Free The Crown Jewels by Honey Palomino Page B

so that was unexpected. My heart sped up and I felt the need to explain myself, but maybe she didn’t know everything.
    “I know about what happened in America.”
    Shit. A lot happened in that month. Could Will have really told her everything ?
    “I see,” I replied, sitting down next to her. “What did he tell you?”
    “He told me how you two met. How you fell in love. Had some whirlwind romance and that you accidentally became pregnant. And that he ran. Like a stupid idiot.”
    I sighed heavily. Could it all be summed up so easily? With five little sentences, she’d made it all sound so simple. But it didn’t feel simple at all. Not then. Not now.
    “Okay, so he told you a lot,” I replied. More than he told me , I thought. Will had never told me he loved me. Not once.
    “Julia, I want you to know that I know my brother is a jerk. Whatever happened between the two of you doesn’t matter now. I respect you immensely for not going to the press back then. You could have raked him over the coals, but you didn’t. And I can’t even imagine how it must have felt to have to have an abortion all alone.”
    “I, um —.”
    “— He was a jerk for leaving you alone like that,” she interrupted. “I know he regrets it. Contrary to popular opinion,” she said, gesturing to the door, to Seraphina, “he does have a heart.”
    I knew that. At least he used to. As for now, the only thing I was sure of was that he had a very hard cock and he was very eager to put it to use as much as he could. I’d already felt it twice since I’d arrived and that seemed to be where his focus was at these days. But back then, in those times that now seemed so innocent and far away, I was convinced Will had a heart. A big one.
    “Everything’s fine between Will and I. The past is the past. I’m just concentrating on the present.”
    “I think that’s a good plan,” she said, with a warm smile. “As well as taking that dress! You look fabulous!”
    I stood up and looked at myself in the mirror again, and as much as I knew I shouldn’t, I found myself wondering what Will would think of it.
    We shopped the entire afternoon, returning to the castle with bags and bags of new clothes and shoes and accessories. I felt like I was a world away from my real life, as if I was living some fairy tale my grandmother was reading to me.
    But this wasn’t my grandmother’s fairy tale.

CHAPTER TWELVE
    WILL
     
    Snowflakes fluttered around Willy and I as we walked in the English garden. I sat on one of the stone benches near the fountain and watched the snow fall into the shallow pool of water, disappearing, becoming one with the water, becoming water again, as if transforming yourself was no big deal.
    It came easy to some.
    Not to me, though. No matter how hard I tried to be someone else, I was stuck with the reputation that years of living recklessly had cursed me with. The playboy Prince. A ladies’ man. A royal prick that cared about nothing but where the next party was.
    Being that person had cost me. I’m not complaining, because what right do I have to complain? I’m a fucking Prince, for fuck’s sake. I’ve had the time of my life. It’s hard to justify any whining on my part, what with all the riches and treasures and women and castles and yachts and vacations and on and on and on. The list goes on so long it quickly becomes boring.
    The thing about being raised with the knowledge that you can have or do anything you want is that after a while the only things that appeal to you are the ones you can’t have. Perhaps that why I was so fixated on Jewels.
    It helped that she was smart, beautiful and sexy. Since she’d arrived in Sweden, she was all I could think about. I woke up thinking about her, and I went to sleep thinking about her. I yearned to touch her, to kiss her, to taste her again, and yet she was having none of it.
    I would have to rethink my strategy. I knew it was wrong, the timing was absolutely terrible, but a