“You weren’t supposed to hear any of that,” I whispered.
I thought he’d glare some more, but his eyes lit, as if he was thoroughly enjoying my discomfort. He closed the distance between us and stood right beside me, setting a hand on the table, right next to my arm. We were sitting at one of the tall tables by the bar, with high barstools that, had he been a tad shorter, maybe would have given me an advantage, but even still I had to crane my neck to look at him. Not that I had any intention of looking him in the eyes right now. I mulled over what I’d been saying and was filled with horror. My father would kill me. If this got back to him, he’d kill me.
“This is your date?” He glanced at Pierre. “I thought you said you were going out with a friend.”
“I . . . am, sir.”
“So, it’s not a date,” Prince Elias stated, still looking at Pierre, who looked at me.
“It’s a date if she says it is, sir.” Pierre turned a deep shade of red as he looked over at me. “I’d like for it to be a date.”
“It is a date.” I met Prince Elias’s gaze. He was much too close to me. Way closer than Pierre. And the way he looked at me made my blood roar in my ears. “What happened to your party? Couldn’t find someone to pour drinks for you?”
“I have a full staff. Of course I found someone.” His jaw twitched. “But I got bored.”
“Bored?” I blinked. “So you left your own party?”
“I needed fresh air and someone told me Pierre was here, so I thought I’d come hang out for a bit with my old friend and meet his local friend.” His gaze slid to Pierre. “I hadn’t realized this was a date, otherwise, I would not have imposed.”
“Please. Feel free to join.” Pierre stood and rearranged the table so we had another stool.
He looked over my shoulder and pulled up another stool, and then another. I closed my eyes briefly. We’d officially been invaded by the prince and his posse. I wondered if I should stand up and excuse myself now. It seemed like a good time to do that. I’d wait though. For Pierre, because he seemed at a loss and I didn’t want to do that to him.
“So, you’re old friends,” I said, once Prince Elias and the two men he was with sat around the table.
Pierre and I were still across from each other. Prince Elias was beside me on one side, one of the men who hadn’t yet introduced himself, but looked like he was a friend, not security was on my other side, and another wearing all black was beside Pierre.
“We are,” Prince Elias said. “Pierre’s older brother and I served together.”
“Oh.” I raised my eyebrows. I may have my reservations about the Crown, but I had enormous respect for the military. I looked at Pierre. “Are you close to your brother?”
“I am. He’s retired now. Lives a quiet life not too far from here.” He smiled. “Lots of nieces and nephews.”
“Define lots.” I matched his smile.
“Four girls, two boys.”
“Holy . . . wow. Lots, indeed.” I laughed, taking a sip of my beer.
“How did you two meet?” The man beside me asked. “I’m Charles, by the way.”
“Adeline.” I smiled. “We met—”
“She’s part of the local staff. She brings my baskets every night,” Prince Elias said.
Part of the local staff. I didn’t agree with it, but I wasn’t going to argue with him about it in front of everyone. I raised my beer to that explanation instead and hoped he understood I meant it as a big fuck you.
“She’s . . . ” Pierre started, then stopped. We shared a look and I knew what he was going to say and I was eternally grateful that he hadn’t. I didn’t want anyone at this table to know who my father was. The next wave of shame hit me and felt like a whip on my hand. “She’s the prettiest girl in town,” Pierre said, smiling.
“She is, indeed,” Prince Elias agreed.
I felt my chest expand with his words, but controlled the emotion on my face. I wouldn’t let myself be controlled by the handsome soon-to-be king. I wouldn’t let myself go down the same road so many of the women in this town had gone down before. I was already a notch in his bedpost. I didn’t want to add another.
“You should come back to the villa. Have some drinks with us,” Charles said beside me. “Let your guard down. Let your inhibitions run wild.”
“I can’t afford to let my guard down.” I drank the rest of my beer and set it down on the table as I pushed my seat back and hopped off the stool. I walked around the table and stood beside Pierre, leaning in so only he could hear me. “Thank you for the lovely evening. We should do this again sometime. In private.”
“I’m sorry.” He sighed. “Would you like me to go with you?”
“That’s okay. I’m just going up the road anyway.” I leaned up, pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I really did have a good time with you.”
“Can I . . . I would say call, but the cellphone reception is shit.” He laughed quietly.
“Just pass by my villa. Any time.” I flashed him one last smile before turning to address the rest of the table. My breath caught when I found Prince Elias watching me closely. “Good night, gentlemen.”
With that, I grabbed my things and left. I’d parked the golf cart up the street and when I looked over to where it was, I noticed two similar golf carts beside it. Property of the Crown. I wondered if Prince Elias had spotted it and decided to go inside. I assumed so. He probably thought it was Pierre’s and not mine.
“Adeline.”
My head whipped toward the sound of my name and I saw Pierre walking toward me. I smiled at him.
“Did you get bored?”
“No.” He smiled. “I figured I should join you on the drive up the hill though.” He paused. “And the prince needs a few things for his party.”
“You mean the party he’s not even attending?” I rolled my eyes.
“I know he comes off as . . . arrogant, but he is a good man.” Pierre signaled for us to start walking across the street.
“You said that already.” I shrugged. “I’m sure he’s a lovely human.”
“He is.” Pierre laughed.
“It doesn’t matter. It genuinely makes no difference to me.”
“He’s taken an interest in you.”
His statement gave me pause. I started the golf cart and sat there for a second, waiting for Pierre to sit in the passenger seat.
“Interest how?”
“I’m sure you can imagine how many people are constantly throwing themselves at him. Everyone wants to be the one to make the most eligible bachelor, notorious playboy, next king, settle.” He glanced over at me. “You don’t do that. Therefore, you’re interesting.”
“I’m not interested in the monarchy.”
“I’m not either, but you’d be surprised at how many are. You’d be surprised at the lengths they’d go through for even one night with Eli.”
“You call him Eli.” I stopped at the crossway and looked at him. “Why does he have you work outside his house? Securing the door?”
“I chose that job. He keeps offering me to be his private secretary, so I’ll move into that role eventually. He didn’t want to bring too many of the personnel, so I guard the door sometimes.” Pierre flashed me a sad smile. “It didn’t end very well for the last guy.”
“What happened to the last guy?”
“He tried to kill the prince, and well . . . ” Pierre shrugged. “It ended badly for him.”
“I heard about that,” I whispered. “The man was killed shortly afterward.”
I started driving again. When we reached the prince’s villa, I could see colorful lights and hear loud music coming from inside. It looked like an actual nightclub from out here. Pierre signaled me to stop beside it.
“He wasn’t. The prince intervened and the guard was sentenced to life in prison.”
“Why not death?” I asked. If someone had tried to kill me, I’d probably want them dead.
“Eli is not a vengeful man. He doesn’
t believe in an eye for an eye.”
My brows rose. “His father does.”
“His father does.” Pierre nodded. “His father ultimately had the guard killed.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“I know you don’t agree with the way the king does things, but you can’t hold the entire family accountable for the actions of one man.” He set his hand over mine. “Think about what that would mean for you if people held you accountable for your father’s actions or him for yours.”
“They already do,” I said sadly. “Besides, I’m not holding him accountable for those things, I’m holding him accountable for his poor attitude.”
Pierre got out of the car. “Maybe we can do this again sometime.”
“I’d like that.”
“By the way, the prince wants you to attend the party.”
“I thought he got someone to serve drinks.”
“He’d like you there as a guest.”
I glanced inside. “That’s not my scene.”
“It’s a masquerade,” he said. “Great Gatsby attire.”
“Definitely not my scene. I don’t have anything to wear to that and masks lead to poor decisions.”
“I think that’s what he’s hoping for.” He smiled. “I’ll be there. You can always come for ten minutes, say you did it, and leave.”
“I guess I can do that.” I glanced at the house, my eyes on the strobing lights. “It’s not like I have anything better to do.”
Chapter 7
I’d been home for all of ten minutes when the doorbell rang. I walked to the door slowly, confused, and opened it to find Pierre standing outside holding a garment bag. He looked handsome in a tuxedo and stepped forward to hand me the garment bag.
“This is for the party.”
“Are you serious?” I took it in my hands and unzipped it to find a short black flapper dress full of frills, the kind that dance with each movement you make.
“I told you it was a Gatsby theme.”
“With masks,” I said, taking out the beautiful, black feather mask inside the garment bag. There was a short brunette wig behind it. “And wigs.”
“It’ll be fun.”
“This is dumb.”
“Now you can say you’ve been to one of the princes’ famous parties.”
“Yeah.” I laughed weakly. Except, I had been to one of his famous parties and I’d slept with him last time, which in retrospect was probably a mistake on my part.
“Ten minutes,” he said again, as if reminding me I didn’t have to be there long.
“Ten minutes.” I laughed, for real this time. “You actually expect me to wear this get-up for ten minutes?”
“I don’t expect you to. The prince does.”
“He wasn’t wearing a tuxedo at the pub.”
“He hadn’t changed yet,” Pierre said. “Which . . . there’s another thing I need to . . . ask you?”
“You sound confused about the asking.”
“He needs somewhere to change before he goes back in there to make his grand entrance and I thought maybe it would be a good idea for him to come here.”
“Here?”
“Well, he would have gone to one of our quarters to do so, but yours is the closest house to his, so it would make more sense. Thinking of it from a security standpoint.”
“A security standpoint. Right.” I took a deep breath. “I guess he can come here. I have two spare bedrooms with bathrooms.”
“Would you, um . . . ” Pierre licked his lips. “Would you mind giving me a key so he can let himself in? In case you’re busy.”
I glanced away and looked out the window, toward the party that was definitely happening. From here, I could make out someone in the garden, and she was wearing a similar dress to the one in my hand, so I knew this was real. I exhaled, walking over to the kitchen, grabbing the spare key, and handing it to Pierre.
“He gives it back tonight.”
“You have my word.”
With that, he left and I went to my room and locked the door. If Prince Elias was going to be in my house, my room would be off-limits. We called them villas, but they were more like miniature mansions in the guise of cute beach villas. The rooms were bigger than my one-bedroom apartment in North Carolina had been, with large sitting areas and large windows that gave view to the beach on the other side of the cliff. There were five in total. This one, which was the house I’d spent my teenage years living in, when I was home. My uncle’s, and the three he rented out, which essentially belonged to the royal family every summer.
I thought about what Pierre had said about Prince Elias and then about Prince Elias’s own words at the pub. He’d deduced me to a nobody without a second thought. I glanced at the party in the next villa and wondered if attending was a mistake. Surely, the people over there were all aristocrats of some sort. Despite my accomplishments, to them, I was just the lowly girl who took them alcohol and provided fresh towels. It didn’t matter that my father was powerful or that I had a degree from a prestigious university under my belt. It didn’t matter that I was living in London, or that I’d built a well-respected event-planning company. None of it mattered because ultimately, to Prince Elias, I would always be a peasant.
Chapter 8
I took my time undressing and re-dressing and then cursed all of it when I realized I needed help zipping up my dress. It would have been fine, had it not been for the fact that cellphone reception was nonexistent out here and I wouldn’t be able to get ahold of Pierre unless I walked over to the party. Overall, the dress looked good on me though. The fabric hugged my curves and the bust was cut low up top. Once it was zipped up, it would definitely give the illusion of my breasts being larger than they were. I still wasn’t sure if I was going to wear the wig or not. My natural dark brown hair was down to my waist and I wasn’t sure how I’d pile it all under a short bob wig.
The sound of the front door slamming made me jump in place. Since he didn’t arrive earlier, I figured Prince Elias had changed his mind and wouldn’t be coming. I looked at my exposed back again. Maybe one of the guards could help me with this. When I opened my door, I saw Prince Elias standing in the entrance, a garment bag hanging over his right arm as he looked at the photographs of my family on the wall. We hadn’t been here as a family in years, but the memories remained. I took a second to look at him as he admired the photographs. If I was being honest with myself, had it not been for the fact that he’d been a complete jerk to me, I would have probably been drooling over him the entire time. He was the kind of man that was exactly everyone’s type. Tall, broad shoulders, dark hair that he seemed to just let do its own thing, and its own thing was a perpetual state of sex hair. His lips were full, his teeth were blindingly white and straight, and his eyes were the darkest shade of green. His jaw was square and gave him an appearance of a man that was always serious. He was absolutely every bit of the prince I’d always dreamed would whisk me away.
Except, in reality, he was everything I’d always told myself I would never fall for, because in spite of all of his good looks, he was downright mean. And if there was one thing I didn’t like, it was mean people. I didn’t care that Pierre had a different experience with him. I didn’t care that the very first time I met him, he was completely dreamy and kind and treated me like I was special in his bed.
“Don’t you have a party to get to?” I asked and bit my bottom lip as he turned to face me, those dark eyes drinking me in slowly.
“It looks good on you.”
“Thanks.” It wasn’t like I’d been expecting him to give me a great compliment, but it looks good on you in that tone was the equivalent to you should change.
“It looks like you had a nice upbringing,” he said.
“I can’t complain.”
“Monsieur Bouchard’s daughter.” He said it casually, but I could tell he was ticked by it from the way his expression was set.
“That’s me.”
“You don’t s
ound as thrilled as I imagined someone in your position to be.”
“That’s funny coming from you.”
“What does that mean?” He tilted his face to study me.
“I thought endless jewels and the respect of everyone in most nations would mean you’d be happy.”
“I don’t have the respect of everyone in my nation, let alone others.” He shot me a pointed look.
“You’re mistaking my father’s beliefs for mine. Besides, I don’t think we should have this conversation.” I walked over to him. His eyes widened a fraction as I stood in front of him and turned, glancing up at him over my shoulder. “Can you zip me up?”
His eyes met mine and held as he tossed the garment bag onto the nearest couch and brought his hands to my lower back, where the zipper was. I wanted to turn away, especially when I felt his fingers on my back, but I couldn’t bring myself to break the spell he seemed to be casting. He tugged on the zipper and slowly brought it up. I gasped as he reached the top and ran a finger over my back, then held my breath as his expression darkened. He was finished zipping me, but hadn’t lowered his hands. There was a loud knock on the front door, followed by the door opening quickly. I stepped away, forcing Prince Elias’s hands to drop between us; his gaze was still sharp on mine.
“Sir, the Princess of Austria is in attendance and asked to see you,” Pierre said, clearing his throat as he stood there.
I turned away completely and walked back to my room, my galloping heart chasing after me. I closed the door and shut it behind me, slamming my back into it and letting out a breath. What the hell had just happened?
* * *
I waited until I heard doors slamming and the sound of Prince Elias’s shouting had dissipated before I opened the door and made my way to the party. Pierre was standing outside with today’s guard as I shut the front door and locked it.
The Sinful King: By New York Times Bestselling Author Page 5
