by B. B. Hamel
But in this moment, it’s so obvious to me. Everything is clear. Everything I need and want.
I drop down to one knee in front of her. She smiles uncertainly at me and puts her book facedown as I take her left hand into both of mine.
“Mila, I need to ask you something,” I say.
“You’re being weird.”
“Just listen. We’ve gone through a lot together lately, haven’t we?”
“I did cocaine,” she says flatly.
“I know.” I can’t help but grin at her like an idiot. “And you survived an assassination attempt.”
“Don’t remind me,” she says.
“I want you to stay with me.” As I’m saying it, I’m even more certain than I’ve ever been before.
She watches me quietly for a second and I can’t read her face. My heart is beating so fast in my chest that I can barely control myself.
“Are you sure?” she asks finally.
“I love you, Mila. I think I’ve loved you since the second we came here.”
She bites her lip and watches me silently for a moment. I don’t know what she’s going to say, but I have absolutely no regrets at all. I know this is what I want, it’s what I need.
I need my Princess. If my life is going to be in Bellestan, I can’t do it without her. There’s more work to be done here, if we want to do it, and I need her by my side.
Without a word, she leans forward and kisses me. I pull her closer, kissing her harder, leaning into it in a way I’ve never felt before. I love her taste, her smell, her laugh, her eyes, everything about her. I need it all.
“I love you too,” she says finally as we break apart.
“Does that mean you’ll stay?”
“If you want me to stay, I’ll stay,” she says and grins. “Besides, I can speak and understand the language now. Might as well put that concussion to use.”
I laugh and pull her against me, hugging her close.
“Are you sure you want to be Princess Mila?”
She doesn’t even hesitate. “More than anything else in this world.”
I kiss her again and I know what my future holds. Maybe it’s not what I’ve always imagined, but it’s good, it’s better than good, it’s perfect. I finally have a princess to help me make my family complete.
27
Mila
The bells have been ringing all day long and I can barely freaking breathe.
The castle is beautiful. It’s covered in garlands, wreaths, balloons, streamers, and all sorts of decorations I’ve never seen before. There are hundreds of people lined up outside of the gates, cheering and calling our names, eager to get a glimpse of the young Prince and his Princess.
I’m so nervous I don’t know what to do with myself. Fortunately, my white dress is enormous and beautiful, and I feel like I can practically hide inside of it.
For the hundredth time today I wonder how any of this happened. I never in my life imagined that I’d meet a man like Bran, let alone marry a Prince and become a real Princess. I look at myself in the floor-length mirror and I almost don’t recognize the woman looking back at me.
She’s beautiful. She has her hair pulled back in a complicated braided pattern, wrapped up behind her head, with a silver crown at the very top. Lace falls down behind her and her beautiful dress billows out around her hips. It’s me in that mirror, and I can barely accept that. I look like a Princess, a real, actual Princess.
I just wanted to move up in the world. I wanted to get a better job and better myself at the start of all this. I never pictured any of this. I never thought an entire country would be saying my name in joyous whispers.
For the last four hours, a literal team of women have been dressing me, grooming me, and preparing me for the ceremony. I’ve been locked up in this room in the back of the castle with them, getting pampered and dressed, and now I’m supposed to feel ready, but I don’t.
I’m terrified. Not because I’m afraid to marry Bran, which of course I’m not. I want to marry him more than anything else in this world. I’m mostly afraid of the crowd that will be there. The press coverage is absolutely insane and people have been writing about this wedding for the last few months.
There’s a knock at the door that pulls me from my nerves. I’ve been alone for the last few minutes and suddenly I’m grateful for someone to talk to. “Come in,” I call out.
The door opens and my future mother-in-law steps inside. Queen Ana smiles at me and shuts the door behind her. “You look lovely,” she says.
“Thanks,” I respond, laughing. “I can hardly believe it.”
“Believe what?”
“That I look like this.”
She smiles and walks over to me. She gives me a little hug. “You’re a Princess, dear. You always have been, even if it wasn’t official before.”
I blink at her. “Really?”
“Of course, dear. All of this, it’s just trappings,” she says, waving her hand at the room. “But you have what a real Princess needs. And that’s heart.”
I smile at her. “Thanks.”
“No, thank you. After what you did for us…” She trails off for a moment before smiling at me. “Well, I feel like this country finally has hope again.”
It’s been over a year since I recorded Blaz Perko doing drugs and coming onto me. Since then, the recordings have been released to the public, and Perko’s entire political career was destroyed. He was removed from office, along with some of his closest associates, and his anti-royalty party fell into disrepair as the members all fought amongst themselves. Ever since then, the news has been dominated by stories about Bran and I, and people have forgotten all about how much they used to dislike the monarchy.
Now, the polls show that everyone is embracing Bran’s family, and they say it’s all because of me. Not just because of what I did to get that recording, but also because the people simply love me. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because I can speak Bellestanian pretty well now, but people seem to really have taken to me.
“You did all the work,” I say. “I was just in the right place at the right time.”
“Of course, dear,” she says, laughing a little bit. “Now, enough about all that. Are you ready?”
I take a deep breath. “Yes, I think so.”
“Good.” She takes my arm and steps toward the door. “Because we’re getting started.”
We step out into the hallway, and what happens next is pretty much a blur. I’m so nervous that I can barely breathe, but of course I don’t need to be.
Queen Ana escorts me through the back halls until we reach a side entrance, facing the main room of the castle. I can see hundreds of people inside, and every fireplace is lit. A beautiful thick red rug leads up toward the center of the room, where I can just barely see Bran standing with Aleks and a priest in a complicated-looking white robe.
Queen Ana hands me off to my father, who proceeds to walk me down the aisle. A full band plays music, the traditional Bellestanian wedding march, as we walk toward the raised dais in the center of the room. It’s surrounded on all sides by important people, ministers and businessmen and actors, basically anyone who’s anyone in the entire country. There are cameras broadcasting the ceremony to the world, but I force myself to ignore all of that.
For me, there’s only Bran. And the look on his face when I step into the room tells me everything. He lights up, beaming with joy, as I step toward him. I can see it in his eyes, the reason I’m marrying him: intense and undying devotion.
I don’t care about all of this fancy stuff. I don’t need the beautiful dress or the incredible wedding. I don’t even need to be a Princess, although that’s pretty nice.
All I need is Bran. He’s everything to me now, the reason I’m picking up my life and moving to Bellestan, the light of everything. I’ll be working for him and his company still in the Bellestan office, which means my whole life will be perfectly entwined with his, which is exactly how I want it.
I make it to the dais. My father helps me up the steps, kisses my cheeks, and then retreats to a front seat. My mom is crying already, of course, which is no surprise. I look away from her and directly into Bran’s eyes, and I don’t look away for the rest of the night.
The room melts away. As the priest begins the ceremony, speaking in Latin and Bellestanian, I don’t listen to a word he says. There’s only Bran for me, and that’s all I need.
We exchange the traditional wedding vows in Bellestanian. When we finish, Bran puts a ring on my finger, and I do the same for him. Finally, we kiss, and turn to the crowd.
We hold hands, drop to our knees, and the Priest slowly lowers an ancient sword onto our shoulder, binding us as one before the country and God. We bow our heads and say a prayer, and then we stand and kiss again.
The room explodes as Bran and I are escorted off the dais and through the halls. We end up in a room together with a bunch of bustling people, getting things ready for the next part of the day, which is basically one large party mixed with media relations
“Everyone,” Bran says loudly to the room. “Please, everyone, get out.”
The people all pause before slowly filtering out of the room. Bran stares at me and once we’re alone, he takes me in his arms and kisses me deeply.
We break off after a moment, and I feel breathless. “That’s what I’ve been wanting,” he says softly. “This ceremony, it doesn’t feel like us.”
“You’re right,” I say. “I don’t need any of this. I just want to be with you.”
“That’s what I want, too.” He smirks at me. “How does it feel to be Princess Mila Krizman?”
“Strange,” I admit. “But incredible. I’m really a Princess now, aren’t I?”
“You are,” he confirms. “And once this circus is over, we can get down to business.”
I cock my head. “What’s that?”
“Getting you pregnant.”
I laugh and he kisses me again, this time slow and deep. We spend the next few minutes alone with each other, since we won’t get another chance to be alone until we’re back down in the cave tonight, alone in our room together.
For me, this is the real wedding. Just the two of us, standing in this room, kissing and enjoying being close. That’s what I really want and what I really look forward to. And now, I can look forward to that for the rest of my life.
“I love you, Princess,” he says.
“I love you too.”
He squeezes my hand, takes a deep breath, and lets it out.
“So what do you say we get on with this, huh?”
I smile and nod. “Yeah. Let’s not keep the people waiting.”
He grins at me and I feel my heart lift. We step forward together, open the doors, and we head out into our new life, our new life together in the spotlight as Prince and Princess, but being together with him anywhere is better than anything else I could imagine.
Royal Rock: A Bad Boy Royal Romance
Prologue: Bryce
I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m not great at geography.
It wasn’t my best subject when I was a kid, and as I got older there just wasn’t much use for it. I never needed to know exactly where Belarus was or if Luxembourg was landlocked or not.
So when someone told me about Starkland, it was no surprise that I had never heard of it.
I’ll never forget that morning. I came downstairs, made some coffee, and then my stepmother cleared her throat.
“Bryce,” she said, “did you know that you’re descended from royalty?”
I nearly choked on my toast.
As it turns out, my father comes from an old royal family in Starkland. Over five hundred years ago, they were kicked out of the country after another family took control, and we never looked back since. Back then we were called the Bismarck royal family, but now we just go by Koch.
My father never talked about Starkland. Apparently having royal blood never much mattered to him. Robert Koch is a practical man, an accountant, kind, and generous. Having obscure royal blood in his veins just never much mattered to him.
Until one day it mattered a lot.
I’ll never know what my father first thought when he saw that letter written on royal stationary. He probably doesn’t even remember. But it was an invitation to return to our ancestral home and to meet the current royal family. Of course, it was an all-expenses paid trip, and so we jumped at it. How could we have known what they really wanted?
It wasn’t like they came out and said it in the letter. Could you imagine? “Dear Robert Koch, we’d like your daughter to marry our reigning monarch because there’s this bitter civil war raging and he needs an heir, so this would be a really great publicity move. Interested?”
Dad would have freaked out.
Fortunately for the Starkland royal cabinet, they didn’t bother mentioning their real motives for inviting us. If they had, none of this would have ever happened.
But they didn’t, and so we went. I’ll never forget stepping off that plane for the first time and seeing Starkland. Vast forests, wide, beautiful rivers, and him.
He was more impressive than the landscape. Christophe Werner von Brunhild the Third, Prince of the Lowlands and the Right King of Starkland, or Trip as I’d later find out everyone called him, stood easily over six feet tall and held himself with that cocky swagger you’d come to expect from a guy at a dive bar, not from royalty. He smirked at me as soon as I made eye contact with him, and that smile sent a jolt running down my spine.
He looked the way I imagined kings should look. Muscular, broad, and handsome, there was that slight stubble on his chin that suggested he was either way too busy to shave or just didn’t give a damn what people thought. Still, there was something off about the way he held himself. I’d expected a rigid and serious man, but instead Trip seemed to regard the whole spectacle with detached amusement.
In only three short days, I’d feel his breath against my neck in the deep darkness of the castle’s interior. His lips would brush my ear and he’d say, “Pretend all you want, Bryce, but we both know what you want. You can’t stop thinking about my hands between your legs. Are you dripping wet already? Let me find out.”
If I could go back and do it all again, I’d warn myself. Standing on that tarmac, I had no clue what was about to happen to me.
If I could, I’d tell myself to turn around and run away. Trip might be royalty, but he’s a royal asshole.
A handsome, cocky, devilish royal asshole. The kind of man that makes me so angry I can barely speak while still absolutely dripping wet.
That’s Trip, layer after layer, all rolled into one deliciously handsome package.
But I didn’t turn around and I didn’t run away. I shook hands and smiled for the cameras just like I was told. When I got to Trip, he leaned forward and whispered into my ear.
“Welcome to Starkland,” he said. “Call me Trip. I can’t wait to see what that beautiful ass looks like in just a pair of panties.”
What happened next changed a lot of lives, especially mine.
1
Bryce
Nobody actually tells you not to slap the King.
Nobody said those words. Sure, they tell you to be polite and to smile for the pictures, but they don’t warn you that the current King of Starkland, a young and handsome asshole named Trip, might whisper something dirty in your ear. And in response, you might want to slap him in the face.
They don’t tell you not to do that. So when I wound up and slapped him right in his cocky, attractive face, the crowd went absolutely still.
Nobody moved a muscle. Technically, striking the King of Starkland carried the penalty of death. Or at least that was what I read online later that night.
As soon as my hand left his cheek, I covered my mouth in shock.
Trip turned to me, and for one smoldering moment I thought he might reach out for me and pull me against him.
Instead, he laughed. Loud and boist
erous, he tossed his head back and laughed.
“Ladies and gentleman,” he called out, “this American sure as hell has spirit!”
The assembled media broke out into laughter and the whole thing was quickly smoothed over. We were whisked away into a black town car that headed toward the capital city of Starkland and the royal castle, where we’d be staying during out visit.
My stepmother was livid. As soon as the doors closed, she whirled on me.
“What the hell were you thinking?” she hissed.
Lucy Koch was a couple years younger than my father, and I had no clue how he could stand her. Blond and severe, my stepmother seemed to only care about appearances and status and not about anything that actually mattered.
“He said something to me,” I answered, frowning.
“He’s the king, Bryce! He could whisper anything in your ear and you have to just smile and nod.” Lucy was fuming.
My father, though, simply put his hand on her knee. “What did he say, honey?” he asked.
Robert Koch was a kind and quiet man. Dark haired and blue eyed, everybody said he was incredibly handsome. I didn’t really see it, but he was my father after all. It’d be weird if I did.
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m not repeating it. But it was inappropriate.”
“Maybe that’s how they greet people here?” he asked.
I looked at my stepmother. “Did he mention anything about panties to you?”
She paused. “No,” she admitted.
“Then I suspect it wasn’t that.”
Dad shook his head. “Maybe this was a mistake.”
“No. The only mistake was when Bryce slapped the King in front of cameras,” Lucy said.
“He deserved it,” I said.
She shot me a look.
“We can leave,” Dad offered. “Right now. It’s not too late. We can turn back around and leave.”
I bit my lip and could feel Lucy’s stare boring into me. I knew that if I said the word, we really would get the hell out of Starkland as fast as we could. But the truth was, I didn’t want to leave.