Princess Wanted - The Complete Book Set: An Alpha Billionaire Prince Trilogy (9 page)

Somehow he suddenly knew EXACTLY how things would go between them. He smiled imagining how lovely she would look with a tiara on her Texan head.

Princess

Wanted

By

Autumn Star

An Alpha Billionaire Prince Series

Three Princes Need A Wife
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Book
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– The Royal Ball

Chapter One - In Protest

I
t should go without saying that there is nothing that angers an environmental protestor quite as much as those polluting, money-grabbing earth-rapists who violate the planet’s surface before choking it in noxious fumes. Otherwise known as oil barons. But if there is one thing that angers them almost as much, then, perhaps surprisingly, it is their fellow protestors.

Samantha looked at the people around her and despaired. In fairness, she would never have described herself as a protestor (although, today, she was very clearly protesting), she was a ‘campaigner’. A campaigner is someone who sets goals, attends meetings, discusses the pros and cons of plans to push forward a practical environmental agenda with the aim of actually achieving it, a person who works tirelessly to make the world a better place. A protestor is someone who shows up for one day with a placard to yell at people and occasionally throw things, then goes home with a smug, and entirely unwarranted, feeling of having done something to make the world a better place.

To a campaigner, the adolescent antics of the protestor are a constant problem because they claim to be on the same side, and so the hard-working campaigner gets tarred with the same brush. She gets blamed for the extreme fringe of the protestors egging politicians, and her agenda gets lost in the controversy of death threats being mailed to oil dealers and their families. In Samantha’s personal opinion, if the fight for the environment was ever to be won then it would be in spite of the protestors, not because of them (although they would no doubt take credit). They made saving the planet so many times more difficult than it already was. And frankly, it had not been a cake walk in the first place.

By any measure, Samantha was an angry young woman, she had as little tolerance for her ‘fellow’ protestors as she had for the oil barons, dealers, drillers and salesmen and she had never been shy about showing it. This did not make her the most popular of campaigners, but those who knew her realized that this anger was an expression of her passion. There were few who believed in of one hundred percent clean energy as a real and viable future more fervently than Samantha, and no one who worked harder to bring that seemingly distant future closer to the present. She had no time for those who claimed it was an impossible dream, she had no time for those who treated it as the next generation’s problem, and she had no time for people who thought that the way to achieve that goal was passing the buck. Above all the difference between a protestor and a campaigner is that a protestor says, ‘This is a problem – why is no one fixing it?’, while a campaigner says, ‘This is a problem – I will fix it’.

But, for today at least, the line between protestor and campaigner was blurred, as both were attending a rally being held outside the offices of the nation’s largest oil concern: Brosnan Oil. Much as Samantha disliked a lot of the people beside whom she was now standing, today they were united. Sometimes the only way to make a point was in sheer weight of numbers; to say ‘This is how many people think our dependence on oil is untenable, uneconomical, unethical and short-sighted’. At least, that was what Samantha hoped they were saying. The man next to her hurled an egg at the building then turned to grin at Samantha, apparently proud of himself. Samantha offered back a look of untempered contempt.

“Don’t do that.”

The man’s grin vanished, he now clearly considered Samantha to be an interloper here, perhaps a police snitch. If you disapproved of hurling eggs at oil dealers then clearly you weren’t a real environmentalist.

“Go easy.” The words, delivered in a remonstrating tone, were accompanied by a hand laid on Samantha’s shoulder and she turned to see her father. “It’ll be a long day if you alienate everyone.”

Samantha gave an exasperated sigh. “If tomorrow’s papers talk about ‘mob mentality’ instead of the environment then all this is for nothing!”

Her father nodded. “I know. And you know that if these people weren’t here then the papers wouldn’t talk about it at all. It’s a line you’ve got to walk, Samantha. Right now we need these people to get some attention…”

“If it’s not the right sort of attention…”

“And when the dust has cleared and the fair-weather protestors have all gone home, we get to sit down and talk about the issues. But,” her father warned, “If we don’t get the attention in the first place then we don’t get the sit-down. It’s not perfect, but it’s the way it is.”

Samantha was ready to deliver another stingingly barbed comment about protestors in general and the egg-thrower in particular, but held it back - angry though it made her, she knew her father was right. Jack Dalton had been an environmental campaigner all his life, a position that he backed up with first-class degrees in ecology and conservation. Also physical chemistry and marine biology. While politicians and business leaders might be able write-off most of the protestors they faced as cranks who didn’t understand the complexities of the situation, that was impossible to do in the face of a highly qualified expert on the subject. While those around him shouted to be heard, Jack Dalton listened to the arguments of his opponents and then delivered a few softly spoken yet irrefutable sentences in devastating reply. It was hard to argue with someone who knew more than you.

The tone of the ever-vocal protestors changed, a still more menacing air entering it, as a black car, protected by a police cordon, slid past in the direction of the gates.

“There’s a man who’s job I wouldn’t like,” observed Jack, who had compassion for everyone.

The car belonged to Prince Wilhelm, here to represent the royal family in the talks that would secure the country’s energy future for the next decade. Through the tinted windows, Samantha caught a glimpse of a young, somber-faced man. He looked as if he was miles away, lost in thought. But she only had a moment in which to observe him as her view was almost immediately obscured by a well-aimed egg dribbling across the tinted glass.

Samantha turned to see the same man whom she had admonished earlier, still grinning at his own cleverness.

“What did I say?”

All things being considered, it had been an unusual week in the life of Prince Wilhelm. It had started in Thailand with the marriage of his older brother, Lukas, it had continued with his younger brother, Christof, vanishing off to America, and climaxed in a distinctly uncomfortable conversation with his father.

“I would never tell you what to do, Wilhelm,” the King said, clearly enjoying this conversation no more than was his son. “I’ve never told any of my sons what to do.” He paused as he considered the strict accuracy of this statement. “Well… not explicitly. Not definitively. That is to say, I suppose I have told you what to do but it’s not like any of you ever damn well listen. And when you go off and do your own thing, I accept it uncomplainingly.” He paused again. “Mostly uncomplainingly.”

“Yes, father,” agreed Wilhelm.

“On balance,” the King continued, “I daresay it’s because of this open-minded attitude I’ve exercised that I’ve got one son spending his honeymoon mucking out elephants, and another one apparently mucking out horses in Texas.”

“Really?” Wilhelm had not spoken to his younger brother recently.

“He called this morning,” the King sighed. “I’ve no idea what he’s doing out there but I think it’s something to do with a girl.”

Wilhelm shrugged. “With Chris I’d say that’s safe bet.”

The King nodded. “This one does seem different. Touch wood. And he’s got himself a job, which is not something I ever expected to say of Christof. So I suppose my point is: letting your sons go their own way yields surprising results, but not necessarily bad ones. Can’t say I was initially over the moon about where either of your brothers has wound up, but you think about it for a bit and… well, good to see them finding a place in the world and taking responsibility for things.”

“Yes, father.”

“And I suppose all this rambling is my of saying: I’d love to do the same for you.”

“But there’s more at stake,” said Wilhelm.

Wilhelm was ‘the good son’. Not deliberately, he couldn’t help it, it was just how he was. While his brothers had seldom been off the tabloid front pages, he had been so absent from them that much of the population probably thought the king only had two sons. He did what was expected of him, he was there for every pageantry-filled event that tradition demanded. Above all, and like his father, Wilhelm believed that the first duty of the monarchy was to the people. They were not rulers in any real sense – the politicians made the laws and set public policy – and yet the royal family was paid for by the public, and so Wilhelm felt a need to do something to earn that ‘wage’. Whatever he could do for the good of the country and its people, he would.

“By all accounts,” the King tried to put a good face on this, “she’s very pretty.”

Wilhelm (or Will, as he generally preferred) was miles away, lost in thought, when his car drove through the ranks of screaming protestors towards the oil company’s head office - he didn’t even notice them. Safe in the carpark he got out of the car and looked perplexed.

“What’s that on the window?”

“Egg, your Highness.”

“Why is there egg on my window?”

“Someone threw it, your Highness.”

Wilhelm sighed. Last week a little girl, at whose school he was a patron, had given him a bunch of flowers – that hadn’t been reported by a single paper or media outlet, but this would be every front page tomorrow. They only wanted bad news.

“Let’s go.”

Despite having grown up in a palace, Will could not help being impressed by the scale of the oil company boardroom. It had a massive, overbearing dominance, designed to oppress as much as impress, the walls and pillars seeming to lean in ever so slightly, so as to give the appearance of it bearing down on you.

“Your Highness.” Reginald Brosnan, for whom Brosnan Oil was named, could not have looked more like an oil baron unless he had dressed like the Rich Texan from The Simpsons. He was almost as wide as he was tall, a massive cigar jutted from his mouth, and he wore a grin that could only be described as oily.

“Mr. Brosnan.” Will shook the offered hand gingerly.

“Call me Reg.”

Will said nothing. He hated it when anyone said that to him, because he could never say ‘Call me Will’ - it wasn’t protocol. He also disliked any appearance of friendship between himself and someone with whom he was forced to make an unpalatable business deal.

“This is my daughter, Lacey,” Brosnan continued.

Will smiled at the dark-haired girl in the almost explicitly short skirt who sat behind him.

“Good morning, your Highness.”

‘Pretty’ did not do Lacey Brosnan justice. She was aggressively attractive. Hers was not the sort of beauty that waited patiently for you to notice it, it insisted on being noticed. It was the sort of beauty that was very literally stunning, a sex appeal that seemed to knock you on the head and leave you bewildered. A beauty that took you prisoner and refused to let you go.

Will recognized all this, and found himself as irresistibly attracted to and as unable to take his eyes from, Lacey, as did all men. On the other hand, he couldn’t help thinking that she wasn’t really his type.

In truth, and in stark contrast to his brothers, Will was actually not sure he had the experience necessary to say what his type was. He had never been all that comfortable around the opposite sex, and had certainly never been ‘in love’. When you were a Prince it was not hard to get a date, and there were girls with whom he had enjoyed comparatively lengthy relationships, but even with them, that feeling of discomfort had never entirely left him. There had been times when he felt that he was just going through the motions because it was what was expected of him. And, as ever, Wilhelm always did what was expected of him.

All that having been said, if you had to go through the motions with somebody, then Lacey was the one to pick. Not that Will was being given the option of picking but, again, if your life partner was going to be chosen for you, you’d be pretty grateful if whoever was doing the choosing went with Lacey.

“Why don’t you two sit together?” suggest Brosnan. “The prime minster is arriving soon then we can get the meeting started.

“Indeed,” nodded Will. Because this was a meeting, not a date. A meeting at which the energy future of a nation would be decided. A vital meeting for the economic security of the country and a meeting at which issues would be discussed and thrashed out over long hours. Any appearance that Brosnan Oil would be offering a preferential deal in return for a royal wedding was entirely erroneous.

For all his business success and colossal wealth, Reginal (call me Reg) Brosnan craved something more – to be part of the upper crust, the social elite, the ruling classes. He had been told that money could not buy you class, but Reg had not believed a word of it - money could buy anything. And since Lacey shared her father’s social ambitions, where was the harm in holding a country to ransom in return for a bit of appropriated dignity?

“Prices are too high,” said Will, as he sat beside Lacey, feeling beauty radiate from her like heat. “And it’s being passed onto the consumer at the petrol pumps. People can’t afford to run their cars or heat their homes. Every winter we put the elderly in danger when they have to choose between food and heat.”

Brosnan listened with his smile unchanged. “We’ll wait for the prime minister.”