Once Upon A Scandal: Royally Screwed: Book 6

by Faye, Madison

  Once Upon A Scandal

  Royally Screwed: Book 6

  Madison Faye

  Contents

  Free Books Offer

  Once Upon A Scandal

  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

  Epilogue

  Also by Madison Faye

  Mailing List

  About the Author

  Copyright Notice

  Copyright © 2018 Madison Faye

  Cover: Coverlüv

  Photography: Wander Aguiar

  Models: Andrew Biernat, Forest Harrison, Adrea B

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  Once Upon A Scandal

  Once upon a time, a nobody met a prince.

  Then she met his best friend, a second prince.

  Then she learned they like to share, and that’s when things got interesting.

  That’s when things got downright scandalous.

  My life has never been a fairytale. Absent parents, a grandmother gone too soon, and a job working the kitchens for the most heinous bitch in the Kingdom of Bandiff.

  But that’s before I sneak into the hottest royal ball on the planet. That’s before I waltz right into them.

  The McDermott Princes. Princes, plural. There’s two of them – both gorgeous beyond belief, alpha as hell, and more tempting than sin. Both with their eyes on me and both with that look that says that I’m theirs.

  Two princes, one baker. This might sound like too many cooks in the kitchen, but they say they like to share. They say they’ll tear their whole kingdom down to make me theirs. They say they want to make me their Queen.

  Pretty soon, breaking into a royal ball is the least of my problems.

  This is a disaster waiting to happen. It’s filthy, and oh-so-wrong. It’s a royal scandal of epic proportions, and I’m right in the middle of it.

  …I’m right in the middle of them.

  Maybe this is a fairytale after all. Ever heard of the cook who found a crown? How about two crowns? Two big, dominant, mouthwatering, pulse-quickening crowns.

  I’ve never found a happy ever after. Now, I think I’m about to find two of them.

  Chapter 1

  Vi

  Heat pounded through my skin — my pulse roaring like fire through my ears and through my veins. I swallowed thickly, my bottom lip catching between my teeth as they raked across it.

  This was wrong.

  It was filthy — without even touching, without even doing anything physical, it was. I knew that. I was dirty, and naughty.

  …And it made me feel alive.

  All that and forbidden, of course, given who they were. Or who I was. Or that I was there to begin with because I’d pretended to be who I wasn’t — because I’d snuck into a place and into a world I had no business being in. Their world.

  I shivered under their gazes — theirs, plural. As in, two of them. Two men, and not just any men, no. Two gorgeous, powerful, huge, built, fierce and intense men, staring right at me.

  Two princes, at that. Two actual, royal princes.

  Two sets of eyes trailed over me, undressing me with their gazes, pulling my clothes from my skin under the intensity of those stares. Two sets of perfect, soft and yet ruggedly masculine handsome lips glistened temptingly in the low light of the kitchen. One opened his mouth, his tongue running over his bottom lip as if to tease me even more. The other brought his hand up, his finger raking over his chiseled perfect jaw, his thumb teasing over his own lips.

  The walls holding up my willpower began to crumble even more. The defenses I’d always surrounded myself in cracking under the heat of those gazes.

  They moved closer, and I gasped quietly.

  “So why don’t you show us?”

  I bit my lip, trembling as my eyes darted between them. Two. There were two of them. Two of them, one of me, and all alone in the baking kitchen of the palace. A naughty Cinderella story in the making, like something out of a romance book. Like something out of a fantasy that I’d barely ever even admitted to myself that I’d dreamed of.

  And yet, there we were. Two gorgeous, dominant, fiercely sexy princes.

  And me.

  All alone, the heat rising, the distance between us closing, and the aching need blazing through me getting hotter and more impossible to ignore.

  “Show you what? I whispered, my tongue darting over my own lip. The two of them caught the movement, one growling audibly, the others swearing under his breath as their eyes locked onto my lips. Like they were jungle cats who’d just spotted prey for dinner. Like they were two men who’d just staggered out of a month in the desert, and my lips were water.

  They looked at me with a hunger and a want that no one had ever looked at me with before. Not even close. They looked at me like I was the only thing in the world they ever wanted to be looking at.

  “You know,” the other growled lowly, both moving closer. “Show us, beautiful.”

  “Show you wha —”

  “Everything,” his brother growled. “Show us everything.”

  They moved right into me, and suddenly, the spark caught, and the fire engulfed us all. I gasped as four hands slid over my body, running over the dress that wasn’t even mine, sliding across my hips. Those two sets of perfectly impossible to ignore lips moved against my neck, making me cry out as they found the soft skin there.

  “This is… this is crazy,” I managed to gasp.

  “You’re welcome to walk away at any time,” one groaned into me, his hand sliding into my hair and tangling it in a fist.

  But even if it was true, I knew no part of me would. I knew not a single cell in my body would let me walk away from them right there, not after those lips on my skin, and those words in my ear. Not after those hands pulled me tight to them.

  Two princes, and me. All alone as the heat engulfed us, and as I started to fall.

  This was wrong. It was filthy. Scandalous, even. Oh, but it was happening. And it was happening right now. My pulse roared in my ears, my skin erupted in fire, and as the two of them moved to take me, I melted into them.

  …But, maybe I should back up and start at the beginning.

  Chapter 2

  Vi

  The big oven door slammed shut, and I exhaled deeply. Air puffed out my cheeks as I moved back to the stool next to the big wooden kitchen table and sank into it. Sweat trickled down from my headband, and as I reached for my water with one hand, I wiped the other across my brow to dry it. Dry, but now with a big streak of baking flour across it.

  Eh. Whatever. Who the heck was I trying to impress?

  I drank deeply before I set the cup down, taking another big breath before I stood again. This time, I made sure to set the timer for the oven before I went over to the big industrial refrigerator to start in on the next course for the night.

  The dinner wasn’t for me, though, this was the house I lived in. It was for her, the witch that’d taken over this big old house year
s before. Marta and her two godawful daughters, Portia and Renata. Now, don’t get me wrong — I loved to cook, and cooking for them was my job, technically. It wasn’t like I was their slave. Well, not legally at least. The pay was shit enough that it might as well have been slavery, and if you added in their absolutely deplorable behavior and lack of any manners or decency, it was doubly so.

  But then, at least I could hide. I was just the help, and always had been. I could dodge away from the ire of Marta and her girls, even if it meant sweating my ass off in the kitchen trying to get their enormous dinner ready. No, Emilia had it worse. Emilia my best friend, who had the absolutely shit luck off being Marta’s stepdaughter. She had it worse than me since she was basically their cleaning lady and laundry bitch. But then, she also couldn’t escape them. She wasn’t necessarily the help, she was worse in their eyes. She was scum — a reminder of the good that used to be in this house before Marta had come and destroyed it.

  It hadn’t always been like this. Years before, the house had been filled with love and joy. Back then, it was my grandmama, Helen, who ran the big kitchens of this huge old manor. And back then, it was Emilia’s mother and father who filled it with love. Her mother had died young, and though he’d waited for almost ten years with a broken heart, eventually, her father had met Marta, and married her.

  That’s when the clouds came.

  Emilia’s father, Lord Kinsey of Bandiff, passed not long after the marriage, and ever after, Marta became the shadows that befell the house. She made Emilia her slave, basically, treating her like dirt as she moved her two horrible daughters in, who did the same. I’d always cooked alongside my grams, but I’d had plans to go off to art school and be a painter. But Emilia’s dad wasn’t the only tragedy that year.

  When my grams passed… Well, art school was off the table. For one, I was out of money, and Marta was claiming “back-owed wages” that my grams had “stolen” with what she claimed were wasted hours. It was total bullshit, but how the heck would I even begin to fight Marta in court about it? I was broke after all, and she had the wealth of Emilia’s father. And then there was Emilia herself, my best friend. I knew I couldn’t just leave her alone with those horrible women.

  So I stayed, and years later, there I was, sweating my ass off in the basement kitchens while Marta, Portia, and Renata tried on gowns.

  Oh, and this was no ordinary dress fitting.

  The invitations had come the other day — a summons to a ball up at King Rian’s castle. King Rian — yikes, how do I even describe him? Well, for starters, our King here in Bandiff wasn’t like other kings. Not like you might picture them in finery and gold, preening about for cameras with charming smiles.

  Nope.

  King Rian belonged to a sort of “outsiders” group of royalty who almost thumbed their noses at the whole royal thing. Rian was more of a rock star than king. He dressed like he was on his way to a concert on a motorcycle or something, and that sleeve of tattoos didn’t really help. Neither was the company he kept. Men like one of his closest political advisors, the sexy in that hot older man way Duke Xavier Danes. Or King Hayden of Rince. A few months before, Xavier made headlines marrying his much younger ward, the Lady Lola. Hayden had made even bigger ones by stealing another King’s bride, on her damn wedding day.

  And then there were guys like the McDermott brothers — princes of Nessa. They were just as “un-royal” as Rian. Just as gorgeous too. More so in my humble opinion…

  I sighed, shaking my head as I started dicing radicchio for the salad neither Marta, Renata, or Portia would probably even touch. Who knew about all these royals. I never paid any of it much attention outside of the gossip magazines in the grocery store check-out aisle. I mean, I was the furthest from “royal” you could get, after all. Emilia was a tiny bit closer, I guess. Her father had been a Lord of Bandiff, after all. I guess that made her a “lady,” but it was a moniker we both joked at.

  …Kinda like how I joked with her about her massive freaking crush on King Rian.

  I mean, it was right there on her face every time he was on TV or anything. Like, if he were a movie star or something instead of a king, and there were posters of him like DiCaprio or that guy from the BDSM romance movie? Oh, Emilia would have totally had one up in her room. She'd have hidden it, or tried to, but she was never as sneaky as she thought she was. I’d have known. Just I like knew she would have one if it existed.

  So, I knew that made today’s dress fitting of her wicked stepmother and sisters even worse. They were getting dolled up for this ball King Rian was throwing to find a queen. Like, legit, that was a thing. Welcome to life in a kingdom, where our king was holding a freaking dance to find the woman he’d end up marrying. I rolled my eyes at the thought as I whipped eggs and oil for the dressing.

  Give me a break. No thanks.

  Just the same, and even if I knew she thought it was silly too, I knew Emilia was peeved. Heck, it’s not like her awful stepsisters had a chance — not to be cruel, but those two were every bit as awful on the outside as they were on the inside. But, some girl tonight would meet Rian, steal his eye and his heart, and wind up his queen. I knew that thought sucked for my friend with the crush.

  Dinner prep done, I finally threw away my apron and skipped out of the kitchen to my small quarters to get showered.

  ****

  “So, that sounded like a ton of fun earlier.”

  Emilia laughed, almost choking on her wine as she giggled at me. “Oh, yeah, a blast.”

  Earlier, even from my own quarters in the tiny room off the kitchens, I’d heard Marta and her girls tearing the poor dressmaker a new asshole over the dresses he’d brought for them. The thing was, the stupid dresses could have been perfect, and those bitches would have found something to complain about. As it happens, apparently they weren’t perfect.

  Well, let me put that correctly. They were perfect for the dimensions Renata and Portia had pretended to be. The reality of course, was different. No, I wasn’t trying to body shame Emilia’s horrible stepsisters or anything like that. I mean, heck, I had curves I barely knew what to do with. But they were the type of girls who always tried to be something they weren’t, shape-wise.

  I knew for a fact that Portia had gone out of her way to wear as much Spanx as humanly possible for her fitting, which of course meant her dress today had been entirely too small for her curvier frame. On the other side of coin, rail-thin Renata had worn padded bras, a stuffed fake butt for crying out loud, and padded tights made to add more sensual curves for her fitting. I could only imagine how goofy her dress had looked without them.

  The poor dressmaker though.

  “So did Marta tear that poor guy a new asshole?”

  “Two new ones,” Emilia said with sour face. She took a sip of the cheap wine we were drinking out of coffee mugs in the kitchen.

  “So how hilarious did the two bitches look wearing those dresses once their Spanx and push up bras were off?”

  Emilia cracked up again. “I missed that part, sadly.”

  “Well, I’m sure now that they’re getting nice new ones, there’s no way King Rian will be able to resist them.”

  The both of us cracked up this time, sputtering on wine as we took our digs out on the awful women who lived in the house above us, who made both our lives pretty crummy whenever they wanted to.

  Finally, Emilia sighed as she looked down into her mug. "What do you think he’s really into?”

  I knew who she was talking about.

  “King Rian?” I shrugged. “Who the hell knows, but I guess he hasn’t found it. Maybe it is whipping people and tying them up, and ball gags and all that.”

  Oh, the tabloids LOVED to come up with weird shit about our king. I mean the guy was still without a queen, and never seen with a date or anything, naturally, the gossip mags went wild with that. And really, they did the same to all sorts of the royals in Rian’s circle of “non-royals”. There were plenty of tabloids who mocked Hayden, fo
r instance, for having stolen his bride away, even if I thought that was pretty damn romantic. There were plenty of stories about the McDermott brothers too — that they were gay, or too kinky, or whatever else the gossip rags could come jump with to explain why two really good looking guys, with their money and influence, would be single.

  Who knew though. Maybe they were aliens. Or lizard-people or something.

  “So did Marta burn those dresses?” I speak to clear both of our thoughts, because I could see Emilia stewing over there about the ball she wasn’t going to.

  “Nope.”

  My brow went up as I saw the grin spread across her face. “No?”

  “I, uh...” Emilia winked mischievously. “I may have taken them. You know, for safe keeping.”

  My jaw dropped. “Um, we’re trying them on, now.”

  “Vi, c’mon —”

  “Nope, let’s go!” I slammed back the rest of my wine and jumped off my stool, grabbing my best friend.

  “C’mon, it’ll be fun!”

  ****

  Fun? More like amazing. More like, how is this even possible?

  “Holy shit.”

  I just stared — in awe at our reflections in the mirror of Emilia’s basement room. We looked amazing.

  “We look fancy as fuck."

  She grinned, shaking her head silently as she twirled. I mean, I wasn’t wrong. Emilia slipped into this gorgeous emerald green dress that apparently hadn’t fit Portia at all. But on Emilia’s lithe, thin frame? The thing looked like it’d been tailor made for her. I’d put on this shimmery blue gown that Renata had thrown a shit-fit about. Without her padded bras and fake butt, the thing had probably looked ridiculous. But, with my curves? Yeah, I looked fucking hot — like Jessica Rabbit or something, about to sing some jazz to Roger.