Page 4 of A Girl and HER Prince
That used to be enough incentive for Venice too, but lately he’d just felt… tired. He kneaded his forehead, trying to resurrect his excitement from when he’d first broken away from his father’s oppressive rule to experience the world for himself.
Achilles left him to rummage through the fridge, the muscles in his shoulders flexing at his every movement. The duke had abandoned his shirt long ago, and was in the customary board shorts he’d be sporting for the remainder of the trip. “Admit it, Venice. You’ve turned into a pathetic soy boy. You have all these exotic women at your fingertips, and you go and plan anOdysseytrip?” He tugged out another case of sodas. “I’m having a real tough time explainingwhothat is, let alone why any of those beautiful babes outside should care.”
“I wish you were literate sometimes.” Venice burst into a grin at Achilles’s glare. He jerked his thumb at the broken glass. “Are you going to clean that up or are you going to do that entitled snob thing you do and leave your mess for the staff?”
“Sorry, didn’t realize you weren’t paying them.” Achilles set the sodas down on a side table and snatched a broom.
The two were comfortable with their rude bantering. His best friend was like a brother to him. They’d grown up in the same household. Achilles was the son of the late Duke of Peleus. His parents had died in their country’s revolution decades ago, and so Venice’s father had smuggled his friend’s two children out of the war-torn lands of Tirreoy with his own family. He’d raised Achilles and his younger sister as his own.
That should’ve made Achilles just a tiny bit grateful to Chises Mnon Tyndarian—he was the only man his best friend knew as a father, but the two hated each other.
Achilles attacked the crushed glass with the same brutality he put into everything. Swinging the broom like a broadsword, he knocked a delicate vase with his elbow and it teetered. Achilles caught the slender neck one-handed. Unbelievably, the caveman had saved the priceless relic. He shot a triumphant grin at Venice and upended his case of sodas with his knee. They broke against the ground in a sparkling, glass-sharded fizz.
Growling in frustration, Achilles wielded his broom at the next mess, narrowly missing the vase again.
“No, no!” Venice tried to stop another accident. “Forget it; forget it… Man, I don’t know if it’s safe to let you in here.” The duke was literally the bull in the glass shop in this globe they were in.
Pressing a button, Venice quickly called for assistance before shuffling up the stack of papers he’d been pretending to contemplate before Achilles had interrupted.
The Tyndarian family royalty was reclaiming their place in society again, and it was an endless game of catchup after the horrors and indignities they’d faced. He’d only been seven years old when terrorists had taken over his homeland and chased out the monarchy. The country had been embroiled in political turmoil and unrest ever since. He couldn’t fathom how his father planned to put all the pieces back together again.
The duke swiped at the papers and tossed them in the trash with a daring grin. “There’s a deliciously cute blonde asking about you. She’s never met a real live prince before.”
He winced. The blondes Achilles kept introducing him to were beginning to deserve their spot in all the jokes he’d heard growing up “Huh,” he said noncommittedly. “Is she nice?”
Achilles was taken aback. “Yeah… sure, really nice.”
He always knew when Achilles was lying. “You know what?” Venice said. “We should switch places. I’ll be the duke for once, and you can see how amazing it is to be the prince that no one will leave alone.”
“Sorry,” Achilles cut in. “Everyone knows your miserable face by now.” He marched to the stove, looking determined to try his hand at cooking. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you of the consequences of dating an internet sensation.”
And as usual Venice hadn’t listened to the duke. He’d been a wide-eyed dreamer who’d gone blindly into that fire without a blink.
There was a time Venice adored Deedee (“Licious”) Lissa… before the TalkieTalk star blared every private detail of his life to social media. She’d taken it on herself to become his own personal little paparazzi until nothing was sacred anymore, not even the moments he spent with his own girlfriend.
How embarrassingly naive he’d been! Without question, nothing was the same after his royal family emerged from the shadows and came out of hiding to embrace their identities and duties, but after Deedee, it hit him especially hard when he realized how his love life would also suffer.
Despite his “jaunt on the wild side,” as his father called it, he’d always hoped he’d find love.
Achilles wouldn’t let him live down how gullible he’d been. “Why don’t you try enjoying your fame instead of brooding like some tortured artist about how unfair life is?” He poured a bag of mini hotdogs into a frying pan and turned some dials on the stove. “How do we work this thing?”
“No, leave it!” Venice stood up before he caused an explosion. “You’re right. The staff gets paid to keep you from hurting yourself, Killiefish.”
The nickname had been invented by Venice’s younger sister to use when they were fighting, which was always.
Achilles’s nose wrinkled. “Oh, did I hurt your feelings?” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “You don’t want me mentioning the big bad ex-girlfriend? Poor, sensitive Aeneas.”
Trust him to bring out the big guns. Aeneas was Venice’s real name, but since no one in the UK could pronounce it right, his father had thrown a “V” in front of it like the city. No use giving the tabloids more ammunition against them.
“On second thought,” Venice said with a cruel look, “why don’t you go ahead and cook those hotdogs.”
Achilles’s laughter rang out, almost drowning out the noise from the phone. Venice glanced down, his heart doing that freezing thing it did whenever his father called.
“I’ve got to take this,” Venice told him.
Hoping that he wasn’t about to get a big wrench thrown into his plans, Venice brought his chirping phone out onto the deck where the laughter and flirting from below was loudest. Bad idea! The sounds of partying wasn’t about to impress his father; neither was ignoring his calls.
Torn and running out of time, he answered it, despite the background noise. “Hello!”
