Their Virgin Princess: Masters of Ménage by Shayla Black, Lexi Blake Page A

shoulder. “I hope you
     decide to win, because the rest us of love you and want to feel close to you,
     like family should. We hate that you’ve isolated yourself. We’re all here for
     you. You just have to decide to join us in the love and laughter. In the light.
     This is your home. I hope you start acting like we’re your family, too.”
    Piper brushed a kiss across her cheek, and it took
     everything inside Alea not to pull away. Piper must have felt or sensed it
     because she had the saddest look on her face as she turned away.
    And she’d screwed up again. Alea sank to the couch. It
     seemed like the only thing she was capable of lately. The doors closed behind
     Piper ,and Alea suddenly felt how very alone she was. Piper’s words rustled
     around in her brain.
    “Lea?” a soft voice called out.
    She should lock her doors.
    Alea sighed. “Yes, Yas?”
    Yasmin walked in, still in her perfectly tailored gown. “I
     heard there was trouble.”
    “It’s nothing.” She didn’t want to bring her cousin in on
     all the problems of the evening. She really just wanted to shut out the world
     and go to bed.
    “I doubt that.” She spoke with an upper crust British
     accent, no hint of her Bezakistani roots at all. Yas had worked for years to
     fit into the English ideal of perfection. She’d bleached her hair a platinum
     blonde and maintained a slender figure. She wore the right clothes and the
     right makeup. She was everything Alea wasn’t. Somehow picking out the perfect
     outfit for the season didn’t matter so much anymore.
    Find the good. That’s what Piper had recommended. There was no good. She was wrong.
    “Lea? Are you still with me?”
    Alea shook her head. “Sorry. I’m really tired.”
    “I heard about what Tal and those horrible guards of yours
     did. Is it true that he gave them complete control over your security?”
    “What?”
    Yas leaned in, sympathy softening her face. “Tal released
     those brutes from his service tonight and dedicated them to your protection
     full time.”
    It was the absolute worst outcome. Dane, Cooper, and Landon
     would be on her case twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And now they
     had no reason to be nice about it. They would watch and hover, silent and
     unsmiling, a constant reminder of how awful she’d been. “Are you sure?”
    “Oliver overheard them. You know he’s always been dreadfully
     concerned about your welfare. It’s very difficult for me to forget that he was
     interested in you before he was interested in me.”
    And this was why she didn’t spend much time with Yas
     anymore. Her cousin was never content to merely talk. She had to find a way to
     turn the conversation to herself, usually about how terribly she was being
     treated. It wasn’t that Yasmin was a bad person. She’d simply always felt like
     a lesser relation because her parents hadn’t lived in the palace. “We’re just
     friends, Yas. He married you.”
    “I know.” Her eyes turned down. “I just always wonder if he
     regrets not marrying the real princess.”
    Not that again. “Yas, I only have the title because our
     uncles legally adopted me, and they only did that to protect me. They were
     still my aunt and uncles. That’s what I called them, not mom and dad. They made
     certain I didn’t forget my real parents.”
    “Still, you’re referred to as a princess and you have the
     trust fund to go with it. Most men would be interested in marrying into that.”
    “Well, it’s Bezakistan. Even as a ‘princess’ who isn’t in
     line to ascend, if I marry, I’ll be expected to take at least three husbands.
     Our country is modern compared to some of its neighbors, but it’s still steeped
     in tradition. Be grateful you got a choice to marry exactly who you want and
     love.”
    Three husbands. Big and broad men who could protect her and
     care for her if she would only let them. Dane, Coop, and Landon’s faces swam
     through her thoughts.
    Yasmin