I stood staring at my Darcy Masters original wedding gown for what felt like an eternity, which was odd, considering. I had only met the man who would soon become my husband a mere eight months before, right around the time I found out I was six weeks pregnant from a three-minute mistake with a regrettable one-night-stand.
No matter how many fixed numbers were added to the equation, it all summed up one inescapable truth: time is fucking relative.
A lifetime of stuff can change in eight months. Take it from me.
By October 1st, I was 36 weeks pregnant, standing in a 12th century castle, staring at a regal white wedding dress complete with its own crystal studded cape, getting ready to walk down the aisle to an actual prince, with all the castles, crowns and thrones that came with the title, all ready to become mine the minute I said, “I do.”
I guess I needed a moment to take it all in.
You already know most of the story, where I, Peaches McPhee, had been hired to write the titillating tell-all memoir of Augustine Seamus Whitley Quinn Agassi, aka Auggie, aka Prince Augustine of Alasdair, The Duke of Iver, aka The Duke of Mayhem, a rebel royal who went rogue and became a rock star.
He was also the heir apparent to the kingdom of Aldayne, a country west of Ireland and south of Iceland, with the Viking/Gaelic roots to prove it.
His grandfather Evander had been king until his death in 1996, when power shifted to Queen Maeve, his widow. Their son, Roan, ran off with an American dancer named Sofie and newborn son, Auggie, to live a life of the ordinary in America, leaving Aldayne without a successor in the House of Quinn.
This was a problem because the next House in line of succession was the House of Byrne, filled with, shall we say, not so nice people. Queen Maeve then decided she needed to get her hands on an heir and quickly.
After the deaths of his parents, Auggie was her prime target.
By the time I met Auggie, he was more than a decade into his career as an award-winning musician/performer, who regularly sold out arenas all over the world. He embarked on one last tour before he was forced to keep a promise he made to the Queen. She needed an answer to a question placed upon his head the second he was born. Would he or wouldn’t he serve Aldayne as their king?
As it happened, he would, right after he asked me to marry him.
And I couldn’t even be upset about it because it was kind of my idea. Because I was the ordinary girl he plucked straight off the farm, Auggie left the decision to me how much I wanted our lives together to change. After one meeting with the aforementioned Byrnes, I knew we had no choice. Auggie had to become king to spare Aldayne.
Bad things happen to good people when bad men are in charge. Read any history book anywhere.
That one decision changed everything for me and for my whole family, which was why we hadn’t yet returned to our home state of California, after following Auggie to Aldayne for the Queen’s 25th Jubilee in August.
Well, that, and that the biological father of my near-term baby was an abusive asshole who could never get access to my son. Outside of these borders he had access to me, inside he didn’t. I wasn’t going anywhere.
It had only been a little over five weeks since Queen Maeve’s announcement that Auggie had agreed to become king. It both sped by like a minute and felt like forever ago, mostly because we had to hurry up and plan a wedding to take place in Aldayne prior to the blessed event of my due date, which was rapidly approaching by the end of the month.
Most folks believed my due date was November 24th, but I was due on Halloween. The deception was necessary to spare my son from his biological dad, Christopher Tyler, the aforementioned asshole. I knew the minute I delivered early that he’d turn up again like some recurring nightmare.
We had worked together for years, but the relationship had been contentious because he was a pompous, sexist Dude Bro jerk who thought I was a second-rate female due to my size.
That didn’t stop him from sleeping with me when he was drunk and horny, though. And it certainly didn’t stop him from slipping off the condom without my consent.