Royal Ruin

by Jessica Peterson

  “Sloan, do you mind giving us a moment?”

  “Of course.” She disappeared, the door closing behind her with barely a whisper.

  I turned to Aly, hands on my hips. “Out with it.”

  She didn’t hesitate. “I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, Em. This is a bad idea.”

  “Are you jealous of the fascinator?” It was a lame attempt at a joke, but the tension in the air was so thick I could cut it with a knife. I had to try something. “I could probably get you one if you wanted.”

  “The fascinator’s fucking adorable. Stop.” Aly uncrossed her legs. “I don’t think you realize just how much attention you’re going to get. Your face is going to be on every paper and computer screen across the world, Em. People are going to tear you apart. Do you really believe the royal family is going to keep you safe? Defend you?”

  I smoothed the dress over my thighs, the thick, buttery crepe like a dream. “I hope so. Either way, it’s worth the risk. After all the work we’ve done, and all the shit we’ve been through, don’t you want to win? This is our way out! God, how great is it going to be when Luke sees his nefarious little plan to ruin my life didn’t work out?”

  Aly was looking at me, a mixture of annoyance and sympathy in her eyes. “It’s been two years, Em. I thought you were over Luke.”

  “I am over him,” I replied, maybe a little too emphatically. “He texted me, by the way.”

  Aly’s eyes bulged. “Luke? What did he say?”

  “I guess he heard the rumors about my engagement.” The palace had been strategically leaking hints about a ‘big announcement’ that would be coming from the royal family this week. “The text was nasty. Basically said I was a gold digger with a past that would get me into trouble if anyone ever found out about it.”

  “He threatened you?” Aly said.

  I waved her away. “Whatever. By the time Luke can do any damage, this engagement will be over. I’m not worried.”

  “What an ass.” Aly was shaking her head. “Although I do have a bad feeling about this. You’re going to get hurt, Em. Whether it’s the monarchy that hurts you, or the press, or even Kit—”

  “Kit can’t hurt me,” I sniffed. “What happened in college…it won’t happen again. I know better than to get involved, and so does he. This is a business arrangement. Mutually beneficial. Nothing more.”

  She arched a brow. “Famous last words.”

  “Please.” I dropped my arms. “Please, Aly, I need you on my side on this. I didn’t have a choice. We’re out of options. I’m doing the right thing here. Or I’m trying to, anyway.”

  Aly let out a sigh. She stood and came to me.

  “Of course I’m on your side. I’ll always be.” She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a hug. I blinked back tears. “I’m just looking out for you, that’s all. You’ve been through a lot. It’s time you found a little happiness. And the royal family—they don’t seem like very happy people. I mean, you’re getting engaged to a dude they call the Ice Prince.”

  “Fake engaged. I’m getting fake engaged to the Ice Prince.”

  “Exactly.” Pulling back, Aly looked me in the eye. “Don’t forget the fake part, all right?”

  I swallowed. “I won’t.”

  * * *

  Aly’s warning rang in my ears as my chauffeured car pulled through the gates of Primrose Palace. It was a massive complex that was divided into several apartments, each one assigned to members of the royal family by the Queen. Kit kept the largest apartment there, while his younger brothers, Robert and Jack, lived in the cottage next door.

  My stuff—two measly suitcases and laptop bag—had been delivered to the palace earlier that day. Which meant I was officially moved in.

  The car moved smoothly into the well-kept palace courtyard. It was just getting dark, and the last rays of a weak winter sun streamed through the bare branches of the trees onto the driveway. The Palace itself was a majestic, Georgian style building, its enormous windows glowing warmly in the early evening gloom.

  My skin prickled with goose bumps. Did it ever get old, I wondered, being surrounded by so much history and beauty? This was a different world. A dream world.

  A world I definitely didn’t belong in. I was the scrappy girl from Georgia who loved her job and hated her ex-husband. I had more hang-ups than I knew what to do with. Britain needed a princess who wasn’t quite so jaded. Someone lighter and more hopeful and whole. That’s the princess I pictured in my mind, anyway.

  For now, though, I’d try to play the part as best as I could. Kit and I would announce our engagement in three days’ time, after we were seen out together on our first date tomorrow night.

  Kit’s front door opened before I was even out of the car. He stood in the doorway, wearing jeans and a sweater and an expression I couldn’t read. His eyes, so blue they seemed to glow in the growing darkness, followed my every move.

  I felt weirdly self-conscious as I made my way to the door. His handsomeness was a thing to behold. But I couldn’t behold it. Well, I could. But it had to stop right there. Because I could do meaningless sex, and I (hoped) I could do the hand-holding thing this fake engagement required. But I couldn’t do both with the same person. I knew my heart. Knew how soft and vulnerable it could get when I mixed sex with emotion.

  I knew how fucking awful and embarrassing it was to have that vulnerability used against me.

  “Hello,” he said, sliding his hands into his pockets.

  I tucked my hair behind my ear. “Hey.”

  “Everything go all right today?”

  “Everything was great,” I said. Adjusting my bag on my shoulder, I stepped up onto the stoop.

  “So,” I said.

  He looked at me. “So.”

  “We’re really doing this.”

  “We are.” He opened the door wider and held out an arm. “Welcome home, Emily. I’ll give you the tour.”

  Chapter Nine

  Kit

  “And this,” I said, pushing through the door at the end of the hall, “is the kitchen—”

  Turning my head, I stopped dead in my tracks in the doorway. My brothers were sitting at the island, both of them naked from the waist up.

  Oh, Jesus. Not now.

  Not bloody now.

  I’d wanted to ease Emily into life here at Primrose. Make these three months as painless as possible. I also wanted to draw a firm line between which parts of my life she’d be a part of, and which she wouldn’t.

  I wanted to keep her away from my siblings. Sure, Emily would interact with them as necessary for the cameras. But in private, there was no need for them to comingle. My siblings were my soft spot. I knew if they really interacted with Emily, got to know her, they’d like her. Who wouldn’t? It was why we’d picked her for the role.

  But I worried if they liked her, then maybe I would, too. It was a slippery slope from like to lust to…God knew what. Would she make me reckless all over again? I didn’t want to find out.

  “The lovebirds at last,” Rob said, wiping crumbs from his hands as he rose from his stool.

  “Finally!” Jack said. “We’ve been waiting all night—day—wait, what day is it again? We just woke up.”

  “Who is that?” Emily asked from behind me.

  “My brothers,” I ground out. As usual, Rob had made himself quite at home; the velvety scent of freshly brewed coffee filled the kitchen, even though it was half past five in the evening. It made me think of mum. She’d always been a big coffee drinker.

  “Oh! I’m so glad,” Emily said.

  “I’m not.” I turned my glare on Rob. “I thought we discussed this. I know you live next door, but you’ve got to be decent if you’re going to come over. What if the Prime Minister was visiting?”

  Rob looked down at his boxer briefs—he wore nothing else, naturally—then looked back up at me. “But I am decent. My naughty bits are covered. What else could you possibly want me to wear?”

  �
�Trousers, for starters.” I looked at Jack. He was wearing a shirt, but there was a—wait, was that a mushroom?—drawn in black marker on his forehead. “And you. What the hell is that on your face?”

  “What is it?” Emily whispered.

  I didn’t budge.

  Jack shrugged as he shoveled a soggy spoonful of cereal into his mouth. “Ask Rob. He’s the one who drew it.”

  “It’s a penis,” Rob said matter-of-factly.

  “Okay, now I have to see it,” Emily said.

  “Out,” I growled. “The two of you, get out, now, and don’t come back until that—that thing on your head is gone.”

  Rob responded by leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms. “We heard you’re getting engaged.”

  “We heard from the internet,” Jack added.

  I stiffened. I had planned on telling my siblings about the engagement later this week, after the news broke. It was admittedly weird that I hadn’t told them—that I hadn’t introduced Emily to anyone except Rob—especially considering how close the four of us were.

  But my intentions had been good. I wanted to protect my family; I wanted Rob and Jack and Jane to have plausible deniability if things went wrong. I had considered telling them the truth, but I decided against it. For starters, Jane would never allow me to put myself at risk on her behalf. And my brothers weren’t exactly models of discretion.

  The less everyone knew, the better.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” I said. “Emily and I had to keep things under wraps to prevent leaks—you understand.”

  Rob tipped his head to the side, studying my face. “I don’t, actually. The leaks happened anyway. And we’re your family, for Christ’s sake. We haven’t a clue who this lovely lady of yours is. Don’t you think that’s a bit odd?”

  Of course it was odd. It was a fake engagement. But Emily and I had to sell it to the media. My brothers were a much less discerning audience. Surely we could sell it to them, too? Maybe Emily meeting them in private like this wasn’t such a bad thing. She could help me make this whole charade seem more believable.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and let out a sigh. “Is there anything I can do to convince you to wash that thing off your head before you meet Emily?”

  Jack pursued his lips. “No. If she can’t love us at our worst—”

  “Then she doesn’t deserve us at our best,” Rob finished with a triumphant grin. “C’mon, Kit, let her in.”

  “Yes, Kit, let me in!” Emily said.

  Shooting my brothers one last glare, I stepped aside to reveal Emily. She moved forward, stopping at the threshold, and crossed her arms as she looked at Jack’s forehead.

  “I would’ve guessed it was a mushroom,” she said, mouth twitching.

  “Wishful thinking,” I muttered.

  “I’m afraid small penises run in the family,” Rob said. “But I’m sure you’ve already discovered that for yourse—”

  “One more,” I snapped. “One more penis reference, and I swear to God I’m kicking you both out and changing the locks.”

  Rob held up his hands. “Sorry, sorry. It’s just that we already feel so….at home with Emily. Come here, dear, and let me welcome you to the family! It’s so lovely to see you again. I knew the moment I set eyes on you that you were something special.” He held out his arms and strode over, wrapping her in a hug. Emily let out a pained breath when he gave her a squeeze. “Darling, you smell marvelous! Here, let me get a bit closer…I swear that’s just my wallet there…wait, these boxers haven’t got any pockets for a wallet…”

  Jesus Christ.

  “That’s quite enough,” I said, disentangling Emily from my brother’s paws. “Emily, you might want to wash your hands. You never know where Robert has been last or what diseases he might’ve brought home with him.”

  Jack barked with laughter. “Might want to wash ‘em twice today.”

  “Twice?” Emily was biting back a smile again. “Is that because he brought home two girls last night?”

  “Yes!” Jack’s whole face lit up. She was talking to them like regular people, too, and they were loving it just as much as I did. Shit. “How did you know?”

  Her eyes moved to Robert. “Lucky guess. Is that a new record for you, Rob?”

  He held a finger to his lips and shook his head. “A gentleman does not kiss and tell, Emily. But since we’re family now, I suppose there’s no harm in telling you that no, I am proud to say it is most decidedly not a new record.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I said. I’d warned Rob more than once that his dick would fall off if he wasn’t more careful with girls. I may have been the Ice Prince, but Rob took great pride in being the Playboy Prince.

  Emily cut a glance at me, her shoulders beginning to shake. Rob started laughing, too, and then Jack joined in, their laughs identical and deep and carefree.

  Bloody hell. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. The lot of them making fast friends over a shared love of dick jokes. Don’t get me wrong, I loved a good dick joke. But maybe that was the problem.

  I couldn’t laugh. If I laughed—it could be the start of that slippery slope, couldn’t it?

  I looked at Emily. There was no trace of heartbreak in her eyes. Only mischief. Mayhem.

  I bit my lip, hard. I wouldn’t smile. I wouldn’t smile. I wouldn’t smile.

  Even if my house suddenly felt like a home for the first time in years. Even if it felt like an actual family lived here, instead of an eternally sleep-deprived single bloke who lived on beer and cold leftovers.

  People, laughter, coffee. The things I’d grown up around. Our life as a family had been chaos—with four children in the house, how could it not?—but it had been happy and fun. It had been home.

  I dug my fingers into my chest, rubbing at the ache that had formed there.

  “You okay?” Emily asked, her laughter fading.

  I met her eyes. Not an hour after moving in, and already she fit right in here. She wasn’t put off by my brothers and their boxers and penis drawings. She wasn’t intimidated by them. She’d got them laughing, talking.

  God damn her.

  “I’m fine,” I clipped.

  I was fine.

  Chapter Ten

  Emily

  The Next Evening

  Date night. God, how I hated it.

  But it was a necessary evil at the moment. This was our big introduction. The first time Kit and I would be photographed as a couple. It was not an official engagement. But the press had been tipped off by an “anonymous” source that we’d be making an appearance tonight at Jeanette’s nightclub in Mayfair at approximately eleven P.M.

  It had been so long since I’d been on a date. A real date, one that didn’t end with me and the guy screwing in the backseat. Did I even remember how to do it?

  Did Kit the Ice Prince know how? Neither of us was especially cutesy or mushy. Were we going to fall on our faces?

  The cameras appeared as soon as our taxi pulled up to Jeanette’s. Immediately I was blinded by flashes. A spark of panic caught in my chest. I’d gone through days of prep for this moment. But now I wondered if you could ever be truly prepared for just how surreal it was. How overwhelming.

  I blinked bright dots from my vision. The tut tut tut of the engine filled the space between me and Kit in the backseat. I could smell his lemony aftershave. Still the same scent after all these years.

  My heart began to throb.

  “Look at me, Em,” Kit said.

  “I’m all right,” I said, the quiver in my voice totally giving me away.

  “Emily, please.”

  I turned to see him smiling at me. An adorably shy but still brilliant smile that had the word smitten written all over it.

  My heart did a backflip.

  This smile was fake. It had to be—I’d never seen it on him before. But it still hit me squarely in the chest. He was so fucking handsome when he smiled like this. So lit up. So cute. />
  Why didn’t he smile like this more often? What was keeping Kit from being genuinely happy, the way he was pretending to be right now? Was it his parents?

  The cameras were going wild; through the windows, I could hear the photographers shouting their questions.

  Kit, who is she?

  Lucky lad, she’s gorgeous!

  Keep smiling! Yes, that’s it!

  “You’re with me.” His eyes searched mine. They were steady. Sharp. “Everything’s going to be fine, I promise. I made sure there’d be plenty of liquor for us inside.”

  I managed a grin. “Then I think I’ll be okay.”

  The flashes increased.

  Kit passed the driver a hundred pound note—quite the tip, considering our fare had been fifteen pounds—then put a hand on the door handle. “You ready?”

  I nodded, taking a deep breath. “Ready.”

  The small crowd gathered on the sidewalk went wild when Kit stepped out of the cab. He turned back to me and held out a hand.

  Thanking the driver, I let Kit help me out of the cab; he dropped my hand as soon as I was on my feet.

  I prayed my hair still looked okay and that my jeans weren’t giving me a camel toe. I gave them a quick tug, just in case.

  And then I smiled at Kit, and he smiled back, and everyone went insane. In addition to the photographers who crowded the scene, there was a line of shivering people waiting to get into Jeanette’s. They pressed toward us, people crying out, oh my God, it’s him, it’s Prince Kit, look how cute they are together!

  Kit leaned toward me. Jesus, why did he have to smell so good? “I knew we’d make a cute couple.”

  “But are we sickeningly cute?” I arched a brow. “That’s the real question.”

  “We’ve got all night to get there, haven’t we?”

  I stayed close to him, still smiling for the cameras as a small army of black-suited men with earpieces ushered us through a VIP entrance. Kit kept glancing over his shoulder, making sure I was still there. Still okay.