Rich Boy: A Royal Landlord Romance (Blue Collar Bachelors Book 5) Read online

  Her gaze peruses the antique portraits on the wall yet again. She smiles widely, her face pleating like sundried tomatoes on a crumpet as her eyes prance from wall to wall. “I just can’t believe I get all this…” Her voice trails off as she sweeps her stiff arm across the room, “in exchange for letting you stay at my apartment for ninety days.”

  “Everything is exactly as promised in the advert,” I tell her and I push a set of skeleton keys across the table toward her. The keys to the kingdom quite literally.

  She nods. “Of course.”

  I stand and check my watch. Enough chitchatting. It’s time for me to go. I whip my suit jacket from my shoulders, yank off my tie and haphazardly roll the sleeves of my Oxford shirt up to my elbows. “My secretary Thomas will take care of anything you need. He doesn’t know the details of our arrangement but don’t worry—I’ll text him from the car.”

  A look of caution comes across her face. “Won’t people ask questions? What if I get in trouble?” Her brows draw tightly together. “You should at least tweet the Queen from the airport.”

  I kick off my leather French loafers and slip my feet into the worn running shoes stashed beneath my desk. “Sounds like an idea.” I tell her with a smirk. God—I love Twitter. Concise, efficient, blunt. Gets the job done in 140-characters or less.

  Rushing over to the window, I flash the old lady a wink and throw one leg over the ledge. Ignoring the way her eyes widen with shock, I grip tight to the sturdy, sloped buttress on the exterior facade. She yelps as I loosen my grip and allow myself to slide down like a fireman. I’m about two storeys up when I let go and drop hard into the bed of fragrant tulips in the gardens below. I have an Uber guy waiting in the wooded area a quarter mile off from the palace’s side entrance. My luggage is already in the trunk, as arranged. The man drives off like a bat out of hell the minute I close the car door.

  We make it to the airport before the palace security realizes I’m gone. A dashing smile here, a disarming compliment there, a flash of my passport and next thing you know, my royal butt is squeezed into the middle aisle of economy class. Nine hours later, the jet touches down and I’m elbowing my way through the sea of arriving passengers at Chicago O’Hare Airport.

  I accidentally wheel my luggage into a mother trying to herd her flock of reckless kiddies. Despite my apology, the woman bares her teeth at me and growls. “Watch where you’re going, fucker!” She thrusts her middle finger at me with crude abandon.

  I beam, my chest ready to explode with contentment. Oh sweet anonymity…

  1

  Sadie

  Are you sure you want to do this?"

  Keeping my focus trained on the mirror, I jab determinedly at my blonde roots with the coarse bristles of the applicator brush. "Of course I want to do this," I say forcefully, tipsy bravado smothering the anxious coil taking root in my belly. "It's protocol."

  Natalie's voice comes through my speaker, crackling with a mix of skeptism and worry. "Protocol?" As per usual, my voice-of-reason best friend is trying to kill my vibe. But not tonight.

  Tonight, my unconquerable impulses and my shamelessly rash decisions shall reign supreme! I'm a woman scorned, after all.

  "Yes, protocol." I drop the brush into the bowl of hair color and swipe my coffee mug off the edge of the sink with a dignified flourish. "Post-breakup protocol." Bringing the cup to my mouth, I'm careful not to smudge the thick layer of hair removal cream sitting on my top lip. I swallow about a gallon of the extra-tart red wine in one gulp and cough, choking a little as it goes down.

  I can almost hear Natalie roll her eyes over the telephone line. I don't blame her. I am what experts refer to as 'full of shit'.

  Labelling tonight's mini-meltdown as post-breakup protocol is kind of misleading.

  Protocol. The word implies that the decision to submerge my blonde hair in a bottle of Permanent Purple #38770 dollar store hair dye might be reasonable, warranted, part of a well-thought-out plan based in logic...It’s not.

  The inevitable makeover that comes on the heels of a nasty breakup is a biological response. An unspoken law of nature. A woman's instinctive reaction to being shafted by the guy she was kinda/sorta starting to have feelings for.

  It's cathartic, it's freeing but it's also a rebellion of sorts. An I-Am-Woman-Hear-Me-Roar kind of thing. The practice dates back to the beginning of human civilization. I’m sure if we time travel back to the Stone Ages, we would find our jilted cavewoman ancestors grunting out the angsty lyrics to You Oughta Know while shaving their furry legs with sharpened rock fragments...Or something like that. What I'm doing—hair color and trim plus full-body depilation with mani-pedi before a wild night on the town—is really nothing all that original.

  Tell that to Natalie.

  "So you're just gonna cut off all your hair?" Her words are lilted with worry as they leave her lips.

  The flickering bathroom light catches the steel blade of the scissors on the grimy counter next to my phone. I haven't decided yet if I'm going with a pixie cut à la Cher circa 1984 or more of a Jake Gyllenhaal post-Brokeback Mountain crew cut. I guess it'll depend on how far this bargain bin wine takes me.

  "Well, maybe not all of it." I pull a plastic shower cap over my head while my locks marinate in the cheap hair color.

  Nat goes quiet for a while. Horn-honking filters through the line along with the sound of her adorable little rugrat singing some Disney Network song from the back seat of the car as they navigate their way through late afternoon traffic. The ride from the city back to Copper Heights, the middle-of-nowhere town we call home, can be brutal sometimes.

  After a long pause, she asks the elephant-in-the-room question, "So what exactly happened with Cobi?"

  The sting of my ex's rejection is so sharp it feels like a physical wound in my chest, right beneath my ribcage where my ego lives. My shoulders slump as the pathetic confession starts pouring out. "We had movie plans. That indie movie I've been dying to see. He cancelled at the last minute because all of a sudden—" I draw air quotes "—his mom decided to host the church choir's weekly bible study at their house so she needed him to stick around and help make the finger food."

  "How convenient," Natalie mutters on a sarcastic chuckle.

  Pasting hair removal cream up and down my legs, I nod. "Yes, I just got cockblocked by a hoard of bible-toting grannies eating bite-sized egg salad sandwiches while they rediscover the Old Testament." On a woeful grunt, I dab a fat dollop of depilatory lotion along the stubborn hairs on my bikini line. "That was the last straw for me. He refuses to stand up to that woman while she deliberately tries to sabotage our relationship. He's never gonna grow his balls. And I'm sick of it!"

  "As you should be," she proclaims in solidarity.

  "I get it. I'm not the type of girl an overprotective mother would be thrilled to see with her precious, pampered man-child.” I wag the lotion tube angrily as I mouth off. “But twenty-five is well past the legal age so his mother's opinion shouldn't be the determining factor in whether we spend time together. I need a guy who's going to stand by his choice to be with me, regardless of what any third party has to say about it. A guy who'll encourage his family to get to know me beyond my tattoos and my grungy band T-shirts and my occasional failings at social etiquette. A guy who'll defend my honor instead of asking me to army crawl across the moonlit lawn and squeeze in through the doggie door so we can hook up in his childhood bedroom like hormonal teenagers." I'm breathless by the time I'm through ranting.

  Life hasn't always been kind to me. I've had to make decisions I'd have preferred not to, decisions that were painful, decisions that made me who I am. So I wear my usual carefree, easy-breezy, go-with-the-flow attitude as body armour. I'm not coy and demure like most girls. I'm loud, I speak my truth and I try my best to be my authentic self. But that doesn't mean I don't have a vulnerable side or that my feelings shouldn't be taken seriously. I have hopes and dreams just like the next chick. And most importantly, I deserve respect
. I can’t be with a guy who's ashamed of who I am.

  "Don't let that moron get you down, Sadie." My friend's encouragement fills the room. "He's gonna regret this. You were right to finally break up with him. He treats you like crap and you’re way out of his league. When he's forty-six and his ankles are still hanging off the end of his twin-sized mattress as he jerks himself off under his Power Rangers sheet set while his mom watches the Young and the Restless at the other end of the hall, he's gonna say to himself, 'Sadie Nichols was the best thing that ever happened to me.' Meanwhile, you'll be running your own multinational company and you'll be married to some hot dude with an accent who'll give you pretty babies. Trust me."

  A dismissive laugh comes out my nose. "You just nourish my ego with your bullshit. You know that?"

  And I love her for it. As ridiculous as her hypothetical scenario sounds, I know she believes every word she's saying. That's why we're besties even though we're opposites in every way. I'm the carefree wildchild who goes wherever the wind blows. Nat fits the trope of the good girl rule-follower to a T. But I wouldn't swap her for anyone and I'm proud to say that she'd stick by me, too. She and I have been joined at the hip since the summer after fourth grade. We've seen a lot of shit together but we pull each other through it every time.

  Tonight is no different.

  I glance at the slinky red halter dress hanging from the hook on the bathroom door. We're about to hit the town and I'm gonna dance that fool Cobi right out of my system.

  "You're a hot babe," she tells me. "He's a clown."

  I bring my eyes back to my reflection. I am a hot babe, dammit. Shower cap and moustache remover and all. "This makeover will make me feel like a brand new woman. New hairstyle. Smooth legs. Groomed bikini line. This will be good for me."

  "You're right, I guess," Nat says on a skeptical exhale. I can tell she’s still not quite a fan of the purple hair decision. "You were letting yourself go in that relationship...I didn’t want to say anything but the last time we were sunbathing, it looked like you were hiding a bearded lumberjack in your panties." She giggles wildly.

  I laugh, too. "Well, if I'm lucky tonight, I will end the night with a bearded lumberjack in my panties." I dot some pasty green zit cream onto the crop circle of zits that just sprouted up on my cheek. Stress breakout. Thank you, Cobi. "If that jerk thinks I'll spend a second grieving over him, he's wrong. I am Moving. The fuck. On." I make the declaration with conviction.

  "Yeah!" Nat hollers in support. "Cobi who?"

  I snap my fingers, ‘sassy-tude’ on 100. "Already forgotten."

  Out of nowhere, a curious little voice floats in through my cellphone speaker. "Mommy, why would Aunt Sadie want a bearded lumberjack in her panties?"

  Natalie screeches and I hear the loud squeal of her brakes. "Headphones in, Thandi! Headphones in!" I imagine her flinging an arm into the back of her Maxima and gesturing at the iPad where the little girl is supposed to be watching her cartoons. Nat's attention comes back to me. "I’m gonna drop kiddo off at her dad's place and then you and me are gonna go to the Opal Lounge and dance and flirt and turn down every guy who tries to take us home. Just for the hell of it."

  "I wanna go with you and Aunt Sadie,” Thandi whines. “I don't wanna go to my dad's house."

  An exasperated sigh pours out of Natalie. "Why don’t you want to go to your dad’s house, Thandi?"

  "He’s no fun. All he talks about is Bitcoin."

  I snort a laugh.

  After being engaged forever, Natalie and Alvin separated not long ago and are navigating the rocky seas of co-parenting. Their precocious little girl certainly doesn’t make it easy.

  The timer on my phone goes off, telling me it's time to rinse off my hair dye and depilatory cream. "Keep talking while I jump in the shower." Yanking back the plastic curtain, I step into the narrow stall and twist the knob on the bathtub faucet.

  I expect a lazy stream of lukewarm water to come sputtering out like it always does but I get a long, wheezing echo from the depths of the pipe instead.

  "Uh-oh..."

  I wrap my fingers around the faucet and wrench it from right to left again. The sluggish groan of the rusty valve is all I hear.

  Nat and Thandi are still arguing. "Sadie, you're supposed to back me up here. Are you even listening to me?" My friend's tone is heavy with irritation.

  I mutter, frowning as I turn the knob yet again. "No water..."

  This is not something you want to learn when every hair follicle on your naked body is doused in chemicals. An anxious, little shiver dances up my spine.

  "What do you mean, no water?" Nat asks. I hear a hint of caution creeping into her voice.

  I jerk back the shower curtain and stumble out of the grimy bathtub. "I mean, there's no water." A whisper of an itch begins to work its way up the back of my thigh. Another wave of mild concern laps into my consciousness.

  "Sadie, that's not good," she whispers shakily, sounding considerably more panicked than I'm willing to admit I feel.

  I reach for the tap on the sink. I twist it. Nothing. No water. My sense of urgency mounts. "Oh shit...it's starting to itch."

  “Shit!”

  That mild concern I mentioned earlier has now blossomed into full-blown panic as that whispery itch morphs into a roaring burn. Oh fuck! This cream is over processing. I need to rinse it off.

  I yank down the lever on the toilet. The thing makes a loud gasping sound as all the water in the bowl is gulped down into oblivion. Not that I was considering washing myself with toilet water...Okay, maybe I was.

  Desperate times, desperate measures.

  “Don’t you have a water bottle or something?” Natalie suggests, her voice all jitters. I think her nervousness is only keying me up even more.

  My damp soles move fast across the cracked tiles of the bathroom floor and out into the short, narrow hallway. I race into the tiny kitchen and yank open the fridge. There isn’t much in there. An empty pizza box. A leftover piece of cheese from taco Tuesday. A tub of chocolate cake frosting I swiped from work.

  “Sadie? Are you there?” Natalie’s voice bellows through the phone.

  I sprint back into the bathroom and hastily bring the device to my lips. “I’m coming over,” I announce as I grab my shimmery red dress from the hook.

  "What?!"

  I race for the front door as I shout out the declaration again. "I'm coming to your house, Natalie."

  "Sadie, I'm stuck in traffic. Remember?"

  I'm not thinking logically right now. Dear god, this thing burns! "I'll pick the lock…I'll break a window…I'll find a way!" A glob of depilatory cream slides over the ridge of my lip and into my mouth. Yuck!

  "Sadie, it's a fifteen minute trip on your rollerblades.” She laughs shortly, a note of anxiety in the sound. "Hun, you'll be balder than Steve Harvey by the time you get to my house! You need to take that dye off. Now. And that hair removal lotion is gonna eat right through your skin if you don't wash it off."

  She's right. But I’m too panicked and uncomfortable to problem-solve. I’m tipsy, too. And you know what I wish? I really wish I hadn't drank all that damn wine.

  “Oh god oh god oh god." I try wiping the cream off with my party dress. The friction of the red sequins against my skin makes me howl in pain.

  Now we’re all in full-on freak out mode.

  “Relax, Sadie.”

  "I can't relax. I'm being eaten alive!"

  "Deep breaths, hun. Deep breaths."

  "Oh god. I'm too young for this."

  "Stop panicking."

  "Mommy, is Aunt Sadie dying?!"

  “It’s so itchy!”

  “Do not scratch it. No matter what you do, don’t scratch it.”

  "Mommy, call 9-1-1!"

  “It’s so itchy, Natalie. So itchy!”

  Now, I’m jumping on the spot, fanning my crotch with my hand.

  I hear Thandi crying, bemoaning my impending death.

  "Oh god. Is this my karma? Is th
is my karma? I was a bitch to Cobi and now I'm getting eaten alive by hair remover."

  "Sadie, stop freaking out!"

  Hypocrite! “You’re freaking out, too!”

  “Okay, lemme think. Lemme think. Lemme think,” I hear Nat say then she takes a steadying breath. “Can’t you go to one of the neighbor’s? Knock on the door?”

  "My neighbors?"

  "Yes, your neighbors."

  Well, duh! Of course.

  I don’t waste another second. Tossing my phone onto the couch, I clutch my skimpy red dress over the front of my naked body. Then, I yank the door open and race down the hall.

  Yes, I get it. I’m running around my apartment building naked. But in my defense, I think I have a fairly nice ass so in some ways, this could be considered a public service. Anyway, today, my neighbors get to judge for themselves because basic human decency is the last thing on my mind right now.

  I'm vaguely aware of Natalie’s voice calling after me as I skate right past Mr. Dudley's door. I decide not to bother him because he had his eardrums blown out in Vietnam and he can’t hear a thing. Plus, he moves like a sloth and time is really not on my side at this point.

  I don’t knock on Kim and Joe’s door, either. As usual, they’re probably holed-up in their one-bedroom screwing like rabbits. Nothing short of a fire alarm or the postman showing up with Joe’s social security check will get those two out of bed. So they're definitely not an option.

  Heading for the stairwell, I take the steps two by two up to the top-floor penthouse. Ethel’s apartment. Yup, I’m bringing the drama to her front door. That’s where it belongs.

  Y'see, the sweet, little old lady upstairs? The one who walks with a cane and wears periwinkle knitted cardigans and chitchats with the pigeons in the alley out back as she feeds them?

  Yeah, she's a slumlord, a deadbeat rent-collector, a no-good landlord. As owner of the building, it's her responsibility to make sure that her rent-paying tenants have running water. She failed in that responsibility. Now, my dermatological health is in serious jeopardy and it's all her fault.