Paper Princess (The Royals #1)(18)

He brushes by us. As we turn to watch him walk away, I happen to catch a glimpse of Brooke’s face and the hunger there shocks me. Her eyes have that greedy look—the one my mom would wear when she saw something extravagant she wanted but couldn’t have.

Callum seems oblivious. He’s turned his attention to me, but I can’t stop thinking about Brooke’s expression. She totally has the hots for Callum’s son. Am I the only one who can see that?

Stop it, Ella. This is none of your business.

“How about we get some lunch now?” Callum suggests. “There’s a great little café just about five minutes from here. Serves amazing farm to table stuff. Very fresh. Light.”

“Sure.” I’m ready to escape.

“I’ll come, too,” Brooke says.

“Actually, Brooke. If it’s all right with you, I want to have Ella to myself for now.” His tone says it doesn’t matter if she’s okay with the arrangement because that’s how it’s going to be.





8





Lunch with Callum is surprisingly pleasant. He tells me more about Steve even though I didn’t ask about him, but he confesses that just being able to talk about Steve is a relief. Callum admits he hadn’t always been there for either his sons or his wife, but whenever Steve needed him, he’d drop everything. Apparently that SEAL bond was unbreakable.

He doesn’t make fun of me when I ask if that’s where they became buds, but he looks like he’s fighting a smile as he explains that BUD/S is a navy training program. By the time we’re done eating, I have a better sense of the senior Royal—devoted, a little single-minded, and not entirely in control of his own life. We stay away from the topic of his sons but I tense up when the gates swing open.

“They’ll come around,” Callum says encouragingly.

We find the guys huddled in a large room at the end of the right wing of the house. The game room, Callum calls it. Despite the black walls, the place is enormous, so it doesn’t look like a cave. The boys meet us with stone-cold silence, and Callum’s earlier reassurances suddenly sound unconvincing.

“Where are you all going tonight?” Callum asks in a conversational tone.

At first, no one says anything. The younger ones all look to Reed, who’s leaning against a bar stool, one foot on the floor and one foot braced on the lowest rung of the chair. Gideon stands behind the bar, his hands braced on the top, watching it all.

“Gideon?” Callum prompts.

His eldest shrugs. “Jordan Carrington’s having a party.”

Reed swings around and scowls at Gideon as if he’s a traitor.

“You’re taking Ella to the party,” their father orders. “It will be good for her to get to know her new classmates.”

“There’ll be booze, drugs, and sex,” Reed mocks. “You really want her there?”

“I’d rather just stay in tonight,” I volunteer but no one is listening to me.

“Then you five will watch out for her. She’s your sister now.” Callum folds his arms over his chest. This is a contest of wills and he wants to win it. He also seems completely unconcerned about the “booze, drugs, and sex” part. Awesome. This is really fantastic.

“Oh, did you adopt her?” Reed says sarcastically. “Guess we shouldn’t be surprised. Doing shit without telling us is your MO, right, Dad?”

“I don’t want to go to the party,” I cut in. “I’m tired. I’m happy just to stay at home.”

“Good idea, Ella.” Callum unfolds his arms and places one around my shoulder. “You and I will watch a movie then.”

A muscle ticks in Reed’s jaw. “You win. She can come with us. We leave at eight.”

Callum drops his arm. He isn’t as clueless as I thought. The boys don’t want me alone with him, and Callum knows it.

Reed’s steely blue eyes shift to me. “Better go upstairs and make yourself presentable, sis. Can’t ruin your big debut by showing up looking like that.”

“Reed…” Callum warns.

His son’s expression is the epitome of innocence. “Just trying to be helpful.”

From his perch near the pool table, Easton looks like he’s fighting a grin. Gideon is resigned and the twins are studiously ignoring us all.

A tremor of panic ripples through me. The high school parties I’d gone to in the past—all one of them—had been a jeans-and-T-shirt affair. The girls slutted it up, sure, but in a casual-smut kind of way. I want to ask how fancy this party will be, but I don’t want to give the Royal brothers the satisfaction of knowing just how out of my element I feel.

Since eight o’clock is fifteen minutes from now, I book it upstairs where I find all my shopping bags placed in a neat row at the end of the bed. Savannah’s warnings hang in the back of my mind. If I’m going to be here for two years, then I need to make a good impression. And now at the forefront of my mind is another thought—why the hell do I care? I don’t need these people to like me, I just need to graduate from high school.

But I do care. I hate myself for it, but I can’t fight this desperate need to try. Try to fit in. Try to make this school experience different than all the previous ones.

It’s warm out, so I choose a short navy-blue skirt and an ice-blue and white top made of silk and cotton. It cost as much as the entire clothing section at Walmart but it’s so fricking pretty, and I sigh when it falls into place.