The Crown Jewels (9 page)

WILL

Snowflakes fluttered around Willy and I as we walked in the English garden. I sat on one of the stone benches near the fountain and watched the snow fall into the shallow pool of water, disappearing, becoming one with the water, becoming water again, as if transforming yourself was no big deal.

It came easy to some.

Not to me, though. No matter how hard I tried to be someone else, I was stuck with the reputation that years of living recklessly had cursed me with. The playboy Prince. A ladies’ man. A royal prick that cared about nothing but where the next party was.

Being that person had cost me. I’m not complaining, because what right do I have to complain? I’m a fucking Prince, for fuck’s sake. I’ve had the time of my life. It’s hard to justify any whining on my part, what with all the riches and treasures and women and castles and yachts and vacations and on and on and on. The list goes on so long it quickly becomes boring.

The thing about being raised with the knowledge that you can have or do anything you want is that after a while the only things that appeal to you are the ones you can’t have. Perhaps that why I was so fixated on Jewels.

It helped that she was smart, beautiful and sexy. Since she’d arrived in Sweden, she was all I could think about. I woke up thinking about her, and I went to sleep thinking about her. I yearned to touch her, to kiss her, to taste her again, and yet she was having none of it.

I would have to rethink my strategy. I knew it was wrong, the timing was absolutely terrible, but a part of me just couldn’t let go of the thought of being with her again.

Did I want more than a quick shag? Part of me did. The part of me that was able to put my mother’s feelings aside definitely wanted to explore that idea. The other part? The part that was once again hard and ready in my pants didn’t give a shit either way.

It didn’t matter, though. She had her idea of who I was now, and she wasn’t going to see me through any other filter. And who could blame her? I’d shown her who I was years ago, and while we had a different experience together, me leaving her like that taught her that she would be a fool to trust me again.

Like I said, she was smart.

To think anything different of me would be out of character.

As if to prove my point, she rounded the corner at just that moment, her face set in anger as she approached.

“Jewels, hello there,” I greeted her.

“How could you?” she snarled, her pretty face made even prettier by the determination and anger splashed across it.

“What did I do now?” I asked. This was becoming routine at this point.
Me
, the bad guy.
Her
, the accuser.

“You told Catherine! About - about - us! Why would you do that?”
“Oh. Well, hjärtat, my sister and I are very close. I never expected you would ever meet,” I replied.

“But you told her
everything
!” I protested.

“Well, not
everything
,” I replied, with a teasing smirk. Some details I had kept to myself, “but if you mean about the baby, yes, I did. I was very upset, Jewels.”

“You were upset! You? You left me all alone!”

“You act like that was the worst thing of all. What was worse, losing me or being pregnant with my baby?”

She looked like I had slapped her when I said that. I didn’t mean it to come out so harshly, though.

“What can I do about it now, Jewels? What can we do to smooth things over between us? We can’t go on with all this anger between us.”

“I don’t know,” she said, sighing. “But I guess we need to do something, because at this point I can’t fucking stand you!”

“I can think of a few things,” I said, my cock beginning to talk for me, as I brought my face close to hers. I could feel the warmth of her breath, and it was turning me on like crazy. I didn’t care that she was mad at me. In fact, it made me want her more. Nobody in the world got away with talking to me the way she did, and I liked it. I liked it a lot.

“We could start here,” I said, slowly bringing my lips to hers. They were cold, stiff, unrelenting. I kissed her again, hoping for some type of response, a softening, a willing partner. She didn’t stop me, but she didn’t kiss me back. She just stood there, like a frozen shell of the woman I used to know, the woman who used to kiss me back with a passion that could barely be contained.

I wanted that again. I kissed her again, harder this time, and her lips quivered beneath mine. Ahhh…movement. A delicious crack in her demeanor.

I pulled back, looked into her crystal green eyes, and kissed her again. She whimpered lightly, and I pulled away once more, reaching up and gently touching her cheek.

“Jewels, kiss me back,” I demanded, pushing my lips against hers again. Her lips parted slightly, giving me just the invitation I needed. I pushed them apart, sliding my tongue inside her warmth, searching for the Jewels I used to know.

I found her.

Buried deep behind her steely resolve, I pulled her out until she was kissing me back, slowly, hesitantly at first until I felt her melt beneath my touch, and then she opened up completely. I pulled her body close, embracing her as I kissed her deeply, our tongues tangling together, exploring each other, the past crashing into our present.

I pressed myself against her, my cock raging between us, begging for release. The snow fell softly around us, blanketing our hair and shoulders as our passion took over and we tumbled into a momentary blissful oblivion of hands and tongues and flesh.

I pulled away, my body on fire with desire for her. I wanted her. I needed her. Now.

“Let’s go,” I whispered, my voice gruff with hunger. I took her hand, hurrying her along through the garden.

We’d taken six steps when we saw Aunt Ora standing in the snow in her nightgown, barefoot and shivering.

“Excuse me, can you help me to my room?” she said, her voice cracking.

“Aunt Ora,” I exclaimed, taking my coat off and wrapping it around her. “Why are you out here?”

“I was looking for the King,” she croaked.

“The King?” I asked, looking over at Jewels and shaking my head. “He’s sleeping, Aunt Ora.” The King was dead, but she kept forgetting. I always told her he was asleep instead of breaking her heart every time. She was very close to her brother. “Let’s get you back to your bed.”

Jewels clasped her other arm and we guided her back into the palace. Bertolf appeared and took over.

“Bertolf, please escort Aunt Ora to her room.”

“Certainly, My Lord,” he replied. Jewels stood at my side as we watched them walk away.

“The King is sleeping?” she asked.

“The King has been asleep for a very, very long time…” I said with a wink. She looked so breathtaking beautiful, staring up at me with snowflakes in her hair.

I reached for her hand again and tipped my head to kiss her.

“No, Will,” she whispered, putting her hand on my chest to stop me. “We can’t do this.” She took a deep breath and turned and walked away.

“Jewels, wait!” I called after her.

She shook her head and kept walking without turning back. I watched her go, wanting to follow her, knowing I shouldn’t.

This is what it was like
, I thought.

To have everything and to have absolutely nothing all at once.

At that moment, I’d have given up my claim on the entire kingdom for just one more night with her.

JEWELS

I should have told him the truth and I never should have let him kiss me again.

What the hell was my problem? Why did he hypnotize me so?

Was I still that naive little girl? I thought by now that if I wasn’t at least immune to his advances, I’d at least have the strength to resist them.

But I had kissed him back. And I couldn’t deny that it was amazing.

Of course it was, though. He’d had plenty of practice.

But that look in his eyes as he apologized again was haunting me and continued to do so as I went into my room. Someone had lit a fire in the fireplace and made the bed while I was gone. I opened the doors to the balcony, hoping the cold air would somehow extinguish this fire that had been lit inside of me with his kiss.

I lay in my bed, watching the blue silk of the canopy flutter in the wind as I let the feelings I had been avoiding wash over me like a tidal wave.

Anger boiled over into frustration. Confusion turned to desire. Hate morphed into full-on lust.

Out of all the guys I’d dated in the last ten years, not one of them had the same effect on me as the Prince did. It was odd seeing him here surrounded by opulence and servants.

He’d been so different back home. There, he did his best to fit in, to pretend that he was just a normal guy. He’d insisted his security detail stay so far away we couldn’t even tell they were there. He demanded he drive himself everywhere and if someone didn’t already know who he was, he wasn’t about to fill them in. There was no Bertolf to cater to his every wish.

Spending time with him had been a whirlwind of adventure. It was only one short month but we packed so much living into that short time, that some of the best memories of my life included his smiling face right next to mine.

We’d gone skydiving, took a scenic ride around upstate New York in a helicopter, flew to New York City in his private jet, spending the weekend at the Waldorf holed up in bed, spending endless hours exploring each other’s bodies until the dawn rose, slowly flooding our penthouse with sunlight, as we lay spent and peaceful and blissful.

It was amazing. And then, just like that - poof! Disaster struck.

I was late.

I’d never been late before. I’d also never spent an entire month making love to anyone every which way under the sun. I freaked out and ran to Sally. She bought me a pregnancy test at the campus drug store and stayed with me while we waited. That wait was the longest ten minutes of my life, and when I picked up that little stick and saw the positive sign staring back at me, I almost fainted.

Sally was an angel, insisting she would stay by my side, no matter what I decided.

Suddenly, my head was full of questions. Should I tell Will? Should I have an abortion? Should I keep it?

None of those options sounded appealing. In fact, they all sounded downright horrific. I’d barely known Will a month, and sure it had been a great month, but it was not a long time at all. What would he say? How would he react?

I had no answers, and a million questions.

Sally convinced me to tell him, just to see what his reaction would be.

I did. And he was wonderful. He was a dream, in fact. He said all the right things. Offered support in every way, and then he left the decision up to me.

“It’s your body, Julia,” he’d said, holding me in his arms while I cried.

“I know, but it’s not just my baby, it’s yours too,” I said.

“I know, but that doesn’t matter. Theoretically, it could be the future king, actually. But first my mother and father would have to die, then my sister, then me, so it’s a long shot all of those things would happen. But still. It’s a factor we have to consider. But above all, Julia, the decision is yours to make.”

He kissed me gently on my lips, pulling me into his chest, and kissing me on the forehead. We hadn’t said ‘I love you’ to each other yet, but at that moment, the words were on the tip of my tongue.

Thank goodness I’d never uttered those words to him. At least I had a little dignity left, however minuscule, because two days later, I woke up in his loft alone. He’d left a brief note and a very large check made out in my name.

I felt like a whore.

When I realized he’d actually left the country after seeing the paparazzi chasing him and Willy through the Swedish airport, I was mortified. Had this all been a joke to him? Had this all just been a game?

Had I meant nothing to him?

Three days later, I started my period. I hadn’t left my bed, and Sally had stayed with me as I cried my eyes out and cursed Will’s name over and over, as I tried to decide what to do. He just assumed I was going to get an abortion, and I guess I did too, but I had never been so happy to have a decision taken out of my hands like that.

Sally and I had debated whether I should call and tell him that I wasn’t pregnant after all, whether I should tear up the check or keep it. In the end, after a few weeks of time and clarity, I decided to let sleeping dogs lie.

I took the money and Sally and I went to Maui over spring break. I never called Will again and he never called me. It was a clean break.

A clean break that broke my heart right in two.

I didn’t feel guilty about it one bit, either. Will obviously wasn’t thinking about me, he wasn’t wondering how I was doing, he wasn’t concerned about what decision I had made about the baby, so why should I feel guilty?

Hawaii was a welcome break from the brutal Winter of Rhode Island and Sally and I had a blast.

No matter what, though, I couldn’t shake the thought of Will from my brain.

But now? Now that we were thrust back into each other’s lives, now that we were under the same roof, now that I had to actually look into those eyes again? Now, I was starting to feel guilty for not telling him that there was never a baby. Which was just fucking peachy, because throwing a big pile of guilt on top of all the other emotions that were wrenching my heart to pieces really helped.

For fuck’s sake.
What a nightmare
, I thought, as I drifted to off to sleep. It’d be over soon, I reminded myself. Just another week, and I’d be back with my third-graders in my classroom, back at my apartment, back in the States where I belonged, far, far away from anything royal or regal or fancy or tempting.

Far, far away from those blue eyes that had haunted my dreams for years. Having to face Will in my dreams was a lot easier than having to face him in person.

In the meantime, I’d just have to buck up and be strong.

Which meant no more allowing those damned kisses of his! So what if his lips were so warm and soft that I wanted to feel them against mine forever? So what if his eyes mesmerized me with the undeniably seductive gleam that seemed to be there every minute? So what if I couldn’t stop imagining what it would feel like to have his strong hands caressing my bare skin again?