King Size

by Lexi Whitlow

  I swallow a generous portion, enjoying the burn of it in my throat. “Hell of a way to run a country.”

  “Indeed,” he agrees. “And speaking of, where is Lloyd? I thought for certain he’d be here.”

  I shrug. “Different obligations. Besides, I think he’d rather do anything than float around the islands helping me choose a wife.”

  “So what’s the rush?” David asks, prodding where he shouldn’t. “Why all the anxiety over your marriage and not Lloyd’s? Shouldn’t he be the first to marry?”

  “I think my mother has just as many schemes for Lloyd as she has for me,” I answer, choosing my words strategically. “She always shores up the spot where the weakness is most pronounced.”

  David huffs out a laugh. “Ah, I see. So she’s trying to clean up your reputation. And she thinks she can do that by marrying you off to some pretty duchess. Because that worked so well in your father’s case.”

  I withhold the punch a commoner might throw in response to a dig like that. “Careful, David,” I say coolly. “My father was your king, and my mother is co-regent. A modicum of respect, please.”

  “Of course. My apologies, my prince,” he replies with equal coolness.

  David is six years older than me and married with two sons. He’s next in line to the throne behind me, and should anything happen to keep Lloyd from ascending, it’s entirely possible David would become a legitimate contender for the crown.

  My mother may be a royal pain in my ass, but she has a keen understanding of just how precarious things are. David’s inquiry reminds me I need to buck up and stop working at cross-purposes against her. Things are happening too fast. I can’t be the spare flying under the radar any longer. If David decides to compete with me on this, it’s possible I could lose more than a crown: I may very well lose my head, and not in the figurative sense.

  The duchesses are all very pretty, very accomplished, and very boring. They’re preened and polished to a high gloss, ready to blind me into submission. One of them whose name I forgot won’t shut up about some book she’s writing about the Austro-Prussian war. I have to walk away from her in mid-sentence in order to regain my ability to think. They all want to talk about themselves, all trying to outdo one another with superlatives, attempting to impress me. The one thing that none of them do—the one thing that would distinguish them in my eyes—is ask me a single question about myself.

  They think because I’m the prince, and because I’m famous, because my face is splashed across the tabloids every week, they already know me.

  They don’t know the first thing about me.

  By the time the dog and pony show is over, it’s nearly midnight and the sun trails low over the North Atlantic. The water is flat and black against a cloudless sky, glowing in hues of deep royal blue, purple, crimson, and gold. The wind has dropped to nothing as twilight creeps in.

  Thirty feet below me, my guests are still going strong: music is blaring, people are dancing, and the alcohol is flowing. The party probably won’t slow down until the sun comes up again.

  “Sir?”

  I’ve been alone up here on the top deck for quite a while, and I didn’t hear Duncan come in. I don’t bother to turn around. My mind is lost in the sunset, lost in contemplation of the last days of my freedom, the end of any hope for happiness.

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  He clears his throat. “Earlier today you said if I saw anyone better…”

  I turn to face him, full of inquiry. Duncan knows me well, better than anyone alive. He knows my tastes and what catches my fancy. “What are you onto?” I ask him.

  “This, sir.” He hands me his phone.

  I look down at the screen. My heart stops. My knees tense. My mouth goes dry. It’s her. It’s Norah. She’s here, aboard the yacht. “How? How do you even know who she is, Duncan?” I barely mumble.

  “It’s my job to know such things, sir.”

  “And why is she here?”

  Duncan shakes his head. “I don’t know, exactly,” he says. “I… I saw her on a security camera at the party at Brynterion last night and was pretty sure it was the girl from Paris. When I cross-checked her name against the guest list, the first names matched. I did a quick background check on her, and nothing turned up.”

  “Does she know who I am?” I ask, fearing the worst: that my fantasy of Norah has materialized into a very real stalker.

  “I don’t believe she does, sir,” Duncan says. “I think it’s a coincidence. She was visiting a friend who had an invite to the party, and they just added her name to the list. I took a risk last night and presented her with an invitation to the cruise so I could get a closer look at her behavior.”

  “And?” I ask, impatient, annoyed I didn’t know about this earlier.

  “And she’s spent almost the entire cruise in the shade of the aft deck, reading a book. She brought a guest, who’s been quite a bit more social. Sir, the girl is… She’s not here to win friends.”

  How strange.

  “I need to see her,” I say. “I need to see her without letting her know who I am.”

  “Sir?” Duncan asks. “I don’t understand.”

  “Just figure it out. I need to see her, alone, without her getting wind of my identity.”

  Duncan is baffled, and then I see his gears grinding. He’s got an idea. “Come with me, sir.”

  I look good in a Royal Yacht Crew uniform. Blue suits me.

  Duncan hands me his shades. “Keep them on, sir,” he says, “until we’re through the main deck.”

  Duncan’s plan requires the participation of five members of the yacht crew (all in uniforms identical to the one I’m borrowing), as well as a half-dozen members of the security team. We hustle at pace straight through the dense crowd of drunken partiers on the main deck, through the loud music and flashing lights, and take the staff-only stairs to the second level berth deck. That’s where Norah’s been assigned her quarters, and at some point she’s got to return to her room.

  Duncan’s plan goes off without a hitch. None of those boozy blue bloods even look up to see what we were about. One girl glances at me, and seeing my uniform, just as quickly looks away. It’s just like when I stalk the streets anonymously collecting pretty girls: everyone just looks right through me and I blend into the background scenery.

  It occurs to me that this is how conmen and serial killers function. But I’ll save that bit of reflection for another time—right now I have a very special girl to reconnect with.

  I wait with Duncan and the crew inside a tight, spiral stairwell used by staff to move swiftly and invisibly between decks. It’s just like the secret passages in our various palaces, except considerably smaller and less drafty. We wait nearly an hour before I see Duncan touch his earpiece. He’s got members of the detail strategically placed, watching Norah, monitoring her every move.

  “She’s up and walking,” Duncan says. A moment later he elaborates: “Headed this way.”

  Luckily she gave us plenty of time to stage this, and time enough for me to swap shirts back into my polo so I’m not facing her as a ship’s boy.

  Just as she turns the corner, headed to her berth, I turn the opposite corner, headed straight toward her. Men from my detail are poised at each end of the corridor, preventing anyone from wandering in to interrupt us.

  She looks up, meeting my eyes with surprise, then question, then recognition.

  She’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever set eyes on.

  She stops in her tracks. I slow my approach, allowing myself to take her in, drinking up the sight of her. I let myself return to her kisses and the moments we shared in the dark, unconcerned about what the next day would bring—or our titles, or our jobs, or any of the things that complicate life and make us all miserable.

  “You,” she spits, suddenly coming to life. “You fucking asshole!”

  The next thing I know is pain. Not horrible pain, but sharp, humiliating pain. She slaps my face so h
ard I see stars and my ears briefly ring. If the experience wasn’t so damn unexpected and bracing, it might almost be enjoyable. As it is, I’m reasonably certain this is not a great start.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?!” she demands. “Don’t answer that—I don’t even care. ” She turns her back, digging in her pocket for a key as she approaches a nearby door. “I should have known when I met you on that stupid app. You disappeared—and oh my God, I should have known. Your profile was even gone. I just wanted coffee the next day. I was stupid.” She’s talking unreasonably fast again.

  “Norah, please. Let me explain.”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” she says, and that’s when I see her hands trembling. “It was just a hook up. I should have known better. I was dumb.”

  “I had my reasons,” I say. “It’s not what I ever intended, to leave you that way. It was a family emergency. A crisis. I couldn’t stop to explain. And you and me, we were…”

  “We were nothing,” she states, finishing my sentence differently that I’d intended.

  “I had just met you,” I say, stepping closer. “I wanted to stay. But my world here blew up. I had to go.”

  She slips her key into the door, opening it. She lingers outside, just paces away. I want to reach out to her, but I don’t dare. She may just punch me in the face, and something tells me she has a vicious right hook.

  “I saw you on deck. I’ve been waiting for you,” I say. “I’ve been waiting a long time so we could talk.”

  She turns toward me, eyes dark, liquid with repressed tears. “Who the hell are you?” she asks. “And why are you here?”

  I nod to the door in front of her. “I’ll tell you. Let’s go inside so we’re not broadcasting this whole thing to every berth guest on this deck.”

  It’s an amusing fact that I’ve been on board the royal yacht more times than I can recollect, but I’ve never ventured to the low decks where nobility is housed when they come aboard. I’ve been to the galley and the engine rooms. I’ve toured where the work gets done, but never once have I stepped into these narrow corridors where my subjects lay down their heads. The rooms are small, with low ceilings and narrow views of the ocean beyond the patio doors.

  I wonder why the rooms are so small. This is another bit of reflection more appropriate for another day.

  “I thought it would be a one-night stand,” I say. “Maybe hang out and get breakfast or something. That’s all I was about. But you…”

  “I made you want to bolt within fifteen seconds of waking up beside me?” Norah slams her keys on the bureau, then yanks her overnight bag from the closet, tossing it on the bed. “I don’t even know why I’m mad. But your dumb, stupid face makes me mad. I hate that I wanted you to stay. And I hate that I’m upset. Now, tell me why you need to talk to me at all.”

  She crosses her arms.

  “No,” I insist. “I couldn’t stay.”

  “Why?!” she demands. “Why not stay five minutes and explain it to me?”

  “I’m trying to explain it now,” I say. “People I care about very much were in trouble. They needed me here in Anglesey. Norah, I was trying to pass as just a random guy that night, but I’m from an important family here. I had to come home. I couldn’t wait—it was too important.”

  “Who are you?” she asks.

  I need to think of something. I can’t let her know. Not yet. “I’m a duke. A noble,” I say. “With responsibilities and estates and more obligations than you can imagine.”

  “Are you married?”

  I shake my head. “No, I’m not married.”

  She raises her head as if she understands. She doesn’t.

  “But you’re here. Maybe I could make up for it?”

  For just a second, I think she’s considering my proposal, but then she shakes her head. “That would be an awful idea,” she says. “Besides, I’ve depleted my savings doing my fancy tour of the UK. I need to go home soon. My own family is having a bit of a crisis themselves, and they need me back soon.”

  This is useful information. “What kind of crisis?”

  Norah fills me in on the highlights. I heard something about this Mackoff character on the news.

  “I think you need to go,” Norah says. “I don’t know what you expect, but you’re not going to get a repeat of our night in Paris.”

  Her words cut me to the quick. “I don’t expect that,” I say. “I’d like to start over. Take you to dinner. Roll around in paint.”

  She smirks for a second and then goes back to her stern face. “You missed that chance by walking away from me. You didn’t even tell me your last name.”

  Norah walks to the door, opening it, showing me out. “I still don’t know your last name,” she grinds out between clenched teeth. “It’s time to go.”

  “You don’t know my last name because I don’t have a last name. The House of Cymrea was established in the Middle Ages, before last names were required. We’ve always been monarchs, princes, and kings. A king doesn’t need a last name.”

  She rolls her eyes dramatically.

  “That a shitty excuse. Go.”

  “How did it go, sir?” Duncan asks once I’m safely returned to my sprawling apartments above deck. Bright rays of sunshine stream in, bathing the rooms in glowing golden hues.

  “Not well,” I admit. “She called me a ‘fucking asshole.’ Then she slapped me. Then she told me to get the fuck out.”

  Duncan is unmoved, but there’s a flicker of amusement in his eyes. “Should I have her arrested, sir?”

  I offer him nothing except a tired smile. “No, Duncan,” I reply. “Just get me everything you can on her, and her family. This isn’t done yet. Not by a long shot.”

  The truth is, I admire Norah for standing up for herself. She did exactly right. I treated her with shameful disrespect, I broke her trust, I hurt her. She has every right to regard me with disgust.

  The ball is in my court to regain her faith, earn her forgiveness, and try the best way I know to show her I’m not the sociopath I behaved as. I’m not a bad person; I’m just a normal person trapped in an abnormal world who—out of frustration, or boredom, or a blind sense of entitlement—occasionally does stupid, hurtful things. Something tells me that Norah might bring some balance and sanity to this gilded cage we call the House of Cymrea.

  3

  Norah

  What an epic, entitled asshole. Every time I think of him my heart races, my brain seizes, and my fists clench. I should have slugged him or kneed him in the balls. My upbringing kicked in, checking me from venting my full rage. Honestly, I should have broken his nose. That said, his nose is too pretty to break. And as much as I despise him, he’s still easy on the eyes.

  When we finally got home and laid our heads down to sleep after that endless, tedious midsummer night’s cruise, all I did was dream about Collin. I dreamed of his exquisite build, those broad, muscled shoulders, and his phenomenally skilled cock making my toes curl in a tangle of sweat-drenched sheets.

  I’m incorrigible. There’s no hope for me.

  After a fitful night’s sleep, I’m awakened by my phone. The Caller ID says it’s Eric. I’m too exhausted to process the idea of just letting it roll over to voicemail. Foolishly, I answer.

  “Three hundred sixteen dollars and thirty-seven cents on clothes from three different shops in Saxony? I hope you got to meet the king?” His tone is incredulous, spiked with outrage.

  “The king is dead,” I blandly inform him, my brain still cloudy from lack of sleep. I refuse to justify buying several pairs of jeans and renting an AirBnB. “But I did get to attend a very nice party on the royal yacht.”

  “Fuck, Norah. What are you doing? Your credit union account has less than twenty-five thousand in it, and you’re over there behaving like a jet-setter.”

  “I am not,” I say. I let the pause go on, silence blooming between us.

  “You’ll come home now,” Eric demands. “You’ll come home now, or I’m shu
tting this whole shitshow down. I’ll cancel your card.”

  “Do it.” I realize I’d rather be dead broke than deal any more with this asshole.

  “Watch me.” I hear the ice in his tone. “Call me to book a flight home when you’re ready to end this nonsense.”

  How can my account have less than twenty-five thousand in it? I’ve been living off the largesse of the Earl and Sinead. Except for clothes, I’ve spent almost nothing. I had thirty-five thousand when I got here.

  Something’s not right.

  I relay my username and passcode to my mother over the phone. She types the digits on her laptop while I wait. “I’ve got it,” she says. She’s logged in successfully. “Honey, there’s nothing there.”

  What?

  “Your account balance is zero. It looks like everything was transferred to an account in New York a week ago. Do you need me to send you some money? I don’t have a lot, but I can get you home.”

  “I may need that, Mama,” I say, feeling the full impact of her revelation. “I probably should come home.”

  The one person I trusted—Eric—has deceived me and stolen from me. I’m stranded in a foreign country without any resources.

  “Book me a ticket out of London,” I say, hearing the defeat in my tone.

  “I’ll try,” Mom says. “All our credit cards were cancelled, and I’ve hesitated to have one issued from my trust account because I’m afraid of the damage your father would do if he got hold of it. If your friend Sinead has better access, you might try her first. We can reimburse her with cash.”

  Damn. That could be an awkward conversation I’d rather not have.

  Sinead had a fantastic time at the party, and she hasn’t stopped filling her husband in on every single detail. At dinner she’s still going strong, dropping the titles and names of every royal and blue blooded noble she managed to rub shoulders with. The Earl is entertained but unimpressed.

  “You didn’t meet Prince Owen,” he observes dryly. “Did he even show up? Was he even there?”