Chapter 1

Chapter 1

BRYNN'S POV

He has chestnut brown hair that curves neatly on the forehead. His shiny white skin clashes with the vibrant magnolia printed shirt he has on. He's cradling the new VS's showstopper in his arms and casually framing a kiss on her neck, slowly parting her gorgeous black hair to the small of her back. She looks ethereal. He looks distracted. 

Ryker is staring hard at me.

I'm sipping my chardonnay at this lonely boat cruise I happened to be invited to at the last minute. The stars are gleaming and abundant in the night sky. It's possibly standing in as the head manager of this colossal management company that comes with its own outrageous perks. 

Some of them include being covert while getting paid well. Also, not looking behind your back all the damn time. And the lesser know perks include flirting with royalty at your own will.

The kind that the lesser people never have a clue about what goes on in the lives of royal men.

I don't know what attracted me to Ryker. Under his dangerously handsome looks, and charming, easy-going personality, there's something insanely sexy about him. He knows how to control situations and manipulate things that suit him and his eclectic tastes. He always gets anything he wants and everything he wants with the click of a button. He's not cruel and insensitive. It's just his privilege. It brings with it the capability of treating every relationship in his life as a sort of transaction. The kind of cruel transaction where you think about people as objects, and these people remain clueless while being subjected to your whim and fancies.

It makes him make decisions with the id part of his brain. Instant gratification. Quick resolution. That sort of stuff.

I'm definitely a transaction to him.

He's the master, and I'm the one who has their hands tied, caught in a situation where there's unseemingly no way out. 

Ryker is great at manipulation. He always has his chess pieces out on the table by the nightstand. There's not a single time in the day when he's not moving his beloved chess pieces around. He implied in our conversations that everything we do and what we did was what I wanted. 

This arrangement was my decision. 

It's my fate. 

He steered me in that direction till I ate my own words.

Maybe I had wanted this cruel arrangement. 

Ryker put that thought in my head. He became the very picture of what I wanted in a man. I was the one who initiated everything. 

But that's the catch. I didn't want to dig in this deep. I needed to keep my distance, but look where we are now?

I have to accept that I'm just a pawn in his game.

I tip the glass of my chardonnay on my lips and take a swig. I mindlessly trace my tongue on the rim of the goblet while hanging on the stem of the glass tightly.

Ryker shoots me a dirty look. It's the same look he shoots me when he's inside me. I roll my eyes at his naivety. Not everything I do is an invitation to come f*ck me. He needs to understand that. Even though, I enjoy the sex more than I can admit. 

And with the life I'm living for him, I can't admit my feelings to the man I care about the most in this world. I love when he's pulsating inside me. I love how his eyes shine when he finishes making love to me.

He's good with his hands. I love it when he gives me tender massages as soon as we're behind closed doors, and he's quickly ripping my cotton sundress off my body.

I enjoy it when he massages my bosom, whispering sweet nothings in my ear. 

Ryker knows what he's doing. He's done it several thousand times with a million models and attractive women that the world has to offer. I'm exaggerating, but maybe only a little. He's never had a problem with getting laid. Women swoon over him. A few words out of his mouth and everyone's knickers get creamed. Women follow him. He doesn't follow anyone anymore.

He knows the power he holds.

He knows what he has.

And he won't just give it to anyone.

After all, he's got the royal d*ck.

He knows how to bring his d*ck A-game. 

And I am not complaining.

***

I'm a lonely girl in a lonely world. At face value, I have everything any young woman would want in her mid-twenties. I have a well-respected job, status, money, and a great fancy for custom-made outfits. I legally have first-world problems. Certainty and routine make up my mundane albeit exciting lifestyle something my parents can only dream of, yet I have a secret longing for a different life. I still want something that I can call my own. 

Being attracted to Ryker has come with its own exceptional set of problems—things you won't ever think of happening to a woman like me. Things one can never wrap their mind around.

I have a security detail so secretive that sometimes I feel like I'm featuring in a James Bond movie. They usher me in and out of the palace as quietly and urgently as Ryker wants to see me. Do you see it? It all depends on his mood. He decides what he wants or what he doesn't. He sometimes makes me bend over backwards for him. Literally and figuratively. 

I'm catching midnight trains or jumping in tinted limos at the break of dawn like it is nobody's business. Sometimes, the people who want access to his crazy life follow me. The institution never tells me why or when it happens. They don't even care enough to enlighten me if someone's coming after me. It drives me nuts, but my personal security detail somehow always manages to cut the trail off.

At least I get good sex out of it. 

That's

what I keep telling myself.

The whole institution caters to his needs. Not mine. The institution answers to him. I'm almost a nobody.

Once, they knocked at the red front door of my apartment and escorted me to Ryker's favourite Michelin five-star awarded restaurant and hotel in my pyjamas. I felt like a daftie, not knowing where we were heading off to and what was so urgent that Ryker couldn't have waited for the morning rays to hit the snowy earth. It was freezing that night, and I had been whisked away in a limo. The limo had the slickest radiator I had ever seen, pumping hot air everyplace equally in the corners through the small vents.

At least I got to drink a bottle of white wine till I reached there. I slurped through that bottle pretty quickly. I had my heart thumping, my palms sweating and my stomach twisting, not knowing what it was then. What attracted me to this enigma of a person?

What does Ryker want from me? 

I kept asking myself that question throughout that night as I drank more.

The alcohol must have helped me calm down my nerves and acquire the clarity I needed to deal with the situation. That was the night I decided I did not want to cling to his business, especially when the 'caring and knowing' about his transactions with other women would hurt me.

Even up to this point, I don't want to be too invested in the outcome. As I open the second bottle of white wine, the nauseating feeling at the back of my mind starts to float away into the ether.

Hey! Don't judge me. I will share this bottle of wine. If someone happens to sit and drink with me, I will.

Never in a million years, if someone had told me that one day I would be involved with a prince who's, in fact, real-life royalty, I would have snorted and laughed at their gentle, stupid face.

Me and royalty--hah!

Me sleeping with a prince—haha, f*ck you! How do you even come up with something that stupid?

How have the dice rolled?

It feels like yesterday when I saw Ryker at one of those engagements clearly arranged for him to attend to win popularity in the republic by the palace. He showed up in all his glory with palace security details following closely behind him and observing the crowd. Luckily, I was handling the responsibility by the firm to take care of his private function and cater to his general goodwill.

That translates into picking up the trash and cleaning up the royal boo-boos made by the royalty attending that particular event. If something went wrong, I would be solely responsible. Not only they would fire me, but if it's a royally f*cked up mistake, I would even have to come on local TV and apologise for their royal arses.

There was so much at stake for me.

I'm a people's pleaser. I'm not the one to disobey orders given to me. I was alert and hanging by my toes as I observed every inch of the auditorium where he was supposed to make a public appearance. The prince was supposed to give the invocation speech to the elite, private prep high schoolers who were going off to explore the best of their years without any debilitating responsibilities or subpar education. Well, we do have sub-par education, but you get the gist. He had to be in attendance in a few minutes, and I was busy ensuring the seats got combed with a fine-tooth comb for his overall protection. Also, everything was in place. I had to make sure the environment was secure for his appearance.

I was tight-lipped about letting the media in for such a smallish event. I gave specific orders about the people we didn't extend an invitation, if not for the student's families, weren't supposed to enter the school premises, let alone the auditorium.

I even made sure there were snacks for him and his royal entourage. 

I couldn't have them hungry and then transfigure into snarling coyotes by the end of the four hours of the event. We sealed the place through and through. We gave headsets to everyone in the management team to check in with each other. Everything was moving smoothly, and I got real-time updates about the royal procession inside the school campus.

I was there to make sure that everything went as planned.

I was there to guarantee not even a leaf blows in a different direction than what they wanted it to sashay in the wind.

That was until our collective destinies decided to flesh out otherwise.