Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance)(27)

"Surrendering love is a very great pain. Yet there is another, with a deeper sting."

"What is that?"

"Never knowing what might have been."

He looks at something far distant, across the room, beyond the wall. Perhaps beyond the sea, beyond the stars. There is more emotion on his face now than I have ever seen.

"What was her name?"

"It is better that I do not tell you."

"Is she still…?"

"Yes."

"She married someone else?"

"Yes. She has many children. It does not matter. Princess…."

"I have to do my duty. I belong to my people, not myself. A queen never belongs to herself."

"You will not be queen for many years."

"So I hope, but queen I will be, in the end. No matter what. I must think of my home and my people. I must…."

The words die, and I fold my arms around myself.

"I need to rest. I have an early day tomorrow."

"I will see that you are not disturbed, Your Grace. Good night."

"Thorlief. Thank you."

He nods before he pulls the door shut. I fall back on the bed, curl up, and lie on my side. Jason's sweatshirt is still laid out on the bed. I reach out to grab it and throw it away.

Instead I grasp the soft, threadbare fabric in my fingers. I pull it close and breathe in. His scent is familiar now. This morning comes flooding back to my mind, and I can feel him under me, his muscles under my hands, his hips between my legs, his hands on my chest. Only, it is naked flesh I feel under my hands, and there is nothing between his palms and my breasts, and his hardness fills the gripping, throbbing need between my legs.

Stop it, stop it, stop it, I tell myself, but I can't.

I have to.

I can't.

When I finally fall asleep, in my clothes, it seems I have my eyes closed for mere minutes before I hear my phone bleating. Thinking it's the alarm, I press the button to silence it, but it continues to vibrate in my hand.

I sit up and glance at the clock. It's seven thirty in the morning, fifteen minutes ahead of my alarm. I'll never get back to sleep now, and I have a class at nine.

It's a video call from Mother.

When the app opens, her face fills the screen. She sits back and angrily holds up a Royal Exposé.

This time I am not confined to the upper corner of the page. The front page is dominated by my picture—more precisely, our picture. Someone was standing at just the right angle to capture the image of Jason as I straddled him, just as we fell and he tried to catch me. In the picture I'm still gripping his shoulders with my hands and he's still cupping my breasts in his hands.

From this angle the photographer didn't capture the look of shock on my face, only the grin on his. Nor did they capture me slapping him a moment later.

The headline screams, ICE CREAM? PRINCESS ANA'S SHOCKING PUBLIC MAKEOUT SESSION.

I groan. Loudly.

"Ana!" Mother snarls.

Oh. Lovely.

"What is the meaning of this?"

"Mother—"

"Don't 'mother' me, young lady. What possessed you to act like some drunken tart in public with a… a football player?" Her voice drips with contempt.

My mouth works silently. I should make some excuse. Instead I sit up straighter.

"I tripped and he caught me. It's not my fault some perverted photographer made it into something it is not."

She scowls. "I will not have you dating some American manslut, do you hear me? You will not ruin yourself."

"I have to go to class soon."

"This is not over, Anastasia. Stay away from that boy."

"Yes, Mother," I sigh.

No sooner do I hang up than my phone chirps for another video call. I answer without thinking, expecting to hear another lecture from Mother. Rarely does she let me have the last word.

It's not her, it's Mortimer.

Mortimer Andrew Karl Victor de Kupp, to be exact. Five years my senior, Mortimer is the eldest son of the de Kupp family, who descend from a brother of the royal family who started his own line some six hundred years ago. That makes him my cousin many, many times removed.

He's been trying to bed me since I was sixteen.

"Ah, my future bride!"

He is not hideous. In fact, he's quiet gorgeous. I'm sure that's helped him bed half the kingdom. Despite his strong chin and thick, dark hair and sharp, gray eyes, I simply can't stand him. It's his eyes that I can't stand. Even on a video call on my phone, they go straight to my chest and try to get a glimpse down my top.

"What do you want?"

He holds up that damned tabloid.

"I learn you are unfaithful to me, and you ask what I want. I am wounded, my lovely Ana. Perhaps I should fly to America and challenge this ape to a duel."

"I can't be unfaithful to you; there is nothing between us."

"Good, I wouldn't want anything to get in the way."

The words twist out of his lips and I shudder, thinking of the first time we met, when he groped me during a formal dance. The thought of his hand on my backside fills me with revulsion.

"If you ever lay a hand on me, you'll lose it," I warn him.

"That's no way to talk to your husband-to-be."