Royally Bad Read online

  Royally Bad

  Billionaire. Playboy. Prince. My new boss.

  * * *

  Theo Kensington the most eligible—or ineligible—bachelor in the entire world. So what he’s starred in a sex tape…or three? He's heir to the Kensington fortune. Son of a long lost Swedish princess. That's right—this tall, dark, and tattooed stud is a prince.

  * * *

  Except the queen pretends he doesn't exist. And the Kensington board of directors wants him gone.

  * * *

  Enter me. Vesper Smith, media consultant. AKA fixer. I have four days to convince this bad boy to behave. Clean up his image, clean up his act.

  * * *

  But this playboy prince is more interested in misbehaving. And if I’m not careful, there’ll be a new costar in his next scandal: me.

  Royally Bad

  Lee Savino

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Epilogue

  Also by Lee Savino

  About the Author

  1

  “He has a dick the size of the Empire State building—and an ego to match.” The blonde on screen says with a perfectly arched eyebrow. The gossip newscaster across from her nods.

  I hit pause and the video stops just as the blonde leans forward to impart another juicy secret about Theodore Kensington’s dick. Her boobs look like they’re going to topple out of her shiny pink blouse.

  “Someone’s already got a book deal to kiss-and-tell,” I murmur to the frozen blonde on my phone screen. “No way you came up with that line on your own.”

  I press play again, bracing myself for more drama. I shift to ease the pinch of my high heels. This fancy marble porch isn’t helping my feet any. I’ve been up since five a.m. to dress and check out of the hotel, and take a cab to this modern palace north of New York City. The driver had just pulled through the opulent gates when my Google feed started going nuts. I always set up a news alert so I can stay up-to-date with what the media is saying about my public relations clients.

  “Theo Kensington has a long history of loving and leaving a trail of broken hearts. He’s the son of a Swedish princess and an American businessman. Heir to the Kensington fortune. Kensington, Inc. alone is valued at $400 billion.”

  “He has incredible... assets,” the blonde cackles.

  “He’s actually a prince, right?”

  “That’s right. But he doesn’t like to talk about it. Prince or not, doesn’t matter. In the bedroom, he’s a god.”

  I pause the video again. The blonde on screen isn’t the first to call Theo Kensington a god. Last year, a popular Hollywood darling tweeted, “Prince in the streets, god in the sheets,” accompanied by a picture of the ‘god’ in her bedroom. A very naked god. The tweet was deleted, but not after it got seven thousand likes and retweets.

  And now he’s in the media again. Prince or god, he’s my new PR nightmare.

  I pocket my phone and ring the doorbell again, but I’m not surprised no one is here to greet me. Mr. Kensington’s staff is probably watching the same media channels I am.

  A shadow rises in the stained glass on either side of the door, and then the lock clicks open. A bear of a man with a shaved head and muscles straining his button-down shirt stands in the doorway.

  Mr. Evans, head of security for Theodore Kensington.

  “Have you seen it?” Evans says without preamble. “The sex tape?”

  “Yes, I was just watching the interview...” I rewind what he said. "Wait, there's a second sex tape? Another one?"

  “Just hit this morning.”

  Shit. I fumble with my phone. “I thought they were referring to the last one, the one with the porn star,” I wrack my brain for the name of the blonde in the interview. “Pepper something.”

  “Pepper Spice. And no. This is a new one. A redhead. At least, I think that’s what she is. She’s not too clear in the video. Mr. Kensington, however…”

  “Shit.” This time I say it out loud.

  “Exactly,” Evans answers, grim-faced. He leans down and picks up my suitcase. “Normally I’d let you get settled in but—”

  “We need to get ahead of this,” I interrupt. “Where is—”

  A bright orange Maserati roars down the drive. Bass on full blast, it zooms around the fountain accompanied by Metallica and squeals of delight. The air shudders as the car slides to a stop.

  Three ladies trip out of the convertible, laughing. Sleek hair, huge boobs, and tiny handbags. They barely look at us as they head down a manicured walkway towards the pool.

  A dark-haired man unfolds from the car, heavy metal still blasting from the stereo like a theme song. He doesn’t bother to turn off the car, or shut the door before he tosses the keys to Evans, who catches them with a blank expression.

  “Park it out back for me, Evans? Thanks, man,” the new arrival says, and turns his smirk on me. I recognize him right away—the gorgeous, tanned face from this morning’s tabloids.

  Theo Kensington. Billionaire. Playboy. Prince.

  My new boss.

  2

  He’s not wearing a shirt. He. Is. Not. Wearing. A. Shirt. Who joyrides around the North Shore on a Wednesday morning without a shirt?

  Prince Theo, that’s who.

  He strolls closer, chest muscles flexing. His muscles aren’t the only yummy thing about him. He’s got the best of his Nordic mother and striking father, perfect bone structure and bronze skin. Heavy brows over come-to-bed blue eyes. Black lashes long and thick enough to make any woman jealous. There isn’t an adjective good enough to describe a man as pretty as him. Even the tattoos slinking up and down his torso and wrapping around most of his right arm don’t detract from his prettiness. A panther tattoo prowls down his hip, disappearing beneath the waistband of his pants.

  “Hey, babe,” Theo says to me with a smile aimed to melt all the panties in the vicinity. Or maybe just mine. I’m pretty sure Theo’s lady friends aren’t wearing any.

  My eyes hit the sleek V etched into his lower torso that leads to his groin. My girl parts roar to life like the engine of a Maserati. A smooth sleek purr, right between my thighs.

  Shit. Ten minutes on the job, and I’m making eyes at my boss. Never mind he’s the most eligible—or ineligible—bachelor on the East Coast... probably the entire world. Theo Kensington isn’t a guy you take home to your parents. He’s the guy you take to bed and gossip about him with your girlfriends after, in hushed, reverent tones, as the fuck of your life.

  Or, like a bottle-blonde hussy with a book deal on today’s entertainment news, tell the whole fucking world.

  “Mr. Kensington.” I extend my hand. He ignores it, and moves in closer. I’m wearing my tallest, most professional pumps and Theo still towers over me. There’s an intensity about him, a hungry energy, some sort of powerful force field that would drag off my panties if they hadn’t already melted.

  No wonder all these women go to bed with him. No wonder celebrities star in his private sex tapes.

  No wonder the board of his father’s company wants him gone.

  “I’m Vesper Smith,” I withdraw my hand, because he’s too busy undressing me with his eyes to shake it. “Your new media consultant.”

  “Nice,” he drawls to my boobs. “I’m looking forward to you working under me.”

  I stiffen. I know I look good. I’m wearing a grey business suit that sets off my eyes, even hidden behind black-framed glasses. My heels make my legs look killer and give me a few inches of extra height. I look good, not slutty, yet my new boss is looking me up and down like I’m a pin-up model and he’d like to nail me on the hood o
f his car.

  My heart sinks a little. He really is a man-whore.

  I push my glasses up my nose. “Mr. Kensington,” I start in my sternest voice. “You’ve cultivated quite the reputation. If you’re not careful—”

  Theo interrupts. “Where’d you dig this one up, Evans?”

  The music cuts off as Evans turns the key in the Maserati. “She comes highly recommended, Mr. Kensington.”

  “Great. Do you want me to call the ladies back?” He jerks a thumb and I realize he’s talking about the three women that just got out of the car. “We can do a photo shoot here. Something for you to put on Instagram.”

  He thinks I’m going to manage his Instagram account. “Actually, we have more pressing matters at hand. We need to prepare a statement, tell our side of the story. Pepper Spice already has a media tour—” I stop when he waves a hand in my face.

  “Boring. You’re hot, but you talk like my father’s friends.”

  “That’s who hired her,” Evans said. “They’re concerned that when the board next convenes, the vote won’t be in your favor.”

  Theo shrugs.

  I frown. “You’re going to lose your seat on the board of a billion-dollar company and you’re not even going to—”

  “I need to get to the pool,” Theo interrupts. “Got some friends waiting for me.” He looks me up and down, and once again I feel that force field pulling me forward, clouding my mind, making me want to take off my clothes and make poor choices. “You’re welcome to join me… if you wear a bikini.” With a wink, he strides off.

  I whirl on my heel to face Evans. “Show me the sex tape. Then I’ll go down to the pool. Mr. Kensington and I are going to have a little chat.”

  Evans leads me down the mansion’s wide halls, past giant paintings of landscapes and shipwrecks and Bacchus leading a party of nymphs and satyrs out to have a drunken orgy in a pasture. There’s also a few statues, including a pink marble representation of Venus De Milo.

  “Who decorated this place?” I ask.

  “The late Mr. Kensington hired a collector who chose these pieces.”

  I tiptoe past the naked form. “Theodore Kensington’s father was Turkish, right? An immigrant?” I had to dig for that information. Mr. Kensington the elder didn’t want his immigrant status well known.

  “Immigrant turned billionaire tycoon,” Evans confirms. “Who fell in love with a princess.”

  “Kensington doesn’t sound very Turkish.”

  “He changed his last name when he received his citizenship.”

  “Like Donald Trump’s grandfather, changing the family name from Drumpf to something more marketable.”

  “Exactly.” I don’t miss Evans’ dry tone as he turns into a small dark room. Empty coffee cups litter the desk under the many mounted screens. A pair of security guards nod as Evans introduces me.

  “So you’re the fixer,” one says. “You gonna fix him?” The guard points to the screen where Theo stretches and poses on a diving board in front of an audience of bikini clad woman. One is already topless. The second security guard has the camera zoomed in on her.

  “I’ll do my best,” I say as Evans hands me a laptop. He guides me to a private corner and gives me headphones. I pull off my suit jacket and press play. Theo’s muscled chest and bikini wearing babes cavort on the big screen as I focus on the similar shadowy figures on small screen on my lap. I feel like I’ve got my own private peepshow.

  Business as usual.

  I don’t know how I ended up the world expert on fixing sex scandals, but after five consecutive cases—three sports stars accused of sexual harassment, one philandering senator, and one startup CEO who dropped trou at a wild party a week before his company went public—I have a reputation. Vesper Smith makes the bad boys good again. That headline was on HuffPost last month.

  Yes, I read my own press.

  I have to say, of all the sex tapes I’ve seen, Theo Kensington’s is the best. He’s got a beautiful, muscled back that flexes with his buttocks in time with his thrusts. His jaw clenches and his eyes bore into the mirror over the bed. It’s almost as if he’s looking at me.

  Then he pulls out and I get a good look at him. All ten inches.

  The tape ends. I watch it again, feeling each thrust deep in my womb.

  “So what do we do?” Evans asks when the grunting and squealing on screen has stopped for the second time.

  I blow out my breath, and hope no one notices my nipples are hard under my blouse.

  “It’s bad, isn’t it?” Evans says.

  “It’s bad, but not impossible. We need to give the media a new story: ‘The Playboy Prince reformed.’” I hold up my hands and sketch air quotes. “He sowed his wild oats but he’s ready to move on. Boys will be boys, the whole bit. It’s sexist, but the media buys it. A year of him acting like a monk, doing charity work, and most importantly, staying out of the scandal papers will do wonders for him. He’ll need to keep his shirt on.” I straighten my glasses and look up at Evans. He’s got his arms folded across his beefy chest, and looks skeptical. “It’ll work. I know what I’m doing.”

  “I know,” Evans said. “That’s why we hired you.”

  “Okay, so we start scheduling events. First a public apology. Then some donations to charity, a few popups at society dinners.” I nod. It all unfolds in my head: Theo suave and clean, the tattoos hidden safely away under a suit. I know this playbook—redeeming the bad boy. I got this.

  “Sounds great,” Evans says. “It’s just what he needs. But it’s not going to work.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “We don’t have a year.”

  “Hmmm,” I tap a pen against my lips. “We can work with a shorter timeline.”

  “We have a week.”

  “A week!”

  “That’s when he goes before the board. That’s when they decide. And that’s not all.” He hesitates. “There’s the matter of the queen. Rumor is, she’s finally asking about her grandson, and she’s not liking what she hears.”

  “The queen? As in, the queen of Sweden.”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t even know Sweden still had a queen.”

  “Their Parliament holds all the power, much like in England. But the queen is still an important figure. And her daughter was Mr. Kensington’s mother.”

  “Estranged daughter,” I correct. On this, at least, I’ve done my homework. “She left home at twenty, went to university in New York and dropped out. Fell in love with an up and coming businessman. From what I understand, Mr. Kensington only had five hotels back then.”

  Evans nods.

  “The princess gets pregnant, they marry, the queen finds out and cuts her off,” I tick off the rest of the story.

  “Only to regret it when her daughter dies of complications in childbirth.”

  “Leaving an infant son and a mogul with a broken heart.” I shake my head. “That has to hurt.”

  Evans scoffs. “If it did, the queen didn’t show it. She hasn’t even met her grandson.”

  “I didn’t mean her. I meant Theo—Mr. Kensington the younger.” I fall back slowly in my chair. Only child, now orphaned, shunned by his royal family. Kept from his rightful… throne? Did they still have thrones? “All right. I can work with this.” Mentally I flip through my contacts. I can do this. Pull favors. Plan photo ops. “I can do a week.”

  “There’s still a problem,” Evans says. “He won’t do it.”

  My head is still spinning from thinking about turning a tattooed, filthy-rich bad boy into a suave socialite with the innocence of a choirboy overnight. “Won’t do what?”

  “Any of it. The apology, the charity gigs.” Evans shakes his head. “Mr. Kensington doesn’t want to clean up his act. A few of the board members were friends of his father. They hired you to save his reputation, so they can give him one last chance. But he doesn’t care.”

  “Then he needs a therapist, not a fixer.” I say sharply.

&nb
sp; Evans shrugs. “For the money we’re paying you, you can be both.”

  3

  On my way to the pool, I school my face into a stern expression, one I often saw employed by Ms. Mavery, the librarian at my high school. I found it works on handsy boys and misbehaving clients alike. Combined with my business suit and unflappable poise, I will be unstoppable.

  I hope.

  I follow the sound of classic rock to the pool. My polished approach is spoiled somewhat when my heel catches in a crack of the pavement. By the time I free myself, the whole party is staring—a handful of men and twice as many women. And Theo, who is still not wearing a shirt.

  “You’re fired,” he shouts as I come close. The ladies around him erupt into laughter.

  I continue down the marble steps, passing topiaries and statues of cavorting nymphs. I’m sensing a theme here. Maybe living among all this lascivious art made Theodore Kensington subconsciously decide to be a modern-day Bacchus. I smile to myself. “Art and the Playboy Psyche” would make a great thesis paper. Miss Mavery would love it.

  “I said you’re fired,” he repeats, and there’s a serious edge to his voice. This isn’t just Theo, the bad boy idiot, playing to the crowd. This is Theodore Kensington, testing me to see what I will do. Whether I can stand up for myself.

  “You can’t fire me.” I come to a stop before his pool lounger. “I don’t represent you. I represent your dick.” I point to his swim shorts. Fortunately, he’s wearing shorts. Otherwise it’d be halfway to an orgy around here. I don’t think Mr. Evans would like that.

  “My dick can speak for itself,” Theo says, and sets off another round of giggles.