Page 18 of A Girl and HER Prince
He met eyes with his loyal friend. “I think so?” Venice hadn’t tried to move yet, and when he did, he realized that it was about as bad as taking a nosedive off of the Ammoudi Beach cliffs… which had only been last week.
Yeah, he’d been lucky.
To the side of him, Bris was telling Achilles to get off her. She elbowed her way out, refusing help from Phil and Theo, her bracelets jingling as she glared daggers at anyone and everyone—she always turned to anger when scared… well, when she was anything. “Yeah, you have this handled!” she cried out to her brother. “Everything is going just fine! Such big strong men you are!” She glared at Achilles. “You’re going to take on fire too, Killiefish?”
Her cruel assessment left the man in question sputtering with indignation.
“You’re both lost without me.” She puffed the hair out of her face with exaggerated movements. “I’ll be taking the master bedroom downstairs.” That was already where the duke was sleeping. “Someone has to keep you from getting killed.”
Achilles made a sound of disbelief, though his expression flashed at the sudden challenge. Leaning forward, he gave her a taste of his bad boy charm. “You really want to share that room with me, little hen?”
“Why not?” she retorted evenly. “I’d like to see you try to squeeze your things in with all theshoesI brought. I get first dibs on showers.”
Achilles drew back from her, so fast the move revealed his violent disgust. “I’ll find another room. By the way? I’d rather face a million Deedees than you.”
Was anyone going to ask Venice for his permission to let her stay? No, because no one ever did. Venice was starting to see Achilles’s point. He couldn’t stand up against anyone, least of all his family.
Another reason his father should think twice before commanding him to rule a kingdom.
Ignoring his sister and the duke’s bickering, he studied the stove, trying to figure out how that could’ve been caused by a gas leak. It didn’t act like one either. Was this an accident or was his father’s unnervingly dark warnings spot on? Had the Myrdons discovered he was next to rule and gone after him?
His gaze flicked back to Turner and he lowered his voice, “Hey, can you look at this? Make sure it’s nothing… else?”
Turner nodded, his expression grim.
For a moment, Venice considered disbanding his guests and shutting down their voyage. And then what? Live out his existence huddled in a bunker, quaking with fear at any unusual noise or loud bang?
No! He’d worked too hard to gain his independence to give up now. Until he could see that this was a true threat, Venice needed to continue as normal. The Myrdons would win if he did otherwise, and besides, being a blubbering coward was absolutely boring!
“Sorry, Princess,” Achilles told Bris. They were still going at it. The scare must’ve set off an explosion in their mouths. “I didn’t realize that you require so much pampering,” the duke said. “You want me to serve you meals in bed while we’re at it? What’ll you take? Souvlaki? My head on a plate?”
“How thoughtful,” Bris’s sarcastic drawl made Venice grit his teeth. “How about you make me an omelet. I’m starving.”
Venice threw his hands up into the air. “You know what? I don’t care what either of you do, as long as you quit talking about it!”
Chapter Seven
Livvy hid out in her room, concealing the red hot little number with her filmy swimsuit wrap while Deedee stubbornly waited it out on the upper deck, conquering the furies, sirens, and gorgons while she pined for her Prince to come.
And Livvy had found her book to forget her troubles. She was sure keeping a low profile wasn’t exactly what Deedee had in mind when she’d told Livvy to get out of her comfort zone, but seriously, it felt like her friend had turned this all on her head anyways. Livvy wasn’t the one who was plotting revenge against Venice.
Her dismal predictions of crashing and burning in the social scene were all becoming a horrible reality the more Livvy had tried to socialize with his disdainful guests under the hot sun. She’d never had a harder time connecting with a group of people.
Deedee, on the other hand, had her act down, giggling, flirting, and excelling at the small talk. She was a peacock showing off each shimmering iridescent feather in the tantalizing wind. And still, the prince and the duke weren’t there to be dazzled by Deedee’s brilliance, sadly. They’d been noticeably absent.
The turquoise ocean waves flowed past the side of the enormous vessel as they hurried to the first island on their tour.
It was the Island of Chios, Homer’s birthplace. Historians believed that many of the poet’s writings were inspired by his life there, but when Livvy asked the nearest sunbather his thoughts on which island on the tour he was most excited to visit, Livvy got a raised brow in return. The next reaction was worse—a light snore behind heavy sunglasses.
Another guy wanted her to rub sunscreen onto his back while he thought about it.
“Oh, I’m all out,” she’d told him.
At that, Deedee had lifted her head from the lounge chair. “If you’re going back to the cabin to get more,” she’d said, “can you pick up my phone? I want to take some pictures.”
Nodding, Livvy had quickly disappeared, refusing to feel guilty for not bringing back the forbidden item in a timely manner. There was no telling what Venice would do if he caught Deedee with the camera phone anyway—maybe that was her friend’s plan, to provoke him so she’d have a reason to flirt.
Not wanting any part of dragging out the agony of their breakup, Livvy had, instead, dragged out the slim volume of her dog-eared bookThe Aeneid,an epic poem by Virgil. She landed on her soft bed and folded over the worn first page where her father had written over it with his bold handwriting:
