Page 41 of The Royal's Pet: A MMF Ménage Royal Romance

Sorrento is a fairy-tale town on a cliff.

Brightly colored houses slope down the side of the hill and stop only when they reach the flat, blue-green waterline. Gulls call out overhead, and even from the top of the cliff I can still smell salt water in the air.

As soon as the jet touched down in Italy, a black car swallowed us up and swept us away toward the royal estate. We almost didn’t stop here until I clambered over Roland’s lap at the view and begged to be let out.

Worth it. It’s breathtaking. We’re perched on a platform overlooking the town, a stone wall separating us from the drop down below. There’s nothing but thin, winding alleyways that hug the cliff and steep climbs between houses. Navigating this town is like playing a real-life game of Chutes and Ladders. It gives me vertigo to look down and see the roof of someone’s house, and then the roof of the building below that, and below that one, but I can’t tear my eyes away.

Roland folds his elbows on the stone wall and hunches over it. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“It’s incredible.”

“I haven’t been here in years. Since I was a boy.” His irises seem to drink up the color of the sea, reflecting the Mediterranean aquamarine. He was pale on the plane, but now that we’re back on solid ground, he seems reinvigorated in a way I haven’t seen before. The sea breeze messes up his thick hair. Even his eyes have gotten brighter since we left the palace. They look longingly over the town when he says, “When I see something like this… it makes me wonder what else I’ve missed over the past ten years.”

There’s a small gap between our bodies, and I fill it to bump my shoulder against his. “Stop worrying about the past. Look where we are. Right now.”

A grin warms his face. “I like this now.”

“We have company,” Ben says, and I look over my shoulder to see him standing behind us, his arms tightly crossed.

Sure enough, we’re starting to attract attention. There’s already a small crowd of ten or fifteen forming around the town car. They all have their phones out, cameras pointed at us. Most are calling out in Italian, words I don’t understand, but I’m thrown when I hear my name.

“Principessa Rory!” A grinning, sun-tanned Italian waves at me.

I blink at Ben. “Are they… calling me a princess?”

“Yes,” he says, unaffected as always.

“But I’m not. I’m… I mean… not that.” Now that I think of it, I don’t know what to call myself. Am I Roland’s girlfriend? Ben’s girlfriend? Both? Neither? The redheaded tourist who got swept up in these two insatiable, love-starved men?

“Princess Rory.” Roland sweeps his arm around my middle. “I like the sound of that.”

He kisses me fully on the mouth. Because Prince Roland is shameless and never holds back. And me—the girl who should know better about falling for English royalty and making a display of herself in front of the entire world… I melt like butter on a hot day against his lips.

Ben interrupts us, the voice of sanity in our ears. “We need to get moving.”

We make our way back to the car, but Roland pivots at the door.

“What’s he doing?” Ben asks, and I can hear the note of fear in his voice.

“Buona sera!” Roland says to the crowd as he approaches them.

“Shit,” Ben growls under his breath. He shuts the door hard and dashes after the prince. I follow after him, confused.

Everything seems perfectly fine to me. Roland is grinning ear to ear and shaking hands with every person there. He’s speaking Italian—I don’t know why that surprises me, but it does—and it pours from his lips melodically, fluently. I guess with all that time spent stuck in a house, I would learn a language or ten, too. I watch as he crouches down and plays a trick on a little girl that I don’t need Babelfish to understand; he pulls a euro out of her ear and presents it to her. She giggles, delighted, and clutches it.

“Principessa Rory?” There’s my name again, catching me off guard with the title. I turn and see a group of teenage girls. They’re in summer hats and sarongs, and they’re the kind of pretty, lithe girls who wouldn’t have given me the time of day before, but now they’re waving their phones at me. “Possiamo… ah… selfie?”

Selfie, yes. Everyone speaks selfie. I’m floored, but I nod and open my arms. “Yeah, of course!”

Their expressions light up, and they quickly flock around me. One of the girls holds her phone in front of us, and we all smile against the beautiful backdrop. They thank me in rapid Italian before scattering away like a startled flock of gulls.

When I glance at Roland, Ben is already at his side, hand on his arm, murmuring in Roland’s ear. Roland nods and gives his last handshake and smile before he ushers me over and we go back to the car.

Ben looks visibly rattled when we pile back into the car. “So much for being inconspicuous,” he huffs.

“If I’d wanted my mum here,” Roland snaps, “I would’ve invited her.”

The boys are having a tiff. Again. I let them work it out.

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