The Crown Jewels (3 page)

“It’s good to see you again, Julia,” he said, an arrogant grin spreading across his hideously handsome face. “It’s been a very long time.”

“Will,” I replied, doing my best to make my voice as cold as the icy streets outside, as I narrowed my eyes and forced a smile. “What a surprise to see you again.”

“I had no idea you two knew each other,” my father said, as we settled around the table. Queen Victoria sat right next to my father, forcing me to sit next to Will.

“We met in Providence, during my fellowship at Rhode Island School of Design years ago,” Will replied, as if the story was so simple. “And you ended up graduating from Brown, right Julia?”

“Yes,” I replied, picking up my wine, and forcing myself not to pour the entire contents down my throat.

“That’s right,” my father commented. “Brown and RISD share a campus.”

“Yes,” I murmured, my heart in my throat. I could hardly speak. I could hardly breathe.

“Well, that’s wonderful!” my father replied. “That makes this all so much easier.”

“Makes what easier?” I asked. Nothing about this was easy. Nothing about seeing Will again, nothing about sitting next to him or being in the same room with him was easy. I wasn’t sure why my father was torturing me like this, but there was no way in hell I was going to inform him of why it was torture. I’d kept my mouth shut this long about Prince Wilhelm of Sweden, and I wasn’t about to open it now.

“The surprise, Jewels.”

“Jewels? That’s adorable,” Will said with a smirk. God, he’s still an arrogant prick, I thought. “I never thought to call you that.”

Please don’t let this be real, please don’t let this be real
…I don’t know who I was pleading to, but if I ever needed a guardian angel it was now.

“Oh, yes. Jewel is Julia’s real name. She began insisting everyone call her Julia when she was six. She begrudgingly allows me to revert back to her given name occasionally.”

“No, I don’t
let
you, Dad. But you do it anyway,” I responded, ignoring the grin on Will’s face. That damn face, and that arrogant fucking grin that had haunted me for so long. I couldn’t believe I was in the same room with him again. It was like a ghost had appeared, as if I had thought about him so many times over the years, I had somehow manifested him.

I closed my eyes, trying to wish him away again, and opened them.

Nope.

Damn!

Still didn’t work.

There he sat. With the fucking Queen of Sweden sitting regally next to my father.

“What surprise, Dad?” I asked again, wanting suddenly to find the quickest way out of this situation.

My father looked over at Queen Victoria, and they smiled warmly at one another. He put his hand over her tiny furry one, and leaned towards her a little.
Why in the hell was my father touching the Queen like that?
I wondered, looking around for one of her many security guards that had entered the room when she did, to break his fingers. Nobody raised an eyebrow. Not even her.

What the fuck was going on?

I jumped when I felt a warm hand on my knee. My eyes flashed over to Will and he stared straight ahead, smiling at our parents as if he wasn’t actually squeezing my knee suggestively under the table. I pulled my leg away quickly, the heat of his hand lingering on my skin.
What a fucking prick
, I thought.

“I suppose we should just come right out and say it,” my father began. The Queen smiled serenely and nodded. “Vicky and I have known each other for years now, and well - we’ve become quite fond of each other.”

I stared at him blankly. Did he just call her
Vicky?

“After developing a close friendship, we began to have feelings for each other a few months ago.”

“Feelings?” I asked, wrinkling my nose. I looked over at the Queen and tried to determine how old she was. She had to be at least ten years older than my father. None of this made sense. She was the fucking Queen! “What are you saying, Dad?”

“Victoria and I have fallen in love, Jewels.”

“Love?” My voice cracked and I reached for my wine again.

“I, for one, think it’s absolutely splendid!” Will said, his loud voice booming through the restaurant.
As if anyone had asked for his damned opinion,
I thought.

“We’ve had quite a whirlwind romance,” my father continued. “And I know this is fast, and probably quite a shock to you, Jewels, but we’re going to get married.”

“What!” I exclaimed, slamming my wine glass down on the table. It wobbled, and Will reached over just as I did to steady it. His hand brushed mine, causing that damned shockwave to run through my arm again and I pulled it away quickly.

“I know, Jewels, it’s fast. And I probably should have told you sooner, but Vicky wanted to be discrete at first. You understand.”

“Vicky…” I replied, my voice trailing off as I looked at the two of them. Indeed, they did look happy. And when they turned to look into each other’s eyes again, the love flowing between them was obvious.

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it, Jewels? You believe in love, don’t you?” Will said, turning towards me.

“Julia. My name is Julia,” I replied to him through clenched teeth.

“Right. Julia. Well, you know what this means, right?” he said.

“What?” I asked, as if it could possibly mean anything other than ‘what the fuck, oh my god, and no way in hell is this really happening!’.

My mind was stuck in a vicious cycle of disbelief.

“You’ll be a Princess! Princess Jewels! It has such a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

“Um…” I was speechless, as visions of myself riding a life-size My Little Pony around a plastic castle filled my head. Then I thought of Princess Diana, and what a nightmare her life ended up being, and my heart filled with dread. “I don’t think I want…” my voice trailed off, and I struggled to wrap my head around what was happening.

“And you’ll finally have a brother,” my father blurted out, beaming at me from across the table. “You always wanted one, remember?”

“What? A brother? How?” I asked, bewildered. Was the Queen -
fuck
- Victoria or Vicky or Your Highness or whatever I was supposed to call her - pregnant? No, wait, she was ancient, she couldn’t be fucking pregnant. Could she? I mean, science was accomplishing amazing things these days, and she had gobs of money, so she could have frozen her eggs or something, I guess.

“I don’t understand,” I replied, shaking my head.

“Me,” Will said.

“You, what?” I asked, my voice laced with annoyance. I really wished he wasn’t here. This was all bad enough without having to deal with
him
. He was irritating me immensely with his arrogant, carefree attitude, as if this was something that happened every day.

“I’ll be your brother. Your step-brother,” he said it so nonchalantly, as if the implications of such a thing were no big deal to him.

It was then that reality hit me with the full force of its ugly head.

This couldn’t be happening. I looked at him in horror, visions of the past flooding my brain, visions of his lips, his chest, his massive cock flashing in my head uncontrollably.

“I say when, darling…”

“I - I - I have to go the ladies room,” I said, standing up abruptly and fleeing to the back of the restaurant as fast as I could, tears stinging my eyes, my heart racing so fast I thought it might pound its way right out of my chest.

At that moment, I wished for something, anything, to happen to make this nightmare disappear.
Lightening striking me dead would be a great option,
I thought.
Or, better yet, striking Will dead, anything to wipe that arrogant fucking grin off his face.

Anything to wipe the past from existence, to keep this disaster from actually happening.

WILL

I knew she’d be surprised to see me. I knew she’d still be slightly mad at me. But I figured I could win her over. What I didn’t expect was the pure vitriol that shot from her eyes every time she looked at me.

Look, I did her a favor all those years ago. The last thing she needed was me sticking around to further complicate her life. I’d done enough damage already.

That’s why I ran. That’s why I took off like that, came back home to Sweden, to spare her the pain of having to end it herself. Because of course she would have. As soon as everything was taken care of, she would have dropped me in a second.

I knew where everything was headed. I knew the only thing that was going to come out of it was heartbreak, whether I stayed or not. So, I did the right thing.

Apparently, she didn’t agree. I’d pissed women off before, that was nothing knew. But I could usually get them to forgive me pretty quickly with a flash of a smile, a joke, an expensive little trinket, a quick bang or even the occasional apology.

I wasn’t in the habit of apologizing, though. That was only for extreme cases. But maybe that’s what I was dealing with now.

I mean, she couldn’t hate me forever, could she? For fuck’s sake, our parents were getting married. Not that I could believe that was happening either. I was just as shocked as she was when I found out last week, but I’d had a bit of time to adjust to the idea, and once I did, I realized that Benjamin was good for my mother.

My father, King Earl, died six years ago after his horse took a bad fall during a jump. He was in a coma for a week before the doctors told us he was brain dead. Mom had the burden of making the decision to take him off life support, ignoring the controversy that was whipping through the country. The media was brutal, especially the trashy rags that made up outrageous accounts of corruption in the Royal Family. Some went so far to suggest that my mother planned his accident herself. Vultures.

That’s why she had insisted that her romance with Benjamin Rose stay quiet for so long. She didn’t want to deal with the headlines and speculation that would undoubtedly occur. The Queen of Sweden with a US Ambassador? The media would eat that up. I understood completely. I had experienced my own run-ins with the press.

But she needed somebody. Don’t most people? Especially when you get older, and she was definitely aging. Sure, Benjamin was ten years younger than her, but she was young at heart and healthy as a horse, she deserved love wherever she could find it. Besides, you don’t choose who you fall in love with.

When she told me who it was, I have to admit, I was a little taken aback at the situation, but then, I had a little fun with the memories. I’d kept tabs on Julia from afar, so I knew who her father was. I knew my new step-sister would be upset that we would be thrown back together, but I was determined to put the past behind us, keep it between us and move on into our new roles in each other’s lives.

That was before I saw her. Holy fuck! She had changed, that was for sure. A whole hell of a lot. And that short slinky red dress, with those curves, that cleavage, those long legs that stretched for miles…hell, I couldn’t help but remember how they felt wrapped around my hips. It’d been years, but some memories don’t fade. Especially the good ones.

When I met her my last year of college, she was just what I had been looking for. I went to America to party, plain and simple. School was just an excuse to get out of the country. Fun was the only priority, and that included all the pussy I could get. But after a while, I realized one thing.

All the girls at Brown were the same.

After an endless streak of over-achieving, spoiled, perfectly formed and groomed blondes, I was aching for something different. Something with a little
flavor
. Something that would be a little more challenging than the easy lays that had practically jumped into my bed, eager to get a chance at banging a real life Prince.

It was boring, and I quickly lost interest.

Until I saw Julia. She was nothing like her classmates. Her hair was constantly pulled back in a severe ponytail, tightly secured at the nape of her neck. Her cardigans and buttoned-up silk shirts underneath, and those long, wool skirts she wore, only served to stimulate my imagination. She wore thick glasses and it took me two weeks after I’d noticed her just to see what color her eyes were, because she was constantly staring into a book.

I did everything to get her to notice me. Walked in front of her, dropped books in her path, I even tried the direct approach and said hello as she passed me in the hallway once, but she just looked behind her as if I was talking to someone else and scurried past me with her head down.

After a few days of this, I made it my mission to see exactly what was under her nerdy exterior.

I could tell she was beautiful. Her high cheekbones framed her face beautifully, her creamy flawless complexion begged for me to caress it. Before long, I was tortured by sexy librarian fantasies, spending nights alone in bed indulging in images of her loosening her hair and ripping off her glasses before tasting that perfect skin of hers. My cock ached every time I saw her at school, and I hatched a plan to get her attention. I was sure if I could get her to just look at me, for Christ’s sake, I could seduce her.

Then, I saw her pin a flyer on the student bulletin board offering calculus tutoring, and I had the perfect excuse to talk to her. I wasn’t even taking a fucking calculus class, but that didn’t matter.

In the end, it worked. But the way it went down was not what I had planned at all.

But whatever. That was ten years ago. We were grown-ass adults now, and the past was the past. It was time to focus on the here and now.

Now, she’s sitting next to me, with that tight red dress inching up around her creamy thighs as she wiggles around nervously in her seat, and I’ve never seen such a beautiful sight. Gone is the severe hair and glasses. Her auburn waves are cascading around her shoulders, her sparkling green eyes are so vibrant and stunning that I can’t stop staring. Gone is the insecure slouch of her shoulders, the long, lanky limbs replaced by womanly curves that I want to run my hands over so badly I have to put them in my pockets to keep from doing just that. The confident, albeit pissed off, Julia of today could be a fucking supermodel.