Free The Playboy Prince (Piacere Princes, Book One) by Lyla Payne

worried about the fallout, should the royal family be disgruntled with her family’s involvement in underhanded schemes to uncover the billionaire behind Matrigna Holdings. A wry smile tugged at her lips as she wondered whether King Alfonso would be as soft on her now as he had been when she was a child blackening the eyes of his precious sons.
    Somehow, she doubted it.

Chapter Seven
    Salvadore

    Salvy stepped out of the shower, dripping onto the floor while he wiped a spot clear on the mirror. He looked tired; being back at the palace, even on the grounds, stressed him out. He hated the weight of his father’s expectations, of Nico’s pleading, of worrying what Luca would do next. He didn’t want those to be his problems and when he was home, they felt as if they were.
    He sighed and toweled off. The ball, though… that was his problem. The King expecting him to choose a bride…that was his problem. He’d created them both, thinking that it would be a cheeky way to get back at his father, and now it seemed as though he was going to have to follow through or lose everything.
    Salvy didn’t know if he could. For all the time he spent with women, he’d never been with one he thought he could stomach spending his entire life with, and getting married as a method of revenge was gross, even to him. His parents had been special. They’d had something special. He wanted a woman who inspired that sort of desire in him, and he’d never found it.  
    A thud from his bedroom pulled his mind from the contemplative bullshit. He tugged on a pair of boxer briefs before striding into the other room.
    “Jesus, how much time do you spend in the gym?” Nico asked, sitting at Salvy’s desk under the window. Morning sunlight streamed in, surrounding his brother and his impeccable, three-thousand-dollar suit with a literal halo.  
    Nico, the perfect prince. Salvy struggled to stop his sneer.
    “Enough. I’m more eligible than Ginger Harry now, haven’t you heard?”
    Nico snorted. “I’ve heard lots of things lately. But we both know that if it had been me swinging my pecker around like an elephant’s trunk, there wouldn’t be any question about which brother is better endowed.”
    Salvy grabbed a clean white T-shirt from the drawer and slipped it over his head, hiding his carefully cultivated abs from view. He normally enjoyed showing them off, but he sensed that Nico had come here to lecture him, and one should never go ill-dressed into battle.  
    “I’m sure you didn’t come here to compare penis sizes,” Salvy said, sitting on the edge of the bed to put on a pair of socks. “We took care of that definitive ranking years ago.”
    “No, I didn’t.”
    “Well, out with it. It must be important for you to be all cleaned up at seven in the morning.”
    His brother made a face. “This is a normal hour for one to be up and dressed, you know. Though I must say, I didn’t expect you to be out of bed, so well done. Etzio claimed ten a.m. is a hard rule.”
    “Yes, well, I’ve got a big day ahead of me. Fittings and all of that.”
    “That’s what I came to talk to you about.” Nico sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “A ball to find a wife ? Have you lost your mind?”
    “Possibly.”
    “That’s all you have to say about it?”
    Salvy sighed, too, then went to pick a suit from the closet. He pulled on the gray slacks and buttoned them, securing a belt around his waist and dragging a lavender shirt from a hanger before returning to face his brother.  
    His brother, who at thirty-three had already lost the love of his life. His brother, who had not walked, but run to get married because he believed he’d found the perfect woman, not because he was calling the King’s bluff.
    “Father told me I have to grow up or become a goddamn priest. I picked grow up.”
    “And make a mockery out of the crown, and marriage, in the process?”
    “I think both will survive,” Salvy said dryly.