Crown of Thornes : a modern day royal romance Read online

  by Delaney Foster

  Copyright ©2020 by Delaney Foster

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design: Susie Poole, Poole Publishing Services LLC

  Cover Image: Shutterstock

  Editing by: Susie Poole, Poole Publishing Services LLC and Erin Toland, Edits by Erin

  Proofing by: Kim Holm

  Formatting by: Susie Poole, Poole Publishing Services LLC

  Join Delaney’s Divas and receive your very own copy of her short story The Real MVP.

  Join at: www.facebook.com/groups/delaneysdivas/

  ALSO BY DELANEY FOSTER

  A Woman’s Touch:

  A Woman’s Touch

  A Man’s World

  Ever After

  The Perfect Gentleman

  Sin with Me:

  Sin with Me

  Penance

  Absolution

  Salvation (coming Summer 2021)

  Resurrection (coming late 2021)

  Sweet Southern Heat:

  Sterling

  Kane

  Hayes (coming early 2021)

  Standalones:

  The Secrets you Keep

  Crown of Thornes

  Prologue

  “Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.”

  –Hans Christian Anderson

  Winters in Torryn were generally mild—one of the perks of sitting in the dead middle of the Mediterranean Sea. The water was always the clearest blue, the sand white as snow, and the weather nearly perfect all year long.

  Except for today.

  Today the wind tore through our crops without mercy as raindrops fell like bullets against the windows of our island estate. Everything my father had worked so hard for was being ripped up by the roots and thrown across the sky as the storm raged on. The farm was our legacy, our lifeline. It was all we had. Apparently, God and nature had decided we’d had enough.

  I held back the curtain of my second-floor bedroom window, trying to see out onto the water beyond the cliffs. There was nothing but black. Pure darkness was interrupted only by an occasional flash of light.

  That’s when I saw it. Everything happened so fast. A bolt of lightning. A falling tree. A crash louder than the roaring thunder.

  I ran downstairs and told my parents, not thinking for a moment that my father would run out the door into the unknown. But he did. Because ultimately, that’s who Matteo Bellizzi was.

  He ran into the storm to save a king from a tree-pinned car.

  And it cost him his life.

  What began as a simple winter rain quickly became the storm we would never recover from. The wind didn’t howl. It screamed. The rain went from a light smattering against the castle windows to a torrential force in a matter of minutes. My mother paced the floor, holding tight to the rosary passed down to her from my grandmother. She paced. She prayed. She worried. Because my father, the king, was out there.

  He’d gone out to help distribute sandbags for a storm that wasn’t due to hit until tomorrow. That’s who Phillipe Thorne was. He wasn’t the king who was comfortable merely being a figurehead. Where the people were, that’s where he wanted to be. When help was needed, he was there, in person, ready to give. I’d offered to go with him because like father, like son, but he said I needed to prepare things at home. Now I had to wonder if somehow he’d known he might not make it back.

  The moment the weather took a turn for the worse, Dad called me. He’d told me the roads had begun to flood. Visibility was low, and the wind made it nearly impossible to maintain control of his vehicle. He’d said the best way home was to cut through the Bellizzi Estate, a nine-acre farm located a few miles from our castle.

  That was two hours ago.

  I put on a strong face for Mom, but my mind raced with thoughts I would never even wish upon my worst enemy. I’d barely turned twenty-five. There was an instability in our country due to a nasty rumor that our family had stolen the crown, a rumor my father had spent the last five years putting to rest. It didn’t matter. There would always be those who believed what they wanted. Parliament had recently gone on break. I was nowhere near ready to deal with a worst-case-scenario.

  Then the phone call came.

  There had been an accident. Thankfully, Dad survived, but the consequences of that night ended up changing all our lives. Forever.

  One

  Four months later…

  I’d always been taught that Purgatory was that place between Heaven and Hell, the pitstop between a good life and a great life. The place where souls were sent to suffer. Where they walked through the flames and came out pure as gold.

  My purgatory was a palace.

  Except I wasn’t dead, and Hell had nothing on Thornebridge Castle.

  I’d always believed I was strong enough to handle anything life threw at me. That’s how my dad raised me. I always vowed that no matter what happened, I would survive, and I lived as though that vow was the law.

  “I’m sorry your grandparents died before you could know them, Katie.”

  “I’m sorry you can’t go to college, Katie. Dad needs your help on the farm.”

  “I’m sorry, Katie. Your dad is sick. He might not make it.”

  He didn’t make it. Dad died saving the king’s life the night of the storm, and I hated him for it—the king, not my father. Dad had a weak heart, not strong enough to handle the stress of removing tree limbs to save a king from a burning car then carrying him all the way back to our home. He had a heart attack and wasn’t strong enough to recover while King Phillipe walked away with a broken arm and seventeen stitches. I was still waiting for someone to tell me how that was fair.

  After Dad died, we lost our farm, a farm that had been in our family for generations. A man in a suit from the king’s cabinet had come to our home and delivered the news to my mother. He’d said the damage from the storm was too great. It had spread too far. We didn’t have the resources, financial or otherwise, to bounce back.

  As some sort of pity prize disguised as gratitude, King Phillipe gave my mom and me steady work at the castle along with a place to live. Mama worked as the Queen’s Secretary and had a room inside the palace, in the East Wing where the Royals stayed. The king offered me the same, but I chose one of the guesthouses instead. It was a small two-bedroom villa behind the South Garden, completely separate from the main castle, and it was all mine. It made me feel less like them and more like me. Even though these days, I wasn’t sure who me was anymore.

  The castle staff scurried around the kitchen, getting things ready for an extravagant gala the royals were throwing tonight. Men and women of all ages moved from one side of the room to the next with platters in one hand and pitchers in the other. They twirled and weaved around each other in a well-choreographed dance. I knew all their faces but hardly any of their names. I wasn’t here to make friends. I was here because here was the only place I had to go… For now.

  Madeline—the one girl whose name I did actually know—prepared a charcuterie board, arranging nuts and cheeses around traditional meats and olives. She made an art out of food placement. Meanwhile, I spread whipped caramel icing on top of vanilla cupcakes and called it gourmet. Thankfully, my platter wasn’t being served at tonight’s festivities.

  I didn’t actually work in the kitchen. I only baked in my spare time, which was far too often if you asked my hips. I didn’t actually work anywhere in the castle, unless r
eading books and dusting shelves in the library all day could be considered work. King Phillipe thought it was a good way to keep my mind off... things. I thought it was a good place to hide. I didn’t complain because I loved the smell of leather and wood and the warm liberation of getting lost in classic literature. Plus, he paid me and gave me a place to live. That made everything okay, right?

  Wrong.

  “Do you ever wonder what it’s like? To be one of them?” Madeline asked as she plucked a freshly washed grape from a metal strainer.

  She was talking about the Thornes, the royal family. They were all she ever talked about. They were all anyone ever talked about.

  I swiped my finger along the edge of my bowl full of icing, sticking it in my mouth then pulling it out with a loud pop. “Not even a little bit.”

  “Do you think they’re like us?”

  I drizzled salted caramel on top of cupcake number four. “Of course they’re like us. They eat. They sleep.” I scrunched up my nose. “They poop.”

  Madeline chucked a grape at me from the other side of the massive kitchen island. “Ew.”

  I caught it, then popped it into my mouth. “I mean, what else do you expect from a bunch of buttholes?” I added.

  An older woman laughed as she walked by, nudging my hip with hers. “Careful, Katie. Someone might hear you,” she teased.

  I shot her a wink because I didn’t care if they did.

  “I’m kidding.” I curled my lip and thought about it for a second. “Kind of. I mean, I’m sure they poop. But they’re just people. Normal, human, and flawed. Nothing special.”

  Madeline got that faraway look in her eyes the way she did every time she was about to trail off into some Cinderella fantasy. “Even Prince Sutton?”

  I coated my spatula with more icing. “Especially Prince Sutton.”

  “Why don’t you like him?”

  “I never said I didn’t like him.”

  Someone dropped something metal on the marble tile floor. The clatter and clank made me flinch, like God Himself recognized my lie and called me out on it.

  “Sorry,” a male voice called out from somewhere I couldn’t see.

  Madeline waved a hand over her head, letting whoever he was know it was fine. “You never said you did…”

  I heaved a sigh then took another swipe at the icing. “I don’t even know him.” I glanced at the ceiling. Not a lie.

  “Exactly! Your mother is practically BFFs with the queen, and you’ve never even met the prince. Am I the only one who sees how weird that is?”

  I didn’t want to meet Sutton Thorne. I’d managed to avoid him this long. I could make it a little while longer to my twenty-fifth birthday. Six more months, and I’d be an ocean away from him, from this castle, and his whole miserable family.

  “My mother works for the queen. They aren’t friends.” At least that was the lie I kept telling myself. The truth was that Mama had embraced her new role in the castle as if she’d been born and bred to play it. “And you’re just thinking with your vagina again.”

  She threw another grape. This one hit me in the chest. “Am not.”

  I frosted another cupcake, rolling my eyes as I sprinkled the top. “Are too. And so what if I like him or don’t like him? What difference would it make?” It wouldn’t bring my father back either way. I scooped another finger full of icing.

  She opened her mouth then quickly snapped it shut. Everyone in the kitchen stopped what they were doing. The background chatter faded as Madeline stared over my shoulder at the doorway behind me.

  “Would you like me to answer that?” The voice was strong and smooth, the kind of voice that made simple words seem polished and refined. My head turned, my eyes following Madeline’s, and my heart slammed in my chest the second I spotted the prince. He smirked when our eyes met.

  He stood in the doorway, one shoulder casually pressed against the wood frame with his legs crossed at the ankle, hands tucked into the pockets of his black suit pants. I’d seen enough pictures of him to know exactly who he was. They were hung throughout the castle, printed in every magazine, and plastered all over the internet. But there weren’t enough pictures in the world to prepare me for this moment. Sutton Thorne wasn’t something you saw. He was something you experienced. As I drank him in, every six-foot-something-inch of him, I forgot for a second how much I really hated him.

  His chiseled jaw was covered in a smattering of hair. It was just enough to make it look like he’d missed his morning shave but not so much as to appear unkempt—a skillful blend of defiance and concession. His eyes glittered the brightest blend of blue and green, as clear as the Mediterranean Sea. And his golden-brown hair fell perfectly into place. His mere presence screamed absolute power and disciplined wealth.

  And fierce unpredictability.

  Sutton pulled his hands from his pockets and began walking toward me. My heart thundered as my body shifted into fight or flight mode. I was sure he heard it. Everyone in the kitchen probably heard it.

  I curtsied, knowing it was the proper thing to do but hating myself for being compelled to do it for him.

  He took another step. My body was hyperaware of how close he was. “Tell me why.” It wasn’t a curiosity. It was a command. Royal, regal, and entitled—just like the man giving it.

  “Why, what?”

  He narrowed his eyes into a glare.

  I cleared my throat. “Sorry. Tell you why, what, Your Highness?” I said.

  Sutton prowled forward, stopping inches in front of me. His eyes locked me in place. Instinct told me to run, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe. “Why you don’t like me.”

  I wanted to defend myself, to yell at him for listening to a conversation that wasn’t meant for him. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t fair that he got to keep his father while I had to lose mine.

  Instead, I swallowed my pride and told him a half-truth. “I don’t even know you.”

  His eyes left mine to trail down my body. His jaw clenched as though he were contemplating something. A sudden sense of self-consciousness shot down my spine in ice-cold waves, followed by heated anger for caring what he might think.

  “Maybe not yet,” he said. His gaze lifted, resting on my lips for a beat before meeting my eyes again. “But you will.”

  Without warning, he reached out, his fingers clasping around my wrist and biting into my skin. So much for personal space. Then he lifted my hand to his mouth, drawing my index finger inside. His tongue swirled around my fingertip, slowly and carefully sampling the icing I’d forgotten was there. A deep groan rumbled in his throat as his eyes held me in place, like a flowery vine latching onto an unsuspecting stone.

  I stood here, letting it happen and practically feeling my brain cells die, one at a time. Until one of them, the rebel of the bunch, decided to fight back.

  I yanked my hand away. “Sorry, Your Highness. But that doesn’t belong to you.”

  He watched as I made a spectacle of wiping my wet finger down the front of his designer suit. One corner of his mouth curled up into a wicked grin. “It’s my castle. Everything belongs to me.”

  Two

  You could’ve heard a pin drop on the custom granite counter. I didn’t dare look around me, but I felt everyone’s eyes and heard their silent judgment. I’d been around the castle staff long enough to know that every girl with ovaries wanted a shot at the prince. Yet here he was, molesting my finger in front of all of them. They could have his attention. I wanted nothing to do with it.

  “What the Five Finger Death Punch was that?” I asked Madeline after Prince Sutton left the kitchen.

  She laughed at my words. I didn’t swear. Not since I got caught saying damn when I was seven years old and ended up sucking on a bar of soap with tears in my eyes and Mama reminding me that ladies don’t curse. So, I didn’t. Not really. Not unless I was angry, and I rarely got angry. I was distant. Heartbroken. Quiet most of the time. But not angry.

  “That was a prince mar
king his territory.”

  “Who does that?”

  She shrugged and continued arranging rolled roast beef around wedges of brie. The kitchen came back to life as the rest of the workers carried on with their tasks without saying a word to me.

  A Thorne, that’s who, I answered my own question. Nothing was forbidden for them—not our family, not our farm, and not my body. Even though he acted like he had no idea who I was.

  Of course, he didn’t know. He was the prince, and we were just another charity case for the Crown, something to ease their conscience for the wrong they’d done.

  I hadn’t prayed since the day my father died in his bed, the day God took my prayers and shattered them into a million pieces right along with my heart. But I closed my eyes, and I prayed. I prayed that for my sake—and Sutton’s—that what Madeline said wasn’t true.

  The moment I heard my name float from the open doorway of the kitchen, I should’ve done like I always did and let it roll off my shoulders. People talked about me all the time, especially the staff. Sometimes it was good, sometimes it wasn’t. This was no different.

  Only it was.

  It was very different.

  She was different.

  Ten minutes before I walked into the kitchen, my parents informed me that I had one year to find a girl, get engaged, and have a wedding. I didn’t even date because my entire life all I ever heard was that when you had money and power, people only wanted you for two things: money and power. They used sex, friendship, and whatever else it took to get it.

  Don’t trust anyone.

  Now I was supposed to get fucking married.

  They were even throwing a party tonight to make introductions because Tinder matches were out of the question when you were a royal heir.