by Amelia Wilde
“I did.”
“Thank you!” Bee pulls my face toward her and kisses me on the cheek. “Thank you. Cate must have told you that we didn’t get a chance to have a baby shower.”
“She didn’t, actually…but I’m glad I didn’t send a truckload of things you already had.”
Bee’s eyes widen. “You sent all this even though—” She stops herself. “Never mind. We can talk about all this later. Dex?”
Dex appears from down the hallway. “They’re almost done setting up the two cribs in the nursery.” He has the other baby cradled over his arm. It looks odd to me, holding a baby that way, but what the hell do I know? Not a damn thing.
“Hey, Jax. Heard this was from you. Can’t thank you enough, man.”
“You’re more than welcome.” I look back toward Bee. “Are they here?”
“Is who here?” says Cate, looking suspiciously between the three of us.
“They’re here,” Bee says, her smile lighting up her face. “In the backyard garden. Come on.”
Bee leads the way through the house and out the backdoor, where there’s a beautifully maintained lawn and garden.
“Wow, Bee,” I say. “You’ve spent a lot of time on this.”
She wrinkles her nose. “We pay a guy. I hate bugs.”
“Well, he’s done a great job.”
Now I’m just wasting time. After the amazing fuck I just had, how can I still be nervous? I can guarantee the outcome.
Almost.
Bee and Cate’s parents are sitting on two lawn chairs near an outdoor fireplace, and they both stand up as we approach. Cate’s father shakes my hand again, his eyes twinkling. I may have let them in on what could be happening today—if Cate decided she wanted to be with me after all.
“Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad,” Cate says, hugging them both. “This is my boyfriend, Jax.”
“We’ve met,” says her Dad, then guffaws loudly.
“What?”
“Just this morning.”
“Why—?”
I clear my throat, and Cate’s family steps back a couple of paces, all of them smiling almost freakishly large smiles, and she crosses her arms, looking at all of their faces, then back to me.
“Catherine Schaffer,” I begin. “From the moment I saw you, I knew you were someone I had to have in my life.” My throat tightens with emotion. “And I know we haven’t known each other a very long time, but—fuck,” I say, my love for her crashing into me again. Cate’s family bursts into laughter, and Bee covers the ears of the baby in her wrap.
“Language, language,” she scolds playfully.
I wipe a stray tear from my eyelashes and continue. “I didn’t need to know you for a long time to know that I wanted to be with you always. So…” I get down to my knee, and Cate clasps her hands in front of her, her face glowing with delight, her eyes shining with tears. “Cate, will you marry me?”
“Yes!” she shrieks, barreling into me so fast I almost fall over.
“You haven’t seen the ring yet!”
“I don’t care about the ring!” she shouts into my ear, and her entire family roars with laughter. She kisses the side of my neck and hugs me so hard that I start to tip over again, and her Dad comes over, offering me a hand to get up.
Once we’re both standing, Cate still giddy with happiness, I pull the ring box from my pocket. I had my personal jeweler come to the penthouse at three in the morning the day before I was supposed to leave so I could select it. It’s not the most ostentatious diamond—I didn’t think she’d like that—but the band is intricate, the details stunning.
She gasps, then claps her hands when she sees it, her calm and collected self slipping away.
Once I’ve slipped the ring onto her finger, Cate throws her arms around my neck, kissing me hard, and her family looks away, giving us a moment to ourselves.
“You had this the entire time?” she whispers in my ear. “Even when you didn’t know what I would say?”
“I hoped you would still love me. I hoped you would say yes.”
“I’ll always say yes. Every single day. I love you, Mr. Hunter.”
The light in her eyes says it all.
Epilogue
Cate, three months later
I get to the office an hour early, coffee in hand, muscles loose and limber from a hell of a workout with Carl this morning. That guy is something else. It’s like he wants to punish me for making him get up early, even though I know for a fact that the early mornings with Jax and I are making him a fortune.
We laughed pretty hard when we found out we’d been using the same personal trainer the entire time we were getting to know each other. New York City is a sprawling metropolis, but it’s just like the rest of the world—it gets smaller every day.
The office is silent, dark, and it smells like fresh carpet and new furniture. As I walk through, flipping on the lights, I breathe it all in.
I’ve dressed for today—this very important day—in red. My top is a vivid color that can’t help but stand out, and it’s contained only by the neutral color of my skirt and jacket. No black for me.
Inside my office, I stand for a moment beside the window, looking at the city streets below. People are coming and going, hurrying down the sidewalk. It’s Monday morning in New York, and the workday is about to begin.
I can’t wait.
The sound of movement behind me catches my attention, and then two hands I know well slide around my waist, followed quickly by a kiss on the side of my neck.
I turn and press my lips into Jax’s cheek. My husband. My partner. My best friend.
“How does it look?”
“As perfect as it did last night,” I laugh. I made excuses to finalize this and that detail until 9:00 last night, when Jax finally dragged me home to the penthouse. He said he’d waited far too long that day to be with me, by which he meant “spend an hour in bed together.” I was only too happy to go along with that plan.
“You’re going to be amazing.”
I have butterflies in my stomach.
“I hope so. I hope everything goes smoothly today.”
“With Catherine Hunter running the operation, I don’t see how it could be any other way.”
I turn in his arms and clasp mine around his neck, kissing him long and slow and deep. When it’s over, he takes a big breath in and looks down into my eyes, a familiar glint in his.
“Oh, stop it,” I say, giving him a playful slap on the shoulder. “Not here. Or at least…not now. They’ll be here any minute!”
“All right,” he says, grinning at me. “I’ll be on my way. I wouldn’t want the employees to be intimidated by my presence.”
I roll my eyes at my husband, then take him in, the cut of his chin, the blue eyes with endless depth, the lusty half-smile just for me.
“I’ll see you at 5:00?”
“Not a moment later. I won’t have you working yourself to death,” he says, turning for the exit.
“How could I stay, when I’m coming home with you?”
“That’s the right answer, Mrs. Hunter.” One more sultry grin, and he’s out the door.
I square my shoulders and take a deep breath.
Ten hours of work is ahead of me, followed by a lifetime with Jax Hunter.
It doesn’t get any better than that.
Dirty Royal
A Bad Boy Billionaire Royal Romance
Chapter One
Jessica
The Purple Swan is on fire tonight.
Not literally, of course. But there’s clearly a heated kind of energy zipping through the ultra-exclusive dining and dancing club in the heart of New York City tonight. It’s evident everywhere—radiating from the couples swaying on the dance floor, emanating from the groups of twenty-somethings laughing raucously at the white linen–covered tables, and even projecting through the waiters who move double-time across the room in their spotless Swan uniforms, black jackets with crisp white shirts, trays filled with gla
sses of sparkling drinks and plates of Michelin-star quality food so meticulously arranged it’s almost a shame to eat it.
That fire embodies everyone, the drinks and the food and the wild purposeless celebration of the night filling my friends to the brim. Their laughter is loud as they order delicacy after delicacy and send away piles of empty plates, their drinks never running dry.
It touches me, too.
Just not like it touches them.
It’s like my friends are out splashing and having fun playing in the ocean while I’m left standing on the shore, the waves lapping at my toes but never coming up over my ankles.
My friends love me—I seldom if ever doubt that—but there’s a barrier existing between us that I’ll never quite cross, no matter how often I get invited to the Purple Swan, no matter how often I borrow a new couture dress from my roommate, no matter how loudly I laugh along with them to their stories and jokes.
Everyone sitting at the table around me tonight, including my date—a nervous guy named Rick who has a pleasant enough face but absolutely no charisma—belongs to the top one percent of the wealthiest people in the country, if not the world.
Except me. I just know how to play the part.
“Jessica!” calls Christian Pierce from across the table, cheeks flushed pink and eyes glistening from the numerous drinks he’s downed over the course of the evening. This version of him is, if you can believe it, mellower than when I first met him. “Where are you, sweet thing?”
I can’t help but laugh. Christian can get away with saying that shit, but it’s only because we were part of a close group of friends at boarding school. That makes me sound upper crust, but don’t let it fool you. A scholarship put me through school. Christian’s father could have bankrolled the whole place.
“In my head, Chris. I can’t help it.”
“Tell me,” says Rick, leaning hesitantly toward me from his seat. “What entertains you, Jessica?”
It’s a bizarre question, and as I glance back over at Rick, giving him as much of a smile as I can muster, I feel so fatigued from spending time with him that I want to lay my head down on the table right there in front of everyone.
“I have my hobbies,” I say coyly before turning back to my friends.
Rick can’t let it go.
“Like what?”
The rest of the people sitting around the table are talking about a new Star Trek movie that’s due out this summer, and even that’s preferable to enduring stilted first-date conversation with a man I’m never going to go out with again.
I knew that within the first five minutes. Now I’m regretting being so polite.
“Um…” I’ve had several drinks myself, and suddenly I can’t think of a single thing I like to do in my spare time. I’m usually up for going out with friends after spending another draining day in the office, but what the hell do I like to do? Maybe this city, this club scene, is sapping me of my adventurous spirit.
Maybe I’ve just had too much to drink.
I see movement in the corner of my eye, and then Jax Hunter—the richest man in the city—is coming toward the table. My heart flutters. Christian set me up with him once. He would have been quite the conquest in bed if it hadn’t been for the faraway look he had in his eyes that night.
The object of his affections, another outsider named Catherine Schaffer, is on his arm. She’s wearing a short pink dress that attracts the lustful eye of every guy in the room and more than a few envious glances from the women.
“Hey, guys!” she says brightly, as Jax and Christian pound each other on the back in greeting. The two of them together is a study in contrasts. Jax is tall, dark, and handsome times a thousand, the sex appeal just radiating off of him, whereas Christian is his perfect foil, blond, blue-eyed and so All-American. But only one of them is on the market now. There are two other women at the table Catherine seems to know fairly well, and I take the opportunity to fall in with their chatter as Jax and Christian whisper to each other a few steps away from the table.
I understand what Jax sees in Cate.
She lights up the goddamned room.
They’re only there for a few minutes before Jax breaks away from Christian, coming back to the table where he slips his arms snuggly around Cate’s waist. “We’d join you, but it’s date night,” he says, cobalt eyes glowing.
Cate blushes and gives a little wave, the two of them disappearing quickly into the crowd.
I have to get out of here.
Rick doesn’t seem to notice that I’ve mentally checked out.
“Kayaking,” he says.
“What?” I say, my forehead wrinkling. What the hell is this strange little man talking about now?
“That’s one of my hobbies.”
“Oh,” I say lamely, picking up my drink and taking another sip. “Yeah, kayaking is good.”
“Don’t be so shy, Jess!” Christian’s voice booms across the table. “Tell the man about your hobbies. I know you have some.”
“I know you have one, Chris,” I shoot back, smiling at him. “It’s something you can do all by yourself, once your date goes home…”
“My dates never want to go home,” he says, wrapping his arm tightly around his current flavor of the week. She cuddles into him, eyes shining with awe and delight.
“Oh, but they always do,” I tease. “And then, when you’re all alone in that fancy apartment of yours, your hobby is all you can think about…”
Christian raises one hand in the air. “Is that so bad? Huh? Is that so bad, Jess?”
How is it possible that I’m getting more banter out of my old friend Chris than the date he set me up with who he swore was going to be interesting? At the very least, he was supposed to be “smoking hot.”
We laugh along with the rest of the table, but my mind has already wandered, over to where Jax and Cate are seated at one of the best tables in the place, a two-person affair on the second tier of seating. Jax is leaning toward her across the table, his hand on hers, saying something that must be amusing because she smiles and laughs, her face lit with love.
I want that. How do I get that?
Not by chatting awkwardly with Rick, that’s for damn sure.
Inside of ten minutes, I’ve worked up an excuse to leave and slipped out the back entrance, heading off alone into the night.
Chapter Two
Alec
My father slams his fist down onto the hardwood table in the private council chamber situated behind the throne room, his cheeks burning beet red with frustration.
“Damn it, Alexander, get your head out of your ass and look around for once.”
He’d never use this kind of language in public, but I’ve pissed him off enough that he’ll say it to me freely behind closed doors.
“I’m seeing perfectly,” I spit back at him, so angry that what little self-control I’ve built up over the years is beginning to slip away. “You’re not going to barter my time like I’m some fucking princess from the sixteenth century.”
His eyes flash in fury at my language, but it’s not like his mouth has been pristine.
My older brother—perfect in every possible way—chooses this moment to interject. “It’s a few dates, Alec. You’re blowing this completely out of proportion.”
“Is there something I’m missing, Marcus? Maybe you can explain it again so we can be absolutely certain that your idiot brother Alec understands.”
Marcus, infinitely calm and forever infuriating me, holds up his hands. “There’s no need to be so volatile—”
“I just don’t see,” I scowl, my voice remaining deadly calm, “how the two of you can decide to set me up with not one but a series of dates for political gain. What’s the end game? That I marry the girl so you can trade intelligence information with her father at the wedding brunch? I don’t think so.”
My father, the reigning king of Saintland—a job that, if I’m being completely honest, has aged him thirty years since he took the th
rone a decade ago—lets out an exasperated sigh.
“We’re simply trying to leverage our available assets to make international connections.”
“Oh, so I’m an asset now.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“The language couldn’t have been plainer.”
“Your brother—”
“My brother,” I say, jabbing a finger toward Marcus, “has had an incredible amount of control over his personal life, despite being heir to the throne. How do you explain that, your majesty?”
Marcus looks at the ground, saying nothing. My father cuts his eyes across to him, then looks back to me.
“Your brother has always had the interests of Saintland at heart.”
“So have I.”
“Then why won’t you—”
“At the end of this,” I say through gritted teeth, “I’ll still be playing second fiddle to Marcus. If I agree to this ridiculous dating scheme, you two will use it against me until I’m dead.”
It’s all true, yet there’s more that I just can’t say to my father, the King, and my brother, his favorite.
The truth is that one day I’d like to settle down, eventually moving my wife into the royal apartments at Sainthall Palace to live out my days with her. I’ve long since accepted that most of my life will be dedicated to honorably playing my role as the spare prince, but I’m not willing to give up everything.
For one thing, I’m not willing to be trotted out like some kind of royal whore so that my father and brother can make connections. This isn’t the goddamn Middle Ages.
The greatest fear I have, the one I keep buried so deeply that it will never, ever see the light of day, is the possibility of falling for someone on one of these sham dates.
What the hell do I do then? Cave to my father and Marcus and marry whoever it is, playing right into their hands? God only knows what they’re thinking. Maybe this is some ploy to turn me into a permanent bachelor, someone who they can send out to restaurants across Saintland and the rest of Europe to make “political connections” whenever it suits them.
