Bad Boy Prince: A British Royal Stepbrother Romance Read Free Page A

doesn’t even say anything, doesn’t call out to me. Instead he lets the officers jerk him toward the front door, not uttering so much as a word.
    Treason, my mother tells me when she gets home from the gala she attended. Her last hurrah, she calls it.
    She’s drunk, breath hot with vodka as we sit in the gleaming, newly remodeled kitchen. She’s still in her black velvet ball gown, her shoes lying on the floor behind her. She’s pulled a crate of oranges out of the refrigerator, proceeding to peel them all and break up their segments.
    She doesn’t eat any of them, she’s just mournful and flustered.
    Unsure how to tell me what’s happened.
    “What do you mean, treason?” I ask.
    I pick lint off my Babar pajamas, careful to pick up all the bits of orange that my mother keeps dropping on the floor.
    “He took quite a lot of money, darling, and some of that money was wrapped up in state projects,” she says, finally jamming one of the wedges of orange into her mouth. When she bites into it, juice runs down her chin. “Drat, my makeup.”
    “Mummy, when is he coming back?” I ask, trying to understand.
    She laughs.
    “If he comes back, it will only be until the trial begins.”
    “Trial?” I ask.
    My mother slams an orange peel down on the counter.
    “Honestly, Katherine. Keep up. Your father did something very, very stupid, and he got caught. He’ll be lucky if he ever gets out of prison.”
    You’ll never see him again, is what I hear her saying. Her attitude says, and good riddance.
    My heart hammers in my chest, and then the tears come.
    “Everyone has to grow up some time,” Mum sighs as she watches me fold in on myself. “Welcome to our new life in disgrace, Katherine.”
    I turn to flee, and she doesn’t try to stop me.
    My heart hammers as I run and run…

3
Kit
    I press my hand to my heart, willing it to slow its frantic pace.
    Of course it isn’t my father. It will never be him, ever again. After the scandal erupted, he sent Mum and I away ‘for a vacation’. Then he filled his vintage Jaguar with exhaust fumes, got in, and drank whiskey until he fell asleep and stopped breathing.
    My father always was a man with a plan…
    Anyway, I’m entirely certain that he’s dead. I was the one who found him, after all.
    These little visions I get, they’re just a quirk of mine. I once asked Mum if she ever has those moments, moments when she thinks she sees him, and she was aghast.
    Just me, then.
    Though this phenomenon has happened time and again, all over the world, my heart still beats wildly in my chest. I still find myself hovering between the terrace and the ballroom, looking for the man I saw. Just to be sure.
    I heave a sigh and turn back toward the terrace, but fingers clamp onto my forearm like a vise.
    “Kit, really,” Charles hisses. “Will you stop leaving me with all these strangers? It’s beyond rude.”
    I bite my lip to hold in my sigh. I forget that Charles and I haven’t been announced officially, so he doesn’t know anyone in Courtland society and they won’t talk to someone without notable rank.
    “Sorry,” I apologize. I’m forever apologizing to Charles, it seems. “Come outside with me, will you?”
    It’s not an easy path from our current spot to the terrace. I’m stopped several times by old family friends, and I have to smile and make nice for a minute each time.
    I am careful just to introduce Charles as my escort, nothing more. Boyfriends don’t exist in Valencia City, just escorts, fiancés, and husbands.
    At last, we make it outside into the crisp night air. There are a few people gathered on the terrace, clustered here and there with their heads together, no doubt gossiping.
    There’s plenty of scandal and intrigue to go around, so why not?
    I lead Charles over to a quiet spot and lean against the stone balcony, downing most of my champagne in one go. Charles watches me, intent.
    “What just happened back there?” he asks. “Did you just become a