The Provocative Prince (BOOK 1)

Chapter 22: Willpower

Vincent

For as long as I had known about King Boris and my father's friendship, I had always been skeptical of how his pregnant wife could deal with a man as aggressively perverted as himself. With the incident that happened last night, he was lucky his wife couldn't make it to Genny's birthday with him. I used to be very nervous about how I'd be when I get married. Would I be like Boris and touch on and flirt with other women behind my wife's back? Or would I be like Lance and remain committed to my wife no matter the temptation?

I had never committed to one woman before. Even in my two previous engagements, I slept around consistently behind both women's backs. I tried to do something different from my engagement to Melanie and cut all ties with my previous lays so I wouldn't get distracted. But good God, it was something about Shadé that I refused to let go, and I had never even slept with her.

I told myself that if I convinced her to sleep with me, if she wasn't too creeped out by my confession last night, then she would be the last woman that I slept with aside from my fiancée. The issue, however, is that I was developing some unwarranted feelings for her.

I was always attracted to her, which confused me to an extent because she was far from my usual preference. But I looked past a physical preference and gotten to know her to where I looked forward to seeing her at any point in the day, hoping we could talk for at least five minutes. She really was a large part of the happiness that I'd been feeling lately. I'll be damned if I allowed an overweight Norwegian King to cause her termination.

Speaking of the bastard, he was already pissing me off the moment I stepped into the State Dining Room. He was sitting in my chair, the one I sat in every morning, leaving his greasy marks on the cushion of the chair as he laughed obnoxiously with my father. This was not a good start to my morning.

"What is this," I inquired in annoyance as I captured everyone's attention in the dining room.

"Boris stayed the night because we believe he deserves an apology from the maid who attacked him last night," my mother explained as my father and the subject at hand shared another belly laugh. If he keeps that laughing up, he'll probably develop abs by the time breakfast is over.

"An apology for what," I inquired. "He touched the maid first, inappropriately I might add," I informed her, briefly catching her bewildered expression before my gaze trailed up and down Boris' hefty figure with disgust. Clearly, he left that part out.

"Son, I was only reaching for a croissant. It was she who assaulted me because she assumed I was too close to her," Boris declared as his bullshit lie. Unlike my family, I was there to see everything that transpired.

"So you're telling me that my 27-year-old eyes, with their 20-20 vision are incorrect in what they saw," I asked, squinting my eyes and tilting my head.

Suddenly Gina entered the dining room, her hands folded in front of her. "Good morning, my Royal Family. One of my lovely maids, Ms. Folashadé Hakim, has come with an apology for her wrongdoings last night," Gina formally said with a bow of respect. Folashadé stepped into the dining room after her, with her hands held behind her back. She was wearing her uniform: a black knee-length dress, a white apron tied securely around her waist, and sheer black stockings that ended in her black trainers. She was a maid, for sure. However, the confident aura that surrounded her as she stepped into the room was unbearable that she damn near commanded me to sit my arse down somewhere with just her eyes.

I quickly found an empty seat beside Lance on the opposite side of the table. He looked at me with a dark brow raised before tilting his head towards Shadé's direction. The annoyance I felt from Boris' presence moments ago quickly dissipated into trepidation. I wasn't really in the most admirable condition to see Folashadé just yet, not after what I told her last night.