She’s clearly not an Arabella fan. I knew I didn’t like her for a reason. “Yes, definitely. And I hope she does.” Okay, that was a big, fat lie. But the rest was true.
35
The Modern Princess’s Guide to Making Him Love You Back
Arabella
Slip #8, San Felipe Yacht Club
Santa Valentina Island
Oh God, there he is. He’s getting out of a Jeep, looking so, so gorgeous. He’s dressed in a white button-down shirt and khaki slacks, and he’s clean shaved like he’s headed out for a date. Oh, no! What if he was about to go on a date? He may have found a girlfriend by now. It’s been weeks, after all, and a man like him won’t stay on the market long.
He’s walking up the pier in powerful strides, which I can’t believe, considering the condition he was in the last time I saw him. My heart is going to explode with love. And fear. And quite possibly soul-crushing rejection in a few minutes. Now he’s talking to that awful Stew person. Blech. He gave me the side-eye while he chewed on his disgusting cigar and I almost threw up.
They’re still chatting. What could they possibly be saying? I hope Will hasn’t guessed I’m here, and he’s telling Stew to let me down easy so he won’t have to see me again. That would be humiliating, no?
Okay, he’s not sending Stew. He’s walking up the plank to the yacht. Any second now, he’s going to come into the cabin and see me standing here. And as soon as he sees me, I’ll know.
Wait. Should I stand with my back to him and do a dramatic spin when I hear his voice? I turn and face the wall. Nope, that’s stupid. Turning back, I put one hand on my hip and cross one leg in front of the other like I’m posing for the D’Allard’s catalog. Oh, that’s awful.
Hands by my sides?
You know what? Doesn’t matter. What matters is I’m taking a chance. If he doesn’t love me, another bus will be along soon. Shit, my brain is shutting down. That didn’t make sense.
And here he is. Hands interlocked in front of me to accentuate breasts. But play it cool while accentuating breasts.
Will stops in his tracks when he sees me. His head snaps back and his chiseled jaw drops. Then he smiles, then his smile fades. He’s shocked. Is that good shocked or bad shocked? I can’t tell.
“Wow,” he whispers. “You’re here.”
I nod, my entire body going numb.
He swallows hard and shakes his head. “That was … fast.”
Oh, great. Sarcasm. He’s saying I should have come sooner. “Well, it’s not like you couldn’t have come to see me.” Too defensive. Calm down!
“What? I was joking,” he says in that deep voice of his. “I only just finished the interview a few minutes ago.”
“What interview?”
“On ABN? Never mind,” he says, shaking his head again. “Why are you …? I … I can’t believe you’re here.”
Abort mission! Abort! He has not swept you up in his arms yet. He does not love you. Clearing my throat, I say, “I was hoping you could help me out with a little problem. I bought this yacht, then as soon as the sale went through, I realized I have nowhere to park it.”
He tilts his head and stares at me for an uncomfortably long moment. “So you want me to store your yacht for you?”
“No,” I say, fumbling for the papers on the table. “I … umm … wanted to sell it to you … for a dollar.” I stop and cover my face with one hand, then look up at him. “I’m so stupid. I had this whole thing planned where I’d pretend you were doing me a favour if you took Matilda off my hands. I thought it would make up for me causing you to lose out on the bonus, and at the same time, it would also be irresistibly adorable. But now, I can see it was a terrible idea because you’d never have believed it, would you?”
“Probably not, no.” He takes a couple of steps toward me and gives me a sexy grin. “Why don’t we start over? Neither of us has been making much sense so far.”
I smile back, a wave of relief coming over me. “Yes, let’s.”
“It’s great to see you. How have you been?” he asks.
“Good, yes. Fine, you know.” I’m rambling. I must stop rambling. “And you? Your leg looks perfect. Not that I can see it because … pants, but your foot is aimed the right way and you’re walking.”
Chuckling, he says, “Never better. And you? Have you been enjoying indoor plumbing?”
Oh, my knees just went weak. “Very much, although it’s really not something I should talk about.”
“I suppose not,” he says, taking another step. Oh, yes. Come to mama. “So, you bought my family’s yacht back, but now you don’t want to come out and say it because you’re afraid my giant male ego won’t allow me to accept your generous gift.”
I fiddle with my fingers. “I wouldn’t say your ego is giant. It’s just rather healthy.”
“It’s giant. Although, it has been shrinking lately. A little. Maybe even enough to make room for someone else in my life.”
Now, that sounded promising! “Really?”
“Really. Especially the kind of girl who swears like a sailor when she rappels, can cut a trail through the jungle, and rescue a very hard-headed man when he’s in trouble.”
I step toward him. “But what if she also likes to take long baths and sip champagne and sleep on two-thousand thread count sheets?”
“I could learn to love those things, I think.”
“You could?”
“Especially the baths,” Will says, glancing down at my mouth. “And the sheets sound pretty good, too.”
“I just realized I’ve only given examples of things that could lead to sex. I don’t want to falsely advertise my life to you.”
He nods a little, then says, “I think I have some idea about the less-than-sexy aspects of your life.”
“And … would it kill you to be part of it? Not all the time, but some of the time?”
“Do you mean like an on-again, off-again relationship?”
“No, I meant we could split our time between my world and yours, if that wouldn’t be totally suffocating for you.”
“It wouldn’t be suffocating at all.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, my voice thick with emotion.
“I am,” Will answers, wrapping his arms around my waist. Mmm … that feels so good. “These last couple of months, I’ve realized it doesn’t matter where I am, I won’t be happy unless you’re there too.”
He leans down and brushes his lips against mine. I close my eyes, then fear grips me and they fly open again. “I thought you weren’t cut out for long-term?”
“That was just a lie I told myself. And it was working, too,” he says, his mouth hovering over my lips. “Very well, until I met you. But now, I’m … in a lot of trouble because I don’t believe the lie anymore.”
“You don’t?”
“No. Turns out I’m exactly like everybody else on the damn planet—I want the boring, stable, every-day-with-the-same-princess life.”
I laugh and stare into his eyes. “Well, that’s too bad because I’ve just handed in notice to my family that I’m giving up the boring life in favour of independence and excitement.”
“You’re going full Megxit?”
“Not full Megxit, but I’m done letting everyone tell me what I can and can’t do. I’m a total hardass now.”
“Are you?”
Nodding, I say, “I’m going to take on causes that really matter to me, even if they’re sad and I cry openly, or they make me angry and I yell. I also took money out of my trust for the first time and bought a yacht, if you can believe it.”
“Really? You? A yacht?”
“And I’m going to marry whomever I choose. Or no one,” I say with a shrug. “I might decide I never want to get married. Now that I’ve broken free of my domestication, I may want to run wild for the rest of my days.”
“Is that what you want?”
“Maybe. I haven’t decided yet.”
“Well, how about you let me be the guy by yo
ur side while you decide?”
“That sounds nice.”
And finally, we’re kissing. And, oh, wow, it’s a good thing he’s holding onto me, because I’m not sure if I’m capable of supporting my own weight at the moment. I reach up and cup his cheeks with both hands (the ones on his face—for now). And we hold each other and stay like this, letting our mouths and bodies make promises we intend to keep.
When we pull back, he grins down at me. “Did you decide yet?”
“All right, you kissed me into it. I think I would like to get married someday, so long as I can still be wild.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” he says, resting his forehead on mine. “I like you when you’re wild.”
“Thanks, I like you when I’m wild, too.” Narrowing my eyes at him, I say, “Wait. Tell me more about that interview. I have a feeling I’m going to need to know about it.”
“It was nothing, really. I just told the world that I’m the one who got myself into that mess, and I needed you to save me,” he lowers his mouth over mine again and gives me a toe-curling kiss. “Oh, and I may have also said you were the most brave and beautiful person I’d met.”
I smile up at him. “You didn’t.”
Nodding, he says, “Oh, I did. And that if I got to spend any time with you at all in the future, I’d consider myself the luckiest man alive.”
“You said that?” I whisper, my eyes welling up.
He looks up at the ceiling for a second, “Hmm, I may have said the luckiest man on the planet. I really can’t remember.”
“Well, that would be good, too.”
“Yeah?”
Nodding, I say, “Either statement would be completely knicker-melting.”
“So I should consider myself lucky, then?”
“Shut up and kiss me.” I crush his mouth with mine and he lifts me off the floor and holds me up to him. Wrapping my legs around his waist, I pull back, then say, “Wait. Are you sure you should be lifting me right now?”
“Positive.”
“Thank God, because I’m about to get very wild.”
“I was hoping you would.” He walks us over to the table and sets me down on it. When he pulls back, he says, “Just so we’re clear, I’m one hundred percent, fully and permanently in love with you, and I want to spend the rest of my life by your side. Or two steps behind you, whatever the protocol is.”
Oh, it’s happiness. My heart is exploding with happiness. “You’d only have to walk behind me if I were going to be a reigning monarch.”
“Good, because I really like the idea of holding hands wherever we go.”
Epilogue - From One Happily Free Spare to Another …
Princess Arabella
Waltzing Matilda, Somewhere in the South Pacific
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Dear Spike,
Thanks so much for your lengthy reply and your heartfelt congratulations. I just knew those Canadians were nastier than they seem, so I appreciate you filling me in on the truth behind their maple-syrup-sweet façade.
Thank you also for your kind invitation. Will and I would love to sail up and spend a few weeks with you all as soon as possible. At the moment, we’re somewhere off the coast of the Cook Islands, taking some time to really get to know each other (wink, wink) before we announce our intentions to marry, thus unleashing the news hounds.
We have to head back to the Benaventes next week for our flight to Valcourt. The premiere of “The Wild World” is fast approaching, and as part of our contract, we need to do the whole press junket. To answer your question, I’m horribly nervous about seeing myself on film, especially as such a mess. It feels like so long ago that we were out in Zamunda, and I honestly can’t remember if I made any sort of incriminating remarks or not. I can’t help but have a bad feeling about it, though. There’s almost no way that woman I shoved—Dylan—doesn’t have any tricks up her sleeve to create a bigger stir. She’s an evil genius, but just how evil is something we’ll have to wait to find out.
As to my future, I don’t know exactly what it holds, other than love, that is. My family has succumbed to my demands, so I’m happy to write that I’ll be starting as the Avonian Ambassador for the Equal Everywhere Campaign as of next month. I also will be cutting back on some of my royal functions while Will and I figure out how to make things work. I must tell you that we owe you and Megs a debt of gratitude. The entire staff (and my father) are so terrified of our own Megxit, that they’ve become quite agreeable. So, thank you to you both for blazing the trail.
Okay, I should run. Will has been preparing some wine and cheese for us to share on deck, and it would be rude of me to keep him waiting.
Tell Meghan I now know what she means about how good that thing is that she was telling me about, and that Will is an absolute god in that department. (But don’t worry, she said you’re amazing, too).
Your deliriously happy friend,
Arabella
The Beginning…
Coming Soon
THIS NOVEMBER, THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES…
Royally Wild
A Crazy Royal Love Romantic Comedy, Book 2
The tabloids are hunting them. Their families are turning on them. Can their love survive?
Despite the odds, Princess Arabella of Avonia and rugged outdoorsman, Will Banks, fell in love while filming a reality show in the jungle. But that’s another story.
While she’s making room in the royal closet for his hiking boots and backpacks—right next to the crown jewels—the show’s producers are editing together film footage that could turn their romance into nothing more than a showmance.
Private moments caught tape and aired for the world’s viewing pleasure are about to turn their world upside down.
Can love to conquer all?
Find out in this scandalously funny, sweet but sexy second installment The Crazy Royal Love Series…
PRE-ORDER NOW SO YOU WON’T MISS A SECOND!
Afterword
A NOTE FROM MELANIE
I hope you enjoyed the beginning of Will and Arabella’s adventures. I hope you laughed out loud, and the story left you feeling good. If so, please leave a review.
Reviews are a true gift to writers. They are the best way for other readers to find our work and for writers to figure out if we’re on the right track, so thank you if you are one of those kind folks out there to take time out of your day to leave a review!
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All the very best to you and yours,
Melanie
Royally Crushed: A Crazy Royal Love, Book 1 Page 23