Page 47 of The Royal's Pet: A MMF Ménage Royal Romance

Rory was right. It’s a beautiful night.

At Buckingham Palace, I wear the crown. Here, watching the sun dip behind the cliffs with a bottle of Italy’s best dangling from my fingers, wedged between two people who love me and who I love, I’ve never felt more like a royal.

The sun burns the sky red, yellow, then orange, its rays leaking across the oceanfront. It’s been a decade since I could see the sun set without the foliage of Buckingham’s garden poking out from underneath. I feel as though I’m watching it for the first time.

The estate has really taken a beating with years of disuse. None of us dare to dip a toe in the pool, but it’s enough to drink and watch the skyline. Feels like forever since I’ve seen so much sky. The patio is decorated with an assortment of Greco-Roman columns, marble statues, and wide-hipped vases so overrun with vines that they look like leafy fountains. There’s plenty of room out here, but the three of us fit snugly on a single chaise, Rory sitting half on my lap, half on Ben’s.

What do the Italians call this? Paradiso.

“So this is what it’s like to be royal, huh?” Rory breaks the comfortable silence. “I could get used to this.”

A laugh puffs out of my chest with a huh sound. “I’m sure you could.” I take a sip from the communal limoncello bottle and then pass it over to her. “There was a time when I’d have given anything to be a Normal.”

“We’re pretty far from normal,” Ben states. The sunset spits flecks of fire into his dark irises, his eyes trained on the horizon. He’s a beautiful man. Beautiful in the way a raven is beautiful—sharp, dangerous, and sleek. Strange how I never noticed it before, but now I can’t stop sneaking glances at him. I wonder what he’s looking for out there. A sniper in the distance, perhaps.

Rory’s small body shifts in my lap so she can nudge Ben’s bare foot with hers. “What about you? Did you ever want to be a prince?”

A small, bitter smile lifts the edge of Ben’s mouth and shows off a glint of teeth. “I wanted to be anything but a Limehouse boy.”

“What’s so bad about Limehouse?” Rory asks.

“D’ay awll talk like dis, aye, mate?” I rib him, laying on a thick Cockney accent.

Ben grimaces. “Your Cockney is shit.”

“Aw, I like it!” Rory says. “Why’d you get rid of it?”

Ben lapses into silence for a moment. It used to irritate me when he would take forever to form a single sentence, but now I’ve grown to like watching him think. You can see the wheels turning in his head as he hunts for just the right word. “When I came back from my tour… it took me a while to find employment,” he says. “The palace was my last shot. I knew they weren’t going to take in a dirty, desperate Cockney kid. So I had to improvise. I had a… friend from up North. He helped me practice his accent, and I used it in the interview. They hired me on the spot.”

I’ve never heard this story. I blink with surprise. “You weren’t afraid they’d see right through you?”

“I was terrified,” he said. “But it was that or go back to Limehouse and become a fisherman or a pickpocket. So I took the risk.”

I hand him the bottle of limoncello. He’s earned this. “You have stones, mate,” I tell him.

A grin flickers over his mouth. He takes the praise and the limoncello.

“Do your parents still live there?” Rory asks.

Ben shakes his head. “I sent them my paycheck every month until they had enough to get out. They have a flat in Shoreditch now.”

A stitch of pain tightens in my chest. I don’t know anything about Ben. Six bloody years he’s been my shadow, working side by side with me, and he never told me about his family. I would’ve bought them a flat. Given them money. Invited them over for tea. I feel a wave of nostalgia wash over me, as tangible as the salty ocean breeze that blows over the railing to kiss my face intermediately. I suddenly long for all the millions of moments I’ve missed out on because I never bothered to ask.

It’s always been about me, me, me, hasn’t it? The bloody prince of England prancing around in his invisible clothes.

“You could’ve asked me for help,” I tell Ben. “You always can.”

“No,” he says firmly, “I couldn’t. It wouldn’t have felt right. It was something I had to do on my own.”

“To hell with doing everything on your own.” I don’t mean for it, but I can feel my throat tightening, the frustration seeping out. I gesture jerkily between myself and Rory. “You have not one, but two people who love you to pieces. Accept that. That’s an order.”

There I go. The spoiled prince, losing his temper. Getting what he wants at all cost. Ben has set the bottle of limoncello on the stone floor, and I swipe it up and take a swallow from it. I mean to wash down my intolerable pride, but even the limoncello tastes too sweet suddenly and the citrus coats my throat.

Ben says nothing in response. He distractedly picks at a loose thread on the knee of his trousers. There. I’ve successfully gone and ruined our peaceful pool time. The worst part is, I can’t stop it. Even the stitching on his bloody trousers is coming apart, and he won’t ask for a single cent of help. It makes me furious.

Rory isn’t any better—no. She’s worse, her clothes ripped to pieces. But there’s something charming about Rory’s disarray. She wears it like a badge of honor. Ben wears it with shame. But I can’t tell him that or he’ll snap at me, so I slip a hand down Rory’s thigh instead. I hold her leg and rub my thumb over the open threads fraying across her knee.

“We have to get you new trousers,” I tell her.

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