by Mia Madison
“You always be that, baby but – oh Christ,” he groans.
“Daddy it’s Okay. I went to him and brokered a better deal.”
“I can’t believe you love my old friend,” he moans.
“Does that seem too weird for you? I know he was a pig about trying to buy me but underneath it all, he’s a real man and I think he’s a good one. You must have thought so too if you were friends with him.”
“He was always a good buddy to me. Me less so.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, nervous.
“I blackmailed him over you. Twice.”
“Twice?
“Yes I told him you were still a virgin and that if he gave me a hundred thousand he could have you. I’m so sorry baby but I was in desperate financial straits and not thinking.”
I look at my father stunned. He’s often in financial straits now I think about it. That’s the reason my mother threw him out. But something he said if bugging me more.
“You said twice,” I murmur.
“The other time was just a joke, I swear – when we were still horny teenagers.”
“What happened? Tell me,” I order him.
I sit stunned while Daddy tells me how he sold the Prince his first born daughter for fifty thousand to start his first investment ring. When I was grown up, I was intended to give him my virginity.
“Unbelievable.” I breathe.
“He was such a catch. Even back then girls were throwing themselves at him.”
“He doesn't like that,” I announce imperiously as a jealous pang flares up. “And they’ve stopped now.”
“Like that’s ever going to happen,” my father harrumphs.
It can happen. Can’t it?
The girls will probably always be drooling over him, but he won’t necessarily be respond. He hasn’t looked at a woman once in the last few days and there was plenty of eye candy around last night.
Chapter EIGHTEEN
Lucien
I throw on a slouchy black pullover and head straight to my father’s presence chamber. I enter without knocking and he looks me up and down, not appreciating the sweatpants. I don’t’ care. He shouldn't summon me to his room like I’m a naughty child.
“I take it you’ve seen these?”
He indicates a stack of newspapers sitting on the table beside him.
“Not yet, I haven't even had coffee yet,” I snap.
“It’s already after eleven,” he sighs.
Then he shakes his head like I'm an impossible chore he’s forced to endure. Ever since my mother died he’s treating me like an annoyance.
“I don't exactly have much to get up early for?” I come right back at him.
“You could get interested in some charity work like your peers. Look to those two princes in Britain as your role models.”
What I roll is my eyes. I’ll never be like that or measure up for him. I stride across to the table and help myself to coffee. I drink it down ready for the jolt and almost spit it back out again.
The headline screams at me loud from the top newspaper on the pile.
WHO IS SHE?
There’s a photo of Kennedy taken last night right before the ball. Holy fuck she looks stunning – every bit the princess. She has her hand laying flat across her chest showing off that massive diamond. Underneath the picture in equally huge black letters the headline screams:
PLAYBOY PRINCE Engaged... to CROOK’S KID
“You have criminals staying inside the palace?” my father opines.
“Her father, not Kennedy. She’s totally innocent.”
“It says they two are on the run together from the Securities Commission,” my father says in triumph.
Like he knew he could never trust me to select my own bride instead of accepting one of his ugly choices. Vindicated in his mind, he can’t resist adding; “They were thrown out of The Carlton Hotel for not paying their bill.”
“Cooper’s credit cards were canceled pending investigation,” I inform him, rage building in my blood.
He will not stop me from having Kennedy. Or try to bring her down.
“This is who we are welcoming into the Family?” he says.
My eyes do that thing again. It really get the old man riled up when I roll them at him.
“It’s not as though we aren't harboring hundreds of thieving bankers on this island. It’s kind of what we’re known for.”
“We do not give sanctuary to those with front page publicity. I won’t have them living under my roof.”
“Fine, then I’ll leave too. I’ll go back and live in the States – ask for asylum.”
The old man’s face droops at the threat. He can’t keep the monarchy alive without an heir and he needs me, the only option, right here. Plus the scandal of my pleading for asylum to a republic is abhorrent in every one of his bones.
“Just get him out of here,” he snips.
“I don’t think my bride to be will take kindly to me evicting her father from her new home. It won’t start us off in married life on the right – happy – foot.”
“Then get rid of her too. No one said you have to be happy, you just have to do your duty.”
“But I want to be happy,” I say. I realize as I speak that it’s true.
Being with Kenny these last few days has been the best. A genuine friendship has risen between us, a flirty one, a fucking steamy one, to say the least. But it’s genuine. And I want her with me to pursue that. As my best friend. Forever. Whether in a palace of facing the scandal at her side in America, that’s what I intend to do if she’ll have me.
“I can have her put away,” my father says, coming back with a dire threat.
I know he’s quite capable of it too. One call to the right person and she won’t even make it off the plane. They can cook up whatever they want once she’s inside the so-called justice system. But thank fuck I still have the ace card I played earlier. Now I’m not so sorry I lied.
“Have you forgotten the small matter of the Royal heir?”
In fact I'm glad as fuck that I made up that whopper. We can always fake a mistaken pregnancy later. I was always going to have to come up with some reason she wasn’t producing the baby. Or perhaps she really could get pregnant.
Wait – holy shit.
I can’t believe I’m heading down this route. I’ve gone from a fake fiancee to imagining not only the real thing but getting her pregnant as well. This is not what I meant to set up. I wanted some publicity to appease my father not to get him on my case even harder. But the thought of her filled with my seed and my baby growing inside her perfect body sends warmth flowing through my muscular frame. But my father still hasn't finished.
“It also says here that you were at school in Massachusetts with this character,” he points at the newspaper. “That you financed his first business venture? Tell me this is usual journalistic fabrication.”
“Cooper and I were at school together. We were friends then.”
“Good lord. I didn’t pay good money for you to fraternize with these low bred people. This is what happens when I allow you to become engaged to a commoner.”
“Allowed me? I’d already asked her without your permission. And if you recall your beloved British princes both have common women as consorts.”
“Can we even be sure that this baby is yours? How do we know she hasn't planned this farce with her fraudster father to score a prince.”
“Kennedy is not like that,” I grit out through a clenched jaw.
I believe that’s true. I’m certain she had no idea of her father's game to extract money from me. When she came to my bedroom to offer herself it was to save his sorry ass, proving how loyal she is to those she loves. He took a spanking to save him – and then realized she wanted more. I’m keeping Kennedy no matter what.
“I guess we’ll find out once the baby’s born,” I tell him. “And we subject the new prince to DNA testing. I’m sure the press will love that. That story could run
for ten cycles at least.”
My father’s face drops in disbelief. He can’t believe how far I’ll go for this one. I’ve never fought for a woman before. If he wanted one gone from my life, she usually already was. Now I sense his surrender in the cross-hairs. I hunger for it and close in hard.
Once I’ve whittled him down, I hurtle up the stairs to find Kennedy. I expect her father to be against us too, until he finds a way he can profit further out of it too. that’s okay, I’m more than willing to pay whatever he wants to get her. But not until she agrees of her own volition because she knows I can make her happier than any other man on the planet.
Wen I discover them gone I can’t believe it. She wouldn’t have left me without so much as a dashed off note of goodbye. Not after last night. She couldn’t have faked all those screams and sighs.
Could she? Her father may have trained her better than I thought. Perhaps she fooled me.
My resolve doesn’t drop for even a minute. I know what we shared and I dash from the room, shouting for someone to tell me which direction she vanished in this time.
The island isn't big enough for an airport so they’ve taken a water taxi to France. I leap into my powerboat and take off leaving my security to load into another craft and follow at speed. Either she’s coming back with me or I’m going with her but whatever she wants, I’m keeping her.
Chapter NINETEEN
Kennedy
Daddy is in such a rush to get to the airport, terrified the authorities are going to come for him and he’ll end up in a French jail before he makes it home, I have no chance to find Lucien and tell him what’s happened.
“Baby, don’t look so sad.” He strokes my cheek.
Am I? Is it that obvious I don't want to leave. Because I don't, especially without saying goodbye.
“I’m sorry about all this,” Daddy mutters. “Maybe you’d be better off staying here in Monato until the heat blows over.”
“No way I’m leaving you to face everything alone,” I insist. Even though saying that wrenches at my chest.
How could I possibly stay anyway? I have no job, no one to support me in a foreign country. The prince would probably throw me over when he realizes what Daddy’s done. His father would insist. I’m so depressed that the old man will also think badly of me after he seemed quite attached. Not as much as his son, but I’m sure real feeling was growing between Luc and me.
“You still have that diamond on.” Daddy eyes the ring wolfishly. “That would take care of everything if you sold it.
I realize I didn't take it off and leave it behind. A stone drops in my tummy. Lucien will think I stole it. That will definitely be the seal on the end of his affection.
“Daddy, how could you say that?”
“I’m kidding, darling. Allow me some humor in this troubled time. But I know Lucien would take care of you if I ask him,” he says.
“No you’ve asked more than enough of him. We’ll just have to face the music and see what happens after this is in the past. It will blow over eventually and be old news.”
Won’t it?
Right then two paparazzi come hurtling out of nowhere as we head for security and flashes fire all around us. Crap, it’s starting already.
“Kennedy, what does the Prince think of your criminal activity?” they shout all at once.
“No comment.”
“Is he in on the fraud with you?” They demand, more arrogant than the old style prince Lucien.
“No.” Daddy turns to them and faces a wall of firing cameras. I try to pull him away but he shakes me off. “Lucien is my friend and has been for twenty five years,” he tell them. “He had no knowledge nor ever has of my dealings. Nor has my daughter. This is all me and I’m going home now to face the music.”
A barrage of questions hit us like a jetstream, most of them directed at me.
“My daughter has no comment,” Daddy says but it’s hopeless against the wall of demanding and impertinent jibes.
“Will you still be going ahead with the wedding?”
“No comment”
We can’t move, hemmed in my lights and shouts.
“Will the Prince be joining you for the court case?”
“Yes he will,” a majestic husky voice squashes all others and silence falls.
A herd of elephants stampede over my heart when Lucien appears from out of the muddle of faces, flanked by four burly security detail.
He comes up to me through a parting crowd and takes my hands in both his.
“Hi,” I murmur, my voice shaky on the one syllable.
“Hi,” he says, looking down at me with so much emotion the elephants get up again and start twirling like hefty ballerinas.
“You aren't leaving me are you?” he asks, only slightly commanding this time.
“No she isn't, she just came to see me off.”
“Daddy,” I squeak.
“Baby, I don't want you embroiled in all this bull crap I’ve caused. This is on me.”
Lucien’s glance flicks over at my father in surprise. I’m glad he’s getting to see his friend in a new light. Perhaps there’s hope – for the future, not now.
“I won’t leave you alone,” I insist.
“You need to stay here,” my father looks at Lucien and they exchange a meaningful glance.
“I don't have anywhere to stay,” I whimper.
“You’ll continue to stay with me. Until we’re married,” the prince says.
“Stop with the games now, this is serious,” I say, my voice cracking.
“I’m completely serious.”
“You hardly know me.”
“I've known you all your life,” he says.
I look at my father who nods agreement.
“We were betrothed in a way.”
“By my father selling me? I’m not a herd of cattle,” I quip.
His hands transfer heat into mine that sends the warmth all through every cell.
“That’s how we do it in royal circles. You’ll have to be okay for our children to be married off for diplomatic or financial reasons
“Our children?” I squeal, just about remembering to do the diplomatic no lips moving thing.
“Are you going to make me ask you again?” Lucien demands.
“You bet. I like it when you get on your knees for me.”
“You really are cheeky,” he husks.
“I thought that’s why you like me.”
“That's only one of the many reasons.” He grins, all the tension gone from his perfect features.
“There are more?” I ask, feeling confident again. The heat flowing through me and starting to burn.
“Don’t make me list them,” he says, “We’ll be here all night.”
I tip my head on one side waiting to see how far he’ll actually take this. I can’t believe he’s serious about getting engaged but if he is, holy crap, I want nothing more in the world than to be claimed by him forever. This is the moment of proof. In front of the entire world, by tomorrow morning that is.
“May I, Coop?” he asks my father, never releasing my eyes held trapped in his.
“Yes, of course,” my father whispers, taking a step back to give us our desperately needed privacy.
The prince sets my left hand over his and tugs the diamond off my finger. For a moment I’m certain he’s going to run for it. I could hardly blame him for coming to retrieve Max. He doesn't move and his eyes delve deeply into mine so that elephants and butterflies and every animal weight in between are flaunting themselves in my tummy.
“Did you only come to claim your priceless gem?” I murmur, the tremor in my voice must be audible to everyone in the silent airport.
You could hear a balloon drop.
“Yes,” he says. “And now I have her.”
He lowers himself to his knees on those powerful thick thighs. There’s a very audible ooh from the crowd of sunburned travelers returning home from their summer vacation and then silence falls as
though everyone has stopped breathing and not only me.
“Kennedy, I’m so in love with you and I want to be with you forever. Will you marry me for reals, Baby?”
I nod and a “yes’ croaks out before I drop down on his lap and wrap myself around his neck.
Cheers go up all around the departure gate.
“Kiss him.” the reporters shout out their demands.
So this time I do. Over and over until they’ve filled all their huge pro camera cards.
He lifts me up and tucks me safely under his huge arm as he whisks us through security without having to go through all that usual crap. We head straight to the private lounge.
“Daddy I’m not letting you deal with this alone,” I say.
“It’s my problem, I should have stepped up before and not thought about hiding.”
“Can I go with him?” I ask Lucien who shakes his head no.
“He’s right baby. The publicity will kill your chance of happiness. I’m grateful you’re willing to face what will still be awkward for you both.”
“Oh my god are you sure you want to do that?” I turn to the Prince, concerned about him. “Should we wait until after the inquiry?
“After the battle I had with my father over this, I’m not letting you out of my sight ever,’ he says. “But I’ve paid the debts you owe to the citizens that were burned by the scheme.”
I gasp and throw my arms around his neck, stunned that he would do that for me
“You didn't have to do that,” Daddy adds.
“I did have to. In order to be with Kennedy.”
“Oh my god, I’ve ended up costing you so much to buy.
“You’ve been worth it.”
“Can Daddy come back when this is all over or will he be a black sheep?”
“I’m sure he’ll fit in quite nicely in Monato,” Lucien says. Then he gives me that dazzling smile. “And hopefully he’ll be a grandfather by the time he returns.”
Epilogue
Kennedy
Months later
Lucien took me back to the palace that day, after we watched Daddy’s plane take off. You can imagine the conflict inside me of wanting to stay with the man I was falling harder and harder for every minute that I spent with him. And also worrying all the damn time about my father especially as he was all alone with no one to support him through dealing with all the terrible accusations.
