Royal Bastard Read Online Free Page A

as it was, I knew deep down, regardless of Brent’s infidelity, we just weren’t right for each other. “How many times do I have to repeat myself, Brent? We are over. Done. Finished. What part of that don’t you understand?”
    “What I don’t understand,” he said, taking a step toward me, “is when you became so uppity, Rose. You think you’re better than me, don’t you?”
    I felt the cool stone of the wall collide with my back, and I swallowed, not liking the look in his eyes. That was one thing about Brent. He had a temper, and I had seen it more than once during our two years together. He had never struck me, but the look in his eye told me I should never put it past him. “When you cheated on me,” I said softly, hoping that my voice would defuse the situation. “Move on, Brent.”
    A commotion behind us, near the street, caught his attention, and he turned, giving me a view of what was going on. A man was walking through what remained of the lingering crowd, some of whom were waiting for taxis, causing everyone on either side to pull out their mobile phones eagerly. There was a blonde on one arm and a brunette on the other, and my face drained of colour as I realised it was the guy from the bathroom earlier.
    Was he a celebrity or something? Had to be to be, causing all this fuss. I tried to wrack my brain to figure out who it was—maybe a new star from one of the TV soaps I’d failed to catch up on when I got back—but either way, I didn’t recognise him any more now than I had during our first encounter.
    “Fucking royals,” Brent replied, crossing his arms over his chest.
    “What did you say?” I asked, forgetting our issue for the moment.
    He turned his face towards me, jabbing his thumb toward the chaos. “Prince Edward. Yeah right,” he snorted, “that guy isn’t a prince any more than I am the king. He’s just a glorified toff.”
    Prince Edward? It didn’t ring a bell, but I had been out of the country for a while, and I’d never been one to follow the events or drama surrounding the royal family. But oh boy, I thought as I clutched my camera bag, undoing the clasp. I had a picture that would cause such a scandal if I let it out into the world. I raised the camera to take a few more shots of the prince, and Brent grabbed my arm suddenly, causing my camera to swing widely. “Stop it, we aren’t done yet, Rose,” he said, yanking me painfully toward him.
    “Let me go!” I said, struggling to pull away and hoping one of the preoccupied bouncers who were now escorting the prince to a car would spot the commotion in the dark side-street and come to my rescue. I didn’t like this side of the man I used to love. The glint in his eye had me worried, and he really didn’t like it when people said no to him. “You’re coming with me, Rose. You’re mine till I say otherwise.”
    A hand clamped down on Brent’s shoulder, and I looked up. I imagined I would see the heavy-set bouncer from before, but instead I was looking into the eyes of the man—the prince—I’d snapped a very private and revealing photo of only a few hours ago.
    Brent loosened his hold on me, his face breaking out into anger as he turned to see who would dare stop him.
    It wasn’t every day that a Prince came to my rescue, but either way, it wasn’t going to end well.

3
    Edward
    I was pissed . Tired and pissed. The night had turned sour as soon as the music had stopped and the lights gave me away. Everyone had pulled out their phones, wanting to get a good shot of the bad boy prince, the bastard .
    I spun the guy around and watched as rage came over his facial expression.
    “Who the fuck do you think you are?” he asked, stepping between me and the photographer I’d been thinking about and looking for the last two hours—but I would deal with her later.
    “I’m the man who is going to tell you politely to move on,” I said, my voice hard as cut steel.
    I had seen the altercation as soon as I walked