Prince's Proposal (The Exiled Royals 1) (4 page)

Mel wasn’t sure that their quiet cab ride to the diner down the strip was a good sign or a bad sign.

On the con side, she was scared that he had terrible news about their marriage. If she had to stay tied to him for more than the few days it took to file the paperwork, then she’d be pissed. No, more than pissed.

Sure, it was her own drunken mistakes that had helped land her here. But this wasn’t what she wanted. People betrayed you. Her family had kicked her out the second she’d graduated from high school. The one boyfriend she’d had, well, she’d found him balls deep in another girl on prom night. Being tied down just damned people, left them open to inevitable betrayal.

She was independent, damn it.

She was the last person on Earth who wanted to be a princess and have a prince sweep her up in fairytale fashion. She didn’t need that. All she needed was to keep standing on her own two feet.

On the pro side: because he was being quiet in the cab, at least they didn’t have to talk to each other and she wouldn’t have to hear him blow her off. It was impossible. All these emotions were warring within her.

There’d been a flicker of something between them on the balcony last night, and, of course, her heart hammered harder in her chest when she saw his naked ass. But she couldn’t get tied down.

Refused to.

So silence was best.

The diner was nondescript; something that looked as if it had been around since the fifties with bright silver signs and waitresses older than her mother, and with beehive hairdos to match. It also smelled vaguely stale, and she had no idea why anyone who had once been royalty and who clearly still had serious bank, even in exile, would go there.

As the slim blonde pixie who was their waitress led them to their seats, Mel expressed her confusion to Ray, “Really? You couldn’t find a place with a few more health code violations?”

He arched an eyebrow at her and shrugged. “They have amazing milkshakes and some of the finest cheeseburgers I’ve ever had.”

She chuckled as the waitress gave them their menus. “Then the secret ingredient must be salmonella.”

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” he said.

The waitress gave her a stink eye, shaking her head and clicking her tongue at her. Mel rolled her eyes and asked for a Diet Coke while her date , er, husband ordered an orange juice.

Sure, that would really help drive the hangover away. Nothing like O.J. with a raging headache and freshly brushed teeth. Anyway, it was enough to send the blonde know-it-all scampering back behind the counter. Mel decided on some pancakes. They could only mess those up so much. 

“Seriously,” Mel said, setting her menu aside and placing her hands palms down on the table. “What are we doing?”

“I believe it’s called eating,” he said, offering the waitress a megawatt smile when she set the orange juice and soda down before them. “Thank you.”

The waitress smiled back at him, and, to be honest, Mel couldn’t blame her. Those cornflower-blue eyes were captivating. Hell, they’d convinced her inside of twelve hours to get married – do the one thing she swore to herself that she’d never do.

As she handed Mel a straw, the waitress’ face fell. She tried to put on a fake, plastic smile. “Oh, you’re married…I, um, congratulations. Did you come to Vegas for that?”

“Not exactly,” Ray said, furrowing his brow.

Mel’s knee jerk reaction was far more vocal. “We’re not married.”

“Oh, I thought because of the rings,” the waitress floundered as she looked back to her other tables. Clearly, the woman had not realized how badly she had stepped into it. “Anyway, they’re beautiful. What can I get you?”

They rattled off their orders, and Mel was relieved when the waitress slipped away. She’d clearly only been so spirited as a way to charm Ray, and whatever bridal arrangements they had or didn’t have were none of her damn business.

Sighing, Mel leaned against the booth and pulled off her rings. Pushing both back to him, she reveled in the feeling of lightness and freedom that came from having them off her hand. “I need to give those back to you. They’re clearly worth more than I can even imagine.”

“I don’t know what the platinum wedding band is worth, but Mother’s ring is priceless, part of the crown jewels of Yagovia.”

“So more than a mil?”

“Very much more,” he said. 

Mel’s jaw hung open as she struggled to remember words. She’d had multi-million dollar bling on her at least once in her life. Well, slap her ass and call her J. Lo. “How can you just carry that around the way someone does a lucky penny or pair of good dice? What if you lost it?”

“I didn’t,” he said simply, pushing his long, obsidian hair over his shoulders. “Serena, my sister, gave it to me the day I was exiled. Mom’s actual wedding ring is from my father’s side of the family. This ring has been part of the Romanov line for generations, the line my mother and her sisters came from as duchesses. It’s a way to remember home, in case I can never go back.”

She snorted. “I thought good old sexism and Middle Age mentality would save the day for you.”

“It could, but on one condition,” he said, pushing the rings back to her. “I need you to stay married to me for a month.”

Mel blinked rapidly. There was no way she’d heard him correctly. This was a mistake, something they could annul as soon as the courts fully opened on Monday. There was no way he was asking her to be embroiled in a fake union for that long. “Excuse me?”

“I talked to my lawyer. He said if we stay married for a month, he’ll be able to use family precedent and Yagovian legal loopholes to free us. But he can’t do that if we dissolve it early. It’ll anger my parents too much and will prove to them that I really am irresponsible.”

“Well, you are! Who marries a stranger?”

“You did!”

“Well, I’m a cocktail waitress, not the future leader of a nation. I’m allowed to mess up.” She stood and started to the door. “You know what? I’m sorry your royal title is in jeopardy, but there’s nothing in this deal for me. So, you know what?” she said, flinging the rings back across the table at him. “Have a nice life; I’m out of here.”

She rushed quickly into the street before her traitor heart could steer her back to him. Her heart could shut the fuck up. It was her freedom that mattered and not the political machinations in a country she’d never heard of until three hours ago.

Ray struggled to pull bills out for the waitress. He gave her a couple of hundreds and asked her to hold the table and their order for twenty minutes. If they didn’t come back, the hundreds would cover it and she could keep the rest. She smiled and nodded her agreement. 

Ray scooped up the rings and hurried out of the diner in the direction he’d seen Mel go. He found her leaning against the stucco wall of a bank. 

He shook his head then shrugged his shoulders in apology. He held the rings out to her. “I need you to do this for me.”

“There’s no way. It’s a joke. We have nothing in common!”

“We must have had something going for us if we got married, even with alcohol involved.”

Mel looked up at him, brown eyes burning with pure fury and fire. “All I remember is the balcony, and that was more about my feeling guilty about your losing streak, which was dumb.”

“You know what I saw?” he said, allowing himself to be honest with a woman for the first time in possibly his entire life.

“Someone hot? An easy lay? What, please? Share with the rest of the class.”

“No, it wasn’t that, not exactly.”

“Hah!” she exclaimed, starting to pace. “Then it was about looks.”

Ray sighed, not sure where all these barriers and walls were even coming from. He had married her after knowing her for just a few hours, how could he know how to reach her? It all fit perfectly with his piss-poor judgment.

“No, but you have to know you’re beautiful. That
The Lucky Seven
has a reputation for being as it is.”

“That’s true, but if this was all because I was the lucky thousandth hot chick you bedded, then you can take this weird arrangement and shove it down your thousand-dollar pants.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “That’s what I found so appealing about you – that honesty and humor. People never tell me the way things are. Women…I’ve never kept anyone around long enough for them to matter.”

“You’re winning me over there really well, Casanova.”

“I’m not doing this right,” he said, waving his hands as if to erase everything and start again. 

“Oh,
I’ll
say.”

He sighed and gripped her shoulders, holding her so that she would stop pacing. He stroked her long chestnut hair back from her face. It fell to her waist and was by far her most striking feature, even as beautiful as she was. “You have passion and a spark, and I wanted to know more. I didn’t mean to get drunk any more than you did. You can understand, can’t you, that I don’t want to be in exile forever and never return to my family home or see my sister again.”

“You don’t want to be poor?”

“Who would? But that isn’t what’s important here. My point is that I know this isn’t what you want. So tell me what is. What will make the deal sweet enough for you to see it through for the next thirty days?”

She frowned up at him as she gently chewed her bottom lip; Ray held his breath, scared that she’d refuse, or that she had no price he could meet. “I told you about my trailer.”

“Yes.”

“It’s mine. I bought it outright two years ago with the money I’d saved waitressing. Well, I want a real house, the kind with a pool in the suburbs, but I’d never be able to actually afford it. If we do this for a month, then my terms are that you don’t think this is more than it is. We’re not getting married for real, and I’m not some damsel waiting for a prince to come and rescue me.”

“Agreed.”

“Great, and then once you get your inheritance or throne –
whatever
- you buy me a house of my choosing. I’m not going nuts with some luxury estate, but I do want something all on my own, with a pool. I think that’s a fair trade.”

“So it’s all business?” he asked, holding out his hand and smiling as she shook it.

She grinned back at him, replaced the rings on her finger, and said, “What else would it be?

After their non-breakfast, Ray drove Mel to his family’s mansion on the outskirts of town and gave her the tour. Then he’d dropped her off at her trailer so she could pick up enough clothes to last the month. Her old tom, Azrael, wasn’t thrilled with Ray and hissed at him loudly. That was a bonus as far as Mel was concerned.

If she’d had some cute kitten, Mel was sure that Ray would have tried cuddling it and getting in its good graces. There was no point to that. This was a business arrangement, his adoring looks notwithstanding. She had thirty days to see this through, and she intended to do so on her terms.

She understood why he’d made it part of the deal that she had to live under the same roof with him for now, so that he could ensure she wouldn’t file papers to end the marriage behind his back. But the thought of finally living in a place with all the amenities she wanted and having more to show for her years of working than just her doublewide with its occasional mold problems was going to be worth it. A place of her own where no one – not even mother nature with her storms – could kick her out would be worth any confused feelings or awkwardness she felt about Raymond Kharmin, the once and future prince of Yagovia.

And she was going to make it clear that this was a platonic arrangement from here on out.

For him to fulfill his part of the arrangement he would have to stay in his king suite alone; she and Azrael would take one of the downstairs guest rooms. She would go to work on her own every day, trusting her Volkswagen Jetta to survive a few weeks longer. She would not be driven around by Ray in any of his luxury cars. It would be damn hard turning down the Aston Martin Vanquish, but she’d manage. She could buy a new, reliable car of her own once she sold her trailer.

She took a detour on her way to Ray’s and cruised slowly through a neighborhood she’d often driven through in the past and had fantasized about living in. It wasn’t the like the grand, gated estates where Raymond’s mansion was, but the houses were mostly new with beautiful landscaping and good-sized yards, big enough for swimming pools and patios. 

It was definitely going to be worth it. 

Yes, she could most certainly be Miss Willpower for the foreseeable future, no doubt about that.

On the first night of their “marriage,” they were served a quiet dinner by a butler, no less, in the smaller of the mansion’s two dining rooms. Ray begged off after they’d had coffee and dessert. “After a night and day like we’ve had, I think for once in my life I’m going to get to bed at a decent hour and start tomorrow fresh.” 

“Me too,” Mel said, getting up from the table. “I have to work tomorrow.” He hesitated for a moment and Mel thought he might be thinking of kissing her, but then he just said, “Good night. Sleep well,” and went upstairs.

Mel made her way down the long hallway to the downstairs guestrooms and realized with a laugh that she’d actually forgotten which of the many doors along the wall led to her room until she heard Azrael meow on the other side of the third door. 

The room was stunning and luxurious with a view through tall windows of the gardens outside, a sitting area with a desk and a chaise lounge – for napping, Mel assumed – and an enormous attached bathroom. Mel thought ruefully that this suite was bigger than her entire trailer. But, she reminded herself, she would soon have her own, real house – with a pool. 

After she’d brushed her teeth and executed the rest of her nightly ritual, Mel slid between the luxurious sheets. She’d expected to be asleep in two seconds, but instead she lay there, her eyes wide open, staring at the ornate ceiling. 

For all her resolve to remain roommates, go Dutch, and simply wait out the month, her own mind was working as hard against her as Ray’s charms were.

Those were just foolish fantasies, she told herself. 

The truth was that she burned for him.

He comes to her dressed in nothing but black silk boxers. Melissa is glad she saved the teddy from the night of their wedding. It was silly and sentimental at first, to shove the slightly tattered garment into her duffle bag along with her work uniforms, jeans and t-shirts.

That didn’t stop the voice deep in her gut from demanding it, from insisting that dressing alluringly was a good idea.

When he walks in, she rises from the bed and watches, disinterested, as Azrael races through Ray’s legs and out the door.

Ray leans against the doorframe with a practiced insouciance. He’s a man with all the time in the world for her, and they both know it. He’s grinning at her with a smirk that could get half of the European highborn ladies to throw their panties into the wind.

The other half would already be crawling all over him. His hair is damp, curling a bit in obsidian waves around his shoulders, and she licks her lips as she spies the ridges of his abs, traced by the drops of water still running down his body.

“Did you have a good shower?” she asks, and her voice is low and sultry. If that woman hanging on him at the craps table was Marilyn Monroe, she’s Sharon Stone circa Basic Instinct, channeling her inner vixen with a confidence she’s never felt before.

“Yes, but I don’t think I’m clean, Melissa.”

She shudders at the way he says her name, the way he stretches out the double s in a sibilant chant. She licks her lips again and approaches him. She wraps one leg over his hip and angles her body against the rest of him. “Then how can I help you with that?”

She punctuates her question by sucking on his pulse point, working her way there until a hickey appears at the crook of his neck. He moans under her, and she wants to say it’s a promise of things to come, that they can do this every night if he wants, whether he makes her a queen or not. Instead, she merely grinds against him, her own animal lust calling to his.

Ray responds exactly as she hoped. He lifts her up and pins her against the wall. Eagerly, he hikes up the hem of her teddy and shoves down his boxers. His erection is huge when it springs free of the silky material, and its slightly purple head bobs in the low light of the room. She reaches down and strokes it, feeling his cock, hard like steel, underneath her grasp.

“Make love to me,” she orders.

“I’ve been waiting for you to ask me that, Princess, for so long,” he replies, his voice a rumble. He wastes no time before plunging into her, his dick buried deep inside her channel, her wetness flowing over them both. He starts to move against her, all the while fingering her clit.

She screams her approval as he moves even faster, racing toward climax.

All Mel has to do is relax…

Her phone’s alarm sounded loudly and she rolled over, eyeing her cell. It was already two p.m. and she had the five to three a.m. shift at
The Lucky Seven’s
craps floor.

Shivering, Mel stood up and blushed when she looked at the sheets. Oh man, she’d have to do the laundry herself. She hadn’t had a dream like that in a very long time, not since high school. “The last thing I need is for the housekeeper, or worse, Ray, to stumble on that and know” she said aloud to Azrael. Thank God he couldn’t talk. 

God, did she scream?

If anyone other than Azrael knew how strongly she was attracted to the former prince, Mel would die. The whole situation was just messing with her brain, that’s all. Her own traitorous hormones were dictating her thoughts and threatening to let her fall willingly into his arms and cede her freedom to him.

That was not going to happen, God damn it. She just needed some perspective. That was what friends were for, weren’t they? At least, that’s what Mel hoped as she showered and skulked around the bottom floor of Ray’s mansion, hoping that she could be fed and out of there before he tracked her down and engaged her in any small talk. 

She didn’t want that. 

There was already too much temptation flowing through her veins.