by Ashley Hall
“Surely,” says Isabella, “we can do that without bad mouthing my family?”
“Of course,” says Slade, holding up his hands in a mock sign of peace. “I meant no disrespect.”
“I'm sure that you did not,” says Isabella, even though she cannot understand how such a question could be asked without meaning to be barbed and painful. “What about you? Do you get along well with your parents?”
“I did,” says Slade in a measured voice. “When they were still alive, that is. They both passed when I was a young boy. It was quite tragic, really—a car accident.”
“I'm so sorry,” says Isabella. “See? This is why we should not start off with such personal questions!”
“I'm far from sore over it anymore,” says Slade with a shrug. He plucks the flower out of Isabella's hand and offers it back to her, like he was the one that picked it.
She smiles at him. “I cannot imagine not having my parents around, no matter how crass they might be.”
“It was rough,” says Slade. “But being around a beautiful woman such as yourself makes it easier.”
Isabella's cheeks color. “Hush, you. You're just saying that!”
“Hardly,” says Slade. “From the moment I saw you across that room, I knew that you were something special. Please, won't you go for a walk with me?”
“We're already on one,” says Isabella, laughing.
“No,” insists Slade. “A real one! Just down to the end of the walkway.”
Isabella glances into the darkness. She knows that it is foolish, but she also knows this might be her last chance to protest her parents’ command over her. In the end, she nods and says, “Alright.”
The resort is in the middle of a lavish garden, meant to be some sort of monetized nature preserve. Giant oak trees loom over them, with branches that twist in garish directions in the fading light. The moon is full. It casts strange shadows onto the world.
Isabella smiles. “It reminds me of fall.”
“You like fall?”
“I do,” says Isabella. “Well, I think that I would. It rains a lot back home. We don't have the true color change that some places do.”
Slade nods. “That is how it is out in Georgia. Everything is just pine trees and dead leaves.”
“You're from Georgia?”
Slade nods. “Born and raised. Have you been there, Princess? I'm sorry, have you been there, Izzy?”
He stretches out the correction on her name like it means something else entirely. Isabella smiles, even though she does not particularly like how the words roll off of his tongue. “I have. Our plans were delayed, and we spent the night there once. It was wondrous. I met a lovely man there.”
“Oh?”
Isabella hums. “He was quite charming, all things considering.”
“I hear that the Duke of Cambridge is quite charming,” says Slade. He wraps an arm around Isabella's waist, guiding her farther down the walk. Small, pink flowers bloom alongside the cobbled path. Occasionally, vines with stunning white and purple blooms race up along the trunks of the oak trees.
“So I've heard,” says Isabella. “I'd rather not talk about him, however. Didn't you say you wanted to get to know me?”
“I did,” says Slade. “So I asked about your fiancée. Rumor has it, he's going to show up tonight.”
Isabella nearly trips over her own feet. The arm around her waist is the only thing holding her up. Slade is quick to brace her and demand, “Are you alright, Izzy?”
“I…what?”
“Are you alright?”
“No,” says Isabella, shaking her head. “What you said before that!”
“That the Duke was going to make an appearance tonight? Didn't you know that?” Slade smiles, and it seems dark, almost sinister.
Isabella's heart sinks. “No. I didn't. How did you find out about that?”
“I just heard it through the grapevine,” says Slade. “You don't look happy to see your fiancée. Are there troubles so soon?”
Isabella opens her mouth, and then snaps it shut again. She knows that she should not run her mouth about such personal affairs, but the young woman cannot help it. In a sort of final vindication against her family, she shakes her head.
“There are,” says Isabella, “or rather, there are not. I have never even met the man!”
“Not once?”
“No!”
Slade looks aghast. “How can they expect you to wed? That is simply ridiculous!”
“I feel the same way,” says Isabella. “But my mother won't listen. This will go on, whether I want it to or not.”
Slade is silent for a long moment. Finally, he asks, “Have you ever ridden on a motorcycle before?”
“What?”
“Have you ever ridden on a motorcycle before?”
“No,” lies Isabella, feeling strangely reluctant to share any more of her encounter with Gabe. “I have not.”
Slade holds out one hand. “Then you should come with me. I have a motorcycle. Not here, of course, I would have been flayed at the front entrance if I rode it here. But back at my house. Would you want to come take it for a spin?”
Just like with Gabe, Isabella has a hard time saying no.
She gives the resort one last look and then takes Slade's hand.
# # #
The parking lot is oddly dark. A few of the streetlamps have been turned off, no doubt because most of the partygoers have plans to stay in the resort overnight. That is what Isabella and her family plan to do, as well.
At least, that's what she planned on doing before this. Now, as she walks up to Slade's luxury sports car, she wonders where her night will take her.
It's not like it was with Gabe, of course. There's no primal desire to sleep with this man, no instant attraction that she just cannot explain. It's little more than anger and rage and resentment, all coming to one final head.
“I wouldn't have pegged you for this sort of car,” says Isabella with a tittering laugh.
Slade gives her a roguish smile. “It's not. I just borrow it from a friend when I have to come out to events like this.”
“I don't picture you coming to events like this,” admits Isabella, getting in the car.
Slade laughs this time, and the sound is bitter and loud. “I don't usually do that either. I just had to meet you.”
“You came out here just to meet me?”
That's almost disturbing, actually. Isabella frowns at him.
“I did,” says Slade. “I hope that does not sound strange. I just…you're such an idol! More than that, you're someone to respect. I heard about you on the television and thought—that's a woman I need to meet.”
Isabella isn't sure what to say to that. She asks, “What kind of bike do you have?”
“The best sort,” says Slade and won't answer any more questions on the matter. He turns the radio on. It's a loud, blaring rock song. Isabella doesn't like it near as much as the music she'd heard earlier in the day and can't help but compare Slade to the harsh sounds of the drums and the base.
And then, as they pull out of the parking lot and onto the empty stretch of highway, she can't help but wonder, I hope this isn't a mistake.
Chapter Seventeen
There's a bruise peeking out from the edge of Isabella's sleeve. It hurts, but that doesn't stop her from absently rubbing at the mark. The dark mark is vivid.
It's a wonder that no one's noticed it yet.
After announcing both her engagement and the soon-to-be arrival of a young babe, Isabella's life has become nothing but a blur of reporters and compliments.
“You're glowing,” insists her mother, but there's something stilted about the words. Alexandra brushes her knuckles against the side of her daughter's face. In that moment, she doesn't look like a queen. In that moment, she looks worn and used, desperate even.
Mostly, she looks tired.
Isabella understands. She feels tired, too. Still, she tries to smile, this wane and w
avering thing. “I'm gaining weight.”
“That happens,” says Alexandra with a bark of airy laughter. “You're going to gain even more as the pregnancy progresses. No worries, I'm sure that the Duke will take good care of you.”
It's hard not to bristle at the mention of her fiancé. All this time and Isabella still hasn't met him! She tries to point that out to her mother, but the Queen merely shakes her head.
“That's your own fault,” says Alexandra. “We had it set up for you to meet him at the last gala and you...you took off! Haven't you learnt your lesson yet? Haven't you realized how bad it is for you?”
“Bad it is?” Isabella snorts. “You're the only one that thinks it's bad news!”
“I've explained this to you,” sighs Alexandra. “I will love your child, no matter who the father is. But the circumstances behind his birth--”
“Don't say that,” hisses Isabella. “Don't say that it's a boy. You don't know that!”
“And you don't know that it won't be,” counters Alexandra breezily. She carries on with a wave of her hand, easily ignoring the young princess's demands. “Isabella, the circumstances behind that child's birth are simply unacceptable. You could have met your beloved last week, but you chose not to. That fault lays on your shoulders.”
“He's not my beloved!”
“He will be.”
“No, Mother, he won't be! I can't love a man that's willing to marry a stranger,” insists Isabella, shaking her head. She tugs the sleeve of her dress down again, unwilling to share that part of her life with her mother. “I'll never love him.”
Alexandra's eyes go small and dark. She shakes her head, as if there's something wrong with the world as a whole, as if the fault doesn't lay on her shoulders for trying to arrange this awful marriage, for trying to force a life of solitude upon her young daughter's shoulders. “Then it will be a very lonely future for you and your child. You're a fool.”
She leaves then, in a flurry of gauzy blue skirts and clacking heels. Isabella stands there in the room of her hotel, desperate and aching, both body and soul. The hurt is bone deep by now, the sort that will never actually go away.
Her mother is right.
Isabella is a fool.
# # #
That night, the window of her suite is left open.
It's a cool evening. The crisp autumn air brings about fond memories of growing up in the Royal Garden, where the maples were always changing colors, where the glass roof kept away the snow and the rain.
Isabella sits at the end of the couch, curled up with a book that she doesn't really like. It's a required read, though, according to her tutors at home, something that will really help teach her the ways of the world.
The print is small and black, boring and blurring together.
As such, when the sound of someone rapping lightly against the windowsill pierces the otherwise silent room, Isabella is overjoyed for more than one reason. She flings the book down on the coffee table, lurches to her feet, and spins around. “Gabe!”
Gabe grins at her, so full of confidence that it almost hurts. The man is broad-shouldered and handsome, the sort of raw sexuality that Isabella has only ever seen in movies. “I was hoping you'd still be up.”
“I was hoping you would come by.”
“Really? With this window sitting open, I couldn't tell.”
Isabella laughs. It's a watery sound. The pregnancy has her hormones completely out-of-whack. She cries at the drop of a hat and this, this is close to perfection, close to making things okay. “I just...I didn't know how to get a hold of you.”
“We'll fix that tonight,” says Gabe, clambering in through the window. His black combat boots leave dark smears on the pale yellow tile. There's motor oil smeared against the left leg of his white-washed denim jeans. “Are you just going to stand there, or do I get some loving?”
Isabella rushes forward, wrapping her arms around Gabe's shoulders. She buries her fingers in his dirty hair, in the back of his leather vest. “I've missed you,” she breathes. “I've missed you so much.”
“I'm not surprised,” says Gabe, lightly. “I'm a fucking missable person.”
It's meant to be a joke, but Isabella shakes her head. “No,” she says. “No, I've missed you, Gabe. I've missed you like I've never missed anyone else. You left and--”
“And you went off to meet your fiancé,” says Gabe, and there's no small amount of bitterness in his voice.
“I didn't meet him. I don't want to meet him.”
“I heard the news. I know he was at that party.”
“I didn't see him,” swears Isabella, and the thought of the party just makes her cling that much tighter to the man before her. “I didn't. I couldn't stand the thought of it, so I left. One last excursion, one last trip outside.”
Gabe is silent for a moment. Finally, he rests a hand on Isabella's hips, fingers curling in the pale green fabric of her gown. “Where did you go?”
“I went for a drive with someone,” admits Isabella, because the lies are weighing her down; she just wants someone to know. “Don't get angry. I didn't stay with him. He wanted me to, but I didn't. I'm not interested in staying with anyone else but you.”
The bruise on her wrist sparks just at the thought. It's proof that she didn't stay, even though that man—Slade—had wanted her to.
It's proof that she's strong, that she can live.
It's proof that she's still alive, even on the days where she just feels like a puppet strung up by golden threads.
Gabe's other hand presses against the small of Isabella's back. His fingers curl into the soft fabric of her dress, just beneath the place where the ribbon corset ends. “Of course you aren't. Why the fuck would you want to be with someone else?”
“I don't,” insists Isabella. “I don't!”
Gabe presses a kiss to the top of Isabella's head. His lips twist up into a knowing sort of smile. “You want to prove that to me?”
Isabella's breath catches in her throat. She nods, but the motion is jerking and harsh. “Could I?”
“Fuck, Izzy. I'm never going to say no to you. You're like a damn addiction. Can't get you out of my mind,” mutters Gabe, voice already thick with arousal.
She smiles, the first time in nearly a week. “Can we...go to the bedroom?”
Gabe hums, and then he shakes his head. “I think we should probably just stay out here.”
And, really, Isabella doesn't mind, so she doesn't argue.
Chapter Eighteen
They end up on the couch, at least, Gabe ends up on the couch. Isabella settles down between his legs, fingers curling against the denim-clad thighs. She looks up at him, eyes filled with hope, with love, and it makes something almost wild wake up in Gabe's chest.
He's harsher now than he ever has been before. Gabe grabs Isabella by the hair, pulling her closer. “Come on, Izzy. You can do things better, right? Show me that you meant what you said. Show me that you don't want anyone else.”
“I don't,” insists, Izzy, voice strained just a little bit. Her dainty hands run up the insides of Gabe's thighs, finally settling on the zipper for his jeans. It's not familiar, not yet, but it isn't foreign, either.
She tugs down the zipper with as much confidence as she can, unhooks the button, and slips a hand into the opening of his boxers.
Gabe takes a shuddering breath and spreads his legs a little wider. “Don't fuck around,” he urges.
“I’m just not good at this,” laughs Isabella. She looks up at Gabe, lips peeling back into a perfect smile.
“You’ll get better,” insists Gabe. “It’s just going to take a little bit of practice. You should be practicing now, you know. Come on, you open up that lovely mouth of yours, and I’ll teach you something special.”
“Like what?”
“Something I’ll really love.”
“Is it…difficult?”
Gabe snorts. “I thought you were going to say hard for a moment there.”“
> “I’m not a complete moron,” mutters Isabella sourly. She tightens her grip on Gabe’s cock, just a little. Gabe is well-endowed, in the best sort of ways. His cock is long but not ridiculously so, just thick enough that it fits comfortably in her loosely curled hand.
Isabella's grip grows tight as she starts working over his shaft. The lack of lube leaves her palm catching on the skin in spots, but it's quickly taken care of, with a few rubs over his flared head, by Gabe's own pre-cum.
