Текст книги "Prince Albert"

Автор книги: Sabrina Paige

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CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Belle

 

“I know I screwed up, Isabella.”  Derek stands in front of me with his hands in his pockets.  And he shrugs.

He fucking shrugs.

Nonchalantly, like it’s no big deal.

“You screwed up,” I say.  “I’m pretty sure that fucking my maid of honor – not once, but repeatedly – doesn’t count as screwing up.  Screwing up is forgetting my birthday, or –“

He interrupts.  “It was an accident, Isabella,” he says.  “I didn’t mean to –“

“Ohhhhh,” I say, my tone exaggerated.  “Well, you see, I didn’t realize it was an accident.  In that case, since you only accidentally put your penis in Adriana over and over and over for two years, obviously I’d have to forgive you.”

“I knew you’d see reason,” Derek says.

“That was sarcasm, you idiot,” I say, my voice coming out louder than I intend.

We’re inside one of the drawing rooms, a civilized place surrounded by priceless antiques.  And I have to clasp my hands in front of me to keep from picking up one of the porcelain pieces of art on a nearby table and throwing it at Derek’s stupid head.

Because that would be inappropriate.  And soon-to-be princesses are never inappropriate.

“You were gone for two years, Isabella,” he says.  “How was I supposed to last for two years?  Besides, it was just sex.  It meant nothing to me.  She meant nothing to me.”

“You could have just said you wanted to break up,” I hiss, my hands on my hips.  I’m dangerously close to reaching for the porcelain figurine nearby.  It’s a horse, rearing back with its legs in the air.  I wonder how much it’s worth.

I wonder what it would look like bouncing off of Derek’s forehead.

“But I didn’t want to break up,” Derek says.  “And, you know, being European royalty will be a real asset when you’re part of my campaign someday.  Think of it.  You could be the wife of a Governor.  President, even.”

I stare at him in disbelief, mentally congratulating myself on having not slugged him yet.  He looks at me with the kind of earnest self-righteousness that can only come from being both stupid and spoiled.

“You mean that I could still be your wife?” I ask, my voice rising an octave.  “You’ll have me, even after all of this?”

“We could be a team,” he says.  “You and I.  With your beauty and my brains, we’d be unstoppable.”

I stare at him, his words echoing in my head.  Was he always this much of a tool, or did he actually get dumber in the past two years?

“You’re a moron.”

“Don’t make this mistake, Isabella,” he says.  “Do you really want to give up all of this?”

“All of what?  You?” I ask.  “Don’t make me retch.”

Derek’s face changes, his expression no longer contrite.  Now he just looks at me sneering.  “You always did think you were too good for me,” he says.  “With all of your saving the world crap.”

“I am too good for you, Derek.”

“You stupid cunt,” he says, his face screwed up, inner ugliness transforming his appearance.  He brushes past me, knocking into my shoulder as he walks by.

“What the hell did you just call her?”

I hear Albie’s voice behind me, and whirl around.  “Albie, don’t –“

“I called her a cunt,” Derek says.  “Because that’s what she is.”

“Albie, it’s not worth it –“ I start.

Too late.

Albie punches Derek in the face, and he stumbles back, his hand over his nose, crashing into the end table and sending that porcelain figurine to the ground, where it shatters into pieces.

“You stupid fuck,” Derek says, lunging at him.

“Stop, Derek!” I scream, but he ignores me, rushing straight for Albie and driving his head into his stomach.  They fall to the ground in a tangle of limbs, and Derek’s fist connects with Albie’s face before Albie manages to roll on top of him and hit him again.

I’m yelling at both of them to stop, and everything is chaos as our bodyguards run into the room and pull Albie off Derek.  Noah stands in front of Albie, blocking him from trying to land another punch, and Albie pushes him back.  “Get out of my way, Noah,” he says.  “I will beat his ass.  I don’t care who’s here to watch it.”

Derek struggles, shouting obscenities at Albie, even as Simon and Max restrain him.  “This is none of your business, you prick,” he says, his mouth a bloody mess.

“Please!  Just stop!” I yell, running toward Albie.  His eye is already bruised underneath, a cut over his eyebrow where Derek punched him.  “Are you okay?”

“You’re fucking him!” Derek shouts, his rage apparent.  “I knew it!  You’re pissed off because I was screwing Adriana, and you’re over here fucking that spoiled prick!”

“Get him the hell out of here before I hit him again,” Albie says.

I can hear people outside the room.  I know the commotion is attracting attention.  But all I can focus on is Derek’s accusation.

You’re fucking him.

“Shut up,” I say.  “Everyone shut up.”

I hear Derek laugh as the bodyguards drag him out of the room.  “I knew it.  Your own stepbrother.  You stupid bitch.”

I know that they’re taking Derek out of the room, and I think Noah says something to me.  I can hear Albie’s voice, calling my name.

But all I can hear in my head is Derek’s accusation.

You’re fucking him.

Your own stepbrother.

And then my mother is there, and the King.  I can hear them talking, but it’s like I’m underwater, their voices are distorted and muted.  I’m here and they’re far away.

Far, far away.

Then everything goes dark.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Albie

 

“Won’t you please excuse us for a moment?” my father asks. He stands with his back turned toward me on the other side of the library, the first room far away enough from the ballroom to be assured of privacy.  The royal physician hovers over me, pulling at my forehead as he does a cursory examination.

“I’m fine,” I say, an edge in my voice.  “Is Belle all right?  She fainted.”

“She’ll be okay,” Doctor Evanston says.  “You’re going to need a few stitches above your eyebrow.  I can do it, but to minimize scarring, I think we should call in a plastic surgeon.”

“Plastic surgeon,” my father scoffs.  “Is my son going to bleed to death in the next few minutes?”

“Of course not, Your Royal –“

“Then won’t you please give us a few minutes.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

The door shuts, leaving my father and I alone in the room.  I know what he’s going to say.  I can already anticipate it.

I should be embarrassed, ashamed of myself for displaying utter and complete lack of royal bearing.

I should be worried about Belle’s ex-fiancé’s accusation that Belle and I are together.

I should be concerned about what my father will think.  Or what Belle’s mother will think.  Or what the public will think.

But I don’t fucking care.

“What the hell were you thinking?” my father asks.  He doesn’t look at me.

“I was thinking that Belle’s ex is an asshole who deserved to be punched in the mouth for the shit he was saying about her.”

My father turns around slowly.  “You are not eighteen,” he bellows.  “You’re not a child.  And you’re not a normal person.  How long is it going to take you before you understand that?  You’re a prince.  Getting into a bar room brawl in the middle of a charity event is not something that a member of the royal family of Protrovia does.  It’s not something the Crown Prince of Protrovia does!”

“Sorry to disappoint,” I say sarcastically.

“What in the world would possess you to do such a thing?” he asks.  “All of the things you’ve done, the tabloid headlines and filth they’ve printed in the papers – I thought you’d left that all behind when you joined the Army.”

“He called her a cunt,” I spit.  My father flinches at the crudeness of the word.  I wonder if anyone’s ever said the word cunt in front of the King of Protrovia before.  I guess there’s a first time for everything in life, isn’t there?

Some part of me, a warped part, finds that amusing.

I think I might be a little delirious.

“I don’t care what he called her,” my father says.  “Did you even stop to think for a moment before you hit him?  Prince Albert of Protrovia assaults a guest of the royal family – it’ll be all over the newspapers tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry it’ll distract from the PR pieces about the wedding,” I say.

“I thought the Army changed you,” he continues.  “I thought it instilled some sense of responsibility in you.  But I can see that nothing’s changed at all.  You’re still the same immature, irresponsible boy who has no appreciation for consequences – no appreciation for tradition and family and –“

I stand up, the blood rushing to my head.  “What the hell would you have done, if some guy were saying things about mom?” I yell.  “I’m supposed to stand there, while some asshole talks about Belle that way?”

“It’s not the same thing,” he roars.  “You’re not married to Isabella.  She’s barely family, not even your stepsist –“

“She’s my wife!” I yell, rising to my feet, my hands balled into fists at my side.  Adrenaline is pumping through my veins, anger surging through me, and I don’t realize what I’ve said until I hear the words, practically echoing in the space between us.

She’s my wife.

Shit.

This is a bell that can’t be un-rung.

My father stands there unmoving, just looking at me.  For a minute, I think he’s so angry, he’s going to hit me.  I’ve rarely seen my father lose his temper, hardly ever deviating from the staid and steadfast King that he is.

But right now, he’s angry.  Really angry.

“What exactly are you talking about?” he growls.  His face is crimson.  I’ve never seen him this upset.

Yet I can’t seem to stop the words that come out of my mouth.  I could take them back.  I could simply say that I misspoke.  But I don’t want to.  I want him to know.

“Belle and I,” I say.  “I married her.  We are married.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Belle

 

The back of my head throbs where I hit it when I fell.  I’ve insisted I was okay practically a thousand times, yet no less than five members of the royal staff have checked on me approximately a thousand times since I fainted, even though the physician said a concussion was unlikely.

“Unlikely, but twenty-four hours of bed rest as a precaution.”

I’ve texted Albie, but he hasn’t responded.  The doctor said that Albie was fine, simply banged up and needed a few stitches.

Stitches.

Because he punched Derek in the face for calling me a cunt.

I’m not sure whether to be flattered that Albie stepped in to defend me, or pissed off that he threw caution to the wind and got into a fight over me in front of everyone.

You’re fucking that spoiled prick.

Your own stepbrother.

Derek’s words echo in my head, over and over on repeat like they’re playing on a loop.

I text Albie again.  For a second, I consider sneaking through the secret passageway to go see him, but that would be too risky.  There will be doctors and his security and too many people around now.

Instead, I lie against the pillow for a second and close my eyes.  Just for a minute, I tell myself.

Pound.

Pound.

Pound.

I blink my eyes once, twice, three times, willing the pounding in my head to go away.

Then I realize that it’s not in my head.  It’s coming from the door to my bedroom.  And there’s daylight streaming through the windows.

I must have fallen asleep.

“Isabella Kensington.”  The door to my room swings open, and my mother blows inside like a tornado.

Crap.

My stomach sinks.  She didn’t come to see me last night after the doctor examined me.  The lecture I expected to get – something about decorum and propriety and how I ruined my own charity event by being at the center of a brawl between my ex-fiancé and my new stepbrother – never materialized.

Instead, I’m getting that lecture first thing in the morning.  Before I’ve even had a cup of coffee.

I hold up my hand.  “I don’t want to hear it, mother,” I say.  “You had no right to invite Derek to the event.”

“Derek,” she says, her voice going up practically an octave.  “You think this is about Derek?”

“My head is throbbing and I want to take a shower,” I say, avoiding her gaze.  I sit up on the edge of the bed.  “Save the lecture.  You invited my ex-fiancé who cheated on me to my charity function and I embarrassed you.  I’d say we’re about even.”

I slide my legs over, about to stand up when my mother stops me by waving a newspaper through the air.

“You think I care about your and Derek's little fight?” she asks, her voice shrill.  “This, Isabella.  This is what is plastered all over the headlines this morning.  This is what’s all over the internet.  Read it.”

"What is it?"

Then she holds it up in front of my face.

PRINCE'S SECRET SHOCKER: IT’S A FAMILY AFFAIR!

MARRIED…TO HIS NEW SISTER!  THE STORY THE ROYAL FAMILY DOESN'T WANT YOU TO READ!

 

I rip the paper from her hands, my stomach queasy as I skim the article, bits and pieces of phrases jumping off the page at me.  A source close to the palace confirms that Isabella Kensington and Prince Albert have been sneaking around the palace for months now…married in a Las Vegas ceremony at a wedding chapel, by an Elvis impersonator…

My heart sinks.

Oh God.

"It's true, Isabella," she says, ripping the newspaper out of my hands and throwing it on the ground like it's contaminated.  "Don't try to tell me it's not.  Royal Intelligence did their own digging around."

Fantastic.

"It was a joke."

"You didn't see fit to mention any of this when you showed up here?" Sofia asks, her voice shrill, nearly a squeak at this point.  "You didn't think that perhaps you might have wanted to mention that you'd met Albert before – that you married him in Vegas?  And what kind of person – a Kensington – gets married in a wedding chapel in Vegas?"

"It was a joke," I repeat, my voice flat.  “I’m sure it’s not even legal.  We were going to get an annulment.”

All I can think about is the fact that all of this – the sham marriage, my relationship with Albie – will be plastered across every tabloid magazine, every gossip blog, every evening celebrity news show throughout Europe.  Every sin either of us have ever committed in our entire lives will be dragged up and rehashed in the public eye until people are satisfied that we've been sufficiently humiliated.

Our relationship will be laid bare.

I'll be laid bare.

I can't handle it.

"This isn't a joke, Isabella," Sofia hisses.  "Whether it was legal or not is irrelevant.  You think that these kinds of things are unimportant, frivolities that are beneath you.  It's that easy for you to destroy my relationship with Leopold."

"I didn't destroy anything – we didn't destroy anything," I protest.

"We," she says, her hand going to her mouth.  "It's we, isn't it.  The wedding wasn’t a joke.  The two of you are together.”

"No," I say, my voice loud.  "The wedding was a joke.  That's all it was.  I didn't know he was a prince."

She's doesn't even register my protest.  "There will be a meeting, Isabella," she says.  "A family meeting.  A plan.  This entire thing is finished.  It will all be swept under the rug.  You'll need to do an interview, both of you – the PR team will decide all of that, of course.  Denial – that’s the best strategy here, I think.”

I can't hear anything she's saying, except bits and pieces of words: PR team…interview…family meeting.

All of it will be focused on Albie and I and our drunken marriage.

And our current relationship.

The tabloids will paint it into something dirty, something disgusting and reprehensible.  There will be more headlines like the one on the paper she's holding.  I can already picture them:

PRINCE AND SISTER: EXCLUSIVE DETAILS ABOUT TABOO ROYAL RELATIONSHIP

I think I'm going to be sick.

I run headlong for the bathroom.  My mother's voice still echoes through the room as she talks more to herself than to me, strategizing aloud.  I heave up the contents of my stomach.

Panic clutches at my chest like a vise, gripping my heart as I kneel on the floor.  I try to gulp oxygen into my lungs, but I can't seem to breathe.

I can't do this.  I can't be the center of a media scandal.

I can't have my relationship with Albie laid out before the whole world like it's something tawdry.

I haven't even sorted out how I feel about Albie, whether it’s just fantastic sex, or whether the way he makes me feel means it’s everything.

And I can’t figure that out with the entire world watching us.

I just can’t.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Albie

 

“I had to talk to you, before all of…whatever the hell is going to happen today."  Every word I utter seems to be punctuated by the pounding base drum playing in my head right now, but all I can think about is what's going through Belle's mind as she stands in front of me.

Belle looks…tired.  And worried.

"You have to go," she says, her voice strained.  "Christine or someone else from the PR team is going to be here in my room any second now."

"Belle."

She looks away from me.  "No," she says.  "You shouldn't be in here."

"Belle, look at me."  I walk across the room and take her hands in mine.  "This doesn't change anything."

"What are you talking about?" she asks, her voice high-pitched.  "Of course it does.  It changes everything."

"It'll be fine," I tell her.  I'm not sure whether I'm lying more for her benefit, or for mine.  "It's just –"

"My mother came in here," she says.  "She accused us of destroying her relationship with your father.  It's in the papers, Albie.  It’s all over the internet.”

"That part wasn't me," I say.  "Look, I told my father, but Derek or someone at the party must have leaked the rest to the press, or gotten them interested enough to really start digging."

"You told your father?"  She shakes off my hands and slowly steps backward, looking at me with a horrified expression.

"I told him we got married," I say.

I left out the rest.

I'm fucking Belle. 

I can't stop thinking about Belle.

I think I might be in love with Belle.

"How could you do that?" she asks, her brow furrowed.  She brings her hand to her mouth as she shakes her head.  "Get out."

"Belle," I start.  "I don't care who knows."

"You don't care?" she yells, choking on her words.  I think she might cry, but she doesn't.  She looks at me, angry.  "Didn't you ever think about whether I might care?  Or what it would mean to your parents?"

"Aren't you tired of hiding from everyone?" I ask.  "It's out in the open now."

“What’s out in the open?” she asks.  “The fact that we’re fucking?  You had no right to put it out there, to decide that I wanted that out in the open.  My sex life – our sex life – is no one else’s business.”

“We did a little more than just screw, Belle,” I say.

Maybe that’s all it is to her.  Maybe all it’s been is screwing.

“We got married in Vegas while we were drunk,” she says.  “We had a little fun screwing around after that.  But that’s all it is.”

“Is that all it is?”

Her jaw clenches, and she looks away.  “That’s all it has to be.”

"Are you getting back with that asshole fiancé?" I ask.

"What?" she squeals.  "Are you insane?  Of course not.  This isn't about Derek."

"That guy doesn't deserve you."

I want to deserve you.

"I didn't need rescuing," she says.  "You just – you ran in there and punched him, out of some misguided notion that you needed to defend my honor and now everything's out in the open.  Everyone knows, Albie."

"I know you don't need rescuing," I say.  My frustration is mounting.  "I was coming down here to tell you that – fuck, this is not how I saw this conversation going."

“I don’t want my romantic exploits spread all over the media!”

"You think I wanted this all over the papers, Belle?" I ask.

"I don't know what you –"

The knock at the door interrupts whatever she was going to say, and she looks with something like regret before walking to the door and opening it.  She pulls open the door, apparently not caring if someone sees me in here with her.

Christine, the head of the PR team, looks back and forth between us, obviously uncertain about what's going on.  "Oh," Christine says.  "If you're busy…"

"It's fine," Belle says.

It’s the opposite of fine.  Everything right now is as un-fine as it can get.

"Great."  Christine looks at her notepad, barely glancing at Belle and I.  "Obviously, Erika is on her way here."

"Erika who?"

"The girlfriend," she says.

I hold up my hand.  "She's not my girlfriend," I say.  "And why in the world is she on her way here?"

"Girlfriend or not, she's your best way of explaining this entire thing away, and –"

"Get out."  Belle's voice is firm, echoing through her room.

"Erika is not coming here," I say.  "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.  If that's the PR plan here, that's ridiculous."

"Get out, please," Belle says.  She doesn't look at either of us.  "Now."

"Erika will stand by your side," Christine says.  "We've already leaked your engagement to the press."

"You did what?" I yell.  "Who in the world told you to do that?"

"Get out!" Belle screams.  Everything goes silent.  "Now.  Get the hell out of my room, Christine."

"Belle, I –" I start.  I want to grab her by the arms and tell her that all of this will be fine.  None of it means anything to me.

"You too," she says.  "Just go."

Christine is on me immediately, nonstop talking as she takes my arm before we even leave Belle's room.  But I don't hear a word she says.

The only thing I care about right now is Belle.

When I glance behind me at her as I walk away, she pauses for a moment in the doorway, and her eyes meet mine.

I try to shake off the sinking feeling that I get as she closes the door.

She’s closing the door on us.