Not Your Prince Charming

by Kate Johnson

  Not Your Prince Charming

  by Kate Johnson

  Not Your Prince Charming

  Copyright: © 2018 Kate Johnson

  Cover by Kate Johnson

  ASIN: B07D3114YL

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Table of Contents

  Not Your Prince Charming

  by Kate Johnson

  Table of Contents

  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

  Acknowledgements

  Royal Family Tree

  Also Available

  Excerpt from Not Your Royal Christmas

  Excerpt from Max Seventeen

  Paranormal Romantic Novel of the Year 2017

  About The Author

  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

  Acknowledgements

  Also Available

  Excerpt from Not Your Royal Christmas

  Excerpt from Max Seventeen

  About The Author

  Prologue

  “Can you swim?”

  The man in black hissed the question at Eliza, who was far too terrified by the fearsome knife he brandished to lie. She nodded.

  “Well? Can you swim well?”

  She nearly laughed at that, but since she had duct tape over her mouth she could only nod again.

  The knife came closer, a foot or so of machete blade, glinting evilly in the low light. She sobbed behind her gag as he grabbed her wrist. Be brave, Eliza! Remember who you are!

  But he didn’t hurt her. He sawed through the cable ties binding her wrists together, but he didn’t untie the cord he’d fastened to her ankle. Where was he going to take her? And what for? He pulled her to her feet and she tensed warily.

  “When I say,” he told her in a low voice, muffled by the scarf he wore over his lower face, “follow me to the back of the boat. Jump over the side. Not the back, the side, do you understand?”

  Understand? No, of course she didn’t understand! She tore off the duct tape, which hurt, and opened her mouth to speak, but he clapped a hand over it.

  “Quiet! If they get the slightest hint you’re not tied up in here we’re both dead.”

  Eyes huge, she nodded again. He removed his hand, then went to the deck hatch and listened hard. Eliza kicked at the cord on her ankle, which he’d fastened to his belt. Maybe she could jerk it free and make an escape…

  …assuming she could even work out where she was. A boat at sea, presumably somewhere in the Caribbean, with a bunch of miscreants who had made what sounded like vile threats in her direction. She was quite glad they hadn’t been speaking English.

  “Come with me and you’ll live,” the man in black said, and glanced at her fidgety ankle. “Take that rope off and you’re lost at sea. Understand?”

  Not in the slightest. “Who are you?” she breathed.

  “Someone who’s trying to help. Come on.”

  Trying to help? Eliza watched him climb the short ladder to the deck, her heart pounding. Did he mean that? Was he just trying to trick her? She frowned at the rope on her ankle but there was no time to do anything about it before he glanced back and motioned her to follow into the rainy darkness.

  Eliza crept after him, not really believing she could trust him but also not having any other options. Her kidnapper handed her out onto the deck, then pointed to the side of the boat and made a jumping motion.

  Eliza took one look at the endless blackness surrounding the small boat and shook her head rapidly.

  “Jump or die here,” he snarled, and gave her a shove.

  As one of the other men approached, calling something in Spanish, Eliza suddenly found her courage and made a run for the side of the boat. She was on her feet, crouching to dive before she heard the shout, too far to turn back, but she heard a smack and a crash and didn’t know who had hit who.

  Her body made the decision for her, and she slid smoothly into the black water without much of a splash, legs and spine moving into a dolphin kick automatically, propelling her underwater as far as she could go before her lungs forced her up for air. She drew in a breath and risked a look back through the darkness.

  The boat was already a few hundred metres away, and her rescuer was nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter One

  RoyalGossip.com: We didn’t know Princess Elizabeth was this hot!

  On vacation in the Caribbean with her friend Melissa Featherstonehaugh, the British Princess (14th in line to the throne) was seen island-hopping in a series of skimpy bikinis. Elizabeth is better known for being seen in cute dresses and really weird hats (check out our gallery of royal guests at Prince Jamie’s wedding), so we had no idea she was hiding this knockout body under them all! According to one schoolfriend, the princess used to swim at college, which might account for her bangin’ bod. Her security team better be working hard!

  Eliza set her iPhone in the dock and cranked up the volume. Wilson hated reggae music, so it was guaranteed to keep her away from the terrace.

  She angled her recliner to face away from the hotel room, made a show of stretching out on it, and waited ten agonising minutes before she took the waterproof bag from her pretty beach tote and began transferring the contents over. Casual, casual, as if she was just rummaging for sun lotion.

  She waited until Wilson had made her half-hourly check on her, waved cheerily with a cocktail glass in hand, then when her Personal Protection Officer was out of sight, casually slipped into her private infinity pool.

  The view from up here was spectacular. Below her were countless other suites and pools, but hers was the highest and best and she could see right across the bay, lit up like a fairy paradise in the darkness. The Caribbean might be beautiful in the daytime, but it was darkness she needed to make her escape.

  Casually, she slid the drybag from the lounger and slipped the strap around her waist. It bobbed on the surface, and Eliza
pushed it in front of her so her bodyguard wouldn’t see. She leaned against the ledge of the infinity pool, as if admiring the view, for ages.

  Then, when she’d decided it was dark enough and she’d waited long enough, she swung herself onto the ledge and over it in a few very quick and well-practised moves. No one could get themselves in and out of a pool faster than Eliza.

  How’s that for ‘not a ladylike career’? she thought savagely as she hung from her fingertips before dropping as quickly and quietly as she could into the pool below. Then again, into the main swimming pool, where she got herself to the edge nearest the hotel in record time, snagged a towel and was through the bar and the lobby, adrenaline buzzing, right on time.

  “Ma’am, you can’t take that towel—” began a member of staff in his immaculate livery.

  “Yes, of course, here you go,” she said, handing it over and skipping away, around the corner where Melissa was waiting with the car.

  “OMG you did it!” squealed Mel, who was totally the kind of person who said all the letters in OMG.

  “Of course I did. I’ve been jumping in and out of pools since before I could walk.” Eliza leapt into the convertible and they were away.

  She shimmied into her shorts and Day-glo t-shirt as Mel drove, bikini still damp, funnelled some cash and a lip balm into the neon plastic tube on a cord around her neck, and laughed at the warm Caribbean wind as it dried her hair.

  “Retro rave here we come!” she cried.

  The party was on a private island, and Melissa’s contact was waiting at the docks for them with a speedboat. “It’s so James Bond,” Mel giggled as she poured them a glass of champagne and the hills of the big island vanished into the darkness. “Are you sure Wilson didn’t see you?”

  “Course not. If she had, I wouldn’t be here.”

  She felt kind of guilty for escaping her PPO like that. Wilson would probably get into trouble. But Eliza was so bloody bored of being watched all the time, everywhere she went. How was she ever supposed to meet a guy if her human guard dogs kept scaring them all off?

  I just want to not be a princess for a day.

  Mel gave her some glow bands to stack above the armfuls of woven friendship bracelets she’d amassed on the island. On her first day here, she’d been photographed wearing one, so now everywhere she went people presented them to her.

  The private dock was lit up with paper lanterns and the sound of house music thudded across the water. Reflections danced in bright colours, and Mel turned to her and grinned.

  “This is going to be so awesome. Just what I need to forget that ratbag cousin of yours!”

  Eliza made a sympathetic face, but secretly she thought her friend was really milking it. The way Mel made it out, her heart had been broken by the love of her life abandoning her to marry someone he’d known for five minutes, when the truth was she’d slept with Jamie once two years ago and he’d been trying to get her out of his hair ever since.

  Eliza glanced at her friend uncertainly. There had been that unfortunate incident at the wedding, but Mel swore she’d just been intending to congratulate the bride and the red paint had been planted in her handbag by some miscreant. Eliza, who hadn’t seen much of Melissa since their schooldays, was mostly sure she believed her; and anyway, it wasn’t as if she had dozens of other friends inviting her on Caribbean getaways.

  “And maybe you’ll finally meet someone too!” Mel added belatedly. “About time you did.”

  Eliza gave her a smile she knew didn’t reach her eyes. You try meeting someone when everything you do is watched by bodyguards and paparazzi.

  They were led up the stairs from the dock by Day-glo arrows, into a terrace heaving with people drinking and dancing. Beyond it, Eliza could see more levels of partying, some under cover, some open to the stars. At a neon mixing desk stood a DJ she was supposed to have heard of, posing like mad as he mixed tunes she vaguely remembered from her childhood.

  “Isn’t this the most?” Mel gushed, threading her way through partygoers to the bar, where she was handed a couple of test tubes of something that glowed green. “Bottoms up!”

  Xavier checked the message on his burner phone before deleting it and dropping it over the side of the boat. A time and a place to rendezvous, and all he had to do was get the boat there. Three million dollars of cocaine waited in the hold, tucked away inside fake life rafts and emergency supplies. Xavi wouldn’t have put on one of the buoyancy aids for all the money in the world, not if he actually wanted to survive.

  He’d stowed his own lightweight life raft in a waterproof sack in one of the few unused hatches in the cabin, though, and there were a couple of real life belts if you knew where to look. He wasn’t an idiot.

  “When is Luis getting here?” he called down to the dock.

  “When he’s made the drop at the party,” Alberto called back. “Half an hour, maybe. He’d better not stay too long. Last time he was partaking of the wares, if you know what I mean.”

  Xavier lit a cigarette. Alberto, I always know what you mean. “Luis is an idiot. Why do we trust him?”

  “Because his brother is our boss. You wanna piss off Jorge?”

  Yes. “I’m not insane,” Xavier replied with a smile.

  Half an hour, and Luis would be here with the rest of the gear. Apparently he was also making a pick-up at the party, although Xavier wasn’t privy as to what.

  Half an hour, and then… five more hours. Xavi checked the capsules in his pocket. Time this right, and the whole thing would be easy.

  Tension running through his every sinew, he leaned nonchalantly against the rail and gazed up at the stars as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  He said his name was Luis and he worked in the tourist industry. At least, that was what Eliza thought he’d said. His English wasn’t that great and her Spanish was non-existent. Luis had amazing cheekbones, however, and Eliza had drunk too many of the test tube thingies.

  Melissa had discovered him while she was off powdering her nose. Given Mel’s exuberant attitude since, Eliza had to wonder what she’d powdered it with. “Esta es mia amiga,” she’d yelled, her Spanish nearly as bad as Eliza’s. “Ella es… uh, muy princess, eh?” And then she’d laughed so hard she’d fallen off her chair.

  So much for not being a princess, Eliza thought, and then realised Luis hadn’t even understood.

  Luis led Eliza away from the noise. “You are very beautiful,” he said, which was sweet since she’d spotted some actual models around the place and even on a good day could only rank her own looks as ‘not bad’.

  “You’re very sweet,” she said. Woo, his face was starting to blur. “D’you mind if we sit down for a minute?”

  She looked around for Melissa, but things started to swing and sway around her. Luis caught her before she could stumble.

  “Okay, we get some air,” he said, guiding her away from the overcrowded terrace and holding onto her as she stumbled down the steps. The air was heavy with the scent of night jasmine. The music was making things visibly throb. Wait, should that be happening?

  “I don’t feel too good,” she mumbled, as Luis took her onto the dock. “I need some water.”

  “I have water on my boat,” he said, and Eliza knew she should say no to that but the dock was right here and the party was up all those steps and he was already leading her to the little speedboat bobbing on the tide.

  She stumbled and fell into the boat, which for some reason made her laugh, and Luis laughed too, and the boat swayed and rocked as he moved around getting her water. It seemed to take ages. Maybe she should call Mel and see… Something vibrated under her and she sat up, slightly alarmed because that had felt like a motor. Even totally wasted she knew the difference between a boat with its engine on and off.

  “Wait,” she said, or tried to, because the words wouldn’t come. A figure appeared from the cabin of the boat. Luis took her hands, but instead of helping her up, he slipped cable ties around her wrists and yanked them
tight. Eliza struggled ineffectually, her whole body going heavy and uncooperative.

  Luis patted her cheek and said something in Spanish. “Help, please no,” she said, her voice tiny. She thought she might be sick.

  A voice crackled from the cockpit and Luis sauntered off to answer the radio. “Si, lo tengo,” said, looking back at her and laughing.

  Eliza threw up.

  Chapter Two

  Eliza woke with a head full of pain and a mouth full of bile. She was somewhere cold that smelled of fish, and not in a nice seafood restaurant kind of way.

  Added to the smell of fish was the smell of vomit, and she realised as she tried to sit up that this was because her t-shirt and hair were matted with it.

  Oh God, how much had she had to drink? Those little test tube things were lethal. She’d tried to keep her consumption down though, and drink plenty of water, but she still felt like hell.

  And where in the name of God was she? Slumped on the floor in a badly-lit room, her arms held out at an uncomfortable angle. Horror overtook her as she realised the reason why: she’d been fastened to a pipe on the wall. Her wrists were tied with plastic things and looped around a thin pipe running floor to ceiling.

  No. This must be a nightmare. Things like this didn’t happen to people like her. This was insane. She was not covered in vomit and tied up in what appeared to be the cabin of a fishing boat. She wasn’t. It couldn’t be happening.

  You wanted to not be a princess…

  Right then a chair scraped back and she looked up, still bleary, to see a man stand and swagger over, and peer down at her. He had his face half covered by a bandana, and wore shorts and a t-shirt. Black hair and a suntan, that was all she could tell, which wasn’t exactly going to ID him to the police. When I get to telling the police about this. Or the SAS. Or—

  “Hola chica,” he said, leering.

  “Don’t you touch me,” she said. “I am—” And then something made her stop. The sense she seemed to have been lacking all day finally kicked in.