Princely Passions: A Royal Romance Page 7

  I know they're staring at my jaw. My royal fucking jawline. With my dimples. My icy blue eyes. My tousled hair.

  My mates are doing their best to be the peacock, strutting and swaggering their way up the line, making their way for the fucking door. But I know that of the lot, I’m the only royal alpha male.

  "Boys, this looks ridiculous," I tell them. "I’m a fucking Prince – we can get in whenever the fuck we want. It's not a big deal that we're skipping the line. We don't have to make a big show of it. People are going to laugh at us."

  I'm just looking out for them. I give fuck all if anyone laughs at me. I'll just screw their wife on their bed while they're laughing at me.

  I walk through the doors and look at my mates behind me. The boys didn't listen and I realize that maybe I have it too easy - with my looks, my cash, my title. Because what I thought is ridiculous is actually working. They're picking up a girl or two each, talking and spitting game out at the various ladies that are waiting in line.

  I shake my head to myself. These women are dressed as skanky as they can get. Trying to emulate the hookers and the porn stars that they think all the blokes are after. Trying to shuck themselves silly. At least onto me.

  I wonder how many of the boys will actually make it into the club and how many will decide to just quit while they're ahead and take these girls home.

  Night ending before it even begins.

  So much for fucking friendship, huh? After I gave you that giant spiel a few minutes ago about how they have my back and I have theirs, I’m realizing that not all of them may even make it into the club. They just wanted to come with me for the celebrity I afforded them.

  Fuck, why am I thinking like this all of a sudden?

  I’m just going to enjoy tonight, and try not to fucking think about Daphne. And if at the end of the night I want to fuck, I'm sure there'll be plenty of options.

  Not that there aren't already.

  Remember how I told you that the plan was working for my mates? Getting out of the Bentley limo early and walking down the street to the club before the bouncer let us in? Well, if they were attracting one or two girls, I've attracted at least five.

  A fucking gaggle.

  They're cute - I won't deny that. But guess who’s in my head? Fucking right.

  I need a drink.

  Scotch whiskey for me. I order a bottle. $4,000. Only the top shelf liquor for me. And by top shelf, I mean a shelf high enough that only I can reach.

  The girls coo with delight as I order, but all I think is how this means so little to Daphne. She doesn’t give two shits that I’m a fucking Prince.

  I mean, I’m fucking global, mate. Heir to a First World European island nation, the financial hub of Western Europe.

  My face is splashed across the TV screens, newspapers, and tabloids - looking down on at least 4 billion people.

  But that wasn’t enough for Daphne tonight.

  I sigh as the girls sit down in the VIP section. I lean back, seeing what they're going to say. Maybe one of these girls will have something smart going on in their heads. Something that distracts me from thinking of the curves on Daphne, or that beautiful smile of hers, or those soft, wide, innocent looking eyes.

  "Well, well, well, ladies," I say, putting my arms back on the sofa. "Who may you be?"

  "I'm Carrie," the blonde next to me on my right says with a smile.

  "I'm Anna," next to her.

  "I'm Anya," her friend says.

  "I'm Dee," one on my left chimes.

  "I'm Candy," the one next to her says. She doesn't hold back either. "I give good head."

  Fuck me. Whatever happened to fucking small talk?

  I had looked for a night out with my mates to distract myself from Daphne. But all they wanted was for me to get them into the club. And all these birds want now is to tell their friends that they’ve been with me.

  Fuck, a little late to discover how fucking shallow this is, isn’t it?

  This life isn’t working for me anymore. It isn’t getting thoughts I didn’t want to think of out of my head. I looked at the sluts and expected it would be easy to fuck the feelings out. But I can’t do it. I’m not feeling anything for them.

  I need to go.

  "Listen, ladies," I say, clearly exasperated. "I'm having a bit of an early night tonight. Have to behave."

  "Why?" Carrie asks.

  "Don’t want to get in trouble with the law, love," I say, drawn into the hint of a conversation. “Besides, I can’t get the thought of another bird I met out of my head – I’m just not in the mood tonight, I guess.”

  "Can I come home with you?" she asks.

  And there it goes. Boom. Why would I take back home when I just fucking said I was hung up on another bird and not in the fucking mood? Even if there had been no Daphne, I wasn’t taking her home. Ever.

  "No," I say, basically figuring a question like that only deserves a one-word answer.

  "Can I?" Anya asks, her face lighting up.

  What the fuck? She thinks because I didn't take her friend, she now has a better chance?

  I sigh and take a large drink of my scotch.

  I know what you're going to say to me, okay? Not every girl is like this. There's some with great personalities. I know what you're going to say. And a few days ago, I would have said that any girl that comes near me with whatever personality and brains is going to want to fuck me and is going to forget everything else.

  But then I fucking met Daphne. She’s got more fucking class and sense in her fucking finger than all of these girls combined.

  "Do you want to fuck me?" the girl called Anya asks me, batting her eyelashes.

  At least Dee is a bit more reserved. She just brings her fist to her mouth and makes a blowjob motion, then smiles at me.

  I sigh. Even if I did want to fuck, it wouldn’t do anything for what’s going on in my head. I’d just feel worse. Like I cheated on Daphne. I had come here to forget about her. It wasn’t working.

  "Listen, ladies, I'm out," I say. "Help yourself to the booze."

  They look at me with sad eyes, but I know, just like real birds, they'll forget about it in the next few moments.

  At least I fucking hope so.

  Welcome to my fucking fabulous life. Fuck me.

  God, I can’t fucking wait to see Daphne again.

  I get home and decide I need a fucking shower.

  My cock is hard thinking of Daphne non-stop by the time I walk into my massive shower and turn the gold-plated knobs. Fuck it, I think and grab my cock.

  I’m thinking of Daphne as I stroke my pole and it doesn’t take long before I’m coating the walls of my shower with my thick cum.

  But the moment I get out, the phone rings. It’s Daphne. At 2 am. Speak of the fucking devil.

  “Little late for you, love,” I say into the phone with a smile, falling down on the couch like a fucking lovesick 16-year-old. “Want me to come over?”

  If you can hear eyes being rolled, that’s what it sounds like. But after that, she says quite clearly, “I really don’t want to be..uhm…stripping for the rest of my life.” Good. This was fucking progress. “If you can help me, I can help you.”

  “Excellent,” I say aloud. This was the happiest I’d been since she’d left.

  “But I have some conditions if I’m going to do this,” she says.

  Fuck me. Here it comes. Let’s see how much I’m going to have to pay.

  “Okay,” I say, bracing myself.

  “First,” she begins. Fuck, she’s got a list. “I don’t want you to pay me. But you are going to do some real charity. Not the photo op kind. I get to pick them and I’ll pick the events as well if needed.”

  Easy enough.

  “Done,” I say.

  She moves on. “Secondly, we need to make clear, that I’m not like some mistress of yours,” she says.

  “I’m not going to have sex with you,” she repeats.

  Fuck me. Is she being serious? S
he’s going to pass up the opportunity for me?

  But more importantly, I’m going to have to do without her?

  Fucking hell. But I need to be near her.

  “Fine,” I say with a tight voice. I’ll just have to find it elsewhere.

  “Thirdly,” she says over the phone and I can see she’s rehearsed this. “You can’t have sex with anyone else.”

  What. The. Fuck.

  It’s bad enough that she’s going to prance around in that hot fucking body of hers and say I can’t fuck her. But now I can’t fuck anyone else either?

  I gulp. All of a sudden, I need a fucking drink.

  “Fine,” I croak.

  “Great!” she squeals. She doesn’t even want the money. The whole point of this was giving her enough money to not strip.

  “And you give up stripping, right love?” I ask. If she’s going to be stripping at the club, then all bets are off.

  “Uhm, right. Yes!” she agrees. Fuck me, I’m going mental for this bird.

  “Right, then,” I say, trying to draw my mind away from impure thoughts. “Let’s plan on doing something the day after tomorrow then, love. Get us out in front of the cameras. I’ll have Pressly plan something out and you can tell me if it lives up to your standards.”

  We trade details and then hang up.

  I sigh deeply to myself.

  10

  Alicia

  Well, I survived.

  Although, to be fair, I didn’t really know what to expect after I got off the phone with him. I mean, after I got back home from dinner on Friday, I kind of just sat there, thinking about the offer.

  The money would be great, sure, I couldn’t deny that. And please don't look at me like that, okay? I wasn’t selling myself. I made it explicitly clear that I wouldn’t sleep with him. And I wasn’t far off the truth, telling him I had debts to pay. But then I decided that the money was a short term consideration. The career making secrets I’d find were the long term goals.

  But anyways, the first thing I do now is call Mike. I needed to make sure everything was going to be okay. Of course, Mike is enthusiastically on board about the whole thing.

  “But won't the other papers figure out that I’m not a stripper?” I asked Mike. “Won’t they realize I work for you?”

  “I think you’re overthinking that one, kiddo,” he answers, taking his time with his explanation. “Once we come out with our exclusives, we make sure to create a believable cover story for you. And don’t worry, as soon as I get off the phone, I’ll get some of the best people we have to set you up as Daphne Apple. Even if the Prince does a search of public databases, all he’ll see is a fake Facebook, and some government ID hits. Totally doable.”

  I think that frightens me as to how easily I can become someone else.

  There’s just one final last thing bugging me.

  “And you’re sure what we’re doing is right? Tell me you’re sure, Mike?” And this is it. I was entering into something to find dirt on the Prince. Why? Because dirt sold papers. And our majority shareholder who happened to be the District Attorney wanted dirt. So she could most likely kick him out of the country. I mean, you saw, right? When he wanted to be, he could be charming and personable like he was at dinner. It almost makes me forget how much of an asshole he’d been to me so long ago.

  Almost.

  “Yeah, kiddo, I’m sure,” Mike said with a long sigh. I could tell he’s thinking this himself. “At the end of the day, this is our job. To expose the truth. We gotta do it.”

  Okay. If he says it’s okay, then I’m in.

  “Get some sleep, kid. But first, get me tomorrow’s story.”

  That’s right! I’m getting another shot at Abby! Yay!

  I hang up and pour myself a glass of wine and begin to type up my story on my laptop. About dinner. And Per Se. And his amazingly hot body. The smell of his cologne. His blue, soulful eyes.

  Oh, my.

  Derrick picks me up at 8 am that Sunday. He’s got a stretch Bentley. I roll my eyes. That’s exactly what I expected from someone that I call Prince Sin.

  Jake calls again, but I push it to ignore and get into the car.

  “Morning, love,” he says with a smile as he gets out. “Figured we’d go do a photo op helping at a soup kitchen. What you say?”

  I can’t argue with something so blatantly altruistic. “Who came up with the idea, Your Highness?” I ask.

  He takes a moment to smirk at me. “Actually, it was Pressly who suggested it to my lawyer. Thought it would be a good way to spend the day. And fuck me, if they didn’t call some press accidentally.”

  Figures. I wouldn't expect someone as hedonistic as Prince Sin to come up with an idea like that.

  I’m quiet most of the way down Manhattan and only when we crawl through the maze-like streets of Lower Manhattan does the Prince even look in my direction.

  “Seriously, Daphne,” he says with no hint of mirth. “I don’t mind doing these things….I just never get a chance to.”

  I roll my eyes again. “Too buy getting kicking the girl out of your bed?” I ask.

  He actually nods in agreement! “And hung over,” he adds.

  Great. He doesn’t feel a lick of shame at his actions.

  We board the Staten Island Ferry after some breakfast and the Prince takes me outside. It’s already close to 11 and it’s a nice morning and I watch the seagulls fly around the boat. It’s perfect.

  I take a sideways look at the Prince, seeing what he’s doing. He’s gazing out soulfully towards Manhattan. I gasp, but try to keep it to myself. Gone is the arrogant smirk, the cocky demeanor. Instead is a man, struggling with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  I’m about to say something when I hear a scream.

  My head turns immediately to the stern. There’s a woman. She’s flailing her arms and screaming.

  “Help!” she yells. “Timmy! My boy!”

  Before I know what happens, Derrick is already rushing over. I run after him, but I can’t catch up to him.

  “He fell! He fell…please someone help!” the woman is wailing. Tears are flowing down her eyes and she’s nearly hysterical. I see a little head bobbing in the water. The other people around us all turn around and are looking at her. No one is sure what to do.

  Derrick doesn’t even stop, but jumps on the railing and jumps off the boat.

  Well, I can’t say I expected that.

  With swift and strong strokes, within seconds, he’s caught up to the boy and he takes him in his arms. He stays in place, treading against the current and waves at the mother, who is still going crazy.

  By this time, some other passengers have alerted the Ferry captain and the boat slowly comes to a stop. But Derrick is already swimming up to the boat itself and by the time the emergency workers lower the life raft, Derrick is waiting, helping get the boy back to the emergency workers.

  The mother weeps and cries out as the emergency personnel bring the boy up and put a blanket around him. Derrick is down below, talking to the emergency workers.

  Remarkably, the Staten Island Ferry resumes service immediately, although it turns around and heads towards Manhattan.

  It’s only once we dock again in Lower Manhattan that Derrick comes up to me. He’s dripping wet, and soaked to the bone.

  “I think we’re going to have to cancel today’s event, love,” he says looking directly into me. “Seems our first foray into respectability is all washed up.”

  I can’t help but smile. Emergency personnel have taken the child to the clinic at the ferry terminal and the mother looks towards Derrick very briefly.

  She never got a chance to even thank him, I think to myself. But then again, no one will ever even know about what he did. His heroism.

  Except for me.

  “You smell like dirty water,” I say, cracking a rare smile at him. “I think you need to go home and change.”

  He smiles back. “Let me have the car drop you off then,” he says.
I hesitate. I can probably take the subway on my own. It’s a Sunday morning. “I insist,” he tells me. I finally nod my head in agreement.

  “Make sure you stay on your side and don’t get me wet,” I tell him with mock sternness.

  “It's my job as Prince Sin to get every woman as wet as I can,” he says with a chuckle and a smirk and I can’t help but laugh.

  Only Derrick would appropriate a name meant to shame into a badge of pride.

  The ride to the Lower East Side is relatively short and Derrick holds the door open for me.

  “Thank you for an interesting morning,” I say to him, and before I know it, I stand on my tiptoes and give him a quick peck on the cheek.

  God, just doing that is getting me all sorts of hot.

  Derrick raises his eyebrows. “Did I get you fucking wet there, love?” he asks with a grin.

  “No,” I reply, sticking my tongue out at him. “But you will if you get any closer.”

  I’ll leave you to decide what kind of wet I’m talking about. I get too hot just thinking about it.

  Derrick is happy to stand there playing along but I eventually turn around and head into my building, going up the stairs, my mind filled with thoughts of random happiness.

  Those thoughts are interrupted when I see the door to my apartment jarred open. I look closer. Someone’s broken through the lock.

  Oh no!

  The door is off it’s hinges and listing to the side on one hinge. I gulp. I probably shouldn’t go inside, but I can’t help myself.

  I take a step inside.

  “Jenna?” I call out. No answer. The living room is untouched. I go knock on Jenna’s door. She’s not in and the door isn’t locked. I take out my phone and call her.

  “What?” Jenna answers in a cold voice when she picks up.

  “Have you been to our apartment?” I ask.

  She sighs on the other end. “No, and don’t worry. I’m staying with my parents in Connecticut.”

  That’s not what I asked her but she continues. “I’m moving out. You don’t have to see me. I think you treated Jake like a real bitch and I don’t want to be around you as you finish him off, Alicia.”