“Lucian!”
My voice rings out before he can take another step toward the door that’ll lead him toward his chambers. My brother’s face sours, greed blazing with resentment. I stop inches from the girl, whose dress straps keep slipping from her shoulders. Her purse falls to the ground, and she bends over, attempting to pick it back up. I catch her skinny arm before she can trip, and stoop down to grab the black purse.
“Thanks.”
“Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
Lucian gives me a thin-lipped smile. “Brother, this is Jessa. Jessa, Prince Liam. We were just heading to my room.”
“Ah’m please’d meet you. Prints—prince—”
“Liam,” he supplies helpfully.
“Liam.”
Disgust burns in the pit of my stomach. “She can barely get a sentence out.”
“She can sleep it off in my room.”
I’ve seen the trail of devastation he leaves, the women stumbling from his room, crying. Usually with a purse full of cash.
“So you got her pissed and decided to bring her home out of the kindness of your heart?”
Empty blue eyes stare back at me. “What the fuck do you care how I get my dick wet?”
A violent image of myself grabbing Lucian by his blond hair and crashing his face through the car window fills me with grim satisfaction. Something has always been deeply wrong with my brother, and nothing, not even a good beating would fix him. I might not be able to fix him, but I will stop him.
Jessa’s slurred laughter suddenly breaks the tension. “Dick!”
I turn my attention toward her. “C’mon. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“The valet will take you home. Greg!”
Lucian grabs me. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Taking her away from you.”
“Oh this is fucking rich. You get on cruise ships and fuck whores, but I’m not allowed to fuck one drunk bitch?”
“I prefer them awake enough to remember my name.”
“Fuck you, Liam.”
“You’re a prince. It shouldn’t be that hard to get a willing girl in your bed. Maybe you should ask yourself why women are so reluctant to touch you.” He bristles as Greg returns to my side, the Mercedes still running. “Where are you from, Jessa? Where’s your home?”
“Warwick.”
Lucian pouts like a dog who lost his bone as I help tuck Jessa in the backseat of the car. She falls across the seats, her eyes already rolled up in her head, and I shut the door.
The red tail lights from the car wash over Lucian, who looks at me, still wearing that menacing grin as if the dumbfuck knows something I don’t.
The car drives around the circle, the headlights illuminating the stone walls as they sweep around, and then it disappears through gate.
“I don’t know where the fuck you get off telling me who I can and can’t fuck.”
“I know about the girls. It ends now.”
I’m not satisfied until the smile turns bitter, and then a dart of panic hits me. He’ll become king if I screw up. If the world hates Anglefell now, they’ll hate us even more if my brother succeeds the throne.
I watch him disappear into the shadows, and I turn back toward the dungeons, where Daisy will be no doubt freezing from the lack of heating. A guard leans back against the door as he thumbs through his iPhone. He’s playing Candy Crush. I know because I recognize the music from the game. The screen lights up his bored face in flashes of pink and blue. I can’t blame the man. Why the fuck we need guards when we currently have one prisoner sitting in our dungeon is beyond me.
“I’m here to see the prisoner.”
The guard has a minor panic attack when he notices me standing there. “Of course, Your Highness. I apologize.”
I wave off his apology as he opens the door. Then I descend the steps. The dungeons are like a cold cellar. My fingers curl into my palms as I walk down the cellblock. The lights flicker on as I walk past, and then I stop in front of Daisy’s cell. She’s huddled in a corner, her arms underneath her t-shirt to hug her chest for warmth. They couldn’t have thrown her a fucking blanket? I peel the jacket from my shoulders as Daisy lifts her head from her arms.
“What’s h-happening?”
“I’m taking you out for a walk. Put this jacket on; you’re freezing.”
She stands and pushes her arms through her t-shirt, her teeth chattering madly. The cell door opens, and I offer the jacket to her.
“W-what about you?”
“I’m used to the cold. Put it on.”
Daisy slips into my jacket, sighing as she presses her cheek against the fur lining. I take her hand, which feels like a block of ice, and lead her out of the cell.
I’ve got to think about the best way to break this to her. Somehow, I don’t think she’ll respond well to me bending at the knee and offering my hand in marriage. Of course, the look on her face would probably be worth it for that alone.
We reach the door, and the guard does a double take when he looks behind my shoulder.
“The king has commanded me to keep the girl here.”
The king is an old bat.
“And now he has commanded me to bring her to him.”
The guard fixes me with a doubtful stare, and I cock my head at him.
Go ahead. Call me a liar.
He won’t, of course, but chances are he’ll probably get suspicious if I never return with her. Oh well. Daisy and I walk past him up the stairs into the courtyard. She throws me a look over her shoulder, her eyes wide.
“Are you busting me out?”
“Hardly. I have a proposal for you.” My lips pull into a slight smirk at “proposal.” Damn, I’m such an ass.
“What is it?”
“Not here.”
I lead her under the cover of darkness, slipping into a passage through the courtyard. Then I bring her through the maze of gift shops, the armories that haven’t been used for centuries until I find the stables. They’re probably the most well-kept stables in existence. I don’t know any other place that makes an actual effort in keeping the stables sparkling clean. Even the horses look immaculate. Their hides gleam as though they were spritzed with oil. Daisy looks into a stall, raising herself on her toes and making her cute ass perk up. The black Thoroughbred inside the stall bows his magnificent head, and Daisy smiles. She looks at me, excitement flushing her cheeks.
“Are we going to steal a horse and ride away from the castle?”
“I’m not stealing you away, love. I just want to show you something. Or did you want me to steal you away to ravish you?”
She rolls her eyes as I walk down the row of stalls, finding the stable hand nearly sleeping with his head in his hand. He jumps to his feet as soon as he recognizes me.
“I’d like to take a short ride with my friend.”
“Of course, my prince. Two horses?”
“No, just one. Shadowfax.”
“Very good, sir.”
Daisy gives me a wry grin as the stable hand disappears into a stall. “Shadowfax? Isn’t that from Lord of the Rings?”
“You bet your sweet American ass it is.”
Moments later, Daisy’s face lights up in transports of delight as the stable hand leads a horse from the stables. She’s as white as fresh snow, except for the insides of her ears and her snout, which looks as though she stuck her nose in a bin full of charcoal. Daisy runs her hands over the horse’s hide.
“Will you require your riding boots?”
“No, they won’t be necessary. We won’t be gone long. Thank you, Eric.”
I grab the pommel of the saddle and use the stirrup to swing my body over the horse. Then I sit back and extend my hand to Daisy. She grabs it, and I help her mount. I get a nice view of her ass as she climbs over the saddle, and then I wrap my arms around her to grab the reins. I hear the catch in her breath when she feels my breath on her ear.
“Relax and sit back, or you’l
l fall.”
I nudge Shadowfax with my heel, and she trots forward. Daisy lets out a squeal as her back hits my chest. We ride out of the castle, and the guards open the gate the moment they see me. Shadowfax’s hooves clip-clop loudly over the cobblestone road, and I pull immediately on the reins to veer to the right, bypassing the road to cut through a forest still lit by the floodlights on the castle.
“Oh my God. Slower, please. Slower!”
I laugh into her ear, enjoying the warmth of her body against mine. “You sound like you’re giving me directions during sex.”
“I’m sorry that your perverted mind immediately jumps to sex.”
“It does when you’re around, love.”
“God, I’m so sick of you saying that!”
I hold the reins in one hand, the other wrapped around her waist. I yank her into my chest, feeling her wild heartbeat underneath my fingers, and her ice-cold cheek slides against mine. Daisy sinks into me with a sigh, and I turn my head, brushing my lips over her ear.
“Tell me now you don’t want to fuck me.”
“I d-don’t actually.”
“Then why are you stammering?”
“It’s cold.”
“You’re on a romantic nighttime ride on the most beautiful horse you’ve ever seen with an extremely hot, sexy prince who wants into your knickers. If you’re not in a mood to fuck, then my name isn’t Prince Liam.”
“You know, that’s not how romantic gestures work. One: you actually have to mean them. Two: the girl can’t be your prisoner.”
“What are you talking about? There are loads of Stockholm Syndrome romances.”
I can practically hear the eye-roll in her voice. “Okay, enough. Where are we going?”
“You’ll see in a few minutes.”
For the rest of the ride, I hold Daisy’s waist and weave Shadowfax through the trees until we reach a clearing. I’m lucky there’s a full moon illuminating the path, otherwise I’d be shit out of luck. Up ahead, there’s a six-foot fence with barbed wire. I dig my heels into the horse’s sides, and she breaks into a canter.
“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod! Liam!”
“Haven’t you been on a horse before?”
“No!”
We rock back and forth as Shadowfax canters toward the fence and then slows to a trot. I walk her toward the barrier, which stops right before a bottomless ditch filled with giant, white blocks.
“Look.”
Daisy cranes her neck, the color draining from her face as she peers through the fence into the quarry. She says nothing for a long time, her hair fluttering around her face like a black shroud.
“Did you bring me here to gloat?”
“No, I brought you here to show you what you’re in for if you don’t accept my offer.”
“Which is?”
“Let’s get down. My balls are starting to ache.”
The faint happiness I saw in her eyes fades as I dismount Shadowfax and hold out my hand for Daisy. She drops to the ground with an elegant hop I wouldn’t have expected from someone who never rode a horse.
The chain-link fence rattles as Daisy hooks her fingers through the links, gazing down into the abyss.
“You can’t see it, but there’s a jail across that gaping hole where all the—ah—workers live. That’s where you’ll go once you start your new job, and if you didn’t enjoy your stay in the dungeons, you’ll like the prison encampment even less.”
“Ten years… of this.”
“It wouldn’t be ten years. My dad’s not going to last long. He’s very ill.”
Hope dawns on her face. “With what? Cancer?”
“Pancreatic cancer. It’s only a matter of time before the old bastard kicks the bucket, and then I’ll become king. The first thing I plan to do is demolish the hard-labor prison camps, but it could be months, a year even, before he dies.”
“I’m glad you’ll get rid of that horrible place.” Her face is livid with fear.
“Daisy, you won’t last a month down there. Some of the boulders are fifty pounds, and your job is to climb all over that rocky terrain while carrying stones that could crush your spine. It’s dangerous. I’ve seen the people who work there every day. Trust me, you don’t want to do this.”
“I know I don’t!”
Her voice carries over the pit, bouncing back on the farthest wall.
“There’s a way out, but you won’t like it.”
“What?”
Fuck.
“Just tell me!”
“We get married.”
“Stop joking around!”
“I’m serious.”
Her hands freeze on my shoulders as she gives me a look of abject terror. “Are. You. Insane?”
“King Jonathan will die and the labor camps with him, but I don’t know how long that will take, and you probably won’t survive the camps anyway.”
“Oh God.”
“My father wants me married by the end of the month or I’ll lose my claim to the throne. If we get married, you don’t have to spend the remainder of my father’s life breaking your back and I don’t have to spend the rest of my life married to some empty-headed, high-society girl.”
“Are you fucking crazy?”
I’m impressed by the sheer volume of her voice coming from such a tiny chest. Are all American girls so loud?
“I think it’s a brilliant plan myself.”
“We can’t get married!”
“Sure we can!” I roar back. “I’m a prince—I can marry whomever the fuck I want.”
“Until your dad decides it’s illegal and chucks me back into prison!”
I shake my head. “Not if we publicize the fuck out of it. We could even sell a story to the press. Star-crossed lovers, whatever. People love Romeo and Juliet.”
“I’m not marrying you!”
She clenches her fists at her sides, her nostrils flaring as she glares at me. There are a half million women on this island, and most of them would jump at the chance to marry a royal.
“It’s me or weeks, possibly months of backbreaking labor. Don’t be a fool, Daisy.”
“This isn’t a choice!”
“We’ll get a divorce the moment I become king.”
Tears slide down her cheeks as she shakes her head over and over. “I can’t marry you. It was never supposed to be—I can’t.”
I take her face in my hands, and she stifles her crying. “Think with your brain, not with your heart.” I consider that for a moment. “Unless your heart tells you to fuck me, then you should listen to it.”
“What’s in it for you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You heard me. If you can divorce anyone you want, why not marry some chick from the village who will worship your cock? Why me?”
“I don’t want a girl who’ll worship my cock because I’m a prince. I want her to worship my cock because I make her come so hard she forgets her own name.”
Honestly, I have no idea what the girl of my dreams looks like, but she’s definitely not one of those pretty, boring dolls they keep sending to me.
“That’ll never be me,” she says nastily. “You’re the one who got me in this mess!”
“Whatever you say, love.”
Daisy shoves me hard, and my back hits a tree. I’m amazed by the fire dancing in her eyes—the absolute, apoplectic rage. I’ve never seen anything like it in a woman. She’s terrifyingly beautiful. I almost expect her to brandish an ax out of thin air and cleave me in two. She hits my chest again, not very hard, but I catch her next punch out of the air.
“Get it all out of your system now.”
“You cock-sucking bastard!”
I relish the sound of her voice blasting me with her crude, American insults.
“Pig-fucking asshat!”
My lungs burst with laughter, which makes her even more furious. “Once we get to the castle, you will have to behave with all the decorum of a prince’s fiancée.”
At
the word fiancée, all the fight evaporates from her limbs. She sags against me, looking absolutely miserable.
“It could be a lot worse.”
“You don’t understand.”
I do, though. She thinks she’s trapped. I’m about to lead a fucking country. Welcome to my life. I never asked to be born to my parents, and I could step aside, but that would be allowing my incompetent brother to take my place and fuck it all up. She gets a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and then she gets to go home and write an insider’s account on life inside Harronvale Palace. A tell-all book. Whatever the hell she wants. She’ll be sent home and enjoy all the freedoms of her democratic country. She’ll be free to tell everyone what a sex-crazed prick I am.
No doubt, the people will be relieved when I divorce the American in favor for a lovely Anglefell girl.
I can just picture it now—the scandal. The intrigue! Prince Liam Chooses Foreign Bride, Prince Liam Marries American Girl. I can also imagine the hordes of pissed-off Anglefell women who will be pissed off that I chose an American over one of my own. Who cares? It’ll enrage my father, and it’ll bring some positivity to Anglefell, for once.
And in the meantime? Daisy will be mine.
“Holy crap,” Daisy exclaims as she takes a step inside. “This is… wow.”
A warped image of Daisy ripples on the golden, circular plate that hangs over my fireplace. She gazes over my vast apartment, taking in the giant LCD screen, my mismatched furniture, the crown moldings, the giant Manchester United poster. She raises an eyebrow.
“I thought anything from England was scum.”
“I never said that, love. I said we’re not English, which is true.”
She mutters something indistinct.
I watch as the Daisy reflection bites her lip as she searches for something positive to say. She stares pointedly at the coffee table, which was made out of reclaimed church pews, and then at the leather chairs surrounding the fire.
“What?” I say finally.
“It’s, um… weird.”
“What’s weird?”
“You’ve got like a hipster vibe,” she says, motioning toward the coffee table. “And then you’ve got like a prissy-grandma vibe at the same time.” She points toward one of the antique footstools.
“I’m not an interior decorator.”
Dirty Prince Page 4
