.
There he is.
Mr. Tonight stares out at me from the very top of the list, his green eyes piercing even in the profile photo. My heart thuds in my chest.
I click to open his profile, biting my lip as I scan the words. Typical, run-of-the-mill stuff…but that picture.
I send him a quick message through the app, leaving nothing to the imagination.
Go out with me tonight
After “tonight,” I type a period, but that seems too harsh. I replace it with a question mark. No, too timid. I settle on an exclamation point.
I go back to the endless stream of profile pictures, but before I’ve even found Mr. Second Runner-Up, the app pings.
It’s him.
Name the place!
4
Alec
This vacation isn’t going exactly according to plan, but it’s far better than nothing. Far better.
The moment my date with Emmaline ended, I hightailed it out of there, adrenaline pumping through my system, barreling through my veins like a runaway train.
My driver and bodyguard, Nathaniel, almost fell for my half-assed plot. Almost. Unfortunately for me and my grand plans, Nate is also one of my closest friends. We grew up together and attended the local private school at the same time. Even when he was poised to be King, my father wanted my brother and me to have a genuine local presence. After school I went to Oxford and Nate became a member of the secret service in the United Kingdom. He’s about as badass as they come.
He also knows me far too well.
To Nate’s credit, he let me get all the way to my gate at the airport, nondescript duffel bag in hand, before he came strolling down the main concourse of the airport and dropped into the seat next to me.
I didn’t look up from my phone.
“Hey.”
At the sound of his voice, I started and he burst out laughing, a rare slip from the solemn coat of professionalism he wears like a bulletproof vest these days.
“What the hell, man?”
“You thought you were going to flee the country by yourself, your highness?” he asks, eyebrows raised.
I slumped in my seat and ran my fingers mindlessly through my hair. “I guess not, you asshole.”
He pretended to look offended. “Such language from a member of the royal family.”
“There’s no way I can convince you to let this one slide?”
“Not a chance.”
By the time we landed in New York, I had a plan. We flagged down the first cab in line outside the airport departure doors
, which turned out to be driven by a born-and-bred New Yorker with a death wish. As we careened through the traffic, listening to him blare his horn and shout a never-ending stream of expletives at other drivers on the road and a few brave pedestrians who dared to dash across the street in front of him, I watched Nate’s shoulders rise closer and closer to his ears. We pulled up to the Four Seasons in time to avoid experiencing a classic Nate boil-over outburst at the driver.
So he wasn’t very happy when I walked with him into the lobby and then announced that I wouldn’t be staying.
“What?” he growled in a low voice, his teeth gritted, eyes narrowed.
“I rented a place nearby. It’s only a couple of blocks away. Give me a break, Nate. I’ve been under lock and key for more than twenty years at this point. I need some space.”
He pressed his lips together in a tight line and hawkishly scanned the lobby with his eyes, a habit he couldn’t break even during the middle of an argument. “There’s no way, your highness.” He exaggerated his last two words like I could possibly need a reminder about my station in life. “There’s going to be hell to pay when we return as it is, and—”
I stepped closer to him, looking him straight in the eye. “I’ll deal with my father when we get back. For now, let me do what I came here to do.” I injected a hint of my full authority as a member of Saintland’s royal family, a card I don’t play often with Nate. Sometimes I slip into that mode without realizing it, but after a decade plus of schoolboy hijinks with Nate in the books, it’s not something I want to get used to. With him, at least.
He backed down a little, his jaw working as he considered his options. A tinge of guilt shot through me. Nate has been a loyal friend to me for many, many years, and making him choose between the oath he took to Saintland and being my best friend was a dick move.
My chest tightened as he let the silence hang between us. He was the only one who could blow my cover to my father before my little getaway even got started. I had resigned myself to booking a suite in the hotel when he spoke, jabbing his index finger at the center of my chest.