Her Bodyguard (Raunchy Royals Book 2)

by Paige, Sabrina

  He follows me out of the room, and I smile and nod as I pass people, acting as if this is any old event and not as if I'm chasing my brother out of the room to make sure he doesn't do anything public to the ex-boyfriend of his stepsister whom he's in love with – while I'm wearing a butt plug and vibrator that's remotely controlled by my bodyguard who I'm in like with.

  Yep, all of this is totally normal.

  Move along, nothing to see here.

  By the time we make it down the hall, everything erupts into total chaos, raised voices, and Belle shrieking. "Come on," Max says, and I follow him, running in my heels and dress in the direction of the noise. He's right in front of me, and I pause in the doorway, watching horrified as Noah tries to pull my brother off of Derek.

  Max jumps in to help, and he and Noah hold Albie back as he yells obscenities at Derek. Then Derek loudly accuses him of fucking Belle.

  Sofia and my father arrive, standing behind me, and everything in the entire world comes to a screeching halt as my father orders the room shut down.

  Max immediately lets go of Albie and makes it to my side. I stare at my brother, who's standing there with his nose bleeding and glaring at Derek – who's in the custody of two other security guards – like he's ready to murder him.

  "You can't take me out of here," I tell Max as he puts his hand on my arm. "My brother and Belle and –"

  "You heard your father," he says tersely. "It's protocol. You're on lockdown while they sort it out."

  "You can't make me a prisoner in my own –"

  "Get her out of here," my father growls at Max. "Now."

  Max escorts me back to my bedroom. He doesn’t say a word because he knows I'm absolutely fuming. I can't just walk off while Belle and Albie get totally outed by Belle's ex and my brother gets into a public fistfight and has to deal with my father.

  Surely Max knows that much about me.

  Inside my bedroom door, he puts his hands on my arms. "Stay here," he says. "A bodyguard will be in the hallway."

  "This is ridiculous," I protest, shrugging off his grip. "I'm not a child."

  "You're not a child," Max growls. "But this is part of the security protocol. Your father is trying to keep you out of it so you're not publicly involved."

  "Albie is my brother," I argue. I'm beyond irritated with Max.

  "I'm trying to help both of you," he says, his tone firm. "I'll be back."

  Then he leaves.

  I change into a t-shirt and shorts, carefully removing Max's little presents. I text Albie and Belle, but get no response.

  I must fall asleep because when I jolt upright in bed, light is streaming through the windows. I grab my phone.

  Holy shit. It's ten in the morning.

  Max never returned last night and I have no idea what happened with Belle and Albie.

  Running to my bedroom door, I yank it open. A non-Max bodyguard stands at the end of the hallway. "Where's Max?" I snap.

  "He's – I'm not sure, Your Highness," the bodyguard says.

  "I need to see him, please." I close the door without waiting for an answer. Then I pull up one of the gossip blogs on my phone. Maybe we got away unscathed and everything was successfully covered up.

  Oh, God. No such luck.

  THE PRINCE'S MARRIAGE TO HIS SISTER! ROYAL VIOLENCE! A NIGHT THAT WAS OUT OF CONTROL! THE SHOCKING STORY THE ROYALS DON'T WANT YOU TO READ!

  Rushing to pull on something presentable, I yank my hair into a ponytail and slip on a pair of shoes. I head straight for my brother's room, but he's not there.

  "Where are my brother and Isabella?" I ask the new bodyguard.

  "The future princess is gone, I believe."

  "Gone?!"

  "I believe she left a little while ago with her friends. Your brother is with the king and future queen."

  Oh, God. That's not good.

  "Where did Belle go?"

  "I believe on a trip," he replies. "Around Europe."

  "You know an awful lot for being new."

  "I pay attention."

  I narrow my eyes. "That's just what this place needs."

  The new bodyguard tails me at a respectable distance, but as I'm heading toward my father's residence, Max calls me from the end of the hall.

  "Princess Alexandra," he calls loudly. "Your Highness."

  I don't stop, though, and I don't wait for him to catch up, because I'm too focused on making sure nothing terrible happens. All I can think about is the fact that I've never seen Albie the way he is with Belle and I don't want her banished from the kingdom.

  It's the same thing I fear will happen to Max.

  I don't have time to think about that, though, because I hear my father and Albie's raised voices inside of my father's residence suite. I knock on the door, and then just fling it open.

  "Get out, Alex," Albie insists.

  He and my father and Sofia are all obviously angry. A myriad of newspapers and magazines are strewn across a table, all of them emblazoned with headlines similar to the one I read on my phone.

  I take a deep breath.

  What I'm about to say is a really bad idea. It's a terrible idea, the worst idea in the world.

  But it's the only thing I can think of to do, my small attempt to help Albie by distracting everyone with my drama: "I'm sleeping with Max."

  "Oh my," Sofia says. "Who is Max?"

  "He's my bodyguard."

  Behind me, I hear Max take in a deep breath. "Oh, shit," he breathes.

  Okay, so maybe this wasn't the best-conceived plan in the history of plans.

  "You've got that right," Sofia says, obviously incensed – first at Albie and her daughter, and now at me.

  "If you're mad at Albie, you can be mad at me too," I say imperiously, out of some crazy notion of solidarity with my brother and Belle. I look at Albie. "Did you tell them you're in love with her?"

  "You're not in love with Belle," Sofia dictates.

  "Of course he is," I insist. If they know he's in love with her, everything will be okay. Don't they understand what a big deal it is for Albie to be in love with someone? "I've never seen Albie look at anyone the way he looks at Belle – and now she's off running around Europe because he didn't have the balls to tell her how he felt."

  "Didn't have the balls to tell her?" Albie asks. "She went running off before I could even say – "

  "No balls," I repeat. "You missed your shot with her –"

  Just then Max's gaze meets mine. Despite all of my talk about having balls, I'm struck with a sense of panic at the thought that I've just ruined everything between us with my impulsive outburst. Is that anger in his eyes? Disdain? Coldness? I can't tell what he's thinking and the fact that I can't tell makes me apprehensive.

  Albie tells me to shut up, and then we begin bickering back and forth the way we've always done since we were children – until my father silences us with a loud yell.

  "Stop acting like children!" he bellows.

  "I'm just trying to tell him what's good for him," I insist.

  "Enough!" My father pauses, walking over to his bar to pour himself a glass of scotch from his decanter while we all stand there in silence. "Do you love her?"

  "You can't seriously be entertaining this," Sofia begins.

  "Do you love her?" he repeats.

  I interrupt, pointing at Albie. "Obviously he does."

  "Alex, stay out of this," my father warns.

  "I love her," Albie admits.

  I squeal and clap my hands together. Nothing's going to burst my bubble of excitement for Albie, not even when my father kicks us out of the residence because he wants a chance to think.

  Outside in the hallway, Albie scowls at me. "So you and Max, huh?"

  I glance at Max, trying to read the expression on his face. Does he hate me for what I just did? "I was trying to take the heat off of you, Albie," I explain more for his benefit than for Albie's. Then I quickly change the subject. "But more importantly, back to you and Belle. Where did Bell
e go?"

  "She took off," Albie replies.

  I whirl around and look at Max. "But you can get her location, can't you?"

  "We can track her," he says.

  "I'm on it already," Noah interrupts.

  "You obviously have to tell her you love her, right?" I announce, clasping my hands together. "We need to chase her down!"

  Fifteen minutes later, we're piled into one of the SUVs and on our way to track down Belle, a madcap race to wherever she is. I have no idea what Albie's grand plan is when he finds her. All I know is that this whole thing is crazy and exciting. For some reason, I'm all wound up about it, despite the fact that I'm the girl who doesn't have a single romantic bone in her body.

  So the girl who doesn't believe in all of that icky love stuff is pushing her brother to go bare his feelings for Belle, consequences be damned.

  When Max's gaze catches mine, my heart skips. The cat flew right out of the bag when it comes to Max and I hooking up. I blurted the whole thing out, without talking to him about it first, though. I still can't read his expression and things have been too crazy since we hit the road to even know whether he's completely freaked out by the fact that I just blurted out our little secret.

  I'm not sure whether I'm freaked out that I blurted out our little secret.

  All I told them was that we were screwing. No big deal, right?

  You know you're not just screwing him. You like him.

  Liking him? That's a way bigger deal.

  41

  Max

  The past thirty-six hours have been complete and utter chaos. Ever since Prince Albert punched Isabella's ex-fiancé in the face at the charity event, I haven't had a second to breathe. It's virtually unimaginable that less than two days ago, I was lying on the riverbank with Alexandra wrapped up securely in my arms.

  Since then, we've chased Isabella to Budapest and watched Albie publicly confess his love for her, right in the middle of a restaurant while a hundred people filmed it on their phones. He and Belle stayed in Budapest, holed up in a hotel and protected by security, while Alexandra and I were picked up by the royal helicopter and whisked back to the summer house as a diversion to distract the paparazzi.

  I haven’t gotten a single second alone with Alexandra to confront her about her disclosure to her father.

  Nothing that Alexandra says or does should come as any big surprise anymore. But the fact that she outed us as sleeping together? Okay, that was a slight shocker.

  In less than five minutes, we'll be back at the summer house, and I've already been given notice that I'm to report directly to the king.

  Alexandra's father.

  If it was my daughter who just confessed to screwing her bodyguard, I'd be royally pissed. I'd probably want to kill the guy.

  So, really, I'm probably on my way to my own execution.

  When the helicopter lands, I don't get a chance to talk to Alexandra because one of the king's attendants comes to get me directly from the helicopter pad, accompanied by two other security guards. "Please come with me," the attendant says gruffly with no further explanation.

  Yep, definitely execution. Prison, if I'm lucky.

  "I'm going with you," Alexandra huffs, following us. When the security guard tries to stop her, she gets angry. "Don't touch me. I'm the princess and I said I'm going!"

  I turn around and glare at her. "I'll talk to your father on my own," I tell her, my voice harsh.

  "Max, I–"

  "Just go," I order, my tone totally inappropriate, far too harsh for a member of the royal family. I'll face her father all on my own because it's the right thing to do.

  She crosses her arms and raises her eyebrows, her eyes fixed on mine. "Fine," she says, her voice tight.

  Obviously it's anything but fine.

  Alexandra just confessed to sleeping with the help. Worse, even: her bodyguard. I should know better. I do know better. I crossed a thousand lines – we crossed a thousand lines.

  The king sits inside an office at his monstrous desk looking down at paperwork. I bow, and then stand there waiting to receive the biggest ass-chewing of my life. Eight years in the Marine Corps and I never got called on the carpet to see the general for fucking up. Standing here right now in front of the king is the equivalent of that.

  The Max who was in the Marines would have never done something so egregious that I got called to account for it in front of the general. The Max who's in charge of protecting the life of a princess … well, apparently, the man I am now has no regard for boundaries and rules.

  "I don't want to know if what my daughter said is true," the king finally speaks. "Do you understand?"

  "I understand, Your Majesty."

  "Unless you're here to tell me it's not true," he finishes.

  He only pauses for a moment. I'm sure it's evident in my expression that it's definitely true because the king exhales heavily.

  I'm waiting for the part where King Leopold calls in the Royal Interrogators and sends me off to be tortured in a dark cell somewhere.

  But he doesn't. He just sits there looking suddenly like an old man with the weight of the world on his shoulders and not the regal king he was even a moment ago.

  Guilt crushes my chest. Seeing him here like this, the king reminds me of my father. I realize that I've profoundly disappointed him, and that gets me right in the gut, the way no amount of yelling at me ever could.

  "I can't say it's not true, Your Majesty but–" I start.

  I care about your daughter.

  She's the best thing that's ever happened to me.

  I think I love her.

  "It ends today," the king interrupts.

  I stand there, blinking. Part of me expected it to end with me being marched in front of a firing squad or being thrown in a dungeon, but a delusional part of me also thought I might be able to explain and that he'd understand.

  "If I deport you, she won't follow you," he elaborates. "You understand that, don't you? Alexandra may be rebellious and you might think she'd break royal standards for propriety, but she was raised as royalty. She would never give up the palace to follow you. You know that. If she was going to give up being a princess to make her own choices, she would have done it already."

  What he says is true, and I know it in my gut. If he banished me from Protrovia, I'd never see her again.

  "I could throw you in prison for treason," he muses. "But that would make you a martyr and I don't want to make you a martyr."

  I'm not going to be put in front of a firing squad, sentenced to life in prison, or deported. So what the hell is the king planning to do with me?

  "My daughter is easily distracted and I trust she'll be easily distracted away from you soon enough."

  Ah, there it is. I might as well stay because she'll look elsewhere soon.

  The king lets out a loud sigh. "I also need you here," he tells me, pulling a folder from the side of his desk. "I know what you did for my son in Afghanistan. I know you saved his life. He had reason to trust you, and overlooking this grievous lapse in judgment, I have reason to trust that you're capable of keeping my daughter safe."

  "Yes, Your Majesty."

  "And now you have a … personal investment in keeping her safe."

  He holds out the folder. I open it to find a stack of photos and laminated copies of handwritten letters with crude drawings and threats emblazoned across the top and bottom and along the margins.

  Threats against Alexandra.

  "This is why I need you to remain here in Protrovia, and to remain close to my daughter." He pauses for a beat. "Not as close as you were before, of course."

  "Yes, Your Majesty."

  "Felix can brief you on this group. They're religious radicals, a cult who've been around for years with no history of violence. But one or more of the members seem to have become fixated on the princess as a symbol of all that's sinful and wicked in the world – ever since the unfortunate dress she wore at the nightclub. I believe you were pre
sent for that incident."

  Does he know exactly how much I was present for?

  "Yes, Your Majesty," I reply, my eyes scanning the pages. There must be a hundred letters here, all with similar handwriting – and too many photos to count, including a photo of me standing by the car just inside the palace gates, the door open and helping Alexandra out of the car.

  Oh, shit. They have photos of that night.

  I flip through the next ones, but don't see anything more incriminating than the one in my hands. Still, it's an appalling breach of privacy, and I never saw anyone tailing us. Of course, I was also distracted by the princess. Clearly, that can't happen again, not if I'm going to keep her safe.

  "The group sent those," the king says, gesturing toward the folder. "The photos too, not just the letters. She's had threats before, of course. We all have. It's part of being royalty. But Felix thinks this group is different. The threats are getting more specific and more violent. Clearly an investigation is already underway, but you know my daughter and her penchant for escaping her security guards."

  Now I understand. "So you'll retain me here in Protrovia so that I can keep the princess from escaping –"

  "If you care about her, you'll want to keep her safe. Stay around her, keep her safe, maintain appropriate boundaries. Professional boundaries. You do not cross those boundaries or I'll be forced to deport you."

  "And Alexandra will inevitably run away from her new bodyguards, putting her at risk of being harmed by this cult," I finish.

  "Most importantly, my daughter is not to find out about this threat," he orders. "The risk, the cult, this deal we're making … she's not to be aware of any of it. I don't want her knowing she's in danger. After she … She wasn't the same after she lost her mother, and I won't have her fearful that she's going to be killed. Whatever's happening between you two doesn't happen anymore. I don't care what you have to tell her, but you cut it off and you protect her."

  I swallow hard, nodding. So I make a devil's bargain. I agree to break things off with Alexandra without telling her the real reason why, in order to stay close to her.

  In order to keep her safe.