Backstage: A Fake Marriage Romance, page 24
“I don’t know”, I say sarcastically. “The tennis coach I think. I’ve got my eye on a few bad boy rock stars now if you want to know the truth.”
“Marissa!” Dad explodes, almost rising from his chair in disgust.
I hold my hands up to calm him and eventually he settles back down.
“You tell her”, Dad says, turning to Mom.
“Why can’t you be more like your sister?” Mom says.
“What? Marry a fat businessman and be unhappy you mean? Is that what you want me to do?”
“You will do what is right for this family”, Dad says, taking over again. “You’ve brought enough shame on us over the last eighteen years and I’m not going to allow it to continue.”
“I don’t want to marry a businessman”, I say. “Or anyone for that matter.”
“You have a duty to represent this family publically, in every single aspect of your life. You can’t seriously expect us to turn a blind eye while you damage this family’s reputation at every opportunity, behaving the way you do.”
“Enough is enough”, Mom says, before I’ve had a chance to respond.
“One kiss”, I say again, flabbergasted.
“One kiss is where it starts, Marissa. God knows where it would have ended up if you hadn’t have been caught.”
“Turned in”, I correct him.
If we hadn’t have been turned in by the cleaner looking to get a raise, we’d be enjoying each other’s company right now and ramping up the heat levels. I may be young and inexperienced, largely thanks to my parent’s insistence on keeping me away from all kinds of temptation, but I’m certainly not naive or shy to admit what I want. I’m not alone in that way of thinking either. I know plenty of girls my age who aren’t virgins like me, because their parents don’t keep them mollycoddled and locked up, like some weird modern version of an outdated fairytale.
We may be royalty, from a long and important lineage, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have the same desires as everyone else.
“Whether he was turned in or caught doesn’t matter”, Mom says. “You’re behavior is not acceptable for someone of your standing.”
“You don’t think kissing someone you like is normal behavior for an eighteen-year-old?”
“Kissing a gardener is not acceptable behavior for a princess”, Mom says.
“I never asked to be a princess”, I complain. “I just want to be a normal girl like everyone else and do normal things like kissing and everything else.”
“Enough” Dad announces. “Number one, you are not a normal girl, you are royalty and that’s that. Number two, we’re going to America.”
“America?”
“You’ve got a date.”
“A date?”
I can’t believe I’m hearing this.
“Someone very important”, Dad says. “A billionaire. He’s got enough money to reform the east wing and still have plenty left over.”
“Fucking hell.”
“Marissa!” Mom shouts, while Dad is so taken aback he looks like he’s about to have a heart attack.
“Fine, sorry”, I say, not meaning it at all. “It’s just a surprise, that’s all.”
Dad rises out of his seat. “I will not have you behave in the manner of a servant girl.”
“Dad, chill out”, I say. “I’m sorry.”
Finally he sits back down, but not after he’s death-stared me, Mom, the wall, the floor and everything else in the room.
“We did not bring you up to be foul-mouthed”, Dad says.
I sigh. “I’m sorry”, I say again. “But, America. Is that, I mean, you’re not serious are you, about this whole thing?”
“Yes, Marissa, I’m deadly serious. We’ve been thinking about it for some time, in fact. It’s taken a while to convince him.”
That leaves me mouth open. “To convince him of what?”
“That you’re a suitable match. It took long enough to find someone available. We’ve negotiated what we think is a very fair deal.”
“Hang on, wait, you’ve lost me. Is this a business meeting or a blind date?”
“It’s an opportunity for you to prove you care about this family”, Dad says. “He’s an excellent candidate for your love.”
“An excellent candidate for my love?” I parrot back to him, astonished I’m hearing him say these things. This could be a dream right now it’s so surreal.
“Yes”, Dad says, clearly excited at the prospect. “He’s got a net worth of eight hundred billion dollars. Eight hundred billion-.”
“I’m not interested in money”, I say, cutting him off.
Dad sighs loudly. “Then it’s a good job you aren’t the one who gets to choose.”
“No?” I say. Saying I’m just slightly confused and a little bit peeved would be the understatement of the century.
“He’s a nice man”, Mom says. “Good looking. You’re going to like him. He already likes you.”
“He doesn’t know me”, I protest.
“That’s why we are going to America”, Dad says. “And why you’re not going to mess things up.”
“And if I refuse?” I say, already knowing it’s not an option.
“Do you understand the word disinherited?” Dad says. “As in, no longer part of our family, no longer royalty? You may think you can cope without your status, without your money and without the life you have grown accustomed to, but let me tell you something, if that’s all taken away, even for one moment you won’t be able to cope. You can’t avoid it, Marissa, because it runs in your blood. You’re as pure as either one of us no matter how common you think you are. And just a few dirty thoughts doesn’t turn you into a peasant.”
“You’d seriously do that to you own daughter?” I say, unsure if I’ve phrased it as a question or a statement.
“Do right by this family and this family will do right by you”, Dad says. “And stop denying who you really are by pretending to be someone you aren’t.”
“Who is he?” I say, pretending to be defeated.
Dad smiles proudly and looks across to Mom. “Elon Madison”, Mom says. “He’s really very rich.”
“And available”, Dad adds energetically. “Excited to meet you.”
Elon Madison. I roll the name around my head a couple of times but nothing sticks. I haven’t got the faintest fucking idea who he is, but as soon as I get out of this punishment session the first thing I’m going to do is google him. Elon Madison, fat ugly business man.
If Mom and Dad think I’m on board with this they’ve got another thing coming. I’ve always wanted to go to America, though, so I might as well tag along for a while, pretend I’m game and then escape when they’ve got their guard down. I suppose worst case scenario would be marrying someone and keeping a string of lovers on the side, but as much as I consider it, I know it’s not for me.
When I eventually get released I briefly head outside, stare at a pair of rose bushes that need to be clipped and then head back to my room my mind on the poor gardener, who will probably be in the process of being deported right now.
Fuck my parents and fuck this family. I’ve never liked being a princess less than right now. I wonder how my parents can sleep at night sometimes, knowing they’ve raised an anti-monarchist.
Chapter One
Marissa
In every single one of the fairy tales I’ve ever read, the princess always ends up with the best-looking guy in the book. Not only that, he’s easily the most talented, the most intelligent, the strongest, the bravest and the most deserving of her love. Sometimes he has money, but not always, and it’s never the most important thing. I haven’t read a single fairytale about a virgin princess in which the guys she ends up falling in love with is a balding, fat businessman almost twice her age, with absolutely zero charisma and just as few muscles.
I had to run the profile past my parents after finding him online because I just didn’t believe this was the guy they intended setting me up with. Heartbreakingly, he is.
The description on his Wikipedia page reads like this: Elon Madison, twenty-six, made his first billion in his teens after his identification software company was bought out by Facebook. Since then, the savvy technological whizzkid has moved into security systems, network architecture, and the development of AI after forming progressive media company Strike in 2015. He prefers to keep himself out of the public eye, enjoys hunting, gaming and collecting war memorabilia. After several unsuccessful relationships, including a particularly bitter break up with a former presidential aide, he is currently unattached.
Hunting and war memorabilia? That’s not exactly an ideal recipe for edge-of-the-seat excitement, is it? And judging by the photos, edge of the seat excitement is something Elon seems to avoid just as much as the sun. It doesn’t surprise me he’s not attached, and it terrifies me to the core that my parents want me to be the person that changes that status.
I don’t have a choice either. If I did, my prince wouldn’t be a technological genius with a social integration score of below freezing, he would be an athlete with a body as sharp as his mind, muscles that looked like they’d been carved out of stone, and eyes that could melt princesses all the way from here to Mongolia. And I wouldn’t stop at just one either. That’s the other thing I never understood about these so-called fairy tales. A princess should be able to have anything she wants, no matter how foul-mouthed she is, right? Why would you only let one gorgeous hunk fall in love with you then? Why not make it two?
I know it’s a lot to ask, and I know it’s probably not even possible, but that doesn’t stop me dreaming about it. Maybe it’s because I’m spoiled and I’m used to getting what I want, or maybe it’s just because I allow myself to dream big. I’m not going to say I’m going to be disappointed if when it eventually happens it happens with just one person, I’m just saying that I don’t see the reason not to want it to happen with two. Two is twice as good as one, which means twice as much pleasure and twice as much love.
I told you already I wasn’t that conventional, but just because I’m expected to act in a certain way, that doesn’t mean I want to. I wonder sometimes whether we’re all thinking the same thing and behave in the way that society wants us to only because we are scared of being different. Well, I’m not scared, not of that at least, anyway. I’m scared of getting kicked out of the family and having nothing, and I’m scared of never finding my sexy athletes, and having to make do with Elon Madison.
Mom and Dad would freak if they knew. They practically exploded in rage when they found out the gardener and I were kissing, so God knows what they’d do if they ever learned of my secret desire to have two amazing Gods of men pass me between them. There is something so dirty and consequently so appealing about the innocence of a Ceylonese princess being corrupted by someone with the physical prowess of a Trojan warrior, something so perfect about those three then falling in love with each other in an unbreakable bond so pure not even the conventions of a normal two person marriage could come anywhere close.
Who wants a conventional marriage anyway? With two men, you’ll never get bored. That’s probably why people get divorced so much - they just end up getting bored with each other, which leads to either one looking for extramarital activity, which, in turn, eventually leads to divorce. When I get married, I want it to last forever and never be boring, and having two men seems like a perfect way to achieve that. Not to mention how good the sex is going to be.
I doubt Elon Madison even has the capacity to get it up. Perhaps he has an AI machine that does it for him. He might even have an AI machine that simulates the whole experience. I guess it won’t be much longer before I get to find out, although I’m not sure if he’ll see the funny side of my question.
Outside the window of the plane, the blue of the sky curves out beyond the wing and disappears towards the horizon. There are light, fluffy clouds, too wispy to imagine they are anything other than themselves, and little below us but a large expanse of ocean an even deeper blue than the sky above. Mom is lost in a book, while Dad looks sternly at his folded newspaper, yet to complete his sudoku.
I love my parents, but I’m nothing like them. I’m not anything like anyone in my family, if I’m honest with you, unless they’re nothing like they are pretending to be either, and secretly want to do the things that I want to do as well. I doubt it, though. Mom doesn’t have the imagination and Dad just never seems that interested in anything other than keeping up appearances.
A new hospital to open one week, a speech to deliver the next, an award to accept or a role to maintain, Dad seems happy being King of what is one of the smallest countries in the world, even if half of the time nobody knows who he is when he travels outside of it.
We’re not super rich by any means, although we have more than enough money to go round, and much more than ninety-five percent of everyone else on the planet. A huge palace we call our principal residence in the very center of the capital city, two additional country houses and lodgings, a private jet plane, a fleet of expensive cars, a healthy bank account, and a number of charitable royal trusts make us perfectly well off, and in a decent enough position for the future, although Dad seems to think we need to bolster that for the years to come, or at least I do, considering I can’t be trusted to find someone who our family won’t need to support moving forward.
That means I need to find someone of equal standing to marry, who is able to increase the level of our family's bank account and not reduce it. Not only that, they have to be of suitable social standing to be fit for an eligible princess like me. I don’t see how Elon Madison fits that bill more than any one of the front row of the Indiana Colts, but that’s my parents for you. Elitist, snobbish and way behind the times.
Which brings me to my cunning plan. I’m obviously not going to fuck and fall in love with Elon Madison unless he’s somehow so completely different to the pictures on the internet he could line up in a photo with every single MVP from the last ten years and no-one would blink an eyelid. Which means I have to fuck and fall in love with someone else, or two people else if my fantasy is ever going to come true, in the time that my parents and I will be in America, and without either of them or Elon Madison finding out, which might be stretching it a little.
I’ve got my eyes on a few people, though, you know, just in case, and with Elon’s money, it might make the beginning of that journey a little bit easier to take. If my parents see that I’ve fallen in love, even if it’s with a baller, a hockey player or a movie star, instead of the businessman they initially wanted, they might soften up anyway. If I don’t fall in love, which is also highly probable, because I’m not exactly over here to look for it in the first place, I’m going to have a lot of fun trying anyway and giving my parents the runaround.
It annoys me that they’re here in the first place, trying to keep an eye on me, so what I need to do is just enough to convince them to go back home while it looks like Elon and I are courting each other, and I’m doing everything else I’ve always wanted to do and couldn’t, right up until now.
I know that kind of makes me a bad girl, but sometimes princesses have to be bad girls in order to find their true loves.
And Elon looks like a passionless jerk anyway so he probably deserves a bit of a runaround. Anyone who hunts animals for sport in my books has got to be a bit of a douchebag.
It’ll be easier if he is. The last thing I want is for Elon to be a hopeless social case, desperate for love and worthy of someone’s attention because it wouldn’t feel good messing him around. What I want is Elon to be distant enough to be respectful, and convincing enough that my parents go home and leave me to it. I’m not going to be dishonest with him, but if this is the only opportunity I’ll get to find myself my pair of delicious athletes, I’m not going to fuck it up. Mom and Dad are going to marry me off soon enough anyway, so I want to make sure I’m prepared before that happens.
They didn’t really need to come, but there was no chance they’d let me loose in America without some kind of vigilance in place, at least not straight away.
Dad has been staring at me over the top of his glasses and out over his newspaper for a while. “Why don’t you read?” he finally says.
I hold up the Sports Illustrated magazine in my defense. On the cover is a quarterback called Dean Colson who looks like he has a rolled up pair of socks stuffed down his lycra pants.
“A proper book”, Dad says.
“I was researching topics of conversation.”
Dad makes a disapproving sound in his throat before putting his newspaper down, sudoku side up. I see he hasn’t made any advances in the last three hours.
“Elon is a computer programmer”, Dad says. “Sports are the last thing he’s going to want to talk about.”
“On his Wikipedia page, it says he’s a fan of the Red Sox and the New England Patriots.”
Dad makes the same sound again, while I make a point of bringing the page up on my cell and trying to pass it over to him.
“I’m only trying to make sure I do my research”, I say, my face deadpan.
“Just make sure you know what you need to compliment him on”, Dad says. “And laugh if he tells you a joke.”
“What if I don’t like him?” I say, suddenly irritated.
“Then this trip will have been a complete waste of time”, Dad says.
“You can’t force me-”, I begin, but Mom cuts me off.
“If it’s not Elon it’ll be someone else, not quite as successful, not quite as rich, but someone else all the same. Just bear that in mind, Marissa. A princess marries to keep the family strong, it helps if she loves him, but it isn’t essential.”
I look from Mom to Dad and then back again, neither one of them wavering. Mom goes back to her book and Dad slowly picks up his newspaper again.
“Make sure you’ve got something intelligent to say to him”, Dad says, without even looking at me this time. “You may be royalty, but that doesn’t mean Elon is a given.”
