A Great Prince: A Royal Bad Boy Romance Read online

  Copyright © 2015 by Orland Outland

  All Rights Reserved

  Contents

  AUTHOR’S NOTE:

  CHAPTER ONE – MAKE WAY FOR THE KING!

  CHAPTER TWO – THEY CANNOT EAT YOU

  CHAPTER THREE – AN EDUCATION IN DANCING

  CHAPTER FOUR – WE WILL BE WITH YOU PRESENTLY

  CHAPTER FIVE – ONCE UPON A TIME

  CHAPTER SIX – THE PEOPLE WILL NEED YOU

  CHAPTER SEVEN – THE PRICE TO BE PAID

  CHAPTER EIGHT – THE GENGZTER

  CHAPTER NINE – THE LEGITIMATE RULER OF DANUBIA

  CHAPTER TEN – WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN – THE PUNK PRINCE PREPARES A PLOT

  CHAPTER TWELVE – THE ULTIMATE CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN – WE HAVE SOMETHING THEY NEED

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN – JUST A GUEST HERE

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN – THEY NEED YOU MORE THAN YOU NEED THEM

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN – A ROYAL PICNIC

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – TO KILL A KING

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – I AM THE GOVERNMENT

  CHAPTER NINETEEN – WE’RE GOING TO NEED SOME TORCHES

  CHAPTER TWENTY – I AM ONE OF YOU

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE – THE RULE OF LAW

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO – THEY THINK WE’LL JUST BE FIGUREHEADS

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE – A GREAT PRINCE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE:

  Burgenland and Danubia are fictional kingdoms. However, I’ve created them from the actual Burgenland, the easternmost state of Austria, and Western Transdanubia, the westernmost state of Hungary. All cities, roads, restaurants and buildings are real. If, at some point in the history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, someone had sneezed at the wrong moment, who knows, they could have become real kingdoms after all…

  CHAPTER ONE – MAKE WAY FOR THE KING!

  His Most Gracious and Imperial Majesty, King Nikolas of Danubia, got low on his snowboard, aiming straight down the black diamond run. His security detail was back there somewhere, he supposed. Near a turn in the run, one of the paparazzi was hiding in the snow.

  Some security detail I’ve got, he thought. This guy could have a gun instead of a camera.

  With a twitch of his hips, he banked sharply, the heels of his feet digging into the mountain. The effect was like a belt sander on a piece of metal, frozen sparks flying through the air. He hoped it ruined the picture. (It didn’t. It showed Nikolas’ powerful form kicking up a spray of ice, as if he was surfing a wave — another wonderful cover shot of His Sexy Majesty for the tabloids.)

  He looked back. The paparazzo had fallen over in fright, and his security men were hunched low on their skis, poles held tight to their bodies, trying to catch up with their king.

  But he was too fast, even for those athletic men. Weighing over 200 pounds and standing six foot three was an asset in speed racing – the more you weighed, the faster you flew downhill.

  “I’m James Bond, bitches,” he whispered to himself. And they were the Bond villain’s henchmen, trying to run him down. But James Bond always won the race.

  Besides, he wasn’t that concerned about his safety here. This was Davos, after all. Anyone who didn’t look like a billionaire probably ended up detained by the Swiss police. Hell, if they didn’t know I was a fucking king, they’d take one look and arrest me. I still look like a suspicious character.

  Down in the flats, he started making S turns, little braking moves to slow himself down. His security detail formed back around him, two in front and two behind. Their half-unzipped jackets flapped in the breeze as they moved down the hill. Lots of jackets flapped in the breeze in Davos, especially with this convention thing going on. Open coats provided easy access to holstered weapons. Any man in a half-open coat, wearing thin gloves was a dead giveaway.

  Nikolas noticed things like that. Noticing that kind of detail had kept him alive during the years when there were no men behind him, nobody to stop a man with a gun, staring him down in a dark alley, preparing to take his life.

  Well, that was a long time ago. It had been five years since he’d been a fucking nobody, just a wannabe gengszter, a punk kid on the streets of Szombathely.

  A girl squeaked as he ripped past, just missing her by inches. Make way for the king, motherfuckers!

  He braked hard at the bottom of the run, just as a caravan of snowmobiles pulled up to form a U around him. A man was on his knees before him the moment he halted, hands flying to pop Nikolas’ feet out of the bindings on his board. Nikolas was lifting a foot before the man was done freeing it, knowing with royalty’s confidence that no obstacle would ever hinder him.

  “Thanks, Oliver,” Nikolas said quietly. Manners had been more than handy when he’d lived on the streets — disrespecting the wrong person was a quick ticket to the graveyard. The habit was too ingrained now to discard, even if he’d wanted to. His servant nodded discreetly.

  Also, he thought, you never know when you’ll be the servant again. Nothing lasts forever, not even a throne. Be nice on the way up, et cetera.

  He hopped on the back of one of the snowmobiles. They were the new electric model. Quiet, discreet, inoffensive. He frowned. Made in fucking Burgenland, of course. We don’t make anything in Danubia.

  Burgenland and Danubia had once been one country, before World War II carved it in two, one side capitalist and one side Communist. And even now, the former Communist country of Danubia struggled in its attempts to prosper.

  The snowmobiles took him and his detail to a waiting Rolls-Royce. It was parked in a No Parking zone, like so many cars in Davos, where rules were for other people, not for “Us.”

  Barnabas stood by the door, holding it open. The old scarecrow, Nikolas thought with affection at the sight of him. His long black cashmere coat with the collar turned up against the cold might as well be a cape, the way it made him look like Dracula. How could Nikolas have ennobled him as anything but a count?

  “Your majesty,” Barnabas croaked. “We are late for an appointment.”

  Nikolas peeled off his coat and another efficient servant whisked it away. He ducked into the Rolls and threw himself into the corner. A crystal glass of Johnnie Walker Blue was already poured for him, set on a lacquered wooden tray, a custom addition to the Rolls that itself had cost more than some cars. The glass held two fingers’ worth of the whiskey — two of Barnabas’ fingers, exactly. A perfect measure as always, since Barnabas used the only two fingers he still had on his left hand.

  His Lord Chamberlain slid in next to him, shut the door, and rapped on the glass divider, signaling the driver to go.

  “Royalty is never late, Barnabas,” Nikolas said, savoring his drink. “The appointed time is the time at which royalty arrives.”

  He was warm from his downhill run, and warmer now from the drink. He pulled off his tight black Spider pullover, losing some of the heat he’d built up on his descent. Underneath that he wore a white, equally form-fitting UnderArmour t-shirt. He looked down at his own body with pleasure, knowing he could still carry off wearing the tight stuff. Good living hadn’t made him fat yet. Like many who’d endured starvation early in life, it probably never would.

  “Not when the appointment is with other royalty,” Barnabas said sarcastically. “Your Majesty,” he remembered to add.

  Nikolas sighed. “So what, do I have to wear a suit or something?”

  “Yes, sir, you do. You are meeting the princess of Burgenland, and she will most certainly be wearing a suit.”

  “I bet she will.” Nikolas thought of the pictures he’d seen over the years of Francesca Albertine, or “old Frankie,” as he called her. She wa
s twenty, four years younger than Nikolas. But she had the stern demeanor of an older woman who’d never had a day of fun in her life.

  “So,” Nikolas ventured, “have you found me a good translator for this evening?”

  Barnabas snorted. “Yes, sir, a most capable ‘translator’ has been found for you. Quite to your taste.”

  “Excellent.” The World Economic Forum was allegedly about a stimulating exchange of ideas. But when powerful men gathered in one location, especially in places where the presence of intrusive media eyes was limited and privacy assured, they wanted women available to cater to their needs.

  Of course, everyone pretended otherwise. Talk to a Russian hooker loitering in the lobby of the Belvedere or the National, and in her broken English she would always claim, “I am translator.”

  He and his security entourage swept through the lobby of the Belvedere, just another world leader and his bulky friends — nothing to see here. In his room, he showered quickly and emerged from the bathroom in his towel.

  But not until after he’d spent a minute examining himself in the mirror. He was twenty-four years old, and had the body of a man who’d lived a vigorous, rigorous life. There were scars from knife fights, mostly, and one scar where a bullet had grazed his side. He hated that one the most; the crazy angle ruined the otherwise perfect symmetry of his six pack and the V shape at his hips.

  He’d been lean and stringy in his early teens, from hunger and deprivation. Once he’d been taken in by the gangsters of Szombathely, where nobody went hungry, genetics kicked in. He shot up three inches and gained fifty pounds, all muscle.

  He watched the droplets of water roll over his abs as he clenched them. Even the soft life of a king hadn’t spoiled his chiseled core. Yet. Lots of exercise, lots of sex, and of course some good coke now and then would keep him in fighting trim.

  His dark eyes and hair, and his slightly olive skin, were the inheritance of Central Europe’s old clashes with the Muslim world. People said he looked like Novak Djokovic, if the tennis player had bulked up and become a rugby player instead. He kept his hair buzzcut with the #2 clipper attachment. Which was most unbecoming for a king, or so he was told by the world’s “royal watchers,” the media’s bottom feeders.

  Well, fuck them, it’s my hair. And it’s good to be the king.

  Back in the bedroom, Barnabas had laid out his clothes. The king dropped his towel shamelessly, and made a great show of tucking his very large endowment into his briefs, as if there was some doubt that it would fit. The briefs, however, were built to stretch.

  He threw on the suit that Barnabas had laid out for him. “You’re a count now, Barnie old pal. You shouldn’t be doing this sort of thing.”

  “If I could find anyone I trusted to do it right, sir, I surely would.”

  Barnabas helped him tie his tie, more adept at it than Nikolas, even though Nikolas had two more fingers than the count did.

  Nikolas looked at himself in the mirror and nodded. He looked pretty fucking great.

  So why am I nervous? The thought flitted across his mind for just a moment. Sure, Francesca Albertine was from a royal line that went back hundreds of years, but so was he. Just because his family got caught on the Soviet side of the occupation zone in World War II didn’t make his blood any less noble than hers.

  Your grandfather was a Duke, but your mother was a Gypsy. Hers was a movie star.

  He went to the minibar. Locked. “Barnabas. I need a drink from the minibar before we go.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but you had a whiskey in the car. And there will be cameras downstairs.”

  Nikolas sighed. “Well, in that case, let’s hurry up and do this, so I can get my evening started properly.”

  CHAPTER TWO – THEY CANNOT EAT YOU

  Her Royal and Imperial Highness, Princess Francesca Albertine, second in line in the House of Habsburg-Esterházy to the Throne of Burgenland, had a very bad case of sweaty palms.

  It was not her first time speaking in front of a crowd. Far from it. She had delivered her first speech at the age of six, to a crowd of farmers at a rural horse show. She had only stumbled once over her short, memorized speech, for which she was appropriately punished.

  In fact, you couldn’t even call this a crowd. For a short period in January, the World Economic Forum in Davos was the center of world power. And those who paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend had better things to do than actually listen to the speeches.

  Francesca Albertine had figured it out the first day. People only sat in on these speeches because the rooms were a quiet place to commune with their smartphones. The whole Davos experience was about networking, being seen and heard, not about listening quietly.

  The front of the hall was nearly empty. Most of the audience sat near the back, where they could make a quick and discreet exit when they got bored enough, clutching a phone to an ear as if Important World Events Called Them Away.

  And why shouldn’t they? Princess Francesca Albertine was just another talking head with a prepared speech, hot air pre-released to the media – “Our commitment to forward progress in meeting the challenging future challenges blah blah.”

  But today would be different. And that was why her palms were sweating.

  Princesses do not sweat. They might perspire. No, not even that, Francesca Albertine had been taught. So how could she wipe her hands on the legs of her Armani suit when everyone was watching? And when you were a princess, everyone was watching. Always.

  “Remember Trollope?” Sonia had asked Francesca on the phone, when she’d called her old governess for one last confidence boost.

  She smiled. She could see her governess now, the sturdy Russian peasant body and the steel-gray bun that matched her steel-blue eyes. She remembered Anthony Trollope’s novels. Just before entering drawing rooms full of their enemies, the young people in his books fortified themselves with a simple thought.

  “They cannot eat me,” she replied.

  “Remember, you are in charge. You are a princess of Burgenland, a nation where the Monarch still rules.”

  It was true. Burgenland was, like Liechtenstein, one of the few states left in Europe where the monarch was more than a figurehead. Not an absolute monarch, but a very powerful one. Even monarchs of old had to answer to their nobles. In Burgenland, the monarchy answered to the bankers – the world’s new aristocrats – and the Landtag, the Parliament of nobles. Generally, they rubber-stamped whatever the king wanted, and whatever the bankers wanted was what the king wanted these days…

  And, of course, the royal family answered to the Palace. The Imperial bureaucracy was referred to as “the Palace,” as if they held the power and not her father, the king. Well, it felt that way sometimes. God knows, their wrath would fall on her head after this…

  “Yes, Governess,” she laughed, addressing Sonia as she had all through her youth.

  “Good. Now go tear them a new asshole.”

  Francesca had a pleasant speaking voice, deep and strong. She took a breath and began to read the “secret speech,” the one she had written herself.

  “The theme of this Forum is ‘Global Cooperation for Leveraging Synergy.’ Global cooperation sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Like a scene from Doctor Seuss, with all the Whos in Whoville, holding hands and singing to enlarge the heart of the Grinch.

  “But what does global cooperation actually entail? Nations around the globe cooperate to exploit natural resources, to help the wealthiest corporations and individuals dodge their taxes, to enable the virtual slavery of ‘guest workers,’ and widen the gap between rich and poor.”

  Heads looked up. The seasoned veterans of many a conference knew something was off, because she was actually saying something.

  “The titans of government, industry, and media don’t meet here to solve the world’s problems. No. They just conspire to keep them manageable, so they don’t impact their own comfort and power.”

  Now people were stirring. Phones were ra
ised and cameras turned on.

  “And my government, my country, is as guilty as anyone. We are enablers. Our security forces build walls and fences against the tide of refugees from Syria, they punch and kick and abuse small children desperately seeking safety. It’s well known that Burgenland’s secretive banking system is one of the linchpins of global corruption…”

  She didn’t speak long. Five minutes tops, she’d decided – long enough to get anyone to watch the whole YouTube video. Francesca Albertine was from an old royal line, but she was young and tech-savvy and knew all about short attention spans.

  When she finished, there was scattered clapping, not because the speech was bad, but because the audience was in shock.

  Behind the curtain once more, Francesca Albertine gave into her humanity and wiped the… yes, sweat from her brow. She had gone on stage and performed, just like her namesake, Francis Albert Sinatra. Whether or not she had knocked ‘em dead remained to be seen. But, she smiled, I did it my way.

  CHAPTER THREE – AN EDUCATION IN DANCING

  For the historic meeting between two royals, from what was once one country, flash photography had been forbidden by the Burgenland Palace. Francesca Albertine’s steel-blue eyes were sensitive to the light, just as her mother’s had been.

  In Queen Valerie’s previous life as a movie star, Valerie Muller had been powerless to stop the press from blinding her with flashbulbs, and she’d attended premieres, awards ceremonies, and the like wearing large sunglasses. And while royalty did not wear sunglasses, royalty could, however, prevent the need for them.

  The entrance of both royals was meticulously choreographed. Neither would enter the Bistro Voilà before the other. The two ships of state would turn and sail in together.

  Francesca was experienced at this sort of thing. All her life her royal handlers been preparing her for moments like this, and between equestrianism, ballet, and etiquette classes, she would never fall a step behind, or get a step ahead, of the man next to her.