Royal Fake Fiancé (Dirty Royals Book 4)

by Vivian Wood

  He motions toward the locker room, bowing again.

  “Thanks. I pick up my water bottle and drink from it as I walk out into the locker room. It's late in the day, past six o'clock. Still light outside, but because it's the weekend there is almost no one else in this locker room.

  I power through showering and changing, heading outside to the cool stone corridor of the Royal Air Force Base. The second I step outside of the locker room, I see Erik leaning against the wall, obviously waiting for me. I arch a brow.

  “How did you know that I would be here??

  He gives me a little smirk. “The secretary at the royal press office was feeling especially chatty today. She said that you were doing an endurance test for the space program. I figured you might want to grab a bite to eat when you got out of the test.”

  I run my hand through my dark, damp hair, nodding. “Ja. As it happens, Pippa is eating dinner with Margot and Nika tonight.”

  He rolls his eyes, smiling. “I know that. That's why I came to find you.”

  I squint. “Oh. Maybe I need to eat more than I thought I did. It's proving hard to think right now.”

  He claps me on the shoulder and turns me toward the base’s exit. “Come on, I want to go get a steak. Have some real manly food.” He will wiggles his brows, teasing

  I let him drive me to a place not far from the base, of a little hole in the wall that serves steak and potatoes and cold beer. We walk into the dimly lit restaurant, looking around at the four plastic tables surrounded by a clutter of chairs. Two of the tables are occupied so we take the farthest one back. I laugh a little as Erik chooses between two small chairs, which is only funny because Erik is the only person that I know that is taller than me.

  We sit down, my stomach rumbling. One waitress comes out of the back with a platter of sizzling steaks, rushing towards one of the other tables. I groan a little bit. When the waitress drops off the steaks and comes by, I make sure to order a steak and two potatoes and a giant glass of cold beer. Erik orders the same, but he adds an order of cheesy bread as well. I cock a brow at him, but he just shrugs.

  “I ran ten miles this morning. I can carbo load all I want.”

  The waitress comes back quickly with our beers and an order of bread and we dig in. The beer is nice and frothy, the bread hot and cheese melty. I nod, voicing my appreciation.

  “You're right. This is pretty much heaven after exercising so much.”

  His lips twitch. “I'm glad. It seems like it's been a really long time since we have had a chance to catch up. It's been what, almost six weeks?”

  I nod. “Ja. At the same time though, it seems like it's only been a week or something. It's funny how life becomes so busy.”

  He slides me a sly glance. “Ja, I bet it has. I heard that you moved in with your new fiancée.”

  My head bobs. “She moved in this week. It's been… Well, a lot of fucking, frankly.”

  He snorts into his beer. “That I am sure of. Things are going well for you two otherwise, I guess? I mean, at least neither of you has Queen Ida on your back. I'll tell you this right now, she really caused a lot of tension in the early days of me and Nika.”

  “Truth be told, I don't think that I would've asked Pippa to marry me if it wasn't for my grandmother butting her nose in. It was that or I would probably be engaged to some older minister’s granddaughter. Take your pick.”

  That seems to have been the wrong thing to say. Erik shoots me a look that isn't happy. “Wait, you asked Pippa to marry you because your grandmother put pressure on you? That isn't very romantic.”

  I purse my lips. Taking a second to have a swig of my beer, I shrug one shoulder. “My reason for the engagement really has nothing to do with my relationship with Pippa. The engagement is really just for show.”

  His eyes narrow on my face. “Are you trying to tell me that you and Pippa are not an item?"

  I shake my head. “No, we are an item. Or… we are something. But we definitely got engaged just to pacify my grandmother. Without Momse, we would probably still just be two very attractive people, not looking to settle down at all.”

  He squints at me. “I thought you had been in love with Pippa for a thousand years or something.”

  I shoot him a glare. “It's a lot more complicated than that. Besides, I've never said that I was in love with anybody at any point.”

  Erik pulls off another piece of bread, pointing it at me. “No, you'd never admitted it. But if you think I didn't know what was going on, you're crazy. That's why I kept bugging you about getting together with her.”

  I roll my eyes. Looking around, I wave the waitress down. “Two more beers?”

  I turn back to the conversation, sighing aloud. “I'll admit to you, Erik. I'm as unlikely now as I was then to listen to you tell me about how perfect Pippa is for me.”

  He raises his brows. “Really? Name one way in which she is lacking.”

  I shoot him a glare. “Don't say it like that. She's not lacking. It's just… You know, I'm supposed to go to space at some point…” I purse my lips. “And there's… There's this wall that she has...”

  He tilts his head. “You're gonna have to be more specific. You mean like Hadrian's Wall or related Great Wall of China or…”

  I wave off his silly answers. “No, no. Like there is this wall between me and her. This like wall that blocks off a certain part of her from… I don't know, being intimate I guess.”

  He frowns. “How does that happen exactly?”

  I suck in a breath, finishing the last of my beer. “Well, it's like… We will be lying in bed, just after we finished fucking. And will be like… looking in each other's eyes or whatever. And then I suddenly will see a little bit of fear run across her face. And then I just like come up against this wall. It's like one second she's there, the next second she's rolling over and burying her head under the pillows. She just doesn't want to be that close to me, I guess.”

  He looks thoughtful. “I see. I mean, I don't really see? But I can imagine. I've never gotten that close to Pippa, honestly. But I can see that you are frustrated.”

  The waitress brings a fresh round of beers and I take a sip of the refreshing brew. I nod my head a little bit. “Ja. So between that and the whole I might be going to space thing… It's not perfect, is what I'm getting at.”

  He picks up his beer, regarding me over the rim. After a long swallow, he sets his glass down. “It sounds like she knows about you going to space, right?”

  I nod.

  “Then it sounds like she's sticking around for the long haul. So I would definitely bear that in mind.”

  I push out my cheek with my tongue. “Ja, she has already set a deadline on this whole wedding business. We're supposed to pull the escape latch when it's been four months.”

  He frowns. “Pull the escape latch? What, from your relationship? Are you serious? How are you gonna do that?”

  My neck heats and I give him sheepish look. “I hadn't thought that far, honestly.”

  “She's crazy, if that's really what she intends to do. Because I will bet you more money than either of us has that she loves you as much as you love her. It's obvious enough if you spend two minutes with the two of you.”

  I roll my eyes. “She doesn’t love me. She's just playing along because I begged her to do this as a favor for me.”

  He looks unimpressed. “I say that she's doing it for love. Those are the facts, man. She loves you. She's known you for half of your lives and yet she still loves you like crazy.”

  “If she does love me, which I doubt, she has a funny way of showing it. I'm telling you, this wall of hers is inpenetrable. There is no getting through it. And when her wall is up? It's useless trying to get around it.”

  One corner of Erik's mouth curls up. “I think that's your challenge, my friend. No one said that love was going to be easy, did they?”

  I exhale a long breath. “I think there is a difference between loving someone from a distance and r
eally falling in love with a girl. Right? I mean, I've loved the person that Pippa is for a long time. But it's almost easier in a way to love someone as a friend because all those little imperfections and quirks… You can just let those go. That can be okay because you are friends. But loving someone in a deeper, more meaningful way?” I shake my head and take a sip of my beer. “That isn’t for everyone.”

  Our steaks arrive, sizzling and smelling absolutely amazing. We dig in, the conversation naturally sliding onto easier topics. But Erik's words ring through my head for hours afterward.

  Could Pippa really love me? Or more to the point, could I really be in love with her?

  That idea unsettles me as much as it excites me and I can't get the thought out of my head.

  25

  Lars

  Finn takes off his shirt and cracks his neck, standing up straight. He passes his gaze around the small locker room, biting his lip. “Thanks for inviting me here, big brother. Ever since I got back from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya, I’ve felt like my whole system is out of whack or something. I think what I need is really a good long soak.”

  I shed my T-shirt, standing up. “No problem. After all, how often do we get the chance for a little bonding time? You're always out of the country.”

  Finn smiles, pushing his hand through his dark wavy hair. At the moment, he is letting his hair grow out a little, so it is hanging down in his eyes in the front. Not my style exactly, but it does let me know what I would look like if I ever decided to grow out my military style haircut. His eyes twinkle a little mischievously.

  “I can't believe I asked Kalindi and she actually agreed to come. I figured that she would say that she was too busy or something.”

  I cock a brow at him. “Ja? I always thought that she kind of liked you, at least the few times that Nika has brought her around. I figured that she just had better things to do than to waste time with either of us. I mean… We're not even the good royals.”

  Finn cracks a smile at that. “You are right about that. We are the second and third string of the royal family, for sure.” He wrinkles his nose. “I don't know, I kind of like it this way though. I mean, Stellan is so consumed with being king. I am not consumed with any particular thing except for whatever passing fancy I might have. It's pretty great, I'm not gonna lie.”

  I shake my head. “You won't hear any argument from me. Come on, let's go out to meet the girls.”

  I slip on my sandals and head out to the natural hot spring, shivering at the cold air. We're outside here, surrounded by several natural steaming pools and steely gray skies above.

  I look around and don't see Pippa or Kalindi, so I take a spring at random, dipping my toe in. I'm satisfied with how hot it is, so I walk to the bench and slip off my shoes, noting that there are fresh towels hanging on a towel warmer above the bench.

  I turn around and check what Finn is doing but he is off looking into the distance, doing whatever it is that Finn does. So I climb into the hot spring, making a funny face at the incredibly hot water as I slide in.

  I breathe out for a minute, circulating a little. The water is a little higher than my bellybutton, with some stone benches on one side of the little pool that I'm in. Finn joins me soon after, making the same face that I did when he gets in.

  “Woo, this is really hot.”

  “That it is, little brother. I'm starting to like it though. Especially if you duck down and sit so that the water covers your shoulders? That's pretty much where it’s at, as far as I'm concerned.”

  I swim over to the other side of the pool and sit on the stone bench, breathing a sigh of relaxation. That's a moment at which I hear Pippa talking, laughing a little as she coaxes Kalindi outside.

  “Come on. Seriously, there's no one out here…” Pippa steps out, gesturing to a hidden person. My eyes dip down from Pippa's curtain of glorious hair to her barely there bikini. I can see practically everything, her boobs, her hips, her ass…

  When she turns to face me, I can see her nipples standing out from the tiny black triangles of fabric over her to it. I bite my lip appreciatively. She sees me and sees the look on my face. She makes eye contact with me and reddens, laughing.

  She turns back toward Kalindi. “Okay, you may want to bring a towel out or something. Granted, it's only our men that can see us but…”

  Finn settles then on the other end of the bench, about ten feet away from me. Pippa finally manages to coax Kalindi out of the changing room. Kalindi is small and dark-haired, a young British girl of Middle Eastern descent. Her arms and legs are shapely, I'll give her that. But if there is more to see, I have no idea. Because she shuffles out to the pool, clambering in and removing her towel inch by inch as she does.

  Not my Pippa though. She kicks her shoes off and smoothly descends into the water, her smile bright. “Oh, this is nice. How have I never been here before?"

  She wades over to where I'm sitting, taking a seat beside me. Kalindi looks a little lost and out of place, her gaze starting from the empty seat between Pippa and then to the empty pools around us.

  “Are you sure that we are not each supposed to get our own pool?"

  “You are welcome to get another pool if you want. But that will require getting out of this pool, which I assume will be freezing cold. So make your choice carefully.” Pippa winks at her.

  Kalindi eventually settles into the last seat on the bench, glancing at Finn like he is about the most attractive thing in the world. I roll my eyes. Finn is a daredevil like I am, but he also loves to travel and seems very worldly. He attracts a certain kind of girl, and apparently Kalindi is one of those. Not that I particularly care, because I have a hard time paying attention to anyone that isn't Pippa.

  “This is so nice,” Pippa sighs. I can't wait to get my hands on her. So I beckon her over.

  “Wait until you have been massaged while you are in the water.” Turning her around with gentle hands, I start rubbing her neck and her shoulders. Pippa makes the most contented sort of sounds. That in itself really fills up some missing part of me that is been empty for too long. I'm not getting any gratification from this exchange other than the amazing feeling of a very wet Pippa under my hands. But it still gives me an unadulterated kind of joy when she tips her head back and lets out a breathy little moan.

  We hang out for a little bit, Finn and Kalindi talking, Pippa and I mostly just enjoying touching each other innocently. There is a moment when Pippa puts her hand on my knee. I can't help but get excited whenever she so much as touches me like that. She gives me a naughty smile as she caresses my inner thigh, teasing me a little.

  That's when I start to get hard under the water. At the same time, Kalindi and Finn are getting a little too hot to stay in the spring anymore. Finn turns to me, standing up. “We're gonna go ahead and go inside and get changed for the next little while. I think that this place offers food so we are going to try to grab a little smorgasbord to bring outside. Okay?"

  “Ja. Thanks. I think we will say outside for a little while longer.” My eyes slide to Pippa. I cock a brow. “Right?”

  Her face is already quite flushed from the heat of the pool but she turns even redder under my gaze. She nods. “That sounds great.”

  Kalindi seems to struggle to get out of the other end of the pool. Finn splashes over and jumps out, pulling her out of the water with both hands. For second, my gazes riveted on Kalindi's body.

  For being such a slight person, she has a huge ass. And her jiggly breasts are just incredible. Even buried in the rather modest black bikini she is wearing, she's definitely worth looking at.

  Apparently I stare a second too long because Pippa smacks me on the arm, sounding a little angry when she calls my name. “Lars! Seriously?”

  I look over at her and she is wearing a look of anger and disappointment, her curly red hair slicked back and her cheeks rosy. “You don't have anything to say for yourself?”

  Not really knowing what else to do, I get defensive w
ithout really thinking about it. “What, I can't look at another girl?”

  Pippa levels me with a glare. “Not like that you can't. You're just lucky that she wasn’t looking. If she had been, she probably would have been horrified. At the very least, it’s embarrassing. To her, but also to you.”

  I narrow my eyes at her. “I'll be the judge of what I find embarrassing, okay?"

  Pippa smacks me on the arm again. “I want you to apologize.”

  “To whom? You just said that Kalindi didn't see me.”

  She makes an aggravated sound. “To me, you… you caveman. As if I didn't already have enough to worry about.”

  I give her a puzzled look. “What? What do you mean?”

  She pushes a hand through her damp red curls. “Lars, I live in a world where I worry all the time about whether or not you will still find me attractive if I gain a pound or get a little older. I worry about that all the time. And for you to stare at Kalindi like that, so openly, just… It undermines all the work that I've done to reassure myself. I tell myself that I am being crazy worrying about these things, but this doesn’t help me feel that it’s true.

  My mouth opens, but no words come out. Usually I don't hear Pippa say things like this out loud and to hear them now, said in anger, is just a little shocking.

  Before I can say anything or disagree, she pushes away from me, making a disgusted sound. She starts to climb out of the pool. But I'm not about to just let her run away from me after lobbing a grenade like that.

  “Oh no you don't,” I say, grabbing her by the waist and pulling her back into the water. “We need to talk about this.”

  She spins in my arms, looking up at me with anxious eyes. “Maybe I was a little too honest there,” she says very softly.

  I pull her against me gently, wrapping one arm around her lower back. She looks so lovely right now, so open and honest, so alluring. I touch her bottom lip, cup her jaw, slide my fingers into the mass of her hair.