The audience bursts into applause. Will takes my hand and we walk out onto the stage together. I smile brightly while I tighten my grip and pray he won’t let go.
“Welcome, Your Highness and Will!” Dylan says, with her arms open. When we reach her, Will lets go of my hand, and Dylan gives me a kiss on each cheek, then does the same for him.
Now that we’re out on the stage, I can get the lay of the land, and at first glance, I don’t like it even a bit. There’s a cheesy red heart-shaped love seat and matching chair where I’m assuming we’ll conduct the interview portion of things. There are two wooden posts ominously set up on the far side, which have me more than a little concerned because I know they’re not there to dress up the stage since they’re under a large sign that reads “Posts of Defeat.” My eyes land on a counter bearing a sign that says, “Gross Out Kitchen.” There are several plates covered with silver domes which cause the hair on the back of my neck to stand up. What in the bloody hell is crawling around under those shiny domes? Oh bugger, why did I agree to do this?
“Now, you two are probably wondering what is about to happen to you. I know I’d be curious,” Dylan says. “So, I’ll let you in on what we’ll be doing tonight. A normal celebrity interview would be way too dull for the world’s most adventurous couple, so we’ve come up with what might be the most exciting interview format ever. Think Truth or Dare meets Survivor meets The Newlywed Game!”
Will glances at me excitedly, and I mirror his expression while I order my legs not to run out the emergency exit. Oh, they want to run so very, very badly.
Dylan gestures over to the seating area and we follow her over like… two rubes about to be humiliated on national television. We’re all sitting now. There’s a light blinding me, and I squint as she says, “So, it’s no secret that the two of you have been an item for a few months now. Never before has there been a case of two more polar opposites who end up finding love with each other. Will, orphaned at age seven, grew up sailing, surfing, exploring deserted islands in the Caribbean, while the princess grew up in a lush palace with hundreds of servants catering to her every whim. I don’t want to use the word pampered, but if the glass slipper fits… am I right?”
The audience seems to find this less insulting than I do. Instead of booing her as I hoped they would, they break into laughter while Dylan throws them a wink. Oh, how I wish I could sink into this tacky crimson couch and disappear forever. Actually, no. I wish I had my brother’s ability to snap back with some cutting yet witty remark. Instead, I continue smiling like a very vapid princess. Oh, excuse me, a vapid, pampered princess.
Will covers my hand with his. Oh, that’s nice and warm and comforting right when I need it. God, I love him.
“That’s what I thought at first too, Dylan,” he says.
Wait. What?
I’m about to give him the raised eyebrow when he continues. “But it’s really an unfair characterization of Arabella. Her life hasn’t exactly been all roses. I never realized how much pressure there must be on royal children, what with being hounded relentlessly by the media and being judged for every little thing they do. And like me, she lost a parent at a very young age, which I know from experience makes things quite difficult, but she’s a person who rallies when the chips are down. And I can tell you this is one princess who’s made of pure steel.”
Dylan wrinkles her nose slightly. “Well, we’ll all have to tune in each week to find out if you’re right. On that note, shall we get on with the games?”
The audience cheers, and Will sits forward a little. “Can’t wait.”
I can. I can definitely wait.
Oh God, she’s giving instructions and I’m not hearing a word she’s saying. I’m watching her mouth move, but her words aren’t making any sense.
“…For every wrong answer, you’ll have to eat one of the food items (and I use the term food loosely) from our Gross Out Kitchen!”
Will is picking up two stacks of large white cards and two Sharpie pens. He’s handing me a set and keeping one for himself.
What am I meant to do with these? What are the rules? Why is it so hot up here?
“Lower the No Cheating Wall!”
No Cheating Wall? What the shit is going on? I glance up as a large white divider slowly moves toward us from the high ceiling. Will scoots away from me to give room between us, and I have to say, it feels a bit ironic that something is literally separating two people who only moments earlier promised each other we wouldn’t let anything come between us. The only bit of the man I love that is visible to me now are the tips of his dress shoes. Shit. Now I can’t copy off him, and I have no idea what we’re meant to be doing to avoid eating bugs… or worse.
Dylan holds up some cue cards. “Remember, write down your answers, but don’t say anything or give each other any hints! We’ll start off with something easy. Question one: Arabella, what would Will say is your most attractive attribute? Will, write down the answer, and Your Highness, please write down what you think he’s going to say.”
Bollocks. How is that the easy question? It’s obviously my naughty bits, but I can’t exactly write that down, now can I? Breathe. You can answer this. He’ll write something gentlemanly because he won’t want to embarrass me. Lips? No, still sounds dirty. Eyes? He’d never write down anything that lame. Sense of humour? No, I’m not very funny now that I think about it. Dammit. Why can’t I be funny?
“Oh, Princess Arabella is having some trouble with this one. Will was quick to write down his answer, but she is really struggling with this one.”
Shut up. I’m trying to guess what Will wrote down. Sense of style? No. Sense of justice? Yes. That’s it. I take the lid off my Sharpie and get writing. When I finish, I place the card behind the others and look up at Dylan.
“Finally thought of something, did you?”
I chuckle gaily, even though I want to strangle her skinny neck. “I’m afraid the pressure is on. I’m a bit concerned about what’s under those silver domes.”
“As you should be. We’ve gone to great lengths to find the most disgusting things possible to feed you,” she says. “Now, question number two is a tough one. Arabella, what is Will’s most annoying habit? And Will, write down what you think bothers Princess Arabella about you the most.”
Fuckity fuck. He’s obviously rather cocky, and at times, he can be a bit of a know-it-all, but I can’t exactly write either of those down, can I? But I don’t want to eat anything that’s still moving. Or raw cow’s tongue. I stare at the dome, trying desperately to think of something that won’t hurt his feelings. He flosses his teeth in bed. Drives me nuts, but that’s not an option since we’re pretending I’m a virgin for all the elderly royal fans out there. Okay what will he say I find most annoying about him…
“Five seconds!”
Shit. I scrawl my answer down, feeling a bead of sweat trickle down my back.
“Question three: if Arabella were on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, who would her phone-a-friend be?” She pauses and grins back and forth between us.
Arthur. Done.
“Question four is a two-parter: What’s the best gift you’ve given each other. And what’s the best gift you’ve received?”
Yacht. A shell.
“Question five should make for an interesting drive home: how many children do you want? Write your true answer down and if they don’t match, we’ll lift the lid off another dome.”
Two.
“Question six: who won the last argument the two of you had and what was it about?”
Oh God, what was it? Titanic! Yes. And I won. Bill Paxton, not Bill Pullman, starred in Titanic.
“Okay! Time’s up! Let’s lift the wall!” Dylan announces.
The audience breaks into applause, and I grin nervously at Will as he comes into view. I lean in and whisper, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” he says, taking my hand in his and giving it a squeeze.
“Okay,” Dylan says. “Le
t’s reveal the answer to question one: what would Will say is Princess Arabella’s most attractive attribute?”
We hold up our cards while craning our necks to see each other’s answers. Laughter fills the studio, and my face flushes as I read his answer: Her smile.
When I look at him, he says, “I thought it was a physical attribute, but you’re right, sweetheart, it really is your sense of justice that draws me to you.”
“More than her smile?” Dylan sneers.
“Well, she does have the most beautiful smile of any woman on the planet, so you can hardly blame me, right?”
I grin up at him. “Excellent save, Mr. Banks.”
“But not good enough!” Dylan says.
A producer rushes over with a platter. He holds it in front of us and lifts the lid with a flourish. Oh, that doesn’t look so bad. It’s two tiny peppers.
“Are those…?” Will starts but trails off.
“Carolina reapers? No! We’d never do that to you,” Dylan says as though that’s the craziest idea ever. “They’re ghost peppers! Dig in!”
Trying to seem brave, I nod and pick mine up. “Bon appetite!”
I take a dainty bite, chewing as quickly as possible. Oh, well that’s not so…
BAD! IT’S VERY, VERY BAD.
MY ENTIRE FACE IS ON FIRE.
Chew. Chew. Chew.
Swallow.
You can do this. You are not going to DIE!
Yes, I am. I am going to die right here on this stage! Death by ghost pepper at the tender age of twenty-nine!
Snot pools in my nostrils, and my eyes shut involuntarily while I swallow and cover the lower half of my face with one hand. Every pore in my head opens up to let out the heat in the form of sweat. Suddenly, a cool glass is thrust into my hand. I open one eye, but just barely since it wants to clamp shut again, but before it does, I see it’s milk.
I suck it back in long, huge gulps, not caring that it’s pouring down the sides of my mouth onto my dress. It’s either humiliate myself or wind up with third degree mouth burns.
When I finally recover enough for my eyes to open up, I glance at Will who doesn’t seem even the slightest bit affected by the pepper. He does however look very concerned, and if I’m not mistaken, the tiniest bit horrified. It’s the snot, isn’t it?
“You okay?”
I nod quickly, reaching for the tissue box and snagging out several whilst keeping my other hand over my face. I blow my nose, something I’ve never done in front of anyone other than my nannies when I was a wee girl.
Dylan shouts, “We’ll take a quick commercial break and give Princess Arabella a chance to recover. Stay tuned for question number two!”
The lights dim down a bit, and Dylan leans forward. “Are you all right? That one really got you.”
“Yes, absolutely fine.” I blow my nose again as a makeup artist comes rushing toward me, brushes in hand. I blink and sniffle repeatedly while she sets to work on my face, her hands a flurry of action while my mouth continues to burn. Dylan and Will, meanwhile, fill the two minutes with some witty banter about how experienced they are at eating spicy food. Apparently, they’ve both been to India and dined on some of the hottest dishes on the planet with ease. If my eyes weren’t still stinging, I’d be rolling them right about now.
“Ten seconds!” the director shouts. The makeup artist abandons me, and the lights come back up.
“Welcome back to Princess in the Wild - The Preshow! For those of you just joining us, I’m your host, Dylan Sinclair. Will and Princess Arabella got question one wrong, so they’ve faced the first food challenge—one of the hottest peppers on the planet, cultivated right here in the U.K.,” Dylan says. “Your Highness, are you ready for question two or do you need some more milk?”
“Let’s just keep going,” I say, my words coming out raspy.
“Let’s!” she calls. “Question two: what is Will’s most annoying habit?”
I wince as I hold up my card. His face falls as he reads what I wrote: Know-it-all. Guilt thwacks me on the head when I read his: Guessing the ending of movies.
I look into his eyes. Obviously, they’re dark-brown pools of pain. “Sorry, darling,” I murmur. “I’m afraid I froze up… and I thought you’d write that since that was my biggest pet peeve when we first met. You’re not really a know-it-all. But you do have a great deal of knowledge about a myriad of topics.”
He nods and raises his eyebrow. “Sure, yeah. I figured you’d say the thing about the movies since we were just joking about it the other night when we were watching Parasite.”
“Uh-oh! Trouble in paradise?” Dylan asks gleefully.
“Not at all,” Will says. “I think we just interpreted the question very differently.”
“Indeed,” she says. “Next dome!”
I close my eyes, afraid to see what’s under it. The audience groans, and “ewww” can be heard around the room. Opening one eye, I see some beetle larvae crawling around on the silver platter. My knees go weak at the same time that my mouth waters in that way it does right before I vomit.
Dylan chimes in with, “Now, Princess Arabella, you couldn’t eat these in the jungle. Can you do it now?”
Will picks his up, twists its head off, presses on its body to empty the digestive tract, then pops it in his mouth. He picks up the next one, does the first two steps again, and hands it to me. “Pretend it’s a gummy worm.”
“Bring out the Bucket of Shame!” Dylan shouts.
Bucket of Shame. Oh, what I’d give to flip her the bird right now—with both middle fingers. But I really should be angry with myself. Know-it-all. Why would I think he would write that? I deserve to eat this putrid larva after writing something so awful about Will. I gingerly take it and put it in my mouth, chewing and gagging intermittently until it’s gone.
Dylan, who herself is looking a little pale, says, “Let’s hope you got question three right.”
6
Unintentional Insults, Arguments Made Public, and Wildly Unpopular Canadian Cuisine…
Will
“Okay, question three...” Dylan gives us a wide-eyed grin. “If Arabella were on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, who would her phone-a-friend be?”
I smile back, holding up my card. Me.
Then, I glance at Arabella’s and see Arthur written in black ink. Huh. I was not expecting that. I keep my smile plastered on while I set my card down, feeling like a total fool.
“Oh dear,” she says. “You’re zero for three. Bad luck.”
“Your brother? Not me, the know-it-all?” I ask with a playful bump on her arm.
Arabella blanches. “I’m awful at this. Of course you would be my phone-a-friend.”
Dylan tilts her head. “Then why’d you write down your brother’s name?”
“Can’t you have more than one phone-a-friend?” Arabella’s voice is so quiet, it’s nearly a whisper. “I mean, depending on the question?”
“I’m afraid not,” Dylan says, giving her a mock-sorry look. “For our purposes, it’s just the one and you chose your brother.”
Arabella turns to face me, her eyes filled with guilt. “If I could choose two, you would absolutely be my phone-a-friend. Especially if the question had to do with surfing or survival stuff or nature or filming a television show. No one knows more than you about those things.”
“Or so Will thinks, according to you,” Dylan adds, salting the wound some more.
“I only wrote down Arthur because I was thinking of questions related to foreign affairs, history, politics, or the like…” Her voice trails off and she gives me a sheepish look. “Sorry.”
“That’s fine, really.” I nod and wink at her to cover up the sting of knowing she thinks her brother is smarter than me in almost every way.
The producer appears with a domed plate. When he lifts the lid, there’s a small white tented card on it that reads: Posts of Defeat: you will now complete the rest of the interview while standing on a post with one foot in th
e air.
“Brilliant,” Arabella says, as we both stand and follow Dylan across the stage where two wooden posts await us. They’re each set three feet off the ground but are only about four inches in diameter.
Arabella looks down at her heels and bites her bottom lip. “We’re in it now, aren’t we?”
“Yup,” I say, watching as she daintily removes her shoes.
I hold out one hand and help her get up onto her pole. Once she seems steady, I step up onto mine, using my left leg to balance since my right ankle is still a little weak from breaking it while we were filming the show.
“All set?” Dylan asks.
We both answer in the affirmative so she fires the next dreaded question at us. “Remember, question four is a two-parter: What’s the best gift you’ve ever given each other. And what’s the best gift you’ve received?”
Flipping my card over, I let the world in on the financial dynamics of our relationship. You know, so I can feel extra shitty. My card says, A shell, a Yacht.
I look at Arabella’s and it says, ‘a yacht, a shell.’
“Yes! We got it!” she shouts. “Well done, us!”
I grin through my humiliation while balancing myself. Is it too much to hope that there won’t be any follow-up questions to that?
“So, you can’t write that type of answer without expecting some follow-up questions,” Dylan says.
Of course.
“So, Arabella, you bought Will a yacht, and he gave you… a shell?”
Arabella wobbles a bit and holds her arms out, trying to maintain her balance. “Yes, well, there’s so much more to it than it sounds. The yacht was because I felt awful about—”
A loud horn sounds, startling everyone in the audience, then red lights flash while a canned voice repeats: “Spoiler Alert. Spoiler Alert.”
Dylan smiles. “I’m sorry, Arabella, you can’t answer that question without giving away what happened in the jungle.”
Brilliant. Let’s just let that answer hang out in the wind until it reeks up our relationship.
Royally Wild (Crazy Royal Love Romantic Comedy Book 2) Page 5
