Secret Heir_A Forbidden Love, Enemies to Lovers, Royal Romance

by MJ Prince

  I lose track of space and time as I move and when I stand back to look at my creation, I feel stunned.

  Even Keller seems speechless, as we look up at the ice garden that I’ve spun—rose bushes, fountains, statues, intricate railings and terraces all made entirely of ice.

  “Whoa …” I hear Lance’s voice behind me and I turn to see that he’s standing on the ice behind us with Raph. I wonder how long they’ve been standing there.

  He wonders off to inspect my work and Keller follows him, still looking impressed and proud of her tuition.

  I turn to Raph, and the expression on his face touches something in my core.

  “That’s amazing, Jaz,” he says quietly. His voice is different than I’ve ever heard before.

  “Thanks,” I reply, smiling shyly at him. Something flickers in his eyes as he watches me.

  I feel the blush creeping on my cheeks, so I skate away towards the center of the lake where there are twin arches of ice and a canopy of delicate icicles hanging between them.

  Raph follows me and I know that Lance and Keller are somewhere in the ice garden, too. But I feel like we’re the only two people in the forest, on this planet even.

  “I think there’s one thing missing, though,” Raph says, as he moves closer to me in this sanctuary that I’ve created.

  “What?” I ask, though it’s a wonder that I can speak through the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears.

  “Snow.”

  I look up to see the blanket of snowflakes falling around us. I close my eyes as I let the flakes of snow fall around me, feeling the cool kiss of the snowflakes against my cheeks.

  I hear a sharp intake of breath and when I open my eyes, I see Raph staring at me. Like fully staring. The way he’s looking at me, reminds me of that first night in my bedroom when I told him about my past. The look has the same confusing effect on me now, as it did then. Maybe I shouldn’t be confused. Maybe I just need to see it for what it is. Because what it looks like is that he wants to kiss me.

  I should be alarmed at that. The thought should make me run as far away from him as possible. This guy hated me not so long ago. He made my life a living hell. The hate is gone, but it doesn’t change who and what Raph is—so devastatingly beautiful, that it’s almost unreal, and he has an entire planet at his feet. He could have anything and anyone that he wants. I’m way out of my depths with this guy. I have zero experience with any of this and testing the waters with a guy who has the ability to shatter my heart into a million pieces if I let him anywhere near it, is a dangerous idea. One that I shouldn’t even be considering.

  And yet … yet I can’t stop myself from looking up into those impossibly blue eyes as they look into me, through me. I don’t pull away when he draws closer, although I feel like the air around us is so charged, that I’m finding it difficult to even breathe.

  He does something that surprises me, as he brushes those sensuous lips against my closed eyelids, the sensitive skin of his lower lip brushing against my lashes.

  When I open my eyes to look at him, those blue eyes are so intense, that it’s difficult to keep looking without feeling like I’m falling through the sky.

  “You had snow on your lashes,” he murmurs and he’s so close, that I can feel his words almost on my lips.

  I realize that he’s going to kiss me. Oh God. Panic and something like fear races through me, but still I don’t move.

  His mouth brushes against mine in the softest of touches, once, twice. It’s nothing more than the brushing of lips, but oh God, it’s everything. Everything I didn’t feel in that kiss with Baron—the fire, the flutters, the heat. It’s all there and it’s insane, because it’s not even really a kiss.

  I can hear the sound of my own pulse roaring in my ears and my heart is pounding so hard, it feels like it’s going to come out of my chest.

  But everything stops when Raph pulls back as if he’s just been burned. He looks at me in something like horror, and then I’m the one who feels like I’ve been burned.

  He curses, as he takes another step back, and it feels like a slap to the face.

  “Shit. That was a mistake. I shouldn’t have done that,” he says.

  I take a step towards him, although I have no idea why, because it feels like I’m stepping into the path of an oncoming train.

  “What—” I have no idea what I’m even trying to say, but Raph cuts me off as he holds his hand up to stop me and I clamp my mouth shut, feeling the humiliation wash over me.

  His eyes take in my stricken expression, and he runs his hands through his hair in frustration.

  “Dammit—I can’t do this with you.”

  His face becomes shuttered, closed off like the first time I’d seen him on the beach. I can’t ignore the clawing that I feel in my chest or the feeling like someone has just stabbed me right in that same spot. When he speaks again, his voice is as cold as the ice surrounding us.

  “This can’t happen.”

  I’m saved from having to say anything as the delicate snowflakes falling around us turn to large droplets of rain, pouring down on us in what is an entirely appropriate representation of everything I’m feeling. Because I sure as hell feel like I might cry.

  “Sorry to interrupt this touching moment,” Lance calls over to us from another section of the ice garden, which is now starting to melt. There’s a wry look on his face which is mirrored on Keller’s.

  I tear my eyes away from Raph, who is still just standing there, stone faced.

  Something like anger washes over me, and I focus on it because it’s familiar. It’s safe.

  “You weren’t interrupting anything,” I call back to Lance, although I’m really speaking to Raph. Take that, fucker.

  I walk away from him and join Lance and Keller on the edge of the lake.

  I don’t bother to wait for Raph.

  Keller walks ahead with me and is watching me in a way that tells me she can sense something is wrong. But I tell myself that there’s nothing wrong. No, in fact this is just right. What was I thinking?

  That was a mistake. His words echo through my ears and I feel like screaming. But why should I be mad?

  Raph probably realized, just as I should have realized, that whatever it was that happened, is wrong. He probably just remembered that he’s the future king of Eden and has the entire planet in his hands, whereas I’m a half human nobody who can’t even use her powers properly. But fuck him. Because he started this. He asked me to stay, he offered to help me learn how to use my powers, he was the one who started sleeping in my bed, sitting with me at lunch and in classes, touching me and making me feel like I was actually beginning to trust him.

  Then I laugh at myself for my own naiveté. Because it’s my own fault for reading too much into things. Raph was probably being just Raph—flirting is like breathing to him. He’s charming without even trying, he can get girls to fall for him without even meaning to. So, the joke is on me. But I feel that familiar wall of stone closing around me because I will never let that happen again.

  “Did something happen back there between you and Raph?” Keller asks, as we near her motorbike. Yes, that’s right, this kickass girl actually has her own motorbike.

  “No,” I lie. But she, of course, doesn’t buy it.

  “Well, it sure felt like it, because I haven’t felt so much awkwardness in the air since that time in sophomore year when Lance walked in on Baron balls deep in Lance’s Winter Ball date.”

  I laugh at the mental image, despite myself.

  Keller looks at me expectantly.

  “It was nothing,” I say.

  “I just forgot for a second who Raph is,” I add, after a moment.

  Keller looks at me thoughtfully.

  “You know, most people think that they know Raph—he’s got this perfect life and he’s untouchable. Every girl wants him, every guy wants to be him or is just scared shitless of him, etc.

  “But I don’t think anyone really knows Raph. He puts on
one hell of a front. That’s what being next in line to the throne does.”

  I don’t want to hear anymore, because I was in a good place just a few minutes ago—resolved not to let myself get caught up in Raph’s twisted web again. I don’t want to think about the glimpses of him that I’ve seen beneath the self-centered and arrogant façade, the parts of him that I’m almost certain no one else has seen and all that it means. I don’t want to think about the fact that I know that his life isn’t perfect, that although our lives couldn’t be more different, he understands the loss and sorrow that’s plagued me for almost my entire life. That he understands it only too well.

  But I don’t stop her when she continues.

  “Even Layla never really knew Raph. But then again, it was never like that between them.”

  I clamp my mouth shut but the question comes out anyway.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s not for me to tell you about Raph’s business. I can only tell you what I see—and I’ve never seen anyone get to Raph the way you do,” she replies.

  “I mean, like back at the beginning of semester—I’ve never seen him actually hate someone. He normally just doesn’t give a shit.”

  “So you’re saying that you’ve never seen Raph hate someone as much as he hated me?” I say flatly. “Gee, thanks. That’s good to know.”

  Keller rolls her eyes.

  “No, I mean I’ve never seen someone get under Raph’s skin the way you do,” she says.

  “Whether it’s hating you for blowing up his ride...” she laughs and I can’t help but laugh with her at the memory.

  We stop in front of her motorbike and her grey eyes turn somber.

  “... or whether it’s something else …”

  I say nothing as I take the spare helmet that she hands to me.

  “But I get that it’s Raph, and nothing about that guy is simple,” she says.

  “So, just be careful,” she adds.

  I nod silently, but something inside me already knows that the warning has probably come too late.

  That night, I lock my bedroom door, although that foolish part of me waits to hear the sound of knocking. It never comes.

  I tell myself that I should be glad. That it’s the smartest thing I’ve done since that night that Raph asked me to stay. But I don’t think I sleep a wink that night and the feeling like my chest is being shredded to pieces doesn’t go away.

  “But you said that you were coming,” Dani’s voice pleads from the earpiece of my cell.

  “I know I did, but I changed my mind,” I reply, as I stare up at my bedroom ceiling.

  It’s two hours until kick off of tonight’s soccer match and I’m still firmly refusing to leave my room.

  “Does this have anything to do with the way that you and Raph have been avoiding each other all day?”

  I feel a pang in my chest at the reminder of the look on Raph’s face when he walked into first period trigonometry earlier. He wouldn’t even look at me. As if the sight of me alone was an unwelcome reminder of that mistake.

  Unsurprisingly, he didn’t show at Dani’s and my lunch table and when I saw him in the hallway after classes, he turned and went the other way as soon as he saw me. As if he couldn’t get far enough away. I tell myself that I should be glad, but still, I can’t deny that I felt it like a knife to the chest.

  Dani sighs then, interpreting my silence correctly.

  “Look, whatever’s happened between you two, if you don’t show up to tonight’s game, it’ll look like you’re letting him get to you—and I know how much you’d hate that.”

  Her words aren’t wrong, but I don’t think I can stand the sight of Raph right now without doing something stupid or embarrassing, like trying to kiss him again. For real this time. I stamp down on the traitorous thought. I remind myself that I should be thankful because this was exactly the sort of thing that I needed to avoid. I remind myself that not too long ago, I hated Raph, hated him with a ferocity which was beyond reason. What in the world would possess me to want to kiss him or to feel that stabbing in my chest, when he acted like he’d been burned by that almost kiss.

  This is a mistake. His words play themselves over in my mind and I tell myself that he’s right—it was a mistake. Letting him draw me in was a mistake, letting him gain my trust was a mistake. Because Dani hadn’t been wrong when she told me that getting in with the Dynasty heirs was a dangerous game and no one came out unscathed. It’s good that this happened now because god only knows what would’ve happened if he’d actually kissed me.

  Raph swore to me once that he’d break me if I didn’t stay away. I realize now how true that promise was, because I know deep down, that Raph St. Tristan does indeed have the ability to break me. But I won’t let him. I’ve lost too much already.

  “He sort of kissed me, Dan,” I say finally.

  I can hear Dani’s responding gasp down the line.

  “What do you mean sort of?” she asks, once she gets over her initial shock.

  “It wasn’t really a kiss, more like lip brushing,” I say, trying to find the right words.

  “Lip brushing?” Dani repeats, incredulously.

  “Like when two lips touch? That’s called a kiss,” she says flatly and I almost want to laugh, if it wasn’t so tragic.

  “Okay, so you … lip-brushed. That’s great, right? I mean this is Raph St. Tristan we’re talking about. Every girl at Regency wants to lip-brush with this guy.”

  “Yeah, except he acted like he was horrified and then told me it was a mistake.” I feel my voice waver as I say it out loud and I hate myself for it.

  I love Dani, though, because as much as she seems to like Raph and has clearly been rooting for him, she goes into loyal friend mode almost instantly.

  “Well, screw him. Who does he think he is? Raph St. Tristan is a loser.

  “Okay, maybe not a loser because that would be impossible. But still, if he wants to act like an asshole, then he sure as hell doesn’t deserve you.”

  “Thanks, Dan,” I reply, smiling despite myself.

  “I mean I told you before that you’re like the hottest girl in Regency right now. You can have anyone you want.”

  I don’t agree with her, but I keep listening.

  “So, tonight, you’re going to go to that soccer game, act like you don’t give a shit about Raph St. Tristan and then go to the beach party after and enjoy yourself,” she says.

  “Screw Raph St. Tristan,” she adds.

  I agree with those last words. Screw Raph. It was a mistake. Fine. I can agree with that and tonight I’m going to show the asshole that I won’t be making the same mistake again.

  20

  Dani was right about one thing—soccer games in Eden are nothing like the soccer games that I’ve ever seen on Earth.

  It’s the same concept, with the two teams trying to get the ball into the goals at opposite sides of the large field. But that’s where the similarity ends, because the players on the field are using their powers to tackle, dribble and lob the ball across the field.

  I watch wide eyed as the flaming soccer ball sears a hole through the back of the net on the opposite side of the stadium and the crowd goes wild.

  “Wow,” I manage.

  “I know, right? The Regency Gladiators are killing it tonight. I almost feel sorry for the Gramercie Prep Raiders.”

  I try not to look at Raph on the field, but that’s kind of impossible, because as striker and team captain, all eyes are on him and Raph is irrefutably the star of the team. In the same way as he is in a duel, he is just better than everyone else on the field. Faster, sharper, tactically masterful and far, far more powerful.

  Raph always glows with his own light, but tonight, he shines. It’s difficult to look at him without feeling like I can’t breathe, but at the same time, it’s impossible to look away. God, I’m really twisted.

  But every person in this stadium seems to agree, because they all worship him. Everyone. The who
le team got cheers when they ran out onto the field earlier. Baron and Lance were both greeted with an almost deafening roar. But Raph—when he ran out onto that field dressed in his Regency Gladiators navy blue and gold kit, the whole stadium stood on its feet and it felt like there was an earthquake with all the stomping and cheering.

  The whole thing just makes the knot in my chest feel even tighter and I suddenly wish that I hadn’t come tonight.

  Dani notices my expression because she reaches over and gives my hand a reassuring squeeze.

  “Don’t worry, the night is young. There’s plenty of players on the team and every single one of them is dying to ask you out on a date.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “How do you even know that?”

  “I like eavesdropping,” she replies, matter-of-factly.

  “And I can second that.” I look up to see Keller standing in the aisle next to our seats.

  I’m surprised to see her and the look on Dani’s face tells me she is, too. I spotted Layla in the VIP seats earlier with Ivy and the rest of the popular kids, so I expected Keller to be there, too.

  “I’m bored of the usual crowd. I feel the need for a change tonight,” Keller says with a shrug, as if reading our minds.

  Dani scoots over to make space for her.

  “Anyway, what were we saying? Oh yeah, I totally agree with Dani about the soccer team lusting after you. I sit with most of them at lunch and the amount of salivating is kind of gross.”

  “Ew,” I reply, as Dani bursts out laughing.

  “Baron mentioned that Raph—”

  Keller cuts me off with a dismissive wave.

  “That Raph put out a warning that no guy can touch you? Yeah sure, but boys will be boys. They think with their dicks, even if it’ll get them killed, and that won’t stop them from trying when Raph’s back is turned.”

  Her words surprise me, because although I had a sneaking suspicion, I didn’t actually know for sure what the warning actually was. I told myself that Raph has just spread the word that I was an outcast, not to be associated with. What Keller is saying, though, is entirely different.