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  "Sexy prince?" I ask. My voice seems to go up an octave, or maybe I'm just imagining things. "No. No. No sexy prince."

  "Are you sure you're not into women?" Raine teases. "Because you're sharing a house with one of the sexiest men in the world, and you apparently just don't think he's all that."

  "I hardly think he's one of the sexiest men in the world," I protest.

  I'm lying through my teeth.

  "No, literally," she says. "I'm pretty sure People magazine put him on their list of sexiest men in the world."

  My laugh sounds more like a snort. "I'm sure that only made his ego even bigger than it already was. And since when do you read People magazine?"

  "We’re backpacking – sometimes there are long train rides and I need to catch up on what’s going on in the world,” Raine says. "Besides, we’re not talking about my enjoyment of perusing gossip magazines. We’re talking about the fact that you're obviously very familiar with the prince."

  "Because I know he has a big ego?" I ask.

  I know what else the prince has that's big, too. Huge, in fact.

  Huge and pierced.

  The throbbing between my legs reminds me that my body definitely remembers what happened with him, even if I keep trying to file the memory away in some dark recess in the corners of my brain.

  "There's something in your voice when you talk about him."

  I clear my throat. "There's nothing in my voice," I say. "It's a non-issue. The prince is a non-entity."

  "Non-entity," she says. "Yeah, right. You totally think he's hot."

  "I do not."

  "You think he's hot and you want to kiss him and hug him and let him put his penis in you," Raine says in a sing-song voice, laughing.

  "Are you twelve?"

  "My sense of humor is more like thirteen," she says. "I'm quite mature."

  "There's nothing going on between me and Albie," I say.

  Nothing.

  That even sounds like a lie to me.

  "Albie, huh?" she says. "You have a nickname for him?"

  "Other than asshole, no," I say. "Albie is not a nickname. Everyone calls him that. No one calls him Albert. Except his parents."

  "Uh-huh, sure. So it's not your little pet name for him?"

  "Oh my God, Raine. No. He's going to be my stepbrother." I force an extra level of disgust into my voice, even though I shouldn't have to force it. I should feel disgust at the very thought, right?

  Raine laughs. "Whatever," she says. "All of the royal families marry each other, anyway, don’t they? Cousins or siblings and all that stuff."

  "Maybe a hundred years ago. And marriage?" I squeak. "No one is talking marriage. Are you high?"

  "Definitely," she says, laughing. "But it also sounds like I'm hitting a nerve."

  "Nerve?" I ask, my voice unnaturally bright. "Nope. No nerve. Definitely not a nerve."

  "Sure," Raine says. "Well, if I were in your shoes, I would do him."

  "There's no doing happening here, Raine."

  "Well, if there's no doing happening, then ditch the stuffy palace and come see Prague with us," Raine says. "What's keeping you there?"

  That's a good question.

  "I promised my mother I'd stay for the summer," I say. "Until the wedding. It's a show of support. Besides, I'm going to get involved with some charities. It's not all galas and tea parties."

  "Fine. I'll let you off the hook. But only for the charities."

  "That's very generous of you."

  "I am generous. It's one of my favorite qualities about myself."

  I laugh. "That and your modesty, obviously."

  "That too," she says. "Oh. Phoenix is out of the shower. I have to run. But the offer stands, by the way. Budapest, Paris, Venice, Marrakech. Wherever you want to join us."

  "You know, if you come through Protrovia, I could get you into the estate, I'm sure."

  Raine makes a strangled sound. "Palaces freak me out," she says. "Too uptight, man. Too many rules."

  Rules like not fucking your stepbrother on his father's throne.

  Those kinds of rules.

  "It's not so bad," I hear myself say.

  "You're acclimating already," she says, laughing. "Princess Isabella."

  "Screw you."

  "Say the word, doll," she says. "You know I swing both ways."

  "Shut up, Raine."

  "Later, Belle," she says. "Oh, and one more thing. If you just so happen to get a look at the prince's dick, I want to know if it's as big as it looks in those photos online, or if the camera really does add ten pounds."

  It's bigger and more impressive in person.

  "Never going to happen, Raine."

  "Can't fault a girl for asking," she says. "I mean, even if he is part of the establishment, he's a hot part of the establishment."

  27

  Albie

  "You're doing everything in your power to ignore me," I observe.

  I should be amused by that.

  I mean, what kind of girl ignores a European Prince? Something's obviously wrong with her.

  Instead, I'm irritated by it. It's starting to get under my skin.

  She's starting to get under my skin, actually. And not in the way I thought she would, the way that girls in the past have gotten under my skin. The women I sleep with usually begin to annoy me the moment after the sex is over. Everything about them becomes instantaneously grating – a tone of voice, exhale of breath, the way they look at me.

  But Belle is getting under my skin in a different way. The fact that she's blowing me off – or maybe the fact that she's not blowing me at all – is irritating.

  I want her.

  That fact alone should be terrifying.

  "I'm not ignoring anything," she says, her tone clipped. "We literally just got to the summer house two days ago. I've been busy. You've been busy."

  "Yes, we've all been busy," I say. "And you're full of shit, Belle."

  "I am not," she says. "Maybe I'm just enjoying my book here in the library. And silence. I was enjoying my silence, anyway. Now, if you don't mind?"

  "I do mind, actually," I say. "Because right now, all I want to do is put my mouth between your legs. And you're keeping me from doing that. And I don't like when people keep me from what I want."

  She looks up at me, her expression chilly. "I think your girlfriend might be a better person to help you out with that, don't you?"

  "What girlfriend?"

  "The one my mother thinks you were hooking up with in the pool house," she says.

  "She thinks you're my girlfriend?"

  Belle sighs. "No," she says. "She thinks you and Erika were hooking up in the pool house. Using the vibrator."

  "I see," I say. Except I don't see at all. "This is upsetting because…"

  "Because she doesn't seem like an ex," Belle says. "Am I helping you cheat on her?"

  "You're asking because you don't remember being the one to hook up with me in the pool house?"

  This girl is kind of crazy.

  Why the hell do I find her jealousy cute? I should find it irritating, and the implication that we’re in a relationship claustrophobia-inducing.

  But I don’t.

  Erika was never jealous of other women, not in this way. Even during the couple of months we were officially together, she only had a problem with the idea of me being linked publicly to someone else. She expected me to have “little dalliances,” as she called them – which, in retrospect, makes sense, since she was having her own.

  Belle sighs. "Of course I remember that," she says.

  "You're so jealous."

  "I'm not so jealous," she says, rolling her eyes. "I'm saying that I don’t want to be aiding and abetting a cheater."

  "Jealous."

  "You're so annoying," she says. "This is why I'm in the library, by the way."

  "So you can avoid me holding up a mirror to your jealousy?"

  "Not jealous."

  "Not telling the truth." I sit dow