Page 5 of Powerful Prince
“At least you know someone reasonable,” he said. “Where is she?”
I walked beside him toward the door and said, “Happily married now and on her honeymoon.”
“Good women usually go out of circulation fast.” He opened the door for me. “Well, this interview is over now. Thanks for coming.”
Fair enough. I’d fucked up getting this contract. I saluted him and said, “Sure. Well, it was nice talking to you. Goodbye.”
He stepped into the hall with me and then waved. At least he was polite. I sashayed back down the hall.
Tomorrow I was so checking out of Vegas. No contract, and still on my own to deal with the crisis of faith my readers were having over my virginity. And not even photos of me with a prince to offer as a back-up plan. This was all too much.
The moment I stepped onto the elevator, I could at least breathe again. This was the most important thing I could do to calm myself down. I inhaled deeply and counted my breath out with my eyes closed to find my center.
Chapter 2
Ryder Kristoff
I bet she showed off that backside of hers in black leggings all the time.
Nicole Steel. I looked up her webpage. There she was, with her brown hair and brown eyes and that pert chin with that oh-so-American smile of hers. The bright toothy grin that made it seem like she’d always be in a good mood, from first thing in the morning till late at night, bubbling over with the optimistic, life-is-wonderful attitude of that blog of hers.
If I hadn’t just gotten married and divorced in the first twenty-four hours of being in Vegas, thanks to that nice stripper, Darla LaNotta, and if I hadn’t drunk so much last night—to the point where my head was still pounding—I’d have been nicer.
Yoga people in general were okay, and the girl who was here had made me hard, like I’d wanted to fuck her, when I’d not had breakfast or even showered off the stripper yet.
So Nicole had to go. Once I closed the door, I headed into the shower and forgot myself in the steam.
Slowly my head pounded less.
From now on, less drinking. But then, I’d never enjoyed sobriety for very long. Especially since my mom had died, and my father had started harping on me to get married. It had been three years now, and I drank to forget.
Gio was right, though. Darla had been a big No. Marrying her obviously wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done, but after a few drinks, her suggestions had made sense to me.
Luckily, Gio was around to fix things. He had mentioned in his arguments last night that a good woman, the kind I’d want to spend my life with, might not like the fact that I was already married.
So I’d agreed to the annulment. Then, like magic, a perfect female stood in my room like she’d be my next present.
I finished in the bathroom, and when I came out, I saw that Gio had set up a big breakfast buffet for me.
My stomach rumbled now, and I grabbed flatbread, eggs and orange juice.
Food cleared my head and I could focus now. The door opened and Gio returned carrying a newspaper and a tablet. He took my empty plate from me and put it on a cart, then placed the tablet in front of me as I finished my coffee. He opened it and said, “She’s perfect.”
There was Nicole again, talking on the phone. She was still in the hotel lobby, near the faux gondola ride.
Her beaming happiness was intoxicating, but I said, “No, Gio, she’s not.”
Gio sat down and folded his hands in front of him. He said, “Look, your choice for a wife was a stripper. Your father, His Majesty King Sven Kristoff of Norden, needs his son to stay out of the headlines.”
Now that was a means of summing up my life easily. But no woman was a perfect ray of sunshine. I’d come to the conclusion that every human, male or female, is deeply fucked up, and we tend to run with people who are like us.
I folded my hands in front of me, rolled my eyes—which I knew would be reported to my father—and said, “He wants me to marry some virgin who can pass his purity tests.”
Gio didn’t blink. His pupils were black and drowned out any color at the moment. He said, “And Nicole Steel qualifies for even his strict demands.”
My eyes widened. The woman I’d purposely ignored because she’d caused me to get hard the moment I’d laid eyes on her, was a virgin?
They existed? My own sister wouldn’t have matched my father’s exacting rules about women. My skin was jumpy as I said, “No.”
