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.”

I sigh and look out of the window.

In two hours we’ll be in the United States of America, the land of opportunity and freedom, a country with over a hundred million men over the age of eighteen, and my parents have chosen someone like Elon for my very first official date. While I think about this, my eyes roam the page the magazine has flopped open to in front of me, of the wide receiver making a name for himself at the New England Patriots, who has arms as thick as tree trunks, eyes that dazzle like sapphires and a package I’d need two hands to hold on to.

This is the kind of man I want to meet, and I’m damned if I’m going home without doing so, Elon Madison in the equation or not.

Logan

The journalism may be a pile of shit but at least the photos are good. It’s always pleasing to see how attractive you look coming out of a club at two am, despite what the story is. Not many would argue with that.

“Celebrities, politicians, what’s it going to be next, Logan? A princess?”

They’re pissed, I get that, it doesn’t look good for the team, especially when everything else is finally slotting into place. I shouldn’t have been there the night before the game, even though we went on and won it.

I hold my hands up. “I’m sorry, Doug. I shouldn’t have been out.”

“Ten thousand, and that’s being generous. You’ll make a statement with our press team and do all of the necessary social media bullshit to fix this. The next fucking time I’m taking you off the roster. Why can’t you just keep your dick in your pants? Why can’t any of you rookies these days keep your dicks in your pants?”

He can’t afford to keep me off the roster, but I can’t afford to keep seeing my face all over the paper either. Ten thousand a go makes the thrill of the chase a little less appealing.

“You know, half of the shit they are saying there is made up.”

Doug shakes his head.

“Made up or not, this hurts the team and it hurts me. Why don’t you do us all a favor and lie low for a while, let the papers write about some other hotshot.”

“I can’t help being popular”, I say.

“If this carries on, you won’t be for long. Don’t think you are special. There are a hundred like you and a hundred more ready to come along as soon as you royally fuck things up, which you seem keen to do already.”

“It wasn’t as bad as they make out.”

“My players don’t drink, my players don’t screw around, my players don’t get kicked out of nightclubs at two am for fighting, propped up by a pair of hookers.”

“Come on, those girls were escorts, not hookers, and I wasn’t drunk.”

“Don’t, Logan, I’m not in the mood. Saturday is the biggest game of our season so far and we need to win it.”

“Doug, you can count on me.”

I smile but he doesn’t seem to appreciate it, so I change my mind and make my expression serious.

“Just don’t disappoint the fans”, Doug says. “Disappoint me all you want, disappoint yourself if your self-esteem is that low, just don’t disappoint our fans.”

Anybody would think I’d gone out and shot someone. I know this isn’t exactly an isolated incident, but I’m not exactly the only one doing it, and I make sure it doesn’t affect my performance anyway. Doug doesn’t seem to get that part of it. Football runs in my blood, and no matter what I do the night before, I’m always going to be on top of my game when it comes down to it.

No sex and no drinking before a game is bullshit anyway, everyone knows that.

“It won’t happen again”, I tell Doug, although what I mean by that is I won’t be stupid enough to get caught doing it again.

It seems to be enough for him, and although he’s still far from being alright with me about what happened, he finally lets me go.

Doug’s got some fucking nerve, I think as I drive back home. Where the fuck does he think I’m going to find a princess from anyway?

Carter

I’m fed up of reading about Logan O’Connor. If he’s not on the front page for doing something he shouldn’t be doing, he’s all over the back page for doing something he should. Six touchdown catches in the last three games, twelve now for the season as a whole, an impressive amount of yardage that is almost certain to break at least one record this year and a damn good chance to make it all the way to the Superbowl. Not bad for a rookie year.

I have professional rivalry, and personal admiration for the guy, who seems to be doing everything our rookie can’t. If it wasn’t for the nights out, the skirt-chasing, the bad behavior and the round the clock drinking I’d snap at the opportunity to have him in our team.

He reminds me of me at that age, which means that unless he’s some kind of superhuman, sooner or later he’s going to have to choose one of either of those two paths. From the perspective of a football fan, I hope to God he chooses his sport over his dick, but from the perspective of a quarterback of the rival team, I wouldn’t mind not having him in our way as we try desperately to hold on to a season that’s slipping away from us.

Logan O’Connor is arguably the best talent to come into football since I had my rookie year, which will all go to waste unless someone knocks some sense into him. Going out and having fun is part of what makes this lifestyle great, but the team has always got to come first, not the girls, in every sense of that word.

Next Saturday, when we make the trip across state, I’m going to do everything I can to be that voice of reason. The last thing I want to do is see someone like Logan throw his career away for a five minute fuck in the VIP room of a bullshit club. I’ve been that guy and it never made any sense. All that shit is overrated and none of those girls mean a goddamn thing. All they want is money, attention and to be on the cover of a better magazine for a while.

In my three years as a professional player, I haven’t found anything amongst those shallows worthy of extended periods of my time, and I know that until I quit this sport and come out of the limelight completely, the chances of me doing so will remain the same.

That’s not to say I don’t enjoy what Logan is doing now, I just know how to do it right, and get from it what I want. Logan wasn’t the original pussy chaser and neither was I. I learned how to keep it under covers and out of magazines and I feel like it’s my duty to let Logan know how to do the same. A leopard can’t change its spots after all, it can only hide itself better.

What I’m talking about not finding is love, and that’s unlikely to ever change for anyone in this game of ours. High profile football and the kind of woman it attracts, are not the kind of people you want to be spending the rest of your life with, certainly not in my extensive experience so far.

For me, Superbowl winner and MVP, three years a pro with the kind of statistics already that make Alex Vann Haden nervous, I would desperately like to achieve success away from the field as much as I have on it. Find a girl that loves me, raise a family, travel the world to exotic destinations, but right now, until that option presents itself, which it seems highly unlikely to do in the immediate future, I have to concentrate on other things. Make sure Logan doesn’t throw his career away, and then show him why he’s still not quite the best player in the league.

If that somehow means we have to work together, then so be it. If I had a reformed Logan O’Connor on my side, the pair of us would be absolutely unstoppable.