by Kim Karr
Nodding, I manage to say, “Yes. I’d be more than honored.”
Leopold just gifted me my Get Out of Jail Free card and whether he’s doing it for me or him doesn’t really matter. What matters is that now that I don’t have to sit on the throne, I can marry anyone I want.
Royal or not.
I’m going with the not, in case you’re wondering.
FOR THE LOVE OF CARDS
The Casanovia Conquest
Breaking News
IT WAS ALL IN THE NAME OF GAMBLING
By Ian Wesley
Two weeks and three days following the kidnapping of Prince Maximus, the kidnappers, now positively identified as Prince Maximus’s bodyguard and former Bombshell employee, have pleaded guilty to kidnapping charges.
Their motive—to force the gambling bill to be passed, starting with Casanovia. And then wreak havoc on the other monarchies if need be to get what they wanted—legalized gambling throughout the Vespa Isles so they could sell their properties.
Kendra Walters, the former employee of Bombshell magazine, admitted to meeting Sir Isaac Brantley, the now deceased Prime Minister of Alexandria, and also Queen Victoria’s maternal uncle, when her mother worked for him as his house manager.
Secretly employing her, he had her buy acres and acres of seaside properties amongst all five of the Vespa Isles to sell to the Gaming Commission when gambling became legal. When Sir Isaac Brantley passed, the properties remained in Kendra’s name.
Although unconfirmed as of yet, it is also believed that Prince Maximus’s bodyguard is the man who attempted to assassinate King Winston two years ago. The gun used was found in his flat. He too was hired by Sir Isaac Brantley in a personal capacity, and we believe he and Kendra Walters met through the former Prime Minister of Alexandria.
Both will be serving plenty of time behind bars.
WHERE’S THE LEASH
The Casanovia Conquest
Breaking News
ENGAGED TO SOMEONE ELSE
By Ian Wesley
Rainer Archibald Casire, the youngest son of Caroline, Princess of Burgetti, and her second husband, Archibald Casire, and sixteenth in the line of succession to the Wimberly throne, has announced his engagement to Princess Beatrice Hill of Eastwood.
The man of the cloth has been spotted without his collar as of late, however, his bride-to-be seems to be wearing one of a different kind. Wink. Wink.
The two were snapped entering a sex club in Eastwood, and her new diamond and ruby necklace looked more like a collar than an engagement present.
Rumors have circulated for years that Prince Rainer is into scene play, now I think that can be confirmed.
Can you say dominant-submissive relationship?
I can.
And I do.
No pun intended.
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
I tug my coat tighter around myself and look up at the falling snow. Winter in New York City is no picnic.
The wool does nothing to stop the bone-chilling cold and my skinny faux-suede leggings leave my legs feeling naked.
A gust of fierce wind propels me forward and all the layers of material I have on feel about as protective as a pair of fishnet stockings.
At the same time I hear a splash, icy water rushes up my legs and into my ankle boots. With hesitation, I glance down to see I’m standing in a puddle of still water.
I’m not even going to talk about the condition of my leather boots because the five inches of snow that has blanketed the city are already melting into slushy gray messes of ugliness, and I’m standing in one of them right now.
Honestly, I have no idea why I moved to this city. Texas. Everything is bigger and brighter there. And my father, brother, and niece are there too.
Then I remember why I’m here.
Fashion.
Yes, that’s it.
The need to not give up like my mother did. Who knows, maybe prove to her that I am worth fighting for.
Sometimes that passion I have is hard to recall, though, especially when a yellow taxi cab barrels through the caution light and blares its horn at me just for standing near the edge of the curb to avoid any more puddles.
This time I don’t think about doing it—I just do—and I give him the bird. Middle finger up straight and bold.
The light changes to WALK, and I turn onto Varick Street. It’s getting dark, and my feet are killing me. On the bright side, the Spring Street Subway Station is within my view, and I think my plans to walk home to get some exercise are about to be canceled.
Ugh…why oh why again did I take the job at Something Blue Bridal Salon on Wooster? The job I really dislike with its bridezillas, late hours, and bitch of a boss?
Oh, right, that little thing called rent.
I miss Bombshell like crazy, but Ava is doing a fantastic job running the Creative Department.
You see I couldn’t go back to the magazine, not after everything that happened. I love Max (the man I should be calling Prince Maximus of Casanovia) too much to put myself through the pain of being in daily contact with him, and then eventually watching him marry someone else.
Max has texted me a few times over the past weeks, called too, he’s even tried to Skype me, but I haven’t responded.
Cutting him out of my life is what’s best for me, and him.
After Ava informed me his aunt had taken to running the magazine via Skype and Julia took responsibility for most of the day-to-day decisions (nothing has changed in respect to the latter) and that Max was in Casanovia recovering nicely and going to be fine, I told her I didn’t want to hear anything else about him. She tried to talk to me so many times, but since I kept getting upset, she finally stopped.
Total social media blackout where I’m concerned. My spirit can’t take all the negativity.
On a different note, Ava and Hunter have become exclusive. As far as I know, this is a first for him. She won’t admit it, but I think she’s falling in love with him. And I think he’s already fallen. I mean, he brought her home to Italy to meet his family this weekend.
This weekend.
That’s right—it’s a Saturday.
I almost forgot.
Oh no, that means not all the subway lines are running.
I glance around to my fellow pedestrians and notice the lack of people using the station steps.
Just as I’m about to pull my phone from my bag to check the weekend schedule, it rings.
Br-rrring!
Br-rrring!
Glancing at the caller id, I’m in shock when I see these three letters on my screen: MAX.
I want to hear his voice so much, but I can’t answer. Talking to him won’t change anything.
I take a deep breath, hit “ignore,” and toss the phone back into my bag, deciding the walk home will do me good.
Help me clear my head.
When it starts ringing again almost immediately, I feel my heart begin to beat faster, and it gets more and more difficult to fill my lungs.
Inhale.
Exhale.
I instruct myself.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Tucking my chin to protect my face from what is turning into cold, wet sleet, I force myself to keep walking.
Stopping at the curb, I glower at the taxi cab that pulls up right in front of me, blocking me from the crosswalk.
Just as I’m about to shout at the cabbie, the back door opens, which makes me even angrier because if the driver is letting someone out, he needs to pull up.
When no one gets out and the light flashes walk, I bend down to unleash my fury and freeze.
On the cracked leather sits a snow globe. A lonely snow globe with an Eiffel Tower positioned in the center of the magical white flakes floating around it.
Dripping.
Freezing.
I can’t move.
Big fingers come into view, and then a familiar watch as well. The expensive watch on his masculine wrist attached to an insanely h
ot body.
I hear music and then a rapper’s voice.
I love Paris in the springtime.
I love Paris in the fall.
I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles.
I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles.
I press my hand over my mouth and peer inside, as if I don’t already know who it is.
His build is as strong as ever despite his injury and the set of his angular jaw still turns me on so much. But it’s that slight spackling of freckles on his smooth sun-kissed skin that makes my heart beat even faster. As soon as I see those sexy dots, I nearly combust because Prince Maximus is here.
To see me.
Prince freaking Maximus.
Wait.
No.
He shouldn’t be here.
We can’t be together.
“Hello, sunshine,” he says in a deep, husky voice, silencing his rap.
Sunshine.
Gathering all of my courage, I somehow manage to ask, “Max, what are you doing here?”
My heart cartwheels, flipping and turning. Horns honk behind me, people start cursing the taxi cab, but I ignore it all because now he’s staring up at me with those icy blue eyes.
Powerful.
Persuasive.
Potent.
Spellbinding.
“We need to talk,” he tells me.
Gnawing at my bottom lip, I shake my head and find myself going to war. My head telling me to keep walking. My spirit telling me to hear what he has to say.
Should I stay or should I go?
Selecting the option that won’t further break my heart, I finally manage, “No, we don’t, Max.”
Beep. Beep.
Beep. Beep.
“Please, Gigi. Let me at least give you a ride,” he says with a smirk, his white teeth showing through his pillowed lips.
Beep. Beep.
Beep. Beep.
Gah, with the way this gorgeous, ginger-haired man is looking at me, I can’t say no, but I shouldn’t say yes.
Beep. Beep.
Beep. Beep.
Turbulence shakes my spirit, and my entire body begins to tremble when he says, “Come on, we can split the fare.”
He’s all persuasion and dominance and sex, and I’m all a gooey mess from my knees to my toes. “Okay,” I tell him sliding in but remaining as close to the door as I can while still being able to close it.
The cab driver hasn’t said a word. He must be being paid in those hundred dollar bills.
My senses are slammed with his delicious scent. Inhaling the smell of his cologne that I love so much, I force myself to keep my eyes straight ahead while I tell the cabbie where to drop me off.
As the vehicle begins to circle back around to head south, Max’s breath skates across the surface of my cheek when he’s suddenly sitting right beside me.
I don’t turn.
Don’t move.
Still, I can feel his burning stare on me, and then he says, “I decided I couldn’t wait for your call,” and I feel an eruption in my heart. “I mean, I know I said I would—”
I turn to face him, and I have to fight the urge to touch him, kiss him, hold him. He’s safe, and it’s been way too long since I’ve seen him. Since I’ve seen his obscenely long, lean, muscle-packed frame and messy ginger hair. Him.
Shivers trail down my spine but I stiffen it. “I wasn’t going to call, Max. You had to know that.”
For a beat, he stares at me, his lip trembling while that powerful gaze bores into me. Then he smiles, a slow, knock-my-panties-off, adoring smile that causes my heart to flutter. “Yeah, I figured that out when you didn’t return any of my texts, phone calls, or emails.”
The cab takes a quick left, and I fall against Max, unable to stop myself. My body lights up at the contact. “Max, please don’t make this harder than it has to be. You know why I didn’t call you back, but I am glad to see you’re doing well.”
He stares at me, his chest heaving. “I miss you.”
The space grows smaller.
The air thicker.
In a different life, I’d tell him the same. In a different life, we’d be together and create the most profound happily-ever-after.
In a different life.
Looking away, I fight the tears threatening to spill because God, I miss him too. Every. Single. Hour. Of every single day. But I can’t tell him that. We can’t be together.
He’s a royal.
A would-be king.
And I’m an ordinary girl.
That hasn’t changed.
And it never will.
Knowing this, accepting this, I lean forward. “Please, stop at the corner. I need to get out,” I tell the driver.
“I dare you to kiss me,” Max blurts out.
I spin around, sadness flashing in my shocked expression. “Please, don’t.”
“Kiss me, just once. I dare you to kiss me and tell me you don’t feel what I feel.”
“That isn’t fair, Max,” I tell him, emotion thickening in my throat.
“I never said I played fair.”
The car takes another left, and as we pass the corner, the driver doesn’t stop, and that’s when I notice his muscled build and huge statue and know this isn’t a NYC taxi driver, this is Max’s bodyguard, who only takes orders from Max. “If I kiss you, do you promise to tell your bodyguard to let me out?”
His grin is wicked. “You figured it out.”
I raise a brow. “I did.”
That stunning gaze searches my face. “So, how about that kiss?”
My breath hiccups. “Fine, one kiss, but then you—”
He shuts me right up when he hauls me into his arms and crashes his lips to mine.
Hard.
Heated.
Demanding.
Although I try not to, I can’t help but moan softly as his hands run possessively up my arms to clasp my shoulders and then upward again, to my throat, and finally to my face.
He kisses me as though he’s starved for me.
Sucking.
Licking.
Devouring.
His tongue pushes inward, hot and sensual, gliding over the roof of my mouth, and I feel a little dizzy because he isn’t simply kissing me, he’s possessing me.
Then again, he has since that first day we met.
Hasn’t he?
God, I want more.
More of him.
All of him.
“Tell me what you told me over the phone when Hunter put you on the line.”
I shake my head.
“Tell me. I need to hear it just once when I’m looking into your eyes.”
This man isn’t mine, and he never will be, but I owe him this one thing. Pulling back, I whisper, “I love you, Max, but you’ve always known that. Please stop the taxi now.” The in-person admission is strangled, ripped from my chest as if tearing my heart in two.
An odd mixture of relief and deep sadness swims in his eyes as he tells his bodyguard to pull over. As soon as the car stops, I reach for the handle. My legs are wobbly and they are shaking, and I pray I won’t go down in these heels as soon as I touch the ground.
“My brother’s wife is with child,” he tells me. “And as soon as the baby is born, he or she will be next in line for the throne after my brother, and I will be free to be with whomever I want.”
I search his gaze. “I don’t understand. What about Beatrice and the wedding your father bequeathed?”
Max gathers both of my hands between his, hiding the tweak of a smile. “It’s off. The decree has been rescinded. Don’t you read the tabloids? Beatrice is engaged to Prince Rainer.”
A wistful smile tugs at my lips, my eyes tracing over him as I attempt to process all of this. “No, I don’t.”
“Well, if you did, you’d know I’m free,” he grins, ear to ear. “Free to be with whomever I want as soon as the baby arrives.”
A happiness I’ve never felt flows through my veins.
Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a tiny Cartier box. “I wanted to take you back to Paris and do this on the top of the Eifel Tower, but inside this little taxi cab, where we first met, somehow seems more appropriate,” he says hoarsely.
I stare at the box, the one that is a perfect match to the case that held the taxi cab charm I never take off my wrist.
He opens the box and I gasp as I gaze down at a gorgeous canary yellow diamond ring. One that is a perfect match to the charm. It sparkles and catches the dim sunlight streaming through the window, dazzling me with its brilliance.
“Max,” I cry out. “You said you have to wait until after the baby is born.”
“For a formal ceremony, yes,” he says, then he lowers himself to one knee on the taxi floor and gently takes my left hand in his. “Gigi, will you promise to marry me? Move to Casanovia with me and have my babies and put up with my crazy family and my crazy public life?”
Casanovia?
Leave New York?
My hands tremble as I let go of his own and reach for his striking face. “But—”
His head shakes. “No buts. Just say yes.”
I want to ask him so many things. Why? Where? When? How? Instead, I just sit here, smiling and teary-eyed, having no idea what any of this means for us, but knowing there’s only one answer. “Yes.”
Because for now, I’m okay with waiting.
More than okay.
CHANGE
After spending almost an hour in the cab driving around the city, I’m more than ready for a little alone time.
That ride was necessary though. I had a lot of explaining to do—from why I never mentioned my brother’s illness (my own refusal to accept it) to Beatrice’s bequeathment (I never intended to follow my father’s decree) to why I want to move to Casanovia (to spend time with my brother and be there to see my niece or nephew grow up).
Yeah, it took some time.
The thing is, my future has always been mapped out for me and it is exactly because of this that I refuse to be railroaded into anything anymore.
