18. Nick
Chapter eighteen
Nick
T his is the fourth week of the royal equivalent of speed dating that my mother has forced upon me. Nearly every day, I meet with two women, who have been evaluated and met the very specific criteria that my mother considers important for my future partner.
Making the situation more delicate is that these women were told, erroneously , that I am shopping for a wife. That became abundantly, and awkwardly, clear when more than one of them mentioned things pertaining to our wedding or our future life together.
One woman even had a list of names that she’d drawn up for our children. While I quite liked the name Sebastian for a son, I didn’t care for his potential mother. Too pushy.
My mother is growing impatient with me and urging me to choose one and be done with it, but I have an overwhelming inkling that when I select the woman who will become my girlfriend, my mother will leak news of an engagement to the press and then cry to me about how the Crown cannot suffer the indignity of a second broken engagement.
Blah, blah, blah. Then, the next thing I know, I’ll wake up in six months’ time with a wife whom I don’t particularly like, or even really know, lying beside me in bed with a gold ring on my finger.
And I’ll be left wondering how the fuck did I get here?
That sounds bloody atrocious. Honest to God, the stuff of nightmares.
I’ll go along with my mother’s horse and pony show, but only to a certain extent.
Suffering through this madness for the last month has me at the end of my rope and this particular date has me teetering on the brink of insanity.
Mother must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel of eligible Belgrovinian women if Marlena made it onto the approved list of potential girlfriends.
Marlena, while she might have been pretty five or six cosmetic procedures ago. Now, she absolutely reeks of artificiality to such an extent that she’s no longer attractive to me in the least.
Bleach blonde hair.
Inflated lips.
Tits that defy gravity.
Pencil-thin nose.
A forehead that does not move.
Leaning forward in my chair, I eye her cheeks. I don’t even think her dimples are real. They’re too symmetrical to be God-given.
As she natters on about her last luxury vacation to Fiji, I discreetly twist my hand from the vise-like grip Marlena has on it to catch a glimpse of my watch.
Sensing my attention waning, Marlena attempts to recapture it in the only way she knows how.
“Nicky, since we get along so well, why don’t you show me up to your bedroom where I can show you a few things?
” Marlena suggests, sticking her oversized duck lips out dramatically, as she scrapes her long, red talons (also fake, in case you were curious) up and down my wrist. “I think we’d get along really well there. ”
With a pained smile, I wrench my hand from her grasp, intent on declining her advances, but when I rise from my chair, Marlena mistakes my action for acceptance and an expression of excitement crosses her face.
At least, I think it’s excitement. From all the Botox, Marlena’s face doesn't move freely, so I’m uncertain if I interpreted her emotion correctly.
Possibly, she just blinked oddly at the same time she breathed.
“It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Marlena, but I’m afraid our time is up,” I reply with a friendly yet formal smile.
“But, Nicky, I can do bad, bad things to you that will make you feel so, so good,” she pouts, adding a baby voice and squeezing her arms together to amplify her genetically modified cleavage.
God, it’s like she’s reading from a script of a terrible porno.
Somehow, I suppress my shudder and motion to Luther, signaling him to escort this lunatic from the palace.
Luther is Johann’s temporary replacement while he takes a few weeks off.
After Luther wrestles her from the room, kicking and screaming, I slump back into my chair and drop my head into my hands.
I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.
Before I see her, I hear the rhythmic click-click-click of Mother’s high heels upon the marble floor.
“Chin up, Nicholai. I have a good feeling about this next woman,” Mother says.
“Well, she can’t possibly be worse than Marlena,” I grumble without raising my head. “Did you happen to pass her on your way in here? She was the crazy one in a strait jacket who Luther was taking out like the trash. ”
“Nonsense. Marlena is the daughter of a research scientist and a diplomat. She might come off as an airhead and…a tad flamboyant, but she isn’t trash.”
“Mother, she was more plastic than a Barbie,” I snipe, finally lifting my head.
Mother throws up her hands, exasperated.
“We’ve already been through all of the women from the original list of names.
None of them interested you, so I threw a completely different type of woman into the mix, Nicholai.
You have been absolutely no help during this entire process.
What would you have me do? Put you on a dating show?
Blindly pick a woman out of the crowd?” Mother snaps.
“Did you attend today’s communications briefing?
Public opinion polls regarding the monarchy are at their lowest point in decades.
Decades, Nicholai! Alex is doing what he can to mitigate the fallout from his broken engagement and Christian’s death, but…
” Mother breaks off, an uncharacteristic look of apprehension settling upon her face.
Pushing my chair back from the table, I look at my mother. As always, she is perfectly coiffed. Styled hair, flawless make-up, and designer clothing. Sometimes I forget there’s a living, breathing, feeling person beneath her outwardly cold exterior.
A mother, a wife, a queen who is trying her best to hold together her family and her country.
I run my fingers roughly down my face as guilt eats at me. Here I am selfishly worrying about only myself. Alex needs me to step up. My mother does too. As does my country.
The Crown before self.
“What can I do?” I murmur, walking to the windows overlooking the gardens.
Turning to Mother, I add firmly, “I’ll do whatever Alex needs, but I won’t get married, Mother.
I mean it. Marriage is off the table. I will not be manipulated into a marriage to increase public approval ratings or to win over the dissenters. ”
Mother sighs loudly. “Understood.”
“I’m serious, Mother,” I spit out, gritting my teeth. “I will not take part in a strategic marriage.”
“Strategic marriages have been around forever. With half of today’s marriages ending in divorce, an arranged marriage isn’t a terrible alternative, Nicholai. Consider your father and me. Our marriage was arranged, and we were happy."
By that, she means that they were happy enough .
Conveniently, she forgets that I walked in on my father and one of his mistresses when I was a child.
While Mother willingly turned a blind eye to my father's infidelity, I did not. Afterwards, I took notice of things I never had before. Unlike my friends’ parents, mine never shared a bedroom.
Instead, they lived in separate apartments within the palace.
They used my siblings and me as buffers, rarely speaking directly to each another.
The only times I saw any affection between them were at public events, when they had to play the part of loving spouses.
That's not the type of marriage I want. I want love and partnership, fidelity and trust. I want a best friend and a lover.
I don't want affairs and mistresses and secrets and lies.
I want Willa.
But I shut down that thought as quickly as it sprung free.
“Mother,” I warn sharply. “I will walk away from this family if you attempt to force my hand.”
“Alright,” she huffs petulantly, standing from her seat. “Snap out of this funk you’ve been in since you came home. It’s tiresome. And for God’s sake, pick a woman soon or else I’ll pick one for you.”
I’d like to believe that her threat is an idle one, but it isn’t.
I’d also like to argue that I haven't been in a funk since I returned from America, but I can’t.
When we don’t have plans, Alex and I have taken to meeting in the solarium in the evening for a drink.
Alex loves to hear about my dates. It brings levity to his days, he claims.
Tonight, he finds me lounging on the couch with a tumbler of whiskey in my hand. “Switching it up?” Alex quirks an eyebrow at me as he glances at the whiskey bottle before serving himself a hefty pour.
“Ran out of our favorite bourbon. Didn’t feel like scotch or cognac. Definitely needed something stronger than beer or wine.”
“How’d your dates go today?”
I huff out a sarcastic chuckle. “First one, Marlena, was terrible. When she tottered into the room, I thought she would topple over from being top heavy. Sky high heels and huge, fake breasts that were completely disproportionate to her twiggy little body. Can’t even tell you what her face looked like because I couldn’t stop staring at her tits. Not in a good way either.”
Alex chokes on his whiskey, sputtering as he laughs. “Mother set you up with someone with giant fake tits?”
“It’s not that funny.”
“Like hell, it’s not! I can’t wait to tell Ellie." He chortles, clearly amused.
“Let me at least get to the part of the story where she invited herself up to my bedroom to do, and I quote, bad, bad things to me that will make me feel so, so good,” I add with a wry grin, distance having granted me the ability to find a little humor in the situation.
“God, and I thought the lady who brought you a scrapbook of every photo that the press has printed of you since you were ten was funny.”
“Once again, not funny. She was fucking weird. A total nutter.” I shake my head. “Where is Mother finding these women?"
“How was the other one you met with this afternoon?”