by Calista King
Contents
Title Page
License Notes
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
AUTHOR'S NOTE
About the Author
MARRIED TO A PRINCE
by Calista Kyle
© 2013 Calista Kyle
All Rights Reserved
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This story is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is purely coincidental.
CHAPTER 1
Laila Greer had already said yes to her boyfriend's proposal when he told her he was a prince. Growing up in New York didn't prepare Laila for becoming a princess. There were no finishing schools or etiquette classes where she came from--no balls, soirees, or whatever else princesses did with their time. Her mother raised her by herself and she didn't know who her father was. Laila's mother worked two jobs trying to support them, and never inherited anything in life except a bad heart.
Laila knew she and Andreas came from completely different worlds when she first met him; she just didn't know how big that difference was. He seemed like any other pampered rich guy when he walked into The Standard Hotel in midtown to reserve a room. The fact that he could even afford a room at The Standard was tip off number one that they had nothing in common, with rooms starting at $500 a night.
She was working the front desk that day when she first spotted him through the glass revolving doors. He had an arrogant swagger about him that turned her off instantly. She'd seen guys like that too many times in her job--rich snobs who thought they could just snap their fingers and the world was theirs. She struggled trying not to roll her eyes, and stuck on her most professional fake smile as he rolled his suitcase up to her counter.
"Good afternoon, sir. How may I help you today?" she asked, her voice dripping with sweetness.
"Hello, yes. I'd like a room, please," he said.
Tip off number two was his crisp British accent. He sounded like Prince William or one of those other stuffy upper crust Brits you see on TV, Laila thought. In short, he sounded like money. Lots and lots of old money.
"Do you have a reservation?" she asked.
"Uh...no I do not. I had to come to New York on short notice, and didn't get the chance to make reservations. Do you have any rooms available?" he asked, giving her a sheepish smile.
"Let me check," she said turning her head away from him to stare down at the computer screen.
Laila was surprised by the sudden heat she felt when Andreas stood before her. His hair was dark and wavy and a stray lock hung over his brows. He had bright piercing blue eyes, a strong jaw, and a chiseled chin that had a cleft on the bottom. His lips were surprisingly full and sensual, and he had straight bright white teeth when he smiled. She couldn't deny that he was very good looking.
As she kept typing, she could feel his eyes on her. It wasn't the quick cursory glance that guests usually gave her, but an intense stare. Her heart was beating fast in her chest. She didn't know what the hell was wrong with her. She'd never had a reaction like this to a guest before. In fact, she'd never had this type of reaction to any man, period.
"How long do you plan on staying?" she asked.
"Two weeks, maybe longer," he said.
Laila quirked an eyebrow at him. She was curious about what brought this sexy stranger to New York on such short notice and without any fixed plans for leaving again, but she knew better than to ask. One thing the hotel trained her to do was to mind her own business.
"You're in luck. We do have a room available for check in today," Laila said.
"That's great! I'll take it," he said, his face splitting into a wide grin.
Laila couldn't help but be infected by his happiness. He looked like she'd just given him the best news in the world. She smiled back at him, genuinely happy that she was able to help him out.
***
Her smile lit up her whole face and Andreas had to suck in a small gasp at how beautiful she looked just then. He'd noticed her as soon as he walked into the hotel. She stood behind the long marble counter, her dark brown hair tied in a pony tail, laughing at something a co-worker had said. She had a beautiful laugh. It was deep, sensual and earthy sounding. Nothing like the high pitched twitters he'd been surrounded by all his life--girls who had to laugh behind hands as they looked up at him pretending to be coy and shy when he knew they were anything but. No, somehow he knew this beautiful woman wouldn't pretend to be anything she wasn't.
He pulled his suitcase up to the counter suddenly feeling nervous. When he reached her, he knew he had a stupid grin on his face. If he'd thought she was beautiful 50 feet away, she was a vision up close. Andreas drank up the sight of her from her full thick lips to her hazel eyes that looked at him with intelligence and a little bit of sass.
He almost didn't even hear her question and had to give his head a tiny shake to focus on what she was saying. Andreas felt like a schoolboy talking to a beautiful woman for the first time. It surprised him, since he'd had his fair share of beautiful women. Hell, they practically threw themselves at him where ever he went. Somehow, he had a feeling this woman wouldn't be so easy to win over.
"I'll need your ID to check you in, sir," she said, recalling his attention.
He handed over his ID card. It was the one he always used when he wanted to travel under the radar and handing over his diplomatic passport would be asking for too much attention.
She continued typing in his information, a smile playing on her lips. Andreas had the sudden urge to pull her up against him and kiss that smile from her lips. God, he thought, I really need to get a hold of myself. Andreas had to shake his head again and clear it of all the lustful thoughts of this woman. He was in a rush to finish checking in before he really embarrassed himself.
"Are you almost finished?" he asked. His voice sounded harsher than he intended, and he felt a minute stab of regret for being an ass, but he had to get out of there fast.
"Yes, I'll just need your credit card on file before I can check you in," she said, the friendly smile on her face replaced by a cold mask of civility.
Andreas handed over his black American Express card and looked around the lobby as she entered it into the system. He knew he couldn't look at her or he'd risk losing what little control he had over himself. He'd been a rude jerk to her and knew that she probably thought he was a stuck up prig, but he couldn't stay and defend himself just now
. He needed to get up to his room and take a cold shower.
She handed back his credit card and slapped his key on the counter.
"You'll be in room 1212," she said.
Andreas muttered a quick thank you and pulled his suitcase along after him. Once he got into the elevator he released a pent up sigh of frustration and relief. "Good grief!" he said to his reflection against the elevator doors. "What's gotten into you? You're acting like some horny little teenager."
He let out a bark of laughter realizing the absurdity of his situation. One meeting with a beautiful woman and he was reduced to talking to himself. Maybe I am going crazy? Maybe all the stress of the past few months had finally broken me? Andreas shook his head ruefully. He needed to forget all about women, especially beautiful goddesses like the hotel clerk. They would bring him nothing but trouble, and trouble was what he was trying to escape.
***
At 29 years of age, Andreas Stefan Luca Carstens De Berg, second in line to the throne in Castonia, had already built a reputation for himself. It wasn't a good reputation, by any stretch of the imagination, but he had slowly and steadily cultivated this reputation after years of hard partying and easy living.
He was known as a playboy, flirt, heart breaker, man whore, and someone who only cared for his own pleasure. In short, he was someone every parent warned their daughters away from. That had suited Andreas just fine. He wasn't looking to settle down anytime soon. All he wanted was a carefree life free from responsibilities.
He would spend the weekends partying with friends in Sardinia, and when the impulse took him, could abandon them and jet off to spend the week with a group of models on a yacht off the Caribbean Sea. He was never with the same woman for longer than a month. Often, he thought if he could keep living his life like this, he would be a very happy man.
Sometime during his 27th birthday, Andreas began to feel uneasy about his reputation. He was a smart man; he'd been educated in the finest schools in Europe, and yet people treated him like he was an idiot. He knew people didn't respect him, and that was partly his own fault. His parents regarded him as the black sheep of the family while his older brother and heir to the throne, Frederick, was the golden child.
He'd accepted his role as the "spare" all his life. In fact, he was grateful for it. It allowed him more freedom to live his life how he wanted to. Far from feeling jealous and envious of his brother's position, he was thankful. He wouldn't want to trade places with Frederick for all the money in the world.
And yet, he wanted something more. Beneath the carefree devil-may-care attitude he wore in public, Andreas was a thoughtful man. The hard partying lifestyle was taking its toll with each passing year and he felt like he was wasting his life with his frivolous partying and sleeping around. But he felt powerless to stop.
He began to feel like the only way his life would ever change would be from a miracle or disaster. That disaster happened in the form of a beautiful woman. At the time, he thought she was his miracle. She was the sister of one of his school friends. Caroline Hess. He thought he'd fallen in love at first sight.
Andreas learned the hard way that appearances could be deceiving. Outwardly, she was every man's dream come true. He thought she was a sun kissed golden goddess, with ice blue eyes the same shade as the cloudless sky. Her speech, manners, and the way she carried herself all pointed to a woman who had grace, elegance, and serenity. This was a woman who he could change his life for. She would help him be the man he knew he could be--one he'd wanted to be all his life.
But he'd been tricked by her beauty. Beneath the lovely exterior was the heart of a scheming, lying, social climbing whore who'd stop at nothing to get what she wanted. She was very good at making him believe she loved him, but the whole time she was plotting against him. Before he even realized it, the rug had been pulled right out from under him. He'd played right into her hands and gotten burned, badly.
In some way, he thought he deserved what happened to him. It was karma for all the bad things he'd done in his life. The scorn, ridicule, and judgment were heaped upon him in droves. He couldn't go anywhere or do anything that wasn't scrutinized and examined with a fine toothed comb.
Andreas gave an involuntary shiver just remembering that time. He couldn't even bring himself to think of Caroline or what she'd done to him. No, the past was best left in the past, he told himself. He'd spent the past year feeling sorry for himself, drowning his sorrows in bottle after bottle of alcohol. His family finally had enough of it. A harmless playboy they could live with, even tolerate. But Andreas was slowly slipping farther and farther down a dangerous path. His family knew they had to stop him before he was lost to them forever.
They picked him up and sent him off to a "retreat" to clean himself up. It had been hard at first. He was angry and belligerent, mocking the staff and not taking anything to heart. He thought his family had abandoned him too and left him to rot away with the least inconvenience to themselves.
Andreas didn't know when his attitude started to change, but slowly it did. It was a humbling experience for him and he vowed then and there to turn his life around. He'd been given a great opportunity to do some good in the world, and he was squandering it away. Now was the time to finally become the man he'd always wanted to be.
One afternoon about a month after he had returned, his mother called him into her sitting room and told him to pack his bags. He was headed for New York. He would be heading up their family's interests in their real estate holdings company. He knew the real reason for sending him away was a test. It was time for him to grow up.
CHAPTER 2
Laila had never met any man named Andreas before. Andreas De Berg. That was the name on his ID. It sounded foreign, European and strangely sexy. She had tried hard not to show the surprise and hurt she felt when he'd spoken to her so rudely. Sure it was only a quick sentence, and maybe he had his reasons, but that didn't stop it from stinging a little. Laila had thought he was different and there was a look in his eye that gave her goosebumps.
She shook her head at her thoughts. Damn, I need to get this guy off my mind. He's not thinking about me and I sure as hell won't waste my time thinking about him, she berated herself. As if to underscore her point, she gave her head a hard shake as if that would help jumble him out of her thoughts.
"Hey Laila, whatcha doing there?" Gary the porter asked, walking up to her counter.
"Oh nothing, just got a crick in my neck," she lied, embarrassed for being caught.
"That's not gonna help you get rid of your crick. I'd be surprised if you didn't injure yourself further shaking it around like that," he said.
"Yeah, you're probably right. So what are you doing in here today? I thought you had the day off?" she said.
"I do. I'm here to pick up Honey."
Honey was Gary's granddaughter who recently got a job at the hotel as a maid. The young girl had just graduated from high school and was using the job to try to make money to pay for college. She was a bright kid with a good head on her shoulders, and everyone knew she was the apple of her granddad's eye.
"Do you want me to ring housekeeping for you?" Laila asked.
"Naw, don't bother. She'll be down when she's finished. Besides, I wanted to ask you how the audition went," Gary said.
Laila pursed her lips as heat flooded her face. She wanted to forget all about that audition like a bad nightmare, but she had been so excited beforehand that she told everyone about it. It was only natural for Gary to ask how it went. With more cheeriness than she felt, she gave Gary a tight smile before answering.
"I thought it went okay. They said they'd call me if I got the part, but they had to audition some more people first."
Something about Laila's tone of voice caught Gary off guard. He had a feeling she wasn't being completely honest and asked her point blank what really happened. Laila was on the verge of doubling down on her lies, but then thought better of it. Gary had been like a father figure to her, and she neede
d to tell someone the truth. She leaned closer and looked around to make sure no one could eavesdrop. When she was satisfied of their privacy, she spoke in a hushed tone. "It wasn't even a real audition Gary. It was for a...a...porno." Laila said the last word in a whisper.
Gary's eyes widened as he looked at her. "Why would they send you out to audition for one of those movies?" he asked.
"Beats me, but you can bet I let my agent have it when I got out of there. You wouldn't believe how shady everything was."
"Oh I can imagine," Gary said shaking his head. "That wasn't right, what they did. The next time you go to an audition, you just let me know. I'll go with you so you're not at some seedy location alone with these creeps."
Laila was touched by Gary's offer and she placed her hand atop his old wrinkled one on the counter and squeezed. "Thanks Gar. I appreciate it, but you can't take the time off work. Besides, I doubt I'll be going to any more auditions anytime soon."
"Why's that?" he asked.
"Cause my agent quit on me when I told him I couldn't go through with it," she answered.
"You did the right thing," he said, nodding his head.
"Yeah well, without an agent, it's hard to get parts. No one's gonna pick up my phone calls," she said.
Gary patted her hand in a fatherly gesture. "Don't you be so down on yourself. You just gotta keep your head up and good things will come to you," he said.
"I sure hope you're right. I could use a bit of luck in my life right about now," Laila said.
It was true. The past year had been hard for Laila. Her mother got sick last year and was in and out of the hospital unable to work. She recently passed away leaving Laila not only with a gaping hole in her heart, but mountains of medical bills and funeral costs as well. Laila was just barely surviving. Each day it was like she was just trying to keep her head above water. She was tired of the struggle and fighting every day to make ends meet.
The acting job she was sent to by her agent was supposed to be her big break--something good that would lift her out of the rut she'd been in the past year. The job paid very well. More than enough to cover her rent that month. She just wanted it so badly.
