The Prince's Runaway Lover (Men of the Zodiac)
Sign: Libra
He’s hot, irresistible…and he will always make sure you’re satisfied.
Crown Prince Nicholas Lytton was never supposed to be ruler of Callanos. He was the “spare to the heir,” pursuing a decadent life of the rich and royal—extreme sports, physical pleasures, and glorious irresponsibility. Until his brother died. Now Nick is to be coronated king, and no one believes he’s ready.
The best way to secure his crown is to do the unthinkable…find a queen.
While Isabel Reynolds works in the palace gardens, she has no desire to draw the attention of the way-too-flirty, would-be king. For she’s not the woman everyone thinks she is. Even if she wanted—or was tempted by—the promise of love, it would only end in disaster. Because while Isabel may be able to catch a king, her secrets would only destroy him…
Table of Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Discover the Men of the Zodiac series… Impulse Control
The Millionaire’s Deception
The Millionaire’s Forever
Ten Days in Tuscany
The Millionaire Daddy Project
Revenge Best Served Hot
A Night of Southern Comfort
His Southern Temptation
Sweet Southern Betrayal
Playing with the Drummer
Playing the Part
Secret Santa Baby
Sex and the Single Vamp
Discover more category romance titles from Entangled Indulgence… Sicilian Engagement
Her Royal Protector
The Spaniard’s Kiss
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Robin Covington. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
2614 South Timberline Road
Suite 109
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.
Indulgence is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
Edited by Alethea Spiridon Hopson
Cover design by Liz Pelletier
Cover art from iStock
ISBN 978-1-63375-364-8
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition July 2015
For H.R.H. Prince Harry. My favorite sexy, ginger, spare-to-the-heir.
Prologue
The pounding on the door was seriously messing up his rhythm.
Nick tightened his grip on the waist and resumed his hard thrust into the tall blonde bent over and leaning against the dresser in the hotel room. Her friend, a curvy redhead, reclined on the bed and watched them, the flare of heat in her eyes telling him that she’d soon be taking her turn…again.
It had been a great fucking day. An interesting, if somewhat easy, climb on Sugar Loaf Mountain just outside of Rio de Janeiro took up most of the day and then he and his best friend, Christopher Wheaton, had headed into the city, bounced through a few clubs, and Nick had brought vanilla and strawberry back to his room.
And now some asshole was banging on his door and ruining his concentration.
“Back the fuck up, dickhead!” he shouted over his shoulder, pushing in deep with a snap of his hips. It felt good, really good, and he wasn’t going to stop just because some lost drunk thought this was his room.
The knocking resumed, this time with a deep angry shout in perfect, pissed-off harmony. “Nick, you asshole, open the door.”
It was Chris. He sounded panicked and that was not something he ever was. Chris was the calm one, the even-keel guy. Nick was the one with the highs of winning gold medals for his country and then the lows of getting hauled into the police station for drunk and disorderly with a screeching, jealous woman and the paparazzi in tow. So, if Chris was trying to bring the door down at three in the morning, then something was really wrong.
Nick let go of the blonde, reaching down to the floor to snag his jeans and tug them on over his protesting hard-on before heading over to open the door. The deadbolt and room safety locks were tricky to manage with drunken fingers, but he finally slid them both into the right position. He jerked the door open, revealing Chris standing in the hallway.
His expression was…stricken. That was the first word that bypassed the alcohol still sloshing around in his brain and the minute it manifested, ice ran through Nick’s veins. He took a step backward, glancing down at the hand Chris extended out to him. He held a phone in a tight grip, the skin around his knuckles pale in spite of the time they’d spent outside all day in the Brazilian sun.
Nick took another step back, instinctively getting as far away as possible from the device. Whoever was on the other end of that phone was not calling to tell him good news.
“Is it my father?” he asked, not even trying to hide the fear that tinged his words.
Chris shook his head, his eyes filled with grief, sorrow, and pity.
“Who is it, Chris? Who are they calling about?” His anxiety spiked even higher with the knowledge that it wasn’t his father, that the Alzheimer’s hadn’t finally claimed the body that had once held the mind it had already stolen.
Chris held the phone out to him, his gesture silently insisting that he take it before he answered the question. “It’s about Alec. It’s about your brother.”
…
Nick stood in the blazing sun that sat high in the sky over his home country of Callanos.
A red-eye flight from Brazil had been arranged within an hour of taking the call. Chris had ushered the women out of the room, packed his things, and even arranged for a private fitting of the suit he currently wore in one of the VIP lounges in the private terminal of the Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Rome. Sometimes it didn’t suck to be a member of one of the world’s richest royal families.
The layover had been long enough to get fitted with the black silk suit and to pick up the two caskets currently being unloaded from the private jet. Draped in the state flag of Callanos and the standard with the Lytton family coat of arms, the dark mahogany boxes containing the bodies of his older brother and his sister-in-law were accompanied by a dozen men from the Royal Guard. The procession was slow and somber as they were escorted to the matching black hearses on the airport tarmac.
Nick watched, dry-eyed and numb with the shock of all that had occurred in the last twelve hours since his mother called with the terrible news. The machine of the monarchy had jumped into gear and he followed along, not so much led by conscious thought but by a lifetime of force-fed tradition.
It was that tradition that had the fully uniformed honor guard standing at atten
tion as his brother’s casket was eased inside the back of the waiting vehicle. The loud stomp of their boots against the hard surface of the road was in unison, in perfect step as they marched into formation and lowered the flag and their weapons in a grave salute.
The crack of rifles firing…once, twice, three times made him jump a little bit, even though he knew they were coming. But he was prepared when the lead guard shouted and the entire group repeated in unison, “God save the King!”
Nick watched, stoic and silent, as they turned and marched into perfect formation to face him. Once again, the weapons and the flag lowered as they snapped into perfect position and executed perfect salutes at the same time as another rifle blast rent the silence in two. And then for the first time, Nick heard the words he did not want, words that fell down around him like the avalanche he’d barely survived a year ago on a slope in India. The words were sharp with their finality, sealing his future and his fate as they were directed at him.
“Long live the King!”
Chapter One
Six months later
He would give his kingdom for a mountain and a few hours to climb.
Crown Prince Nicholas Alistair Malcolm Lytton of Callanos stared out through the window in the palace’s council room wondering how he could feel trapped when everything he looked at belonged to him. In six weeks he would be crowned king and he wondered when he was going to wish he would wake up from this bizarre dream. He’d love to know when he was going to stop looking for his brother, Alec, to step in and take over.
He was the spare to the heir, the one who would never be king. Until a storm took down the plane carrying his brother and his sister-in-law six months ago and everything Nicholas knew had been turned upside down.
He swallowed down the desire to open the floor to ceiling windows and escape. His morning run felt like it was decades ago instead of mere hours. Keeping up with his usual training routine was impossible at the moment, but he’d made a point to rise early to ensure he got his time under the sunrise, relishing the wind on his skin, the burn in his muscles and the thrum of his pulse under his skin. It had been helpful but not quite the balm he sought for the bumps and bruises to his heartnot like it used to be.
But this morning…this morning had been different. His silent, solitary running partner appeared out of the fog straining and striving alongside him. Dark hair, feet pounding on the path at his side, and finally the hint of a smile. Maybe if they wrapped it up quickly he could take a walk and find her.
The moment of her smile was the first time since that knock on his hotel room door that he’d felt remotely like himself, that maybe he had some aspect of his life that wasn’t dictated by tradition, custom, and duty. His interest was visceral and one that compelled him to pursue it. It was also an impulse that would not make his advisors happy.
A discreet clearing of a throat behind him snapped him back from the pre-dawn semi-solitude of the palace grounds to the present. This was where he needed to be right now. Attending to matters of the kingdom and ensuring that the people of Callanos knew their future was safe in spite of the turmoil of the last half year. This was not his area of expertise but it would be, he had to learn to rule like his father and brother and fulfill everyone’s expectations. He had no choice because everyone knew he damn well wouldn’t have chosen it.
“I have several more items to discuss, Your Royal Highness,” said Lord Batton, the chief of the council and his parliamentary chief of staff. “I don’t want to make you late for your official engagement later this evening.”
Nicholas turned from the window, casting an amused glance at his personal chief of staff, Christopher Wheaton, who sat at the table with a stack of papers in front of him.
“No worries, Lord Batton.” Nicholas slid into the large leather chair at the head of the table, fingers finding the entry in his daily itinerary. “I’m opening a new VIP room at the DeRaven Casino tonight and it is scheduled for nine o’clock. We have plenty of time.”
It also included an invite to stay and play at a table with high stakes players from around the world and he was looking forward to it. The booze would be top shelf, the women discreet, and not a royal advisor in sight. Christopher was going and it would be a relief to be away from the palace for a while. It offered a chance to be “Nick” again after months of playing the role of “Nicholas.”
His mother, the Dowager Queen Beatrice, sat there as well, her gaze blazing as she raised an inquisitive brow at him. Sharp as the blade on one of the royal guards, she never missed a thing and the smile in his tone had not gone unnoticed. His evening activities would not be on the list of things a good king should do and although she would not bring it up here in front of non-family, he would hear of it later. He could wait for that discussion.
Ignoring her, he motioned for the older man to continue.
“Very good, sir.” He scanned the papers in front of him, picking one up once he’d decided on a topic. “Your coronation is in six weeks. I received the preliminary list from the palace for guests to be included in the speech to parliament but did not see the Duke of Rushing or his family on the list.”
His mother opened her mouth to speak, but Nicholas gestured with his hand for her to let him speak first. This was not her fight.
“As seating for non-parliamentary guests in the Great Hall is limited I saw no reason to invite a distant cousin. With my father’s brother and other close royal family members in attendance in the hall, I gave instructions for the duke and his family to receive an invitation to watch the live proceedings at the palace with the other special guests. He’ll be in good company with heads of state from other countries as well as family.”
His advisor shifted in his chair, his unease settling over his shoulders, which stiffened under the impeccably pressed custom-made suit jacket. They’d been dancing around each other for months, neither one knowing how far the bands of respect and duty would stretch before one of them would break. Nicholas was trying his patience today and he knew it was going to be the beginning of a rocky road.
“I have to advise you to rethink your position,” Lord Batton said, raising his eyes to meet his own. Nicholas gave him credit for standing his ground. “The Duke of Rushing would be a powerful ally and I think much could be accomplished if you extended the olive branch to him.”
“What you mean is that I should use my coronation as a way to appease a distant cousin who has publicly and privately expressed his interest in taking the throne from me?”
Lord Batton froze, his rapid blinking the only thing moving on his entire body. He rallied quickly, lowering the paper to the table before taking a deep breath and continuing. “I have to caution you on causing discord where it is likely to inspire other people to join him in his cause.”
“You mean that I should play nice with a social-climbing asshole who thinks he’d be a better king than me?”
His mother gasped. Chris chuckled and Lord Batton looked like he was going to vomit all over the royal papers. Very rocky roads ahead it would seem.
“Nicholas—” his mother said, her anger making her voice wobble and she stopped, clearing her throat with the ladylike cough she’d spent decades perfecting. “Your Royal Highness, I think Lord Batton’s recommendation of diplomacy over open hostility has proven to be effective in the past.”
And there it was in the middle of the room, the unspoken undercurrent of the past six months. This melancholy regret wasn’t the often quoted elephant shape. No, this disappointment from all sides looked a lot like the tomb which held his brother’s remains and the confused and sometimes violent man inhabiting his father’s dementia-riddled body under constant nursing care in the east wing of the palace.
Nicholas knew they didn’t wish he were dead. Nobody was that unfeeling. They just wished his brother had lived. He did too.
“If I may speak candidly, Your Royal Highness,” Lord Batton asked, casting a glance in his mother’s direction. The look that passed betw
een them spoke of meetings where he had been the main topic of discussion, meetings to which he had not been invited. Interesting…not surprising, just interesting.
“Say your piece, Lord Batton.”
“Your detractors are gaining volume and followers with every day that passes. The Duke of Rushing is gaining support in his bid to unseat you from the throne and if this continues there will be nothing that I can do for you.”
Nicholas huffed out at the extremely honest words from his main advisor. “And will you be joining his cause?”
“I was great friends with your father from our childhood. The late King Alec was my godson and I have great loyalty to this family,” Lord Batton said, letting the pause linger long enough for Nicholas to know that a “but” was coming. “But if you continue down this current path, I might have no choice but to back him if sticking by you would mean the demise of this monarchy.”
“Demise of the monarchy?” Nicholas snapped his eyes to the man’s face, then to his mother. She looked down, her lips formed into a tight line that said much of her disapproval of what was being said but not that it was a surprise to her. “What are you talking about?”
“You were voluntarily absent from Callanos for a number of years,” Lord Batton said. “You are practically a stranger to your people and you do not hold their love or their loyalty.”
“I would have thought that winning gold medals in the name of Callanos would gain some loyalty,” he said.
“You won those for yourself, at least that’s the impression you’ve given everyone around you. I understand perhaps more than anyone, other than your mother, the depth of your grief, but you take on each new aspect of duty as if it were a chore. Every facial expression, every movement of your body, every speech or interview you give communicates that you don’t want to be here and that you hate your new role. The people see it and they cannot follow someone who so obviously cares nothing for them.” Lord Batton pounded lightly on the table to emphasize his words even though he had Nicholas’ full attention.
“You refuse to follow any of your council’s advice, you openly defy us at every turn, you refuse to find a wife and instead indulge in dalliances with women furnished by the casino owners. This is not the right path if you want to earn the hearts and minds of your people.”