PRINCE CHARMING: A Stepbrother Secret Baby Romance
Mia Carson
Chapter 1
Married? To a king? When did I get dropped into a fairytale?
When her mom said she was going on vacation to the Caribbean for a few weeks, Olivia thought she would come back with a tan and a few good stories to share. Normal vacation stuff like a normal person.
Instead she returned with a hunk of a diamond on her finger, engaged to a king.
“Can we go over this again?” Olivia yelled out her bedroom door.
She heard her mom’s heels click on the hardwood floor before she popped her head inside, all smiles and shining eyes. “I went to a tropical paradise, met the king by accident, and after a month of dating, we fell madly in love with each other.”
“And now you’re just going to marry him?”
Melinda sat down on her daughter’s bed, helped fold some shirts, and tucked them away in her opened suitcase. “I’m not just going to marry him. We love each other.”
“But you said he’s a king, Mom. How does that even work?”
“Like any other marriage. Except the entire country will be there, and pretty soon afterwards, I’ll become their queen and you, my darling daughter, will be their new princess.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “You’re crazy, you know that, right? We can’t just pick up and move to some tropical island kingdom that I’ve never even heard of.” She sat down beside her mom and stared at their reflections in the mirror. Their sea-blue eyes were the exact same shade and their long hair almost matched, except that Olivia had paid for highlights mixed in with the brown. “Are we going to move there forever?”
“You don’t have to, I guess. You are twenty-two, but officially, you will become their princess.” She took her daughter’s hand and held it tightly. “I know things haven’t been easy the last ten years or so.”
“They’ve been just fine, Mom. We survived when Dad left.”
“I know we did, sweetie,” she said and pushed Olivia’s hair behind her ear. “I just hope you understand that now that you’re older, I’m ready to move on.”
Olivia laughed and leaned against her. “You could’ve moved on a long time ago.”
“Yeah, well, there wasn’t a man like King Lamont.” She sighed, waggling her eyebrows. “I love him, Olivia, I really do, and his son is just a few years older than you. You’ll get along just fine.”
“So I’m gaining an entire family… and a country,” she mused. That was her mother. She could never do anything like everyone else. Not that Olivia minded. Her life was interesting with her mom always trying to be both parents. “I’ll be fine, Mom. Just another one of your crazy adventures, right?”
Melinda kissed her forehead and said she had to finish packing her stuff, too. Olivia smiled as she watched her head back down the hall, humming as she went. She was happy to see her mom like this. Melinda had always been a happy person, but now, Olivia could tell she’d found someone who really cared about her again. She just hoped she knew what she was getting into. Marrying a king wasn’t exactly an easy thing to do. And a princess? Olivia didn’t know the first thing about being royalty—or having a brother, for that matter.
For now, it was only over the summer. Her spring classes had just ended, and there wasn’t much for her to do in their small town in the middle of Nebraska. Her mom had been thrilled to go on that tropical trip with her girlfriends and had saved up money for years.
Olivia tried to picture her mom acting like a queen and laughed. She wasn’t exactly the most graceful person in the world—or tactful. Olivia had inherited her big mouth from her mother.
The reality of what was going to happen finally settled on her. She took a long look around her room—the soft-blue walls, the posters that had been on the wall since middle school. Was this one of the last times she’d see her room? For all Olivia knew, her mom was going to sell the house after the wedding. The royal wedding.
She still had one year of classes to go, so it wasn’t like she was officially moving in with the family. But when winter break hit and she graduated, she’d move to some tropical paradise instead of staying home. It wasn’t all bad. At least she’d have a nice tan when she visited the US.
“Well, here’s to becoming a princess,” she whispered, words she never thought she’d hear herself say.
Melinda had told her what would happen when they arrived, but Olivia had already forgotten most of it. There were a ton of servants, apparently, and when she became a princess, money would no longer be an issue. They’d been struggling to pay for school, and Olivia had pretty much given up on going to grad school. Now the option was back on the table.
The doorbell rang, and she called out that she’d get it. Her friend Helen was supposed to stop by before she and her mom flew out that afternoon. She charged down the steps and flung the door open.
“What is that?” she asked Helen as her friend held out a gift bag.
“What do you think? It’s from a lingerie boutique. I mean, seriously,” Helen said and gave Olivia a hug. “I still can’t believe you’re leaving me.”
“Just for the summer, and why the hell did you buy me lingerie?”
“All the hotties you’re going to see down there. Did you brush up on your French?”