by Sophia Lynn
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Epilogue
ANOTHER STORY YOU MAY ENJOY
Chapter One
Chapter Two
The Royal’s Pretend Wife
By: Sophia Lynn
All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2015-2016 Sophia Lynn
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Chapter One
The gardens outside his window were lush with life and color, but Prince Apolo Buros was not seeing any of it. Instead, he stood with his broad back to the floor-to-ceiling windows, glaring at the sweating man who stood in front of him.
“So let me get this straight,” he said, his voice silky soft. “I am set to report for…some kind of reality show next week. Is that right?”
His assistant nodded. Apolo realized with a kind of grim satisfaction that the man was terrified, and if he knew what was good for him, he would continue to be terrified.
“Yes, your highness,” the assistant said. “The…the papers are all signed. Your signature is on them, and they were forwarded to the network.”
Apolo made a sound that was likely far too similar to a growl. His poor assistant looked like he was going to faint.
“Damn. This has all the marks of Constantine's work, doesn't it? He's the one to blame.”
The assistant was too diplomatic to respond, and Apolo figured that he had his answer. The Greek royal family was large and wide-spread, but when it came to the family member who was most intent on causing mischief and mayhem, it was Constantine. Mostly, he was too intelligent to play his tricks on the heir; at the very least, Apolo had a reputation for a temper and a very long reach. However, it seemed as if Constantine had been merely biding his time and waiting for a really good opportunity to come up.
“How likely is it that we can break the contract?”
The assistant bit his lip.
“Well, all contracts may be broken, your highness, but there is a clause that makes that expensive.”
Apolo snorted, already dismissing the cost.
“That is not my problem. Pay the fees and be done with it.”
“Sir…bowing out also means that you will be agreeing to another show, one focused on your private life exclusively.”
Apolo stared at him, horror beginning to shade his features.
“Are you serious? Are you telling me that if I do not appear, they are welcome to find me in my own home and start taping?”
The assistant's nod was tiny and agonized.
“The contract is ironclad, your highness. Either you appear in London for three weeks of shooting, or they appear here in Greece and take over your villa.”
Apolo swore creatively and vehemently at his assistant's words. He was not a man who was used to giving in to every push, but it was increasingly sounding as if he had no choice at all.
“How the hell did I sign that? And without seeing those clauses,” he muttered, shaking his head, but he knew exactly how it had come about. He was a busy man, and he trusted his assistants thoroughly. It would have taken someone with Constantine's access and charm to get through those layers of protection.
His assistant looked like he was getting ready to faint. Apolo sighed, shaking his head and waving him off.
“No, as much as I am holding Constantine responsible for this asinine piece of stupidity, I am to blame as well. I suppose there is only one choice. I need to appear and be so overwhelmingly dull that they send me home early.”
The assistant coughed at that, and Apolo shrugged. “It shouldn't be so bad. I'll get a few weeks in London, and then when I'm back, I can get right back to work. It might even be a bit of a vacation…”
He came to a stop when he realized that his assistant still looked frightened half out of his wits. Obviously, the entire story wasn't out yet.
“All right,” he said. “What don't I know?”
“You need to be married,” the assistant said in a rush. “That's the show, it's about royal families and couples, about your lives and your loves.”
“I am not married,” Apolo said, vaguely appalled. “Surely they know that.”
“With all due respect,” the assistant said tactfully, “No one knows much about your life in general. That's why the contract is so strict. They had one opportunity to learn more about you, and they took it.”
Apolo ran all ten fingers through his thick black hair, shaking his head.
At the age of thirty-two, he was a tall, handsome man, lean and bronzed from the Mediterranean sun. Since his father's illness, he had taken over more of his family's financial and governmental responsibilities, and the result had been a certain absence from the spotlight.
Now it seemed as if the spotlight was calling him back whether he wanted to be back or not.
“Then it looks like I need a wife,” he said.
His assistant blinked. “Your highness?”
Apolo glared. This issue was already getting beyond foolish. He wanted it dealt with, and he wanted to get back to his life. If the best way to do so was to give in to the demands of some ridiculous reality television show, then so be it.
“Find me one,” he said, glaring at the startled man. “Find some actress who can be exceedingly discreet, someone who we are not going to have to worry about getting greedy. Someone refined, who won't humiliate me and my family on international television. Someone attractive, of course.”
The assistant nodded, likely too startled to do much more.
“Good,” Apolo said with a nod. “Have her meet me on the weekend at the villa in Spain. You know the address. We’ll go to London from there. We can put on a show for television, and after it is done, we can cut her loose with a generous check for her trouble.”
The assistant looked a little dubious as to the prince's conclusion, but Apolo was already turning back to his work.
Everyone had been startled when the playboy prince of Greece had turned around and buckled down after his father's illness. Most assumed that he would simply continue along his merry way, refusing to take any responsibilities on until he was forced to do so.
Instead, he had stepped into his father's sizable shoes without a whisper of complaint. Apolo had been so diligent, as a matter of fact, that the public had seen neither hide nor hair of him, beyond the requirements of duty, for several years. It meant that a lot had gotten done, but it also meant that there was a real hunger for sight of the royal presence again.
The assistant sighed, heading to his office to find reliable actresses. If the prince thought that coming onto a reality television set with a complete unknown as his wife was going to be subtle or overlooked, he was wrong, but the assistant wasn't going to be the one to tell him that.
Safe in his office, he started a round of calls. The first hung up on him because it sounded like he was trying to find a prostitute, the next two were entirely mystified by the request, and the one after that simply refused to offer him any help at all.
It was a small but exclusive agency in Los Angeles that finally heard him out. There was a long pause that could have meant anything, and then a soft laugh.
“You know, I have the right person for you, I think…”
* * *
Trinity Phillips told herself to keep smiling. She told herself that she had been willing to start at the bottom, and if she didn't keep at it, that was exact
ly where she was going to stay.
She didn't mind the fact that she smelled like ketchup or that she had just had to wipe mustard out of her hair. She didn't care about the fact that the last five tables had been non-tippers. She didn't even care that that damn jingle about caramel popcorn had come through not once, not twice, but twenty-four times during her shift.
Trinity simply plastered a huge smile on her face and kept going, whisking through orders and dishing out food as if she were born to do it. She was doing an exceptional part playing a waitress, if she did say so herself, but somehow, life had gotten a memo wrong and other people believed that that was what she truly was.
The only time her smile faltered was when, after placing down a tall suited man's order, she turned around only to feel a sharp slap on her rear.
“There's the first half of your tip, honey,” he said with a braying laugh. “If you want the rest, why don't you come back to the hotel with me?”
Somehow, the smile stayed bright on her face as she pivoted on her heel. Trinity had more than a decade of dance training. Her motions were quick and precise, with absolutely nothing going to waste. In one fluid motion, she picked up a tumbler full of soda from a nearby table and dumped it squarely over the offending man's head.
His expression went from smug to stunned in less than a moment. The soda ran down his face into his wide open mouth, and his sputtering was drowned out by the spontaneous applause from the other diners.
“You little bitch,” he snarled. “This is a goddamn four-thousand-dollar suit. I'm a goddamn producer, do you know what I could do to you?”
His cries were drowned out by the roar from Mitch, the cook and owner. He stormed out of the kitchen, shaking one finger at Trinity.
“I told you,” he snapped. “One more incident and you're out on your ass.”
The unfairness of the situation struck Trinity to the core.
“But he grabbed me…”
“Babe, I don't care if he spat on you and grabbed your grandma. Get your stuff. Get out. If you're not off of the property in five—count 'em, five—minutes, I will call the police.”
For a moment, Trinity couldn't understand what was happening. Then, with as much dignity as she could muster, she stalked back to the tiny break room and grabbed her things. The other servers only glared at her, because it meant that they were one short for the rest of the shift.
Trinity balanced between wanting to curse up a blue storm and wanting to burst into tears. She held it together as she walked, head held high, out of the diner, down the street, and into the tiny park nearby. Los Angeles was not known for its green spaces, and this park was roughly the size of a postage stamp. At least it had a bench and pretty angel statue however, and Trinity found her eyes going up to meet its stone gaze.
“Well here I am again,” she said out loud.
At twenty-four, she was a young woman with a fall of blond hair so light it was nearly platinum, a body that was more lean than curvy and eyes that turned to a dangerous yellow-green when she was angry. They were yellow-green right now, and as she sat on the bench, she tried to fight down the anger to consider what she was going to do next.
She tried to be defiant, but with the stone angel looking down over her, it was hard. Its endless, eternal compassion touched something that not all of the swearing and abuse could reach, and she felt tears trembling in her eyes.
“I guess I really messed that one up, huh?” she asked quietly. The angel had no response, but she could imagine it agreeing with her.
“I…I just had no idea it was going to be this hard.”
She was lucky that Phillips was such a common name. Otherwise, everyone would know that it was the daughter of tech mogul Randall Phillips who kept striking out at every service industry job she tried her hand at. At least she had lasted longer at the diner. Her time as a secretary, a bike messenger and cleaning lady had lasted embarrassingly short amounts of time.
Trinity had told herself that it was just part and parcel of starting out as an actress. For almost a year, she had kept her nose to the grindstone, working hard and going to her auditions. It was always the same story. They loved her, she was going to make it big…and then nothing.
“I'm sorry to say this,” said her agent Tonya Bailey, “but I think your dad's blacklisting you.”
Trinity of two months ago had stared at her.
“Can he do that?” she asked, shocked and feeling unbearably naive.
Tonya gazed at her wearily.
“Technically, no. Not legally. But when Randall Phillips, whose name is on top-of-the-line movie editing equipment, says maybe you want to look elsewhere for your leading lady…
“You listen,” said Trinity, feeling a deep cold shock go through her.
“Yeah. I had been suspecting, but at this point, I can't deny it. You should be a star, but you're not, and I think that's why.”
“So that's it,” Trinity said, sinking back into her chair. “That's it, he's won.”
“Don't throw in the towel just yet, sweetie,” said Tonya. “Let me pull some strings. I still think you're going places, and I still want my wagon hitched to your star. Maybe commercials, or indie films, maybe even live theater…”
Despite her agent's promises, Trinity hadn't heard anything from her for almost eight weeks now. She wondered bitterly if that speech was something that all of her prospective clients heard on their way out the door.
There was still a spoiled part of her, the part that had grown up in a forty-room mansion in Silicon Valley, that fumed at the way the world was treating her. She had been going on vacations to Europe and South America ever since she was three. She graduated from one of the most prestigious drama schools in the country. She had been raised believing that she was one of life's chosen, and that was a hard thing to give up.
Trinity thought that there was a chance that she would still be in the mansion, racking up huge credit card bills and doing exactly as she pleased if she hadn't seen The Shaking Woman when she was six. In it Claudette Robbins had blocked the path a marching army with only a baby in her arms. When she saw the actress stand up with pride, determination and fear all mixed, Trinity had made her decision.
“I want to be an actress when I grow up,” she declared, and at the time, Randall Phillips had grinned, tousled her hair and scooted her along.
“Of course you do, sweetie,” was his only response.
His amusement had grown steadily less as she grew up, and when she had struck out for Hollywood, she had done so with five hundred dollars, his dire warnings, and a bus ticket.
If Trinity were being honest, she knew that it was time to throw in the towel. She knew that if she went home, it would be to open arms and a sneering condescension that would never go away, but was it really worse than getting groped by guys at diners and trudging to work on two different buses?
That same spoiled part of her was more than ready to go back and live as the perfect Silicon Valley princess that she had been raised to be. She wanted to jet across the United States whenever the whim took her, she wanted her old friends back, she wanted to eat without looking at her dwindling bank account.
Deep inside her, however, another voice was making itself known. There was a part of her that was grimly determined to make it, no matter how her father ruined her chances or what she was doing with the family name. It was the spitting mad part of her that couldn't stand it when people told her she couldn't do a thing, or when they tried to take away something that should have been hers. It was proud, it was angry, and it was determined to last until she was a success.
Trinity wiped her eyes with her palms, shaking her head. A sensible woman would be calling her father right now. She would be making arrangements to get back to her suite in the manor and to her real life.
Instead, she pulled her phone out of her purse to look for a new job. Then, maybe after that, she could call Tonya and see about getting a few more auditions.
She hadn't been interested in live theater before, but perhaps if she only got her foot in the door…
Her phone rang the moment she pulled it out of her purse. Trinity blinked in surprise. Of all the people in the world, it was Tonya.
“Hello?”
“Long time no chat, sweetie,” said her agent. “Listen, are you at work? Can we chat?”
“Well, I'm definitely not at work, so yes, I can chat. What's up?”
“So there's this opportunity that's come up, and you are definitely the girl for the job…but I don't exactly know how you are going to feel about it.”
Trinity felt the earth shift underneath her. Her green eyes darkened, and she dug her fingernails into the bench underneath her.
“Well, there's only one way to find out,” she said, and then a horrible thought struck her. “Look, Tonya, it's not…adult stuff, right? Because I'm not going to—”
Tonya's laugh was bright.
“Oh sweetie, no, not at all! I promise, I wouldn't do that to you. Okay, listen, here's the deal…”
Trinity listened with growing apprehension as Tonya explained the job to her. Apparently, she would need to pretend to be the wife of an obscure Greek royal who had somehow gotten roped into a reality television show.
“But where's his real wife?” she asked.
“Hasn't got one. That's the problem. He'd like to keep up his dignity, and reading between the lines, I think that everyone wants him to look settled and stable.”
Trinity frowned. “Okay, it sounds like I'm providing a cover for some guy who's a cross between Quasimodo and Hannibal Lecter. You really think this is a good idea?”
Tonya's long pause could have meant anything. “I'll be honest, sweetie. I don't know. What I do know is that life's hard out there for actresses, and I'd rather you stay in LA rather than heading back to the Valley. This job is going to last for three weeks, and after that, you'll get paid nicely.”
“How much?” asked Trinity suspiciously.
When Tonya relayed the offer to her, her eyes popped wide.
