Read Online The Royal Mess by MaryJanice Davidson - Free Book Online

feeling her cheeks get warm.
    â€œPlease don’t kill my wife,” David said calmly, spooning up oatmeal. “It’ll ruin Christmas.”
    Nicole laughed; she couldn’t help it.
    â€œYou’re, uh, kinda mercurial, aren’t you?” Kathryn asked.
    Nicole shrugged, and as a footman discreetly poured her coffee, she thanked him and took a sip.
    Her first night in the palace had been strange. She’d known it would be, of course, but still wasn’t prepared.
    For one thing, the palace was ginormous. Easily the largest building she’d been in in her life—and she used to live in L.A. With hallways and rooms and corridors and multiple kitchens and nine thousand fireplaces, and it went on and on and on.
    For another, she had a real glimpse of the kindness of the king. Her father. There had been a press conference, but she hadn’t attended. Mr. Dante and her dad had handled the whole thing.
    He had told her to explore and gave her a cell phone so small and thin it looked more like a fat credit card than anything else.
    It had a very specific function; it summoned intermediaries at a beep, particularly Edmund.
    So she had walked around and occasionally bumped into a sibling and introduced herself to at least a hundred staff members, and by the time she went looking for David, he was long gone and not due back until after midnight. She and Christina had exchanged a few stiff words, she’d declined to meet her niece, and left.
    Exhausted, she had gone to bed in a palatial (no pun intended) room that screamed “anonymous guest bedroom.”
    Well, at least they didn’t already have a suite in her name all set up. They were arrogant, but not that arrogant.
    And now they were, day two, at breakfast.
    She had hoped to talk to David alone, then realized it might be a thing better spoken in front of all of them, so she spoke her piece.
    â€œI’m sorry about usurping the throne from you,” she said, taking another sip of the excellent coffee. “That’s not why I wrote the letter.”
    â€œUsurp means to seize or commandeer,” Alexander-the-younger said, “implying you had no right to it. When, in fact, you have every right to it.”
    David was nodding. They—they were all nodding. That was a shock. “Still. I’m sorry.”
    â€œI’m sorry, too, Nicole, but not for the reasons you think. None of this can be easy for you. We’ll all do our best to make the transition as painless as possible.”
    â€œHa,” she murmured, looking down at her plate.
    â€œAs for not being king . . . I haven’t really had a chance to wrap my brain around that one.” He smiled, but the smile didn’t climb into his eyes. “But who can predict the future? Who knows? Maybe Dad has another kid running around and he or she is older than you are. Then you’re off the hook.”
    She smiled. “Tease.”
    â€œI’m sitting right here, kids.”
    â€œSorry, Dad,” David replied. “But you’re not exactly lily white on this one.”
    â€œI gotta take shit from a punk like you?”
    â€œI know!” Nicky said, squeezing his muffin so hard it imploded in a spray of crumbs and blueberries. “The day Dad dies, Nicole can abdicate! Then everything will go back to the way it was.”
    â€œI’m s itting right here .”
    â€œMy mother didn’t raise me to shirk my responsibilities,” Nicole said quietly, and that was the end of that.

Chapter 22
    â€œH i!” a cheerful redhead about ten years older than Nicole said. “I’m Holly Bragon, rhymes with dragon. I’m the king’s official biographer.”
    â€œHi.” Nicole shook hands with the woman.
    â€œI don’t suppose you’re in the mood to talk about your mother.”
    â€œNot hardly.”
    â€œOr how all this feels right now?”
    â€œNuh-uh.”
    â€œOr what it’s like to go