Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 95609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
“I thought I looked good. These are my favorite shorts.” Emily kind of stammers as she looks down at her legs, checking for cellulite that obviously doesn’t exist.
She’s on the midnight train to body dysmorphia.
“The shorts are fine.” Shelby manages to smile in a way that a psychopath probably thinks is friendly. “But on a less…curvy girl.”
Emily isn’t curvy at all. She’s a tiny stick, and that would be great if it’s her natural state. There are women out there blessed with a magnificent metabolism that keeps them model thin, but most of us carry a little weight naturally.
And we shouldn’t feel bad about that.
I would bet Shelby’s never had a real problem with weight in her life, and empathy isn’t her strength.
“You look fine,” I tell Emily. “Better than fine. Shelby’s a jealous hag, and she’s doing what I like to call game playing. I know most of the women here are nice and you’re going to make friends for life, but not with her. She’s the one we’ll still be rolling our eyes about when she’s on her fourth divorce and the only show they’ll cast her on is one about botched plastic surgeries. I’m not sure if it will be she went too hard at the lipo or the fillers. I’m thinking fillers.”
Shelby’s jaw drops, and I’m going to be honest, some subtle filler might help. Her lips are as thin as the rest of her. “How dare you.”
Emily giggles behind her hands.
I’ve shocked her. I get it. I do not look like the kind of woman who can throw down verbally and doesn’t mind getting in a word knife fight. It’s the whole assistant thing, but I’ve learned how to defend myself and others. I learned it from Ivy, who is a badass, and Harper, who runs her own construction crew. When we were kids, they protected me, and taught me how to do the same for others.
It might be easier to stand back and hope that Shelby doesn’t look my way.
But it’s way less fun.
“I dare because I do not care what you think,” I reply. “Now if you want to adjust your attitude, we can be friends. The cameras aren’t on you right now. You don’t have to be this person. I get that you want a lot of screen time, and being the bitch of the free world is a great way to do it, but you don’t have to cut up everyone when the cameras are off.”
“I didn’t come here to make friends,” she replies, her eyes narrow.
“You also didn’t come here to get married,” I shoot back.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I did come here for Reg,” Shelby vows. “You might not know who that man is. You might be some nothing from off the streets who barely knows American history, much less what goes on in the rest of the world, but I do know a thing or two. I know Reginald Lucannon St. Marten’s family. They’re related to most of Europe’s royalty. But you wouldn’t know that because you’re small, Anika.”
“I’m small because I don’t worship a monarchical system that went out of style a hundred years ago? Come on. You can do better than that,” I shoot back.
Emily’s head turns from me to Shelby like she’s watching a tennis match.
“I don’t have to. You see if you don’t care what I think, I really don’t care about you.” Shelby’s arms cross over her chest. “You can make friends all you like. They’re only keeping you around because some people on the Internet are amused by you. You can’t believe for a second that a man as powerful and wealthy as Reg is going to pick you for a bride.”
Oh, crap. She doesn’t know what she thinks she knows. I suppose that’s part of Luca’s plan. He can’t exactly go around talking about how he put his own money into rebuilding his country. Not if he wants to keep up the mystique of royalty.
I wonder why he feels like he needs to. I like the idea of a king who puts his people before his own comfort, but it probably doesn’t make for exciting television.
“You know I’m not here for that, but you also have to know that being a massive bitch won’t play well when you get out of here. We’re not back in the days when a queen could do whatever she wants. I might not know as much about the king’s royal line as you do, but I do know that like every other modern monarchy in the Western world, his relies on the goodwill of his people. If they don’t like you, he can’t marry you. What you don’t get is that if you take this seriously, you’re not auditioning merely for him. He can’t think about himself. He has to think about a whole country, and half of them will be women who won’t want a nasty, jealous hag as their queen. Think about that the next time you open your mouth.”