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TEASE ME by J. Kenner
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A Blood and Ash Novel
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The Sinful King
An Enemies to Lovers Standalone Romance
By Claire Contreras
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From New York Times Bestselling Author, Claire Contreras, comes a new, sexy, 100% stand-alone novel…
If you had any ties to Marbella, it was impossible for you not to have heard the stories about Prince Elias and his debauchery.
Every summer he arrived with his security detail and friends in tow and rented out a row of cottages near the water.
Cottages that belonged to my family.
Each of those summers, my parents sent me away – summer camp and later, boarding school. Anything to keep me away from the royals and their partying.
I hadn’t been home in years, but when I finally come back for the summer, I see that not much has changed. Like all the summers I’d been gone, Prince Elias is back, but this time with an incognito security detail and no friends. This time, there is no partying, no noise, no crowds. No reason at all to even think he was there.
I’m given strict orders not to talk to him, not to even look in his direction, but he makes this an impossible task. I may be doing everything in my power to stay away from him, but there is no one in the world who can say no to the future King of France.
* * * *
“Did my party bore you?”
My heart stopped beating as my eyes popped open. I turned my face and looked up. Prince Elias seemed impossibly tall from this angle, like a giant who could touch the sky. Maybe he could. He sat down beside me, slipping the mask from his face and tossing it on the sand. Glancing over my shoulder, I could see his security detail standing by the steps. Near, yet far enough to give him privacy. I wondered if he’d bring up what just happened inside. I wondered if I would. No. Forget about it. It was a mistake. A one-time thing that happened at a sexy party. Nothing else.
“Did it bore you?” I asked after a beat.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You make it sound like this may not be that much better.” My lip tilted at that. “You really are an asshole, you know that?”
“So you’ve said.”
“I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s brought that to your attention.” I glanced at him. He had his long arms set on his knees, his hands dangling as he looked out into the ocean.
“Outside of my siblings and maybe a few cousins, you are the only one who’s said it to me.” He met my gaze after a moment. “To my face, anyway.”
“Interesting.”
“It is interesting.” He inched closer. “Do you know why they won’t say it to my face?”
“They’re afraid of the consequences?”
“I guess so. I could end them. Easily.”
“Perks of being the future king.”
“There aren’t many perks to that job.” He made a sound that sounded between a snort and a scoff as he looked away from me. I stared at his profile. He had pretty features. Rugged yet pretty.
“There might be if your family wasn’t dead set on keeping things so traditional.”
“You think I haven’t had this conversation countless times?” He looked at me again. “Do you think I haven’t tried to figure out ways to keep the Crown happy and the people happy? It’s not as simple as you may think it is.”
“You’re right. I don’t imagine it is.”
“It’s a lot of pressure. The king dying.”
“Your father, you mean.”
“My father, the king.” His eyes searched mine. “I don’t expect you see him as a father or a husband. Just as a strict ruler who wants the last say in everything and the reason a lot of people are suffering.”
This time, I glanced away and looked back at the ocean. The turmoil in it matched his eyes, and I couldn’t seem to find solace in it. He wasn’t wrong. A lot of people were waiting for his father’s demise. There were hungry people in the street. People losing their houses, their jobs, their families. It wasn’t something the king could possibly understand and up until tonight, something I didn’t think Prince Elias could understand either. Maybe I’d been wrong in my judgment. He seemed like a man who carried loss well, but felt the burden of it nonetheless. The sound of sand swishing behind us made us turn our heads as one of his security detail approached.
“The Princess of Austria is looking for you,” he said.
Prince Elias sighed heavily, throwing his head back as if to ask the universe for patience. It was yet another glimpse of the person he hid beneath his stoicism. He stood up slowly, the sand on his pants falling on the skirt of my dress with the movement. The security detail walked away and Prince Elias stood there for a long moment in silence, watching the ocean, with only the sound of the waves to disturb his thoughts.
“I’ll see you another time, Miss Adeline,” he said. “Thank you for indulging me and attending the party, as short-lived as it was.”
Discover the World Of 1001 Dark Nights
Collection One
Collection Two
Collection Three
Collection Four
Collection Five
Collection Six
Bundles
Discovery Authors
Blue Box Press
Rising Storm
Liliana Hart's MacKenzie Family
Lexi Blake's Crossover Collection
Kristen Proby's Crossover Collection
On Behalf of 1001 Dark Nights,
Liz Berry, M.J. Rose, and Jillian Stein would like to thank ~
Steve Berry
Doug Scofield
Benjamin Stein
Kim Guidroz
InkSlinger PR
Dan Slater
Asha Hossain
Chris Graham
Chelle Olson
Kasi Alexander
Jessica Johns
Dylan Stockton
Richard Blake
and Simon Lipskar
Table of Contents
Book Description
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
The Naughty Princess: A Sexy Royals Novella Page 15
