Page 81 of Royal Fling
The room was buzzing with hundreds of guests dressed in their best clothes, although, to be fair, for an LGBTQ event, there was an overwhelming amount of seemingly straight, seemingly filthy-rich attendees.
The enormous skeleton of Hope, the whale, hung overhead, and the uplighters around the main hall of London’s Natural History Museum made the place look magical.
“Indeed,” Fisayo said, taking in the hall, too.
She was dressed in a purple pencil dress that covered her shoulders and neck with purple lace, as well as her arms, and matching sensible shoes. She’d foregone a headscarf—or ageleas she told me it was called—for the event, and instead had let her long dreadlocks free.
She looked stunning. As did Dad in his expensive black suit.
Both his and my suit had been a gift from August, despite our protests. Even though I didn’t like August going all out for me, I had to admit, wearing tailored suits was comfortable as hell.
Yeah, all in all, this would be an incredible evening if it weren’t for the photographers snapping my pictures every few seconds as if moving my hand from my hip warranted a whole new gallery of shots.
Of course, my name had got out there the following day after the news broke. As did the barrage of slandering articles and segments on TV.
It was like these people had nothing better to do than talk about people they knew nothing about.
Somehow, they’d managed to drag my name through the mud, unearthing everything about me. They’d found photos from the few drag shows I’d done, linked to lude articles calling me a ladyboy and a transvestite.
They’d written whole diatribes about how August must have gotten confused by my feminine features and fallen victim to my vodou magic.
They’d written about the color of my skin and how I wasn’t fitting for the Prince of Elysia, or how what I had between my legs disqualified me for the role.
They’d discovered my relationship with Fisayo and her relationship with August, so of course there was a whole thread on Twitter about how we’d conspired to lure August and take his money.
And I had to say, Fisayo was very motivated if she was willing to spend twenty-five years in royal employ only to scam the crown prince out of his fortune. We’d laughed over that. A lot. It was either that or crying, and laughing about it seemed so much easier. And healthier.
The worst of all was that they’d managed to also drag my family through the mud. Some nosy reporter had found out all my brothers were in gay relationships, so, of course, they’d branded us as the Queer Squad with the queer agenda.
I mean, as far as nicknames went, it wasn’t the worst, but I hated that I’d put all my family under the limelight.
For his part, though, August and the royal family had sent cease and desist letters to all the newspapers writing fiction about us.
Some had stopped. Most had gotten even more aggressive.
Hopefully, after tonight, after August’s public coming out, they’d leave him and us alone.
A boy could dream, right?
Princess Virginia walked across the room, followed by a flurry of flashes until she reached me.
She was a beautiful young woman. She had her brother’s gray eyes, and her mother’s boldness—who I’d met briefly—and everyone loved her.
Which apparently was one of the reasons she was in London. Because some of the tabloids loved her so much, they focused on her.
It had kinda worked. Kinda being the operative word. I hadn’t looked online since yesterday. I was sick of the fables they were coming up with to make me appear like the most evil, conniving human in the entire universe, so it was probably best for my mental health to not read the crap about me online.
Ginny had sent me links to some of the nice articles, though. It was nice to have some positive words, people praising August, excited for the first out prince, for breaking barriers and stuff I’d never even stopped to think about.
I was just Luke, and I was in love with a boy who happened to be a prince. Why couldn’t anyone else see it that way?
“How are you feeling?” she asked me, looping her arm around mine.
“I’d feel great if these assholes weren’t here,” I said, giving an evil glare toward the photographers.
“You’ll get used to them, hon. You’ll see. Eventually they’ll get bored and move on to the nextscandal.” The last part was said with flair and pizzazz, and it made me laugh. “Come on, guys. August is about to do his speech.”
She led me to the front of the room where a stage had been erected with a podium and a white screen as a backdrop with the charity’s colorful logo.
