Claimed (erotic) (#1, 101 Nights)

Chapter One: Elijah

“Billionaire Prince Elijah Shamali Tarwinian Micah, son of the Sultan of Nijala, a tiny but extremely wealthy island kingdom in the Middle East, has been issued an ultimatum by his father: leave the playboy life or kiss the throne good-bye.”

At the mention of my name, I look up from my iPad at the news flashing across the screen of the wall-sized television in the penthouse suite of the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. Surrounded by a sea of plush white furniture and flooring with dark wood lowlights, I haven’t been able to enter the place without thinking of snow, something my tropical island home doesn’t have. The last rays of the sun pour in from the westward facing, floor to ceiling windows on one side of the penthouse. The light turns the snowy world pale orange-yellow.

I like the color. It’s more like home, and orange is my favorite color.

“Shall I turn it off, Your Highness?” Jamil, my longest serving and most trusted servant, asks from behind the couch on which I sit.

“Don’t call me that here,” I remind him. “Americans don’t take well to royal titles.”

“As you wish. Shall I turn off the television, Mr. Micah?”

I cast an amused smile at the old man with grey hair and charcoal skin. “Don’t you think I need the constant reminder that I’m now next in line and need to clean up my act?”

“I think you will do what you please, like you have since you were four.” Jamil turns off the television.

I’m a little relieved. My father’s public proclamation is counter to how he normally handles our personal business. Not that I care what people think, but I’m pissed he didn’t contact me directly first before blasting me publicly. It reeks of what he’s really mad about.

He thinks I should’ve died in that wreck last month, instead of my perfect, responsible, non-playboy brother, who left a grieving widow and no heir. Which means there’s only me to take over one of the three most ludicrous economies in the world, once my father passes on. He’s too told to produce another heir, leaving his choice between me and a cousin living in England, one who’s never set foot in our kingdom.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, father, but I’m all you got,” I say out loud, not caring what Jamil thinks. He knows his place, like everyone else in my inner circle.

“Look what you’ve done with the money he entrusted you with,” Jamil says. “You turned a few million into a few billion.”

“I think that’s what he fears. He knows my methods. He knows I have no heart or soul.”

Jamil doesn’t disagree, and I return to my iPad. I’d been in the middle of organizing a few nights to take the stress out of my days – ones filled with expensive women and booze – when I got the call yesterday about my father’s decision.

If I want the throne – and god help me, I do – then I have to straighten up. Or at least, appear to straighten up, for a period of three months. No more orgies or one-night stands with the gorgeous models I prefer. No drama or bad press.

I have to be good. Like my dear, dead brother, or my father will give the throne – and the rest of my inheritance – to a cousin.

It’s a challenge, one he doesn’t think I can handle. But those are the kinds of challenges I thrash best, and I have every intention of doing it to this one. Hell, maybe I’ll claim the throne before he’s dead, force him to abdicate, and just take it, the way I’ve closed most of my business deals.

People don’t fear me for my status as the Crown Prince of Nijala. They fear me because they know I will do whatever it takes, however deep I have to wade into the grey waters separating right from wrong, to get what I want.

“Your limo awaits you, Mr. Micah,” Jamil said. “The gala with the … ahem, debutantes your father has chosen for you will begin in two hours. Some of the wealthiest women in the world will be present, the kind of women who will make you a respectable queen.”

“I need several,” I mutter and stand. I’m half dressed for the party. I’m not accustomed to my father – or anyone else – interfering in my life, and I hate it. My life is mine to control. I go where I want. I do what I want. I fuck who I want and as many women as I want any given night.

“You know how your father feels. A respectable wife, and as many mistresses as you can keep quiet.”

“That worked before there was the internet. You’ve seen how badly that ended for him recently.”

“True. It’s a gamble, Mr. Micah.” Jamil hands me the jacket that goes with my tux. “I’ll let the driver know you’ll be down in fifteen minutes.”

“Thanks, Jamil.” I accept my jacket and rest it on the back of the couch. I watch him go.

My mind has been working quickly since yesterday morning, when my father’s edict came out. Jamil is right: I need someone respectable, someone my father can’t object to, someone the people and press will accept. What I fear: that means a woman I have no interest in.

“Think, EJ,” I tell myself. “You’ve gotten out of bigger pickles than this.”

I pick up the Guide to American Slang for the Clueless off the coffee table to make sure I used pickle right. I was raised in the British school system, even if I’ve lived in the US for a year. I’m still learning American slang.

“At least I got that right.” I toss the book on the couch.

No great ideas pop up about my situation. I’m drawing a complete blank. I need a fucking drink.

I stride across the penthouse to the spacious kitchen, which is quiet and dark. Flipping on the light, I go to the full bar and pour myself a drink of two hundred-year-old bourbon. The chef is gone for the day at my request, because I expected to eat my dinner at the art gala.

I’m hungry now, though, and grab an apple from the pyramid of fruit stacked on a counter. Munching quietly, I again try to figure out some way around my father’s insane edict.

An odd sound – like that of something scratching at a door – draws my attention.

If this place has rats … I leave the kitchen and follow the sound, ready to call the owner of the hotel directly for an unpleasant conversation.

The sound is moving around my penthouse. Puzzled, I pause in the living room to listen for it again, unable to imagine how big the rodent is to be making so much noise. Snatching my cell off the couch, I trail the weird sound upstairs, past the master suite and to the luxurious study with its leather-paneled walls and exotic wood floors.

It’s not a rat standing in my study but a trim woman with a nice, perfectly feminine hourglass shape, rounded ass, long brown hair.

And a gun.

I look from the kind of ass I love fucking to the weapon in her hand.

Stalker or jaded one-night stand? Because those are the two kinds of uninvited women I normally find in my home.

“Who the fuck are you?” I demand.

She whirls to face me. She’s a pretty woman, in her early twenties, with bright blue eyes the color of the butterflies that gather in the palace gardens every spring. She’s wearing a look of surprise on her face, like I’m the one standing with a gun in her study.

“You have sixty seconds to convince me I shouldn’t call my security detail.”