Dirty Wicked Prince (Court Legacy Book 1)

Dorian – present

I didn’t sleep last night.

I kept seeing Charlie’s face.

It whirled in my memory like a goddamn wound, and I ended up in my sweats. I jogged around the neighborhood until I tired my goddamn legs out, then ended up in the basement gym after that.

Chestnut, our family Labrador, stared at me like I was fucking crazy, but I didn’t stop curling weights until I couldn’t feel my arms. I even lifted like a fucking idiot, spotter be damned. Working out helped me not think so much, and I needed not to fucking think. I sweated through my top until I had to take it off, and by the time I thoroughly wiped myself out, I had time to sleep for about an hour before my alarm went off.

I hit it without missing a beat.

A quick shower, then I was downstairs, academy uniform on and making smoothies for Mom and me. She liked hers completely green, but I still needed some kind of fruit in mine to make it tolerable. Going vegan my freshman year had been a son of a bitch, but after I researched on all the ways going meat-free could enhance my playing ability, I decided to give it a shot.

Needless to say, my plant-based mother had been thrilled, but I didn’t give a fuck about saving the animals or some shit. I just wanted my body in top form, and eating this way, my body got stronger and faster on the field. I’d been quarterback since junior year and ran circles around my teammates. Lifted more too.

Mom was late.

She used to be up before me, but today, the coffeemaker once again said she’d stayed in her room long past her usual time. Mom made her own hours. She worked for the city, but they didn’t give a shit when she showed up.

She came into the room frazzled.

Her hair was still wet too when she breezed into the kitchen, purse on her arm and looking like she was trying to go a million different ways. She was dictating a laundry list of tasks she obviously had to do for the day into her phone, but even when she was all over the place like this, she still managed to look lovely. I knew because if my dad was here, I’d catch them doing things that made me want to burn my eyes out on any given day.

It was sick catching them sneaking around like a couple of teenagers. Even with their room being on the other side of the house, it wasn’t enough to not hear things. I had to go to the basement if I wanted to drown that shit out.

“Dorian, love, did you happen to make an extra—”

I handed her the smoothie I’d made. “Green like you like it.”

She took a sip, and the euphoria in her brown eyes told me I’d done a good job. It was just about the only thing I got from her, her eyes. My mom had hair nearly raven black, real dark like Chestnut’s fur, but her skin was fair, and she couldn’t hold a tan to save her life. We went to the beach enough, and she burned just stepping out of the car. She draped an arm around me. “You’re a godsend, honey. Thank you.”

“No problem.” It really wasn’t. “You got your car keys and your date book?”

She wrestled around in her bag for a minute. She raised a finger. “Yes, but I don’t have—”

I handed her cell phone to her. The one she’d apparently lost in the five seconds she’d been in the kitchen.

Upon taking it, she eyed me. “Who’s the parent in this situation?”

I shrugged and didn’t fight her when she brought me into a hug.

Nor did I let go.

My mom hugged me all the time. This was not unusual. But what was unusual was how she didn’t seem to want to let go these days. Like there was something there behind it while she attempted to meld herself into me.

I held her back, letting her stay as long as she needed to before letting go.

She kissed my cheek before squeezing it. “Have a good day, my love.”

“You too, Mom.” She gave me another quick kiss, then she was on her way. But I didn’t move until I heard her Mercedes pull out of the garage and she made it out of the driveway. She tended to forget things lately, come back.

She didn’t today.

I was right on her heels after that, finishing getting ready and all that. I strapped my bag on. Keys and smoothie in hand, I started for the garage too, but someone called my name down the hall. I assumed it was Ronald our butler, but when I doubled back and caught my dad in his office, my eyes flashed.

My father was behind his desk, working through papers on it. He waved me inside. “Come in, son. Just need two seconds from you.”

This was unusual. Dad was usually at work by now, and Mom had never mentioned him being here. Maybe she hadn’t known. She’d been running late too.

Pocketing my keys, I angled into the room, closing the door. “Yeah, Dad?”

He waved me to come deeper inside, and I took a sip of my smoothie while I waited for him to get off a call. He had his headset on, something I hadn’t noticed when I’d first seen him. Apparently, he was doing a little work from home before going into the office. My dad had many businesses, but I supposed what he and the Prinze name were known for was Prinze Financial. Our family name was tied to ninety percent of the banks in town.

My father paced behind his desk, shooting off commands. I heard the name Cliff a time or two, which let me know he was talking to his personal finance guy.

My finger tapped the pendulum on his desk while he spoke, and that used to piss him off when I’d been a kid. I broke the thing more times than I could count.

“Thank you, Heathcliff,” he said. “I’ll see you at the office.”

My gaze jerked up, as he told me to take a seat. I took my bag off.

He ruffled through some papers. “Just got off the phone with Cliff,” he said, flashing his green eyes at me. “Was just going over the household budgets. Credit card statements too.”

Well, fuck that wasn’t good. I laced my fingers on his desk. “I’m sorry if I’ve been spending too much…”

“You know, I don’t care how much money you spend, Dorian.” He propped his hands on his hips, his pants pleated and crisp. “I work hard so you can spend it.” His eyes narrowed. “Within reason.”

I nodded, relieved a little. But then, he tossed a statement toward me.

He pointed at it. “He’s alerted me to the fact that there’s been a lot of transactions upstate.” His eyes narrowed further, deeper creases in his eyes. My dad was in his forties, but he barely looked thirty. It was only the harsh lines around his eyes that gave him away. Mom had the opposite problem. The lines around her mouth were because she smiled so much. Dad’s were nonexistent. It wasn’t that he didn’t smile. He just didn’t do it often and probably even less than before I came around.

Hence the soft lines.

I took the credit card statement, swallowing as I read it. It didn’t take a scientist to know that the credit card in question was mine.

Or that these transactions were mine.

“Lots of gas stations upstate, son, and fast-food joints. I’m assuming since you stopped at some point to eat.”

I eased my head up. “Uh, yeah. Yes.”

“Yes.” His eyes narrowed harder, a confusion that I didn’t blame. It wasn’t just that I went upstate. It was the towns and cities I was passing through. It was the path.

It was the destination.

All that passed over my father’s green eyes as they stared at me, suddenly wild where they hadn’t been before. Out of all of us lately, he’d been the one keeping his shit together the most, always good for that. My father was an unmovable force.

But something like this would move him.

“Why in God’s name,” he stated, but then his fingers folded over his face. This was an action he often took to calm himself. People who shot off at the cuff disappointed him. Most especially when it came to himself. My dad liked control. He faced me. “What’s the meaning of these trips?”

I had one shot at this. My father could smell a lie a mile way and always had. I didn’t get away with shit as a kid. I wet my lips. “Football.”

“Football?” His eyes flashed. He directed a finger toward the statement. “You’ve been going upstate for football.”

“Yes, sir.” I nodded, hoping it didn’t give me away too much. I opened my hands. “Football. Camps and stuff.”

The lines around his eyes deepened. “I know your schedule, son. I know.” He paused, then lifted his head. “I knew your coach.”

Knew my coach.

A heavy breath escaped him, as he faced out of the window of our large home. All brick, we basically lived in an enchanted castle, and my dad had grown up here, him and his sister.

Now, he was the only Prinze to remain from that life long ago. Obviously, I was around and our extended family, but the other Prinzes who had lived in this house were long gone. We didn’t speak about my grandfather, his father.

The man was a curse in this house.

I’d found this out later in life, sitting here before my father now.

“Your schedule doesn’t have any trips upstate, Dorian.” Dad would know since he loathed football. He and his friends, my god dads Knight, Jaxen, Ramses, and LJ had all played lacrosse when they’d been in school. My dad had learned to endure football for me. Dad lifted his head. “Dorian.”

“The trips weren’t with the team,” I said quickly. “Ares, the other guys, and I signed up for our own day trips and scrimmage weekends. You know how we like to perfect our game.”

He knew how I liked to perfect my game. I didn’t do anything in my life half-assed. I worked hard, getting that from my dad.

Dad stared at me then, real long and hard. He wet his lips. “I do.” The words arrived on a breath, as his hand rose. “Lord knows you eat all that cardboard with your mother.”

Dad was a meat eater through and through. I nodded. “Yeah.”

My father’s visible relief at what I said was evident. He believed me. He did when he shouldn’t have, and that told me something. It said that he wanted to believe me, and that when it came to an alternative, well, there wasn’t one. I was going upstate for football.

That was why I went.

I could imagine this was something his brain could compute, and I was grateful for that. He faced me. “I’m assuming the trips are done, then?”

This wasn’t a negotiation, not the way he said it. I bobbed my head once in acknowledgment.

“You don’t go upstate,” he finalized, then sat in his chair. “You don’t, Dorian. And if you need to, you talk to me first.”

My stomach twisted up, adrenaline raised to hell. “Yes, sir.”

He sat back. “You can go now. Have a good day at school.”

I didn’t give him a chance to question me more. I just grabbed my smoothie, my school bag, and got out of there. I went to close his door and noticed his hand rubbing his brow. He was tense, but I noted something else.

He’d believed a lie when he never ever did.