Royal Pain: An Alpha Bad Boy Billionaire Romance (3 page)

“Nice going, dick,” a boy who had been on the dance committee with Henrik said, punching him hard in the shoulder as they passed in the hallway. He was heading for the office where students only went if they were really in trouble. Mrs. Blair's classroom was usually a neutral setting for things branded a typical miscommunication, where they tried to negotiate the goals of the school with the goals of the pupil. Mrs. Blair could be frighteningly convincing. But now he was heading somewhere he had never been before – the office.

He pushed his way through the door reluctantly, stuffing his hands deep in his pockets and feeling much like he had as a young boy when he was in deep trouble. The receptionist glanced at him and raised an eyebrow. She must have read his tabloids; but she didn't seem very impressed with him.

“I'm -”

“I know who you are,” she said, lowering her eyes to her desk and scribbling. “Have a seat. They'll get you when they're ready.”

He chose to stand, until finally the director of Spencer Dalton, Dr. James, came out and nodded at him.

“Let's go, lad,” he said with a firm pat on Henrik's shoulder.

He was expecting a much more cordial meeting, maybe if he was alone with Dr. James, who never seemed to have a mean bone in his body, but when he was led through the office doors he scowled. Fiona was standing there, her eyes red-rimmed and her face fiery. Inside was also Mrs. Blair, and someone he had never seen before.

“My name is Kate Lyle,” she said, sticking her hand out sternly. “I'm in charge of making sure that Spencer Dalton is meeting the individual needs of all its pupils. I'm afraid there was a disruption. I have been receiving calls since approximately 2PM from angry parents, furious at you and Ms. Blake. I've promised them a solution to this issue.”

“Ms. Blake,” Dr. James said. “It seems the parents are having a difficult time with the way you disciplined Henrik. They found it unfair to be forced to cease activities because of one person's inability to cooperate. Ms. Lyle and I have both been receiving messages, one of which contained a video of the incident.”

Dr. James played the video for Ms. Lyle and Mrs. Blair, and Fiona's icy blue eyes squeezed closed with shame and embarrassment. Henrik gazed at her from across the room, suddenly feeling very sheepish and guilty for not cooperating with her. She wasn't a teacher at Spencer Dalton. She'd only been there to try to keep them on track and allow them to continue having fun.

“Ms. Blake, I am aware of your emotional distress at this time,” Mrs. Blair said sternly, “but this is unacceptable. Did my training teach you nothing?”

Fiona's voice wavered.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

Henrik, too, felt sorry and shifted uncomfortably.

“Mrs. Blair, that was my fault. I was messing with her,” Henrik said. He felt terrible for putting Fiona in this situation, where she might even lose her job.

“I understand that, Henrik,” she said, fixing her harsh gaze upon him. “Which is why I think the best course of action would be to re-assign Fiona to -”

“You're not going to fire her?” he said, panicked. “Please. Just punish me.”

Fiona kept her eyes fixed on the ground.

“Henrik, I should have handled that better. Please let Mrs. Blair finish.”

“Thank you, dear. I think the best course of action is to re-assign Ms. Blake somewhere quieter, with not so many of you little heathens. It can be an intimidating and difficult task, and the reputation of Spencer Dalton depends on our utmost finesse.”

“All right,” Fiona said, still unable to meet her eyes.

“I think you and Henrik ought to get to know each other a little bit. See what you can learn from one another. Henrik, I'm assigning you to detention hall B, with Ms. Blake as your instructor. It would be great for you to learn to work together. It's something you both need to improve. You're both excused for the day. Be there bright and early Monday morning.”

Fiona and Henrik exchanged worried looks, but both of them were too nervous to speak. This was going to be interesting.

Fiona was nervous all weekend, and when she finally went to detention hall B, she found Henrik there waiting for her. He was picking at a loose thread in his pristine black blazer, dressed immaculately in the highest fashion in Denmark. He raised his eyes in greeting and leaned back in his chair. She was certainly an attractive woman, more so than he had expected to find in America. He didn't know why he'd had such a silly bias about the place, but if he was honest with himself, he expected most people to be overweight and hideous in America.

He knew in ways that not everybody would look like that, but many countries liked to pick on the Americans for their standard diet full of fat and grease. The people of Denmark seemed healthier, at least in his own mind, and he had felt very proud of them, although he kept that a secret. He didn't want anything to do with the royalty, and certainly didn't want his father to hear him referring to them as his people. Fortunately, he had a younger brother who would gladly inherit the throne if Henrik decided to go AWOL. His father sensed that was what his oldest son wanted, but he'd had his heart set on Henrik taking over since he was small.

“Good morning,” Fiona said coolly to him. The red rims around her eyes were gone, which made him feel a little less personally responsible for her happiness and seemed to free him up from any further obligation to treat her nicely.

“Whatever, buzzkill,” he muttered, borrowing a phrase that one of the cruel boys had said as he tripped him in the hallway.

“All right then. You need to take out your behavior packet and turn to page -”

“Let me make this clear to you,” Henrik said, immediately angry at her. “I don't have to do anything, do you understand? My family could buy and sell yours a hundred times over before you had any authority over me.”

“Look, I'm just telling you what my instructions were. I need you to do this work.”

She walked to his desk and opened the booklet for him. What would Mrs. Blair have done in a situation like hers? Henrik's beautiful brown eyes looked into hers and she again felt herself being drawn into them, despite her annoyance. A frown tugged at his lips and she inhaled deeply, bracing herself for whatever came next.

“In fact, you should probably know there is nothing in the world I would rather do less than take orders from someone as low on the totem pole as you,” he spat, standing up and glaring at her. “Everybody in the world thinks they know better for me than I know for myself and you're no different. But you know what, sweetheart? You don't know anything.”

He picked up the packet and waved it in her face.

“You think you're helping me by giving me this? Telling me how to follow the rules better so my parents can stand me and not have to acknowledge anything about who I really am? How is this all right? The only reason I'm still here is because I've been trapped here and deserted by the only people in the world who are supposed to care for me. But they don't, all right? And learning this shit is the same as bowing down to the king and kissing his royal ass.”

Henrik tore up the behavior packet and kept his handsome face cold and level to hers, his hot brown eyes keeping her rapt in their glare. “I'm not playing along. I don't know why you want to work with these monsters, but you should reconsider before you lose any more of your soul.”

And with that, Henrik stalked out of the room, leaving Fiona standing in the middle of the room in shock, her eyes streaming with hot, bitter tears. What had she gotten herself into?

For the rest of the night, Fiona could think of nothing but Prince Henrik. He had been furious. She'd never seen anybody blow up like that before. But the things he said did make sense, and she could see why he was so angry. He was stuck under the most oppressive upbringing there probably was, and was reasonably eager to rebel. But every time he tried things just got worse and worse.

She normally would have felt angry or hurt by his outburst, but instead she felt somehow sorry for him. She would have to change her approach and try to get through to him. He claimed he didn't care about the dance, but she knew he needed a chance to get out of the stifling atmosphere of the school and express himself. He was immediately resentful if he felt like anybody had expectations of him or wanted to order him around. She would have to keep that in mind as they continued.

When she arrived in Detention Hall B, she was a little bit worried that he wouldn't be there. But, to her surprise, he was sitting at his desk, staring down at a new behavior packet. Somehow, he had gotten his hands on a new one without her having to ask on his behalf. This was a huge relief for her, because she was afraid that if the staff caught wind of how miserably she had failed her first day with Prince Henrik, that would be the end of her internship and she could kiss her degree good bye. There was no way she would get another opportunity this late in the school year.

“Good morning,” she said carefully, trying to keep her voice light. He looked up at her sulkily, his deep eyes roaming her body in subtle appreciation. She had worn one of her less conservative outfits that day. She was tired of feeling oppressed by other people's inability to keep themselves in check, and had chosen to go for an outfit she would have felt more comfortable wearing at a school full of people who weren't used to getting their way with everything and had never been properly punished.

“Hello,” he mumbled, toying with the eraser on his pencil.

“So I thought today maybe we could start off by getting to know one another a little bit better.”

“That sounds pretty corny,” he said with a sigh.

“I know. Trust me, it's not necessarily something I'd be doing in other classes. But you seem like an interesting person. Tell me about yourself.”

“Well, you already know about the orgy. What else is there to know?”

She laughed despite herself, a warm flush creeping across her cheeks.

“Yeah, but that's not really anything about who you are,” she said. “I want to know who you are, not what you do.”

Fiona walked beside his desk and sat down in the desk across the aisle from his. She caught his eye and he sat up, putting his pencil down and sighing.

“Well,” he said, touching his broad chin. “what if I don't know much about myself?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, slightly puzzled.

“I mean I've been kept so busy my whole life that I don't know what I like. I don't do anything. Except what I'm not supposed to.”

He grinned at her then, a quick, handsome flash. She was startled by how much more attractive he was when he was being sincere. There were a million reasons she should tell herself to stop thinking that way, but she couldn't help it. The attraction was there, that's all there was to it.

“Well, if you had a better upbringing, what do you think you would have liked to do?” she asked gently. He laughed pleasantly, a masculine rumble that made her heart flutter.

“That's funny. A 'better upbringing.' Most people in your position assume I always had everything I wanted handed to me when it was really the opposite. Being rich doesn't mean you're free. The exact opposite, really.”

“If you weren't rich, where would you be right now?” she asked him, her deep blue eyes peering deeply into his brown ones.

“I think I'd be on an island,” he said decidedly.

“An island? Why?” she asked, delighted by the response.

“I'd be alone, enjoying the scenery. I would have laws to abide by maybe, but beyond that I'd just answer to myself. That's what I really want.”

His accent was intoxicating, and he smiled as he spoke. It made him seem endearing, and she nodded.

“I think that would be wonderful,” she said, heading back to her own desk to sit down.

He glanced down at the packet in front of him and hesitated.

“What would you be doing if you were rich?” he asked. She obviously wasn't, but he wasn't making fun of her for it anymore.

“I think I'd be on an island too,” she said with a smile.

He grinned and gripped his pencil, beginning work on the first page of his packet.

“I hope you realize how stupid this is,” he complained as he scribbled.

“I don't know if it's stupid or not,” she said. “All I know is that if you do this, you'll get to have your dance. If you don't, you can't go.”

“Trust me, it's stupid,” he said. But he got to work and seemed to forget that she was there, leaving her to smile to herself, grateful that her idea hadn't backfired.

Fiona and Henrik were stuck together for the duration of the dance planning, keeping her out of sight of bitter students. It served to protect them both, as nasty rumors had gone around the school about both of them. Tiffany was still Henrik's number one fan, of course, though he didn't have very much time for her.

He was eager to get through his work and go to the detention hall after class. He had begun really looking forward to spending time with Fiona, and not just because she was beautiful. She had such a sweet, understanding nature, and they could talk for hours about the simplest things and both be happy. It was a relationship of a depth he had never experienced before, and although he tried to tell himself she was probably like that with everybody, after all, she was an extroverted teacher figure, he couldn't help but feel like the time they were spending together was different...special maybe.

As the weeks passed and the dance grew ever nearer, Fiona worked hard to help Henrik finish the packet. As she read what was in it, she would often exclaim in surprise or disapproval, making Henrik laugh and feel more likely to trust her and open up with his own experiences. They grew close faster than she had ever imagined two people could, and one day he looked up at her with his sincere brown eyes, a soulful, contemplative look on his face.

“You know, you and I are probably the same age,” he said.

She raised his eyebrow at him and smiled, but said nothing. Instead, she focused back on the task at hand and they spent the rest of the period together pretending he hadn't said anything about it.

He was right, of course, and the forbidden feelings she had for him just continued to grow. It quickly became obvious how eager he was to attend the dance, and so she helped him stay on the ball until he finally finished his packet. And although Henrik was deeply attracted to her and had been from day one, he had to stop himself from the fantasies that were brimming on his mind. She was not the type to demand sexualization, not like Tiffany, and he felt an odd guilt about considering her the way he had considered the other women in his life. She was different. She deserved better than that.

And so they spent the rest of their time in the detention hall, both battling unwanted feelings and considering their reservations. Fiona was still a teacher at the Academy he hated more than anything, still an enemy. And Henrik was still a spoiled playboy. There was no way it would ever be able to work out, so why bother thinking about it.