25
" While Olivia takes care of business, I approach my brother, leaning against the wall beside him, arms crossed.
“Congratulations,” he says, sulking. “Bastard.”
“Thank you.”
“Olive looks gorgeous. Prick.”
“She does. I’ll tell her you said so.”
“I’m really happy for you. Wanker.”
I laugh. “It’s going to be all right, Henry.”
He drinks from his flask, flinching as he swallows. “Easy for you to say. Prat.”
I squeeze his shoulder. “Are you ever going to forgive me?”
He shrugs. “Probably. Eventually. Of course I will. When I’m sober.”
“Any idea when that may be?”
“Henry, there you are!” our grandmother clucks from across the room. “We must speak about the memo I sent you…”
Henry lifts his flask and shakes his head. “Not today. "
― Emma Chase , Royally Screwed (Royally, #1)
26
" Our eyes finally meet—he’s still staring at me, lips parted. And I can’t get a read on his expression. As the moments stretch on, a bud of nervousness blooms in my stomach, its vine wrapping around my vocal chords.
“I…I wasn’t sure what you had planned for tonight. You didn’t tell me.”
Those long lashes blink, but he doesn’t say anything. I raise my hand toward the kitchen.
“I can go change if this isn’t—”
“No.” Nicholas steps forward, his hand up. “No, don’t change a thing. You’re…absolutely perfect.”
And he’s looking at me like he never wants to stop.
“I didn’t expect…I mean, you’re lovely…b-but…”
“Wasn’t there a movie about a king who stuttered?” I tease him. “Was he a relative of yours?”
He chuckles. And call me crazy, but I swear Nicholas’s cheeks go slightly pink.
“No, stuttering doesn’t run in my family.” He shakes his head. “You just knocked me on my arse.”
And now I’m beaming.
“Thank you. You look pretty great too, Prince Charming.”
“I actually know a Prince Charming. He’s first-class prick.”
“Well. Now that you’ve tarnished a precious piece of my childhood, this better be some date,” I tease.
“It will be.”
He holds out his hand to me.
“Shall we? "
― Emma Chase , Royally Screwed (Royally, #1)
35
" The moment we walk into the suite, Tommy descends on us. “The Queen’s on the line. On Skype, Your Grace.” Anxiety rings in his voice like the ping of a tapped crystal glass. “She’s been waiting. She does’na like to be kept waiting.”
I nod briskly. “Have David bring me a scotch.”
“Oh, me too!” Henry pipes up.
“He’ll have coffee,” I tell Tommy.
And I think Henry sticks his tongue out at me behind my back.
I head into the library and he follows, seeming marginally closer to sober—at least he’s walking straight and unassisted now. I sit behind the desk and open the laptop. On the screen, my grandmother looks back at me, wearing a pale pink robe, hair in rollers and a hairnet, gray eyes piercing, her expression as friendly as the grim reaper’s.
This should be fun.
“Nicholas.” She greets me without emotion.
“Grandmother,” I return, just as flat.
“Granny!” Henry calls, like a child, coming around the desk into view. Then he proceeds to hug the computer and kiss the screen.
“Mwah! Mwah!”
“Henry, oh, Hen—” My grandmother swats the air with her hands, like he’s actually there kissing her.
And I do my damnedest not to laugh at them.
“Mwah!”
“Henry! Remember yourself! My gracious!”
“Mmmmmwah!” He perches, grinning like a fool, on the arm of my chair, forcing me to shift over. “I’m sorry, Grandmother—it’s just so good to see you "
― Emma Chase , Royally Screwed (Royally, #1)
38
" I sit in the center row of the SUV, fuming on the way back to the hotel.
“Can I offer you a bit of advice, Prince Nicholas?” Tommy asks.
I may have been mumbling out loud.
“Shut up, Tommy,” Logan says from the driver’s seat...
“It’s all right.” I meet Tommy’s light brown eyes in the rearview mirror, where he sits behind me. “Offer away.”
He scratches his head. “I think the lass was embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed?”
“Aye. It’s like my younger sister, Janey. She’s a good-looking girl, but one day she had a zit on her forehead that was so big it made her look like a dickicorn. And she was walking—”
James, in the front passenger seat, reads my mind.
“What the fuck is a dickicorn?”
“It’s an expression,” Tommy explains.
James angles around to look at Tommy, his blue eyes crinkled.
“An expression for what?”
“For…someone with something big coming out o’ their forehead that looks like a cock.”
“Wouldn’t it be a unicock, then?” James wonders.
“For Christ’s sake,” Logan cuts in. “Would you forget about the fuckin’ unicorn or dickicock or whatever the hell it is—”
“It doesn’t make any sense!” James argues.
“—and let Tommy finish his story? We’re never gonna hear the end at this rate.”
James throws up his hands, grumbling. “Fine. But it still doesn’t make any sense.”
For the record, my semantic vote goes to unidick "
― Emma Chase , Royally Screwed (Royally, #1)