Royal Crush

Chapter 1

One

ALERIC

“And then I sucked four dicks for a bump.” Nothing about what I said was true, but it was worth it for the look on the producer’s face. She paled, eyes a little wider, and then she cleared her throat.

“I…see. Well, I assume that’s not going to be a problem now, is it?”

I shrugged, and I could feel my manager’s tension rising, but fuck’s sake. She was baiting me, and I was too weak not to rise to it. “Will there be coke on set?”

Anyone who knew me—anyone who actually knew me—would spot the lie for what it was. But the world had decided that my teenage public meltdown in front of paparazzi during an awards show after-party was going to decide my fate for the rest of my life.

Fifteen years later and I was still a washed-up junkie has-been.

The former child actor who’d once been a household darling and ended his career.

Never mind what I was put through. Never mind the years of therapy it took before I could look myself in the eye. Shit, I still couldn’t date without having a cluster panic attack for the first twenty minutes, and that usually sent them running.

I wasn’t an addict. I had never been an addict. By eleven, I was being spoon-fed uppers to keep me smiling and downers to keep me compliant and another cocktail of pills to keep me from running my mouth. My parents checked out when I was five and they realized that they had less control over me than the agency they’d signed me with.

My manager was a dirty pervert, and every director wanted to see how far they could push me because I was the kind of kid who had been trained to never say no. The kid who’d been conditioned to never break down.

I was a star before there were regulations and restrictions for young children in the industry.

I was the cautionary tale for new parents who wanted their children to see the cinema stars.

And the worst part about it all was the fact that, after everything I’d been through, I still loved the business. I loved acting. I was born with manuscript ink in my veins and script writers’ breath in my lungs.

And I was good at it. Hell, maybe I would have been the best if a single adult in my life had given a shit about me before trauma dug its claws in to shape the man I would become.

But now, I was what happens when a kid with no responsibility and more cash than any tween should ever have in their possession. A nobody living in a shitty apartment I could barely afford, hopping from minimum-wage job to minimum-wage job, hoping that one studio—just one—would take a risk on me.

It took four years since I’d decided I was ready, but one finally did. A local production with a big streaming budget had decided that the youngest son in the royal family deserved his own TV show. It was based off his memoir, and it had been a total crapshoot when I sat for the audition, but there was a tiny spark of hope in my chest, and when I got the callback, I realized that my life was on the verge of changing entirely.

This could be my big moment—my big break. This could be the role that secured me back in the hearts of not just the country but the world. I didn’t know much about Camillo. When he’d been injured and left in a wheelchair, I was in my first long stint of rehab, and when I got out, I found it hard to give a shit about anyone else besides myself.

But I’d read his Wiki when the role came available and watched a couple of interviews with him. He had a resting bitch face—something I quietly loved—and he was well-spoken and no-nonsense. People called him brave, and I could tell by the look on his face that he hated it, but I understood why. He looked people in the eye and didn’t shy away from questions or giving answers that made strangers uncomfortable.

He was hot—which I appreciated. The scraps left of my ego could admit that the one thing I hadn’t lost was my looks, so I felt comfortable portraying him. And the disability thing, well…I was new. But I also knew how much an audience would eat that shit up. So I was ready.

At least, I was pretty sure I was ready. I was trying my fucking best while I fought the urge to fling myself into the sun during this production meeting.

“Ah. Well. Mr. King?—”

“Aleric, please,” I told Amanza. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my silver cigarette case. It had been a gift from Charls Bouchant, a Frenchman turned cowboy for 1930s cinema. We’d worked together on his second to last film before it went to hell. Even at the tender age of nine, he’d known, I think, that I was going to break.

He took me out to the fanciest dinner I’d ever been to. He made me wear a tie and say please and put my napkin in my lap. It was the first time anyone had given me rules, and it was in that moment I realized how starving I was for them.

I was living in a fucking famine, and he was offering me a single night’s feast. I might have been okay after that if someone had followed in his footsteps, but I was thrown back to the wolves, and my fate was sealed.

I still remembered the look on his wrinkled, ninety-two-year-old face though—it was full of pity and a little disgust. I’d thrown a tantrum after the server didn’t want to give me whiskey because I was so used to getting my way and getting whatever I wanted.

“Do you know who the fuck I am?” I’d demanded in my tiny little voice with authority meant for a much older man.

Charls told me to stop being such a little pissant and eat my fucking steak right in front of her, making the server smile. I had never been more humiliated in my life, and I kind of loved it. It was easy to obey him. It felt good to do what someone else said.

We filmed for six hours the next day, and before he left the set, he passed me his cigarette case. “Don’t lose this. Whatever you do. It’ll bring you good luck.”

It was the one promise I kept. He died two years later, right after I turned eleven. I attended his funeral high as a kite on benzos that my manager had given me mixed into ice cream. I sat in the back with a hat on my head and wrap-around shades like somehow that would make me less recognizable.

Everyone knew who I was back then. They’d just stopped caring that I was on a slow slide into oblivion.

I kept the case just like he said, usually filled with cigarettes, sometimes with a little candy. It sat empty while I was in rehab, then full now that I’d given up everything except this nasty little smoking habit.

Pulling one of the cigarettes out, I lit it, and Amanza gave me a dark look. “We don’t allow smoking in the building.”

I took three long drags before smudging it out on the lid and snapping it shut. “You have a vape on your desk.”

She picked it up and shoved it into her drawer. “Mr. King—” She gave me a bland smile. “—we’re excited to have you in this role, but we wanted to discuss some stipulations we, as a studio, have agreed to in order to secure the rights to the prince’s memoir.”

Ah, yes. See, this really was my Oscar moment—so to speak. Or Emmy, I guess, since it was a sixteen-episode arc split into two seasons with the potential for a third or a spin-off if Prince Camillo agreed to some of his unpublished life being used for material.

Prince Camillo’s early life was wild, which was why anyone gave a crap about modern royals these days. He was the reason paparazzi laws had changed fifteen years ago. While I was on a drug-induced public meltdown, Camillo was in an eight-day coma, waking up without the use of his body from the ribs down after his driver spun out trying to dodge a bunch of SUVs with cameras.

His town car hadn’t stood a chance when it smashed sideways into the support beam of King’s Bridge. Camillo had been thrown from the car, and a bystander who was attempting to be helpful dragged him across the pavement and sealed his spine’s fate that day.

I knew all of this because I read his Wiki six times before the audition. The role was intense, emotional, meaty. It was a chance to show my skill, to flex my acting muscles that were only slightly atrophied.

I could do this. I had to do this. I could bring pain, emotion, and drama into every word. And I would win fucking awards, damn it. The world would be forced to see who I was now and not the boy who had tried to ruin himself so badly that no one else would ever want to touch him again.

I was healing.

I was better.

Mostly.

But I didn’t like the way she said stipulations. Those usually meant rules. Restrictions. Instructions on how to do my job, which I was not about to stand for.

“So? What are they?” I reached for another cigarette and stopped when she cleared her throat.

“The rights were sold without the prince’s direct consent. It was all legal, of course, but in order to avoid a lawsuit that would keep us tied up in court for years, we’ve agreed to allow him to dictate a few…requirements.”

I blinked at her.

“His original request was that a disabled person play his role.”

I bristled. “I’m fully qualified to take on this role. I auditioned . I?—”

“You’re not being asked to give up the role,” she said blandly. I shut my mouth, knowing I was on the verge of a toddler tantrum, and that was not going to help my cause in proving I was a mature, fully recovered adult capable of doing his job.

But the truth was, the idea of losing this terrified me. This was my shot. I felt it in my gut. If I lost this, it would be over. I might as well find my way to a university and become an accountant or some shit because I wasn’t good at anything else, and I had zero passion for anything but putting on a costume and getting to be anyone but myself until the director yelled, “ Cut !”

“The role, however, does require a coach.”

I blinked at her. “I don’t need a coach.”

“Mm.” She tapped her nails on the desk, which made me want to hurl myself out the window. I hated that little tippy-tap sound with every fiber of my being. My first therapist after my breakdown used to do that. Hearing that sound made me think of the smell of the hospital, and the feeling of those grippy socks, and the pinch of an IV because I had refused to eat, drink, or take my meds for weeks.

“I’ve been doing this a long time. And I know I’ve been out of the game for a few years, but?—”

“The role requires a coach because it’s based on a real person’s life experience. While I trust your acting abilities, unless you’ve had experience as a wheelchair user, then I can’t see any shame in having someone who is help you make the role more realistic.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. I could feel my agent’s tension in the room. It was filling up all the empty spaces. Chaz was on edge, waiting for me to lose it. Probably waiting for the moment he could fire me with just cause.

“I’ve read his Wikipedia about fifteen times,” I finally said. “I watched the biopic they did on the family a few years ago. I’ve seen every interview he’s ever done, read every article he’s ever been so much as quoted in. I know him.”

“And yet, this was his stipulation,” she answered me.

I glanced over at Chaz, who lifted a brow. “This is the best-case scenario.”

I hated him, but mostly because he wasn’t lying. It was the best-case scenario. It was a big deal for someone to take a risk on me. I would have had better luck if I’d been some kind of monstrous sexual predator. Those guys got cinema redemption arcs.

But I was a kid with bad habits and a public meltdown that was captured on camera.

I’d always be the “crazy one” to so many people.

“I don’t want an on-set babysitter.”

“And Prince Camillo wants the portrayal of his life to be as realistic as possible since we can’t give him his first request.”

I couldn’t help but wonder why they hadn’t given the role to a disabled guy, but I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to put ideas in their heads. This was going to be my fucking Emmy, goddamn it. My golden statue moment. I was going to play up every moment of pain, anguish, triumph, joy, and anger I could.

I would have people sobbing and angrily live-blogging every time an episode landed on a cliffhanger. I was going to have people thanking me for doing such a good job. I was going to fix myself and everything around me with this goddamn part.

If I had to have a babysitter, so be it.

I wouldn’t be happy about it. I could already feel asshole oozing out of my pores. I’d make the poor bastard hate me with every fiber of their being, but in the end, they’d see I was also best for the role.

They’d see I was born for this.

“Alright,” Amanza said, pushing over a tablet. “I just need you to sign on the highlighted lines, and then we’ll see you next week for the table read.”

“Will the babysitter be there?”

She gave me a flat look. “No. You’ll meet him the following Tuesday when we begin set rehearsals.”

I clenched my jaw but nodded. At least I’d have time to charm my coworkers before the babysitter arrived. Then maybe I’d have some people on my side. Hopefully. If I was lucky. Not that I was rich in that, but hey, a guy could hope.

I scribbled my signature where she needed it, then set the tablet down and stood up, giving Chaz a look. “If I don’t get out of here for a smoke in the next ten minutes, I may start crying.”

“Go,” he told me. His voice sounded rough from not speaking for the entire duration of the meeting. God, what was I paying this dickhead for?

Still, being dismissed felt great. I walked through Amanza’s office door, breezed past reception, and didn’t even look over at the people in the elevator as I made my way down. Soon enough, I was in fresh air.

The building was one of those neo-modern whatever architectural designs that were popping up all over the city. Big white walls with too many windows and weirdly shaped stairs. The only thing I liked was the courtyard. It was surrounded by crepe myrtle and several fountains with benches. Some of the fountains had metal cups that made sounds when water poured through them.

They reminded me a little of singing bowls.

I had a therapist who did that too, for a few years. I’d hated her at first, and then I’d come to love her. And when she closed my case, I felt both alone and abandoned because she was the first person who’d convinced me that I could do this again.

That I could find who I was—the person I’d lost to the monsters that tried to destroy me. But I wasn’t sure I could do it on my own.

I closed my eyes, finally lighting up, and I took a deep drag. The stinging burn reminded me that I really did need to quit, but I had to keep one vice for this little while. I couldn’t give up everything that made me feel like I could breathe properly—even if they were also destroying my lungs.

“There’s no smoking in the courtyard.” The voice was pinched, annoyed, a deep rumble that I kind of loved, even if it made me want to open my eyes and punch them in the face. And it was also a little familiar.

I sat forward and glanced to my left. “Why don’t you go— oh .” I was going to tell them to go fuck themselves, but I couldn’t.

Not when the fucking second-born prince of Caverna was sitting in his very sporty wheelchair three feet away from me.

I took another drag.

“Did you hear me?” He lifted his hands, and I realized a second later he was repeating himself in sign language. For a second, I thought he was being a sarcastic asshole, but then I realized he was probably the only human on the planet who would learn another language to make sure he could scold total strangers about smoking.

God, what a dick .

“I did hear you, and I’m choosing to ignore you. Call the cops if it’s that important.” I took another slow drag and blew the smoke upward in a huge cloud.

He stared for another long beat. I wondered if he knew me. If he knew that in a few weeks, I would be in front of a camera trying to be him. God, I shouldn’t waste this opportunity. I figured I’d meet the guy during press once or twice, but here he was, an arm’s length away from me, in person.

I took him in like a man dying of thirst finally kneeling before a well. His upper body was thick and gorgeous—long sleeves rolled up to reveal tattoos. I was inked in the same spots, but his tattoos had meaning. Mine were drunk or drugged attempts to cover inside pain with outside pain.

He and I shared the same short, dark brown waves—mine short now because I’d cut it to look like his. His eyes were deeper-set than mine and dark blue, though contacts would solve that problem. But our faces were nothing alike. He looked fucking royal with his cut jawline and perfectly shaped cupid’s bow and the way his lips set in a natural smirk.

He was pampered and prissy even with all his charity work and all the pain he’d been through.

I stared down at his legs. I knew a lot about them—how he couldn’t feel anything at all, not even temperature differences. I knew that they spasmed at night, and though he couldn’t really feel the pain, his brain still somehow understood and left him in the most bizarre agony he’d ever felt in his life. I knew that his muscles had atrophied, and he’d had six surgeries to repair pressure sores.

I knew that he still cried sometimes when he fell asleep and dreamed he could walk and that in spite of everything, he wasn’t angry at the paparazzi who caused the accident. But I had a feeling that was a lie made up for the media to keep up appearances.

“You like staring at people in wheelchairs?”

“I don’t know,” I answered him, entirely out of fucks. “Never had the chance until now.”

“You live in a bubble?”

I laughed and dropped the cigarette butt on the ground, crushing it with the heel of my shoe. “Something like that.”

“Want a picture? Easier to jerk off to than a memory,” he snapped.

I almost burst into another peal of laughter. I was not expecting that one. “Wow. Bold of you to assume I wanna dick you down, no matter how pretty you are.”

The tips of his ears turned pink. “I’ve met too many guys like you. I know how it goes. And you clearly know who I am.”

“Yep. And you clearly don’t know who I am.” I stood up and thought about introducing myself, but in the end, it was easier to turn and walk away. My car was waiting, and in all honesty, the longer I stood there, the more risk I was taking not to mouth off.

But I knew his secret now. I knew that he wasn’t just prissy and perfect for the cameras. He was gritty and mean and…fuck. Yeah. He was all kinds of hot.

But that wasn’t allowed to matter. I had a job to do, and being attracted to Prince Camillo was not part of it.