Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance)(82)

"Now you're doing the same thing."

"He betrayed you," she screams. "He f*cked another woman while he was sleeping with you. I saw the evidence myself. That bitch professor in the article described his damned body. Do you think I wanted that for you? I did everything I could to protect you from some pig with more cock than brains, and look what happened when you defied me. He ruined you. You're soiled."

My mouth falls open.

"I am not soiled," I snarl. "I made love to a man who loves me. Perhaps you should try it sometime. It might make you less of a scheming, arrogant bitch."

She slaps me, hard, across the face. I scowl at her.

"Eventually you'll realize I'm right and you're wrong. He doesn't love you. He never did."

"I'm not marrying that pig Mortimer. You can't make me."

"Yes I can. I'll read your vows for you and shove the ring on your finger myself if need be. I tire of this idiotic defiance. You'll be a proper queen, and that is the end of that. I'm through with this. I came here to comfort you and all you do is throw your entire life in my face."

"I don't want my life," I rage at her. "I don't want to be queen. I don't want any of it. I want to go back where I belong."

She turns to me with an icy stare, and I almost feel my blood freeze in my veins.

"Perhaps I should give it to you. Perhaps I should have you dropped in America with nothing I haven't given you. No well-appointed house, no education I paid for, no food, no resources. Oh, and your clothes, I paid for those too. I own all of it. We should see how long you last that way."

I take a step back from her withering gaze. Her look is like a pressure, pushing on me. I look down at the floor.

"I'll have the seamstress here in a few hours. The wedding is tomorrow. You'll marry Mortimer and you'll keep your mouth shut. You don't have to love him, you just have to breed with him. Pop out a few children and you can send him away, it doesn't matter to me."

"So I can raise them like you?"

"In wealth and luxury, yes. No more theatrics, Ana."

She turns on her heel and struts out of the room, and the door closes behind her. It always felt like a prison door, but even more so now with all its weight and finality.

I collapse to the floor in a heap.



Jason



You know what I hate worse than flying?

Landing.

I thought the taking off was bad. My knuckles turn white gripping the sides of my seat and my heart races as the plane begins to descend. It leans backward, which throws me as it happens and I start to shake.

"We must move quickly," Konstantin says. "Let me do the talking."

I chance a look out the window. I can see the island.

It's just as breathtaking as Ana made it sound. My jaw drops. The ocean is a dark, steely blue, except where the waves foam against the stony shore. The island is a giant, rocky cone sheared in half, and the interior is a vibrant, pastoral green with rolling hills and fields. The tiny, white specks must be sheep.

Like she said, the castle stands at one end of the island, surrounded by a quaint-looking town. Little fishing boats bob like toys in the ocean, and in the distance, so far away they look hazy, the oil rigs blink with red warning lights. The plane turns and levels out, and I press back into my seat and close my eyes.

My heart tries to escape through my mouth when the wheels touch down. It feels like five minutes between the back landing gear making contact and the front landing gear touching down with a sharp, angry squeal. The plane shudders and jerks left and right, and finally starts to slow down with such force that it feels like a giant hand pressing into my chest.

Man, f*ck flying.

When it finally stops, Konstantin leaps to his feet and rushes forward, yanking open the cockpit. He steps back out a few seconds later.

"Everybody ready to getting off."

"Uh," Aheahe says.

Dee snorts and rolls her eyes.

"He means take your seat belts off," I shout, rising. I grab the seat to steady myself and take a deep breath.

They're all looking at me.

"Look, everybody. I know this is a huge thing you've done for me. It's a huge thing we're doing. Never in my life did I expect to go somewhere like this, do something like this, experience something like this. You've all come this far, but I have to say it.

"If you don't want to come with me, you don't have to. I'm not going to judge anybody for staying behind. I'm not going to hold it against anyone who doesn't want to go any farther. We're in a foreign country and we're about to break like fifteen different laws. If we get arrested, our parents aren't going to come pick us up and pay our bail. Also, midterms are in two weeks."

There's a hush. I cough.

"I'm going to get my girl. Anybody that wants to come, come with me. Let's go."

The cheer that rises in the airplane shakes the windows and hurts my eyes. I turn and walk down the stairs with Konstantin, and I don't need to look back; I can feel them piling out behind me.

"What the hell do we do now?"

Konstantin shrugs. "I am having a plan!"

"Great, that's fantastic. Let's do it."

"Do you not wanting to know what it is?"