Dirty Royal: A Bad Boy Royal Romance (23 page)

I roll my eyes at him and give him a teasing push on the shoulder. “None of
you
are going to leave the city any time soon. I’ll only be a flight away.”

Fifteen minutes later, after picking at another round of small plates passed around by the wait staff, I can’t ignore the fatigue settling behind my eyes. If I have anything else to drink, I’m going to be miserable in, what, six hours? That’s when I have to get up to catch my flight to Seattle. Once I land, I’m going to be going to Jamie’s place to stay for a few days while the movers bring my things across the country, and I’m going to look like an asshole if I show up exhausted and hungover.

“Dessert!” Christian appeals to me as I stand up, pointing across the room to the waiters carrying more gleaming silver trays.

I shake my head. “I don’t need any more dessert, Chris. I’ve got to get going.”

“But it’s so early! You can’t leave yet!”

“My flight leaves at 8:00.” I lean down and kiss him on the cheek. Why the hell is he being so insistent that I stay?

“Fifteen minutes, Jess,” he says, vaguely indicating the rest of the table. Carolyn is in deep conversation with her date, John, who she’s seen a few times and seems to like quite a bit, so I know she won’t be leaving soon, and everyone else is invested in a conversation about whether it’s better to visit Italy in the summer or the South of France.

Yes, the timing is perfect.

“Thank you so much for the party,” I say, smiling, and then make my way around the table, collecting hugs and good lucks as I go.

When I get back around to my seat to pick up my purse, Christian looks up at me, something strange in his eyes. “You sure you won’t stay another few minutes?” His phone, face down on the linen tablecloth, buzzes and he snatches it up, glances at the screen, and looks back at me again.

“I can’t,” I say, an ache beginning to form behind my eyes. Purse in hand, I make my way away from the table, stopping once to wave at all my friends. My throat tightens—I’m going to
miss
them—but I smile as brightly as I can before I turn around. I wouldn’t want them to think I was second-guessing myself.

I’m not second-guessing myself. I’m just feeling nostalgic for the way things were before Alec came into my life and turned it all upside down.

I laugh a little to myself as I head toward the coat check. Things weren’t simple then. Not any simpler than they are now, except for the added heartbreak. Part of me wanted to skip town, or skip jobs, do
something
differently.

The girl in front of the coat closet takes my slip and comes back with a lightweight rain jacket that I brought just in case the storm hit when I was making my way out. Lucky for me, the boom of the thunder—I can hear it clearly now, away from the music in the Swan’s main room—is right on top of us.

Outside, the rain is coming down in sheets, but I’ve walked home in worse. I’m not going to walk all the way back to the apartment—it’s at least fifteen blocks from the Swan—but there’s a long line for the taxis and only two or three waiting. I could be standing here another hour.

The dress I’m wearing isn’t one of Carolyn’s, it’s mine, so if it gets wet I won’t feel bad about it. There’s a subway entrance a block and a half from here. I’m going for it. Pulling the hood of my raincoat up over my hair, I step out from under the Swan’s awning and into the deluge.

Despite the raincoat, I’m immediately soaked. It’s a warm rain—today was ungodly hot, the kind of sticky New York summer day that makes you desperate for a storm—and the cold front that brought the thunder and lightning doesn’t seem to have chilled the droplets at all. It wakes me up a little. I pick up the pace.

I haven’t gone thirty steps when there’s a shout behind me. It’s hard to tell, but it sounds like my name. Did I leave something at the table? Did Chris realize how hard it’s raining and chase me out here to give me a ride? That guy is too much sometimes.

I turn, a half smile on my face, ready to tell him that it’s too late, I’m already wet—he should just go back inside and have another drink. Maybe two, considering he probably didn’t bother to put on a raincoat. It’ll be something we can laugh about later, when I call him from Seattle to tell him about my new place, about my new life.
 

But Christian isn’t the one running toward me in the rain, soaked from head to toe, green eyes alive and fiery even in the dim light of the streetlights.

It’s Alec.

My heart literally skips a beat, then crashes against my ribs as my brain registers his face, his wet clothes, his hard muscled body, coming toward me as fast as his legs will carry him.

“Jessica!” he calls again.

He’s here.

Alec came for me.

Chapter 48

Alec

I run after Jessica in the pouring rain, not giving a damn that I’m soaked to the skin in three seconds flat, not caring at all that I’ve left Nate to deal with a disgruntled crowd in front of the Swan. When we pulled up and I got out of the car, some of the people waiting in line for taxis began moving toward the town car, probably hoping to hire it out if he was just dropping off. Behind me, I hear him calling out the window at them, his words lost in the downpour.

Lightning arcs down from the sky, hitting one of the lightning rods on a nearby high rise. The storm is circling right over us—it’s a fucking miracle I got the pilot to land the plane in New Jersey, just south of the storm’s eye, and it’s an even bigger miracle that Nate got us here in time.

Jessica hurries down the sidewalk. I’d know that walk anywhere, know that shape, that swing to the hips.

“Jessica!” I call out, already running. She’s halfway down the block and I can’t wait another fucking second to see her. I can’t take it. My heart might burst out of my chest.

As she turns, I see the little smile on her face dissolve into confusion, and then her mouth forms a round O in shock.

“Jessica!” I call again, even though she’s clearly recognized me, because I am nearly out of my mind with the travel, the longing, the love running wild in my veins.

Then I’m there, in front of her, my breaths coming fast and water streaming down my hair, my face, into my eyes. I wipe at it with the back of my hand and then give a little laugh because fuck it is pointless, there’s so much coming down it’s like the first day of Noah’s flood.

“What are you doing here?” Jessica says to me, bewildered.

The grand speech I planned out on the plane has been wiped from my mind by the sight of her beautiful face, the curves of her cheekbones, the way the water droplets play over her flawless skin, the tendrils of wet auburn hair flattened against her forehead. “I came to see you,” I say finally.

“For what?” she says, and a gust of wind threatens to knock her hood right off her head. She reaches up and holds it in place.

I can’t look away from her. I can’t look away from those big blue beautiful eyes, bright even under the streetlight on a dreary summer night.

“I’m sorry,” I say, shouting over another boom of thunder. “I’m sorry, Jessica. I was all wrong.”

She bites her lip, and I see a flash of some emotion cross her face. What is it? Irritation? Anger?

Hope?

“I couldn’t live another moment without you. Fuck, this is coming out all wrong.”

“It’s okay,” she says, giving me the tiniest nod.

Relief sweeps through me like a stiff wind. She’s not turning away, not stalking down the street. Not yet.

She still could.

I still have more to say.

“There’s no excuse for the things I said to you,” I say, as the wind picks up, gusting around us. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I said any of it. The stress of everything—it got to me. It made me into a person I don’t want to be. And the thing is, Jessica—the thing is—.” My throat tightens, and I have to swallow before I can continue. “None of this is worth it without you. My days without you have been absolutely colorless and dull and bland and so fucking meaningless.”

Are there tears in her eyes, or is it just the rain?

“I had to come see you, to tell you this in person. And you don’t have to forgive me. You can walk away from me right now, and I’ll understand, because I was awful. You were perfect, and I was awful. But Jessica—I love you more than anyone I’ve ever met. You mean the world to me. You
are
my world.”

She presses her lips together and I take one last breath. “Marcus—I think he died from unhappiness. He was under so much stress, and he didn’t have anything in his life to make him feel as alive as you make me feel. I just—I fucking learned the wrong lesson when he died. I thought that the point was to do the best job I could as the crown prince, no matter what it cost me. I should have known that to die like that, without experiencing the love of a woman like you, is the worst kind of death. I love you. I’m sorry.”

She’s silent and still for a long moment as more water sluices into my eyes, and then her face breaks into the most radiant smile I’ve ever seen on another human being. “I’m not.”

“You’re not what?” I don’t know what she means.

“Sorry that you love me.”

Then she pushes her hood back away from her face, throws her arms around my neck, and kisses me, hard and hot, not giving a fuck about the audience we most certainly have watching us back under the awning.

“I love you so much, Alec,” she says, pulling back from my mouth for each word. “I was so fucking angry at you. Never do that to me again.”

“I won’t. I promise.” I know that her forgiveness is only the beginning of the work we have to do with each other, but it’s going to be so,
so
worth it.

Now that she’s forgiven me, my heart begins to race again…because I have one more trick up my sleeve.

Breaking off the kiss, I push her back a half step. Confusion flits across her face.

Then I get down on one knee.

“Alec!” she cries, laughing as another bolt of lightning splits the sky.

“Before we drown out here,” I say, pulling a ring box from my pocket. “This was my mother’s ring.” My mother—and my father—had excellent taste in rings, and the diamond is flawless, the setting intricate but not overdone, so I have no fear that Jessica won’t like it. “I would love for you to wear it. And for you to become my wife. Will you marry me?”

“Yes!” she shrieks, but she reaches out and snaps the box closed. “Don’t give it to me here, though. It might get swept into the gutter by the rain, and then what the hell would we do?”

I stand up hastily, my pants soaked through. “Where should we go?” I say, giddy, happy laughter filling my chest.

“Back inside. There are dry clothes. And we need to celebrate!” Jessica takes my hand and, even though we’re both wet to the skin, starts running back toward the awning, pulling me behind her. She goes a few steps, then turns back to shoot me a naughty smile. “No last names, though, okay?”

I squeeze her hand, grinning back at her.
 

This is
not
where it ends.
 

This is where it all begins.

Epilogue

Jessica

I stand just outside the inner doors leading to the [aisle in Sainthall Cathedral, my hands trembling.

It’s my wedding day and coronation day all wrapped into one, and all the anticipation of the past few months has culminated in a celebration that has all of Saintland in an uproar.

At least that’s what Alec tells me. I’ve been so busy with wedding planning that I haven’t seen much of the news coverage about our impending nuptials. It all hit me today as I rode in the limousine through the streets of Saintland from the Sainthall Palace to Sainthall Cathedral.

It was like a scene out of a fairy tale. Crowds lined the streets, throwing honest-to-God confetti into the air as the car passed them by. I had to remind myself to wave at them instead of just staring, despite Claire’s constant stream of instructions.

I was happy to see her when I got back to Saintland. She’s going to make the perfect head personal assistant in my new “household.” It’s funny—I thought I knew most of what there was to know about living in a palace after my last visit to Saintland. Not even close.

My father was waiting for me when the limo pulled up in front of Sainthall Cathedral, and he and my brother Thomas escorted me into the cathedral. But not until the media had their fill of taking pictures of my dress, which was designed by Sarah Burton. I can’t help but feel a special kinship with Kate Middleton now, although I haven’t met her.

Yet.

My heart pounds with excitement, but the processional is still going. We have more flower girls than I ever thought necessary, but because this is a royal wedding, there were a lot of details that I didn’t get to decide, tradition did. Claire went through everything with me thousands of times, but she always made it clear when something wasn’t up for discussion. The flower girls were one such thing.

Claire’s still the same, but many other things at Sainthall Palace are changing. As soon as we got back to Saintland, Alec started out by setting some ground rules.

On the plane ride back over the Atlantic, we cuddled together in the plush leather seats, and he told me some of what had made Marcus’s life so stressful—and his father’s. Saintland was a nation founded in unrest, and there’s still some question about where the physical boundaries should lie and whether it should be a kingdom at all. There are so many behind-the-scenes negotiations taking place that it’s no wonder it all got to Marcus. If the Saintlandian economy collapses, it’s going to be a disaster for its citizens. Alec is determined not to let that happen. I got the sense that there was more he wasn’t sharing with me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an obscure provision in Saintlandian law that would allow for the removal of the ruling royal family under certain circumstances. That’s the last thing Alec’s father would want, and would be a significant source of stress for him, too.

Still, a life under that kind of pressure is not a life worth living, and so Alec has pushed back against tradition with strict boundaries. He won’t work past 6:30 p.m., unless there’s a special event requiring his attendance.