Stealing Beauty (Possessing Beauty Book 2)

Chapter 1

Imogen

I took a shaky breath, my green eyes meeting my own gaze in the mirror. My lip quivered, and I could see the nervousness playing out in a pink blush across my cheeks. I took another breath, clenching my fists by my sides and closing my eyes. I’d been dreading that night for weeks, and now it was here.

The ball. Specifically, the ball my father, King Lucian of Avlion was throwing for all “eligible bachelors and bachelorettes” across the kingdoms, now that he’d finally decided that his daughters were ready for marriage.

Heck, or dating even, since neither myself nor my sisters had really done any of that either. And I was twenty.

I knew my father meant the best for us — not letting his eighteen, twenty, and twenty-one year old daughters seek partners until now wasn’t some show of old-fashioned customs like my little sister Isla always said. He was really just protecting us, and giving us the time to have a proper view of the world before we started looking for someone to share our lives with. And besides that, most princes had horrid reputations as foul, filthy-mouthed womanizers.

But that night should have been something I’d looked forward to, not secretly cringed about. After all, my parents had invited all sorts of princes from the neighboring kingdoms, including the absolutely dreamy Prince Chester of Montagne. I’d be an idiot to think I was the only single princess that had eyes on him, but he’d written my father three times over the last few weeks, mentioning how excited he was for the dance and to meet me.

I know, I know. Believe me, I understand how out of touch it seemed in the modern world of cellphones and Facebook and snapchat to be throwing balls for princes and princesses to meet at, but hey, that's the word I was born into, and as much as Isla, and even my older sister, Ilana, poo-poo-ed the royal life we lived, I actually liked it.

Well, except for tonight.

Because, yes, Chester was coming, and yes, the whole palace had been done up beautifully for the ball, and yes, my bright chartreuse green gown, with the exposed shoulders and gold trim looked amazing and made my red hair and green eyes just pop.

But there was a storm cloud hanging over tonight. A dark, filthy-mouthed, crude-talking, perverted, scandalizing, morally repugnant storm cloud. And this storm cloud had a name:

Prince Magnus Jameson.

The absolutely disgusting, tabloid-scandal-ridden prince of the kingdom of Zale.

The absolutely gross, ridiculously cocky, impossibly arrogant, and unfairly gorgeous Prince Magnus.

And I say unfairly, because it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that someone that obnoxious, and with that much of a terrible reputation could also be hands down the most attractive, heart-stoppingly gorgeous man I’d ever laid eyes on. Thick dark brown hair, sharp, piercing blue eyes, and an absolutely melting smile perpetually across that perfect, chiseled, handsome face. Broad shoulders, powerful arms, and since I did unfortunately read the tabloids and see the pictures of him on various beaches and yachts, a body absolutely carved from marble.

Prince Magnus, but then, the tabloids had a new name for him as of late.

Prince Magnum.

Take a guess what that was in reference to.

I blushed in my bedroom mirror, shivering and quickly shutting my eyes again as the memory of that day came flooding back with the usual heat it always did. It’d been four weeks ago, and I never should have been there.

My parents had believed I’d been going to southern Spain to do some homeless outreach in some of the poorer areas. After all, helping wherever I could with people that hadn’t had the completely random luck of being born into a kingdom like I had was one of my passion projects. And I had gone to one of the slums outside Valencia to help, but then I’d gone off itinerary.

I’m not entirely sure why I’d lied to my pilot about my father being perfectly aware of me going to Ibiza. I’m not sure why I checked into a hotel under an assumed name, or why I’d bought the biggest pair of movie-star, incognito sunglasses and big brimmed hat I could find. Maybe it was because I’d just turned twenty, and I just wanted something exciting. I wanted to go a little crazy, I guess, for once.

That’d lasted all of one day. I’d sunned by the pool, I’d had exactly two glasses of wine at the hotel bar, I’d gone upstairs to change to go out—

And that’s when I’d been introduced to Prince Magnus.

No, that’s when I’d been introduced to Prince Magnum.

At first, I’d had a horrified thought that I’d somehow walked into the wrong penthouse suite. But there were only three suites like this at the hotel, and I knew I’d made a right off the elevator.