Royal Treatment is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Loveswept Ebook Original
Copyright © 2018 by Tracy Deebs-Elkenaney
Excerpt from Hot & Heavy by Tracy Wolff copyright © 2018 by Tracy Deebs-Elkenaney
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Hot & Heavy by Tracy Wolff. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.
Ebook ISBN 9781101884898
Cover design: Makeready Designs
Cover photograph: g-stockstudio/iStock
randomhousebooks.com
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1: Garrett
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5: Lola
Chapter 6: Garrett
Chapter 7: Lola
Chapter 8
Chapter 9: Garrett
Chapter 10: Lola
Chapter 11: Garrett
Chapter 12: Lola
Chapter 13: Garrett
Chapter 14: Lola
Chapter 15: Garrett
Chapter 16: Lola
Chapter 17: Garrett
Chapter 18: Lola
Chapter 19: Garrett
Chapter 20
Chapter 21: Lola
Chapter 22
Chapter 23: Garrett
Chapter 24: Lola
Chapter 25: Garrett
Chapter 26
Chapter 27: Lola
Chapter 28
Chapter 29: Garrett
Chapter 30: Lola
Chapter 31: Garrett
Chapter 32: Lola
Chapter 33: Garrett
Epilogue: Lola
Dedication
By Tracy Wolff
About the Author
Excerpt from Hot & Heavy
Chapter 1
Garrett
They say I’ll get used to this.
After all, what’s there to get used to, really?
Lounging around, doing whatever I want whenever I want, living a life of absolute luxury with absolutely no responsibility…
It’s a dream come true.
Or at least, that’s what everybody tells me. That this new life of mine—as the spare instead of the heir—is the best thing to ever happen to me.
Too bad it feels more like a nightmare than a dream.
Then again, almost everything about the last nine months has felt like a nightmare.
Being kidnapped.
Months of torture followed by months of rehabilitation.
Being ousted from my role in both my family and my country.
Definitely the stuff nightmares are made of, even if the playboy lifestyle I’ve had foisted on me isn’t.
And no one can say I haven’t given this lifestyle the old royal try, either…because I have. For more than a month now.
I’ve slept with half a dozen women in as many weeks.
Have drunk my weight in Bourbon and Champagne more times than I care to count.
Have raced the world’s fastest cars on the world’s fastest race tracks and frittered away copious amounts of money on absolutely nothing of value…
I’ve even hopped from one hot spot to the next—from Rio to the Azores to Patagonia, for God’s sake, which is pretty much at the end of the fucking world. I’ve been to more parties in the six weeks since I’ve gotten a clean bill of health than in the first twenty-eight years of my life. And that’s saying something, considering major galas have been a part of my existence since I learned how to walk. Maybe even longer.
And now I’m here, sunning myself on a rock near a secluded watering hole in the small village of Tournemire and whining to myself about how much I hate my new life. Could I be any more of a spoiled prick if I tried?
It’s obnoxious and I’m pathetic. Not to mention completely useless.
The man once trusted to rule the country now can’t even be trusted to be in control of himself—or so the anxiety medicine the King’s therapists keep insisting I take seems to imply. Well, that and the fact that I can’t even be in the royal palace—at least not when serious business is afoot.
King’s fucking orders.
Oh, that’s not what he or my brother, Kian, say to my face. But I am very aware of how often they’ve been showing me the door lately. Just like I’m aware of what meetings are going on at the palace when they do. I may have had a couple concussions too many in the three months I was missing, but my brain still functions better than most. Certainly well enough to know what my family is up to…even if they never say it.
I’ve become a liability, someone who can’t even be trusted with palace gossip, let alone state secrets.
Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Death has to be better than this. Then again, anything does. Because the distrust from my family, the forced idleness—and uselessness—that is now my life in some ways is just as torturous as those months I endured in that compound filled with anti-royal whack jobs.
Maybe even more so, because I didn’t give a shit about them and they felt the same way about me.
My family, though…My family, my country, thinks I’m a traitor. They think they can’t trust me, and there’s nothing I can do to prove otherwise.
The alarm on my phone goes off, interrupting my self-pity. I set it before I stretched out, in case I fell asleep and got caught in a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. But I’m too busy drowning in what-ifs to sleep, too busy making sure I flip over so my legs don’t burn to let myself drift off. Because that’s what my life has been reduced to. No meetings, no public appearances, no charity work. Just me, a bottle of sunscreen, and this very, very uncomfortable rock.
Maybe it didn’t interrupt the self-pity as much as I thought.
Because I’m boring myself with all the whining going on in my head, I shove off of the rock instead of merely flipping over. And dive headfirst into the small lake.
I swim back and forth, over and over again, determined to exhaust the demons inside of me since I can’t seem to vanquish them. Somewhere around lap thirty-four, I become aware of a commotion at the other end of the lake. And since the commotion involves a tiny redhead with a very big attitude going toe-to-toe with one-third of my security detail, I can’t help but settle back to watch the show.
And what a show it is.
She’s a total spitfire—I may be a hundred yards away, but the “fuck off” body language is hard to miss. As are the obscene hand gestures. Not to mention the killer body and long, red corkscrew curls. I don’t have a great view of her face, but I’m pretty sure it will match the rest of her and that intrigues me more than I want to admit.
She intrigues me more than
I want to admit.
And since nothing has in far too long, I swim over to the edge of the lake and wade out. Just in time to hear her tell Samuel to “fuck right off! You can’t own a public park.”
He keeps his cool as he reiterates that the lake is off-limits for the next few hours, but she’s having none of it. She hurls a few more choice insults at him as he stands there looking pained, then repeats her refrain about public parks being for the public and therefore incapable of being owned by anyone.
Technically, that’s not exactly true, since all parks in Wildemar belong to the state and my family is the state. But since I’m pretty sure that won’t win me any points with this hot little number with the American accent, I keep that small bit of info to myself even as I approach the two of them.
The rest of my detail gets nervous at the move—I can see Bryce shifting uncomfortably from his spot near the trees. I can’t see Bastian, but then, I don’t have to. In the six weeks he’s been with me, he’s rarely taken his hand off his gun. I’m pretty sure this interaction only has his finger creeping closer to the trigger…
“It’s okay, Samuel,” I say as I get closer, holding my hands up to signal the other two to stay back. Bryce glares at me, but he does as I order.
Samuel doesn’t. In fact, he doesn’t so much as look my way, though he does shift a little to the right so that he can cover me. From what, I’m not exactly sure, since the redhead is wearing a purple bikini and flip-flops, neither of which leave her room to hide a weapon. Or anything else…thank God.
Because she is hot. Seriously hot, with a capital H.O.T. She might be small—standing maybe five foot three on a good day—but she’s got major curves in all the right places. So many curves, in fact, that as she huffs indignantly at Samuel, I can’t help wondering if she’s going to huff herself right out of her bikini top.
Just the idea is a bright spot in an otherwise fucked-up day, because I’m dying to find out if her nipples are the same delicate pink as her full, plump lips.
Behind me, I hear Bastian’s shoes crunch over the rocky ground as he moves closer, and a quick glance at Bryce tells me he’s doing the same thing. So much for following orders. I hold up a hand to once again tell them to stand down, but they ignore me. I may be a prince, but in matters of my personal safety, my security detail does whatever they deem necessary, even if it puts them at odds with my wishes.
Especially if it puts them at odds…the three of them are a contrary fucking bunch. Then again, I’m pretty sure that’s why they were assigned to me.
“It’s okay,” I say again, louder this time since it’s for the benefit of all three of my guards. For the first time, the fiery little redhead looks at me.
“No, it’s not!” she argues, tipping her sunglasses down so that I can see the heat in her bright blue eyes. “I want to swim.”
“You can swim,” I say, gesturing expansively toward the lake. “Let the lady through, Samuel.”
He hesitates, but finally gives in when she slaps a hand against his chest and pushes him back a little. “You heard the man. ‘Let the lady through.’ ” She says the last in a snide little voice that gets my back up. Or maybe it’s the fact that she doesn’t even glance my way as she passes that pisses me off.
Either way, I can’t resist saying, “No ‘thank you’?”
She stops and turns back to stare at me, this time taking her glasses all the way off to signify she means business. “Excuse me?”
The attitude turns me on way more than it should—she turns me on way more than she should. “Aren’t you even going to say thank you?”
“For what?”
“For me calling off the dogs and letting you in.”
Behind me, Samuel chokes a little at being referred to as a dog, even metaphorically, and I promise myself I’ll make it up to him. Later. After I get this very sexy woman into the nearest bed—or, more likely, towel-covered rock, as my dick is telling me the nearest bed is waaaaaaay too far. Nice to know the anxiety meds haven’t completely killed my libido.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Not even a little.” I step in front of her, very deliberately blocking her path.
“You can’t own a public park!” she says again, voice raised in annoyance. “What part of that aren’t you understanding?”
“The part that forgets about a little-known Wildemarian statute, one that says a man’s entitled to do whatever he has to to protect his land. Within reason, of course.”
“But this isn’t your land,” she retorts. “It’s public parkland.”
“Not if I invoke squatter’s rights.”
“Squatter’s rights?” She looks incredulous. And annoyed. And—this could be wishful thinking, but I don’t think so—a very tiny bit intrigued. “You can’t do that!”
“Sure I can. There’s another statute on the books that gives squatters the rights to any public land that is occupied by three or more people.”
“No.”
I lift a brow. “No?”
“No, no, no. I call bullshit. Those laws would be ridiculous—”
“They are,” I agree as I unlock my phone and hold it out to her. “And antiquated. But you can google them. One is Civil Code Thirty-seven A, provisions six through nine, and the second is—”
“You can’t be serious!” she answers, even as she snatches my phone out of my hand. About a minute later, she looks back up at me with narrowed eyes. “You are serious.”
“I am.”
“Squatter’s rights?” she says again, as if it’s the most bizarre term she’s ever heard. “So what keeps people from claiming all the public parkland here in Wildemar? Especially the beaches? They have to be worth a fortune.”
“It’s a fairly obscure statute. Not many people know about it.”
“And you just happen to be one of the lucky few who do?”
“What can I say? I’m a good researcher.”
“More like a good con man,” she says with a snort. “But far be it from me to trespass on private land.”
She starts to turn around and go back the way she came, which is wholly and completely unacceptable. Especially considering sparring with her keeps my mind off the rest of my shitty life. But since I’d have to leapfrog over her shoulders to get in front of her, something my still tender ribs are not okay with, I nod to Bryce to block her path. Which he does, so quickly and silently she doesn’t notice until he’s already there.
“Are you serious right now?” she squawks as she turns to glare at me. “Two bodyguards? Don’t you think that’s a little overkill?”
Her tone suggests that it’s a lot overkill and I don’t bother to correct her. How can I when her tone asks who the hell I think I am? Which is such a novel experience I find myself not wanting it to end.
Even before the kidnapping, it was rare to find someone who didn’t recognize me on sight. Now that my face has been plastered on every newspaper and magazine cover in the free world, it’s pretty much impossible. But as she stands there, eyebrows raised and hands on her curvy little hips, I can’t help enjoying the fact that she doesn’t know. And the fact that for a few minutes I can carry on a conversation with someone who isn’t thinking about the kidnapping. Or the photos of my injuries that leaked after I was rescued. Or the fact that my father has basically labeled me unfit for duty.
No, all she’s thinking is that I’m an asshole on a power trip, and that…that is something I can work with. Especially when the prize is an afternoon in bed with the sexiest woman I’ve seen in pretty much forever…
Chapter 2
I don’t answer her about my security detail—I have a pretty strict no-lying policy, and making up a story about them would violate every statute of it—and she doesn’t wait around to hear anything else that comes out of my mouth. Instead, she starts to push past me much like she d
id Samuel, eyes blazing and one hand on my chest. But unlike Samuel, I don’t move aside nearly as easily.
Instead, I bring a hand up to cover hers, holding it against my chest. Her sunglasses are back in place, but I can practically see those gorgeous eyes of hers narrowing behind the lenses.
“Get out of my way,” she demands, yanking her hand away from mine.
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll kick you in the balls, bodyguards or no bodyguards.”
Behind me, Samuel chokes again. But this time I’m pretty sure it’s from laughter, even if I can feel him shifting a little closer to me. Just in case she means it.
Part of me wants to stay right where I am, just to test her out. To see if she’s really tough enough to put her money where her mouth is. But since I’m pretty sure she is and I don’t relish my detail having to rush to my rescue—any more than I relish a kick in the balls—eventually I step aside. After waiting just long enough to have her eyebrows arching and her hands clenching into fists.
She brushes past me, the soft skin of her shoulder skimming against my chest as she marches straight up to my rock. Once there, she crinkles her nose up a little at the wetness of it, but doesn’t say anything as she spreads her towel out over the area.
Then she’s dropping her sunglasses and her drawstring backpack on the ground, kicking off her flip-flops, and running straight for the lake. Once she hits the edge, she does a beautiful arched dive, one that has her landing fast and clean in the clear turquoise water.
I follow her—of course I do—diving into a spot just a few feet from where she’s now treading water. I surface with every intention of striking up a conversation, but by the time I rub a hand over my eyes, she’s already gone. For long seconds, I watch as she swims across the lake with long, powerful strokes.