A Cinderella Twist: A Contemporary Royal Romance Page 11

  She shrugs and then looks like she’s trying to remember exactly what triggered this demon image. The longer she sits in silence, rummaging through her thoughts, the more I’m inclined to think she’s not conjuring up the demon-like imagery she was expecting. I was freshly showered and wearing nothing but a towel the first time we met. Not the ideal first impression, but I’ve seen enough headlines touting me as one of the most desired bachelors alive, to surmise it’s not completely unpleasing and highly unlikely demon-like.

  “Maybe it wasn’t so much first ‘sight’ demon as it was first ‘listen’ demon,” she concedes after several drawn out moments of contemplation. “You have a very evil sounding hiss when you’re afraid someone’s going to wake your baby.”

  “I believe the word you’re looking for is protective.” I start to lower myself to the bean bag. If I’m coming across as a creature of darkness on regular occasion, I’m probably overthinking my efforts to be as dignified as possible here. “Threatening, maybe. But evil?”

  “My morning coffee, and thus the wellbeing of my soul, felt very much in jeopardy,” she counters. “That doesn’t sound evil to you?”

  I sigh, opting for surrender on this one. “Fine. Your first impression of me did not produce a love at first sight sort of reaction.”

  “Did yours?” she asks, eyes gleaming with a sudden onset of intense curiosity.

  “Did my what?”

  “Did your first impression of me produce a love at first sight sort of reaction?” she repeats the entire phrase back to me.

  “Did my first impression of you busting into the apartment uninvited to steal half and half from my brother’s fridge while shouting loud enough to wake my sleeping baby produce a love at first sight sort of reaction?” I spell out my side of said encounter. “No.”

  Morton laughs quietly. “I’m almost sorry you two are taking this show out of the country.” He rests his now nearly empty cup on his knee. “Since you’ve both ruled out love at first sight, where does that leave you?”

  Greer taps the side of her mug with her fingernails and starts to chew on her bottom lip, something I’m starting to learn is part of her ‘thinking face’.

  “You’re a longtime friend of the family,” I say when she can’t seem to come up with anything. “I think we can skim over the fact we never met before now and just focus on the part where you’ve always been there, in the background, only this trip I finally took notice.”

  Her brow furrows and her lip pops out from under her teeth to land in a sour pout. “Why am I the one who’s only just now being noticed? Maybe I’m the one that’s been ignoring you all these years.”

  “You can’t have been ignoring me all these years,” I say flatly.

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” I explain matter of fact, “I’m a prince. No one ignores a prince.” Then I smirk. “And also, because this is my fairy tale.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  GREER

  The kids wake up from their naps before we can iron out the who-ignored-who issue of our backstory. I’m pretty sure Lachlan thinks he closed the argument, but he’ll learn soon enough I never give in so easily, even if I do get distracted mid-argument. I remember. I come back to finish.

  “You sure you know what you’re doing there?” Dad asks as I’m strapping Liz back into the stroller, preparing for our walk back home. Lachlan and Mo left a little earlier having farther to go.

  “I’ve only strapped a kid in and out of this thing about a million times, Dad. I’m quite sure I have it figured out.” I check the strap one more time to make sure it’s properly clicked into place. Liz has been getting awfully squirmy in there as of late. Especially when she’s already had a good rest and needs to burn off some energy. They had some time to run around the store, but not nearly enough.

  “I don’t mean the stroller, princess,” he muses.

  “I suddenly have very mixed feelings about being called that,” I tell him, twisting up my mouth while I decide how much I want to read into the current state of my life and the nickname I’ve had since I was two and fell in love with my first fairy tale. I’m sure it’s not a sign. Or fate. Or anything even remotely as ridiculous as every delusional thought trying to take root inside my brain at this very moment. “And yes, I’m sure I know what I’m doing with the whole Lachlan thing, too.” I shrug, trying to minimize the scenario in which I’m about to marry a prince, a very lovely prince I happen to find increasingly attractive the longer I’m around him - which I likely will be a lot once I’m married to him – all of which I’m deeming an acting gig and nothing more.

  My dad nods, but he doesn’t put his response into actual words, leaving me to guess at whether he agrees with my assessment of my own ability to separate my emotions from my work or is merely agreeing to disagree.

  I decide to go with option number one on this one. I have too many things already jumbling around in here, I don’t have time or energy to sort through the various interpretations of my father’s nod.

  “You’ll come see me before you hop on any planes?” he asks, walking me to the door.

  “Of course,” I promise, smacking a loud kiss on his cheek before we head out.

  From here, everything passes in a routinely blur. Home. More kids. Dinner. Nora. And with her, the end of my workday.

  “Is there still food?” I call out even as I’m walking into the apartment across from mine. I didn’t even bother to go home first, I already know we have nothing to eat there. Or at least nothing that’s ready for consumption, no cooking or prep work required.

  “I don’t know,” Chase says. “Is this really the sort of wife you want? One who can’t even cook?” This is when I notice he’s not talking to me. And also, when I notice Lachlan already spilled the beans on our big fake wedding plans.

  “Why are you telling him I can’t cook?” I ask, making a beeline for the kitchen table and the stacks of pizza boxes sitting there practically screaming my name. Well, mine and Mal’s apparently. She’s already at the table, hogging an entire Hawaiian all to herself. “I wasn’t going to reveal that until after we were married. You know, give him proper grounds for divorce.” I cast a disgusted glance at Mal and her pineapple and ham abomination. “I don’t know why you’re acting like anyone else is coming for that.”

  “You think I’d divorce you over your lacking cooking skills?” Lachlan asks from his seat over on the couch where him, Abbas and Chase are all finishing up what looks like a pizza that had something out of every stall on Old McDonald’s farm on it.

  “You could be that sexist. Your country certainly is,” I retort. “Abbas, I’m telling your mom you ate Wilbur.”

  Abbas picks a piece of bacon from the box and returns the threat, “Then I’m telling all of Linden you’re a fake bride.”

  Meanwhile, Lachlan just shrugs. “Even if I was as sexist as my country, we have a chef and full kitchen staff at the castle. We could stay married for the rest of our lives and I’d never know if you could cook or not.”

  Abbas stops his search for bacon. “Can I be your fake wife?”

  “Can we stop making jokes about this for a minute?” Mal demands loudly, startling all of us, except Mo who’s too zoned into some kid’s show on the television to hear anything else. “This is serious. And frankly, I’m not sure I’m okay with it.”

  I pick at the slice of tomato that landed on the front of my shirt when I dropped the front half of my pizza, thanks to Mal’s outburst, and the point flopped down short of reaching my mouth, flinging toppings at my chest instead. “I think I appreciate that,” I start, investigating the tomato for lint and things before eating it. “But what about this are you not okay with?”

  Her eyes narrow. “Mostly things I don’t think you want me to say in front of boys but which I will if you feign ignorance moving forward.”

  I won’t feign ignorance. I know what she’s talking about. “Any other things?”

  “No, wait,” Lachlan interrupts.
“I want to know the mostly things, too.”

  “They don’t have anything to do with you,” I tell him, sounding snottier than I intended.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because they’re best girlfriend concerns, and you’re neither her best friend nor a girl.” I raise my brows daring him to make a comeback.

  He doesn’t. Instead, he turns to Chase. “Do you know what Mallory is talking about?”

  Chase only just took a giant bite, so he can nod before he can answer. “Oh, yeah.”

  Lachlan looks back at me, crossing his arms and smirking triumphantly. “Go ahead. Continue with the other things.”

  “No, don’t,” Abbas pipes up again, wagging his finger at Mal to keep her mouth shut. “If you let them go through with this insanity, we all get a free vacation out of it.”

  She makes a face. “You need a free vacation so bad you’re willing to let one of your best friends make what could potentially be the biggest mistake of her life?”

  Abbas looks almost sad. “He lives in a castle. When are we ever going to get to stay in one of those again?”

  Chase shrugs. “You can just come with me next time I go visit.”

  Abbas shakes his head. “Not the same. I want the wedding. Let me know when this goes to a vote.”

  Lachlan’s expression takes a turn toward bewildered. “There’s not going to be a vote.”

  “Oh, there’s always a vote,” Mal informs him in her scary voice. Usually, only Abbas and Cheese are subjected to it but we’re all familiar with it thanks to their talents for bringing the dark side out of her while in the presence of an audience.

  Chase and I exchange a glance, silently determining which one of us is filling in his brother on the insane but set rules of our small but chaotic community between two apartments. Chase rolls his eyes, accepting his duties, and sighs. Meanwhile, I settle in on the backrest of the couch, perfectly located between the storytelling about to take place and the pizza I’m going to want another slice of.

  “Six and a half years ago,” he starts, and I can tell he’s already tempted to roll his eyes again. It’s not a story I would want to tell anyone outside the circle either. I don’t even want to have to repeat it to myself, it’s that dumb. But years later, I also can’t deny it’s been effective. “All four of us made some really bad decisions all over the course of the same week.” He pulls the last slice from the ravaged box before he goes on. “Abbas decided to sleep with this chick he met at an after-work thing. Mal agreed to dog-sit her ex-boyfriend’s dog. Greer’s stylist friend moved, leaving her to conclude it was time for an at home dye job. And me? I allowed myself to get roped into a relationship with a crazy person.”

  It was a bad week.

  “So, you all made some bad choices and decided you’d be better off letting other people who make equally bad choices decide for you?” Lachlan concludes skeptically.

  “Not exactly.” But kind of. Chase takes a deep breath and proceeds to break it down for him another level. “It wasn’t just that we made bad choices. It was that we all collectively suffered from each of our individual bad choices. Abbas’s chick ended up being the wife of his firm’s client. Thankfully, the client never found out, but the chick went batshit crazy after their hook up, calling and showing up at all hours of the day and night, crying and screaming and threatening to tell her husband unless Abbas gave her what she wanted.”

  Lachlan frowns. “Which was?”

  “More Abbas,” Abbas says like it’s obvious.

  Chase moves on before Lachlan can request more clarification or make snide comments Abbas won’t appreciate. “Mal’s guilt over dumping Travis wound up costing all of us when she let his pug Nancy come stay for three days. Dog peed everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. Months went by and we still found dried stains of urine in places you wouldn’t think a pug could squat. But Nancy, she had a gift. She also had teeth and a serious oral fixation. Everyone lost at least one pair of shoes that week.”

  Lachlan’s mouth sways from confused to disgusted and his eyes get narrower like they’re trying to unsee the picture Chase is so vividly painting with his words.

  “Greer’s hair fiasco was only slightly less destructive. Well, if you don’t count the destruction that took place on her.”

  I did. I definitely counted it. Entire chunks of hair fell out or broke off. It was devastating. And the last time I ever attempted my own bleach job. Six and a half years later, and I’m still cautiously stroking my strands at the memory.

  “But even with the damage mostly contained,” Chase carries on unbothered by my traumatic flashbacks, “she still managed to destroy their bathmat and left a big old bleach mark on our sofa when she accidentally leaned back with all that shit still in her hair.” He lifts the large throw pillow nestled beside him to reveal the damage. “Not to mention, she turned all of our showers pink for months after when she tried to save what was left of her hair by cutting it into spikes and dying it fuchsia.”

  Lachlan nods, casting a casual but obvious glance in my direction and the vibrant teal streaked through my fully recovered mane. “And your monumental error that week?” He sounds almost afraid to ask now. I have to commend him for his dedication to seeing things through, even when they’re uncomfortable and he’s clearly going to come out on the losing end of it when all is said and done.

  “Colt,” Chase says, a tormented twist shaping his mouth.

  “Like a horse?”

  “Like a cowboy.” The one and only Chase ever dated. “Met him at the farmer’s market. He was charming and sweet and had that twang and the hat.” Chase shrugs regretfully. “I think I knew deep down it was a bad idea, but I just couldn’t help myself.”

  Lachlan’s brow crinkles and he props one elbow onto his knee, hand moving first toward his face then stopping short to point at his brother. “Is this the guy that kidnapped you for five days?”

  “Yes!” Mallory calls out from across the room where she’s still sitting at the kitchen table. “Total psycho. Wouldn’t let him leave. Not that he held him at gun point or anything, but still, Chase called us in tears one night and it took an extravagant Greer scheme and all three of us to get him out.”

  Lachlan looks like he can’t tell if he should laugh or be upset by this. Then, it’s like his mind catches on something else she said and his eyes land on me, a silent question forming in them.

  “I’m not a frequent schemer,” I assure him. “I just happen to have an imagination favorable to conjuring schemes when necessary.”

  “It’s true,” Abbas adds. “We think it has to do with growing up in a bookstore surrounded by fiction. Sometimes she can’t tell the difference between what’s realistic and what’s not, which can be annoying in day-to-day life, but really comes in handy in the scheme of scheming.”

  “The point is,” Mallory says loudly, pushing out her chair and standing from the table to walk toward us. “The Sunday which followed each of our individual travesties, we made a pact. In this living room. At that coffee table. There was tequila. And a bowl of raw cookie dough. Words were spoken. Blood was spilled. Vows were made. And now, we vote.”

  LACHLAN

  I TAKE MY TIME TO MAKE eye contact with every single person in the room, minus Monroe, who’s oblivious to the state of things in this apartment right now. No one cracks. No smile. No hint of amusement flickering in anyone’s eyes.

  “You’re serious,” I say, one final request for clarification. “You all get a vote on whether or not Greer and I go through with our plan.”

  “Yes,” Mallory confirms, moving around the sofa to have a seat on the coffee table, directly across from me. “We all get a vote. And I vote no.”

  “You can’t vote yet,” Greer interjects. “We haven’t presented our case.”

  She shrugs. “Lachlan did.”

  “But I didn’t get to share my side. And mine is the choice we’re voting on. Not Lachlan’s. He’s not part of the pact,” she reasons. If reason
ing can still be used in the context of this conversation.

  “She’s right,” Abbas jumps in, quick to defend his path to a free vacation and chance at living the royal life.

  “I don’t think it matters,” Chase says calmly, contemplating the last of his pizza. He’s down to the crust and he’s never been a fan. “I’m pretty sure we’re going to outvote Mal anyway.”

  “Nothing is official until it’s official,” Mallory insists, eyes cast into narrow slits so I can barely see her pupils in anymore. “And it won’t be official until tomorrow morning. We vote over breakfast.”

  “Deal.” Greer jumps off the back of the couch and moseys back to the kitchen table. “Now can we please start talking about something else?”

  “I can’t,” Mallory says, a rushed look at her watch. “I have to run down to the basement and throw in a load of laundry before it gets too late.”

  “Oh.” Abbas stands up from the recliner. “That reminds me. I’m out of clean socks.”

  Chase tosses the strip of crust into the empty box, wiping his hands on the last napkin before tossing it into the box as well. “You can borrow a pair of mine if you don’t want to do laundry tonight.”

  Abbas looks oddly panicked by the offer. “No. It’s fine. I don’t mind.” When he doesn’t seem satisfied with his own answer he adds, “I need underwear too. Can’t borrow that.”

  Chase scowls. “No, you can’t.”

  Next thing, Mallory is rushing over to her place while Abbas darts off down the hall, both suddenly very motivated to get to the laundry room downstairs.