Read A Royal Match Online

Authors: Connell O'Tyne

A Royal Match

BOOK: A Royal Match
8.91Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
A Royal Match

INCLUDES
PULLING PRINCES
AND
STEALING PRINCES

 

TYNE O’CONNELL

 

Contents
 

Pulling Princes

One: Saint Augustine’s

Two: Friends for Life

Three: My First Fake Boyfriend

Four: The Royal Sport

Five: Flirting with Princes

Six: Dorm Party Heaven, Duvet Hell

Seven: Food Fight Fiasco

Eight: The Royal Summons

Nine: The Fine Line between Pleasure and Pain

Ten: The Fall-Out

Eleven: The Burial of Arabesque

Twelve: The Lit Chick Salon

Thirteen: Countdown to the Eades Social

Fourteen: The Night of the Eades Social

Fifteen: The Brat of the Ball

Sixteen: Crying for Britain

Seventeen: Wear Your Pain Like Lip-Gloss

Eighteen: Hollywood Hits Windsor

Nineteen: Coventry

Twenty: Moonwalking

Twenty-One: En Garde, Your Royal Highness

Twenty-Two: Nun of Your Business

Twenty-Three: The Glory and the Embarrassment

Twenty-Four: The Myth of the Midnight Dash

Stealing Princes

One: The Agony and the Txt-acy of Flirt-Txting Two Boys at Once

Two: It’s Hard Teaching Your Parents Where Their Dreams End and Yours Begin

Three: Okay, So Maybe It Did Get a Little Bit Septic …

Four: The Fine Line Between Honey and Hell

Five: My Favourite Mad House Spinster Ever!

Six: God’s Law Versus Sod’s Law

Seven: Aloof Demeanours Versus the Scent of
Eau de Parbitch

Eight: House Spinster Alert

Nine: Secret Disappointments & Less-Than-Secret Hatred!

Ten: The Political Subjugation of Youth

Eleven: Old Enemies, New Friends

Twelve: Mr Bell End

Thirteen: The Night of the Soggy Boggies

Fourteen: Just One of Those Annual Euro Royal Bash Thingamees

Fifteen: The Familiar Sound of My Dreams Crashing around My Feet

Sixteen: An Emotional Game of Chess

Seventeen: Nothing Changes, Everything Changes

Eighteen: A New Kind of Enemy

Nineteen: When Your Obsessions Become Obsessive, a Nemesis Can Prove Very Handy

Twenty: If You Can’t Pull the Boy You Want … Pull the Boy You’re With

Twenty-One: Think with Your Brain, Move with Your Body, Slam ‘Em with Your Blade!

Twenty-Two: Mayhem in the Pet Shed

Twenty-Three: One Teddy Bear, Caught Red-Handed …

Twenty-Four: If You Ask Me, It Was Her Brain That Needed Botox!

Twenty-Five: Daddy’s Plastic Girls

Twenty-Six: The Feverish Age of Reports

Twenty-Seven: Friends Don’t Steal Other Friends’ Boyfriends

Twenty-Eight: The Girl in the Iron Beak

Twenty-Nine: Moi? Self-Centred?

Thirty: Honey World: ‘You Can Check Out Any Time You Like, But You Can Never Leave’

Thirty-One: Honey’s House of Horrors

Thirty-Two: My Royal Wake-Up Call

Calypso’s fencing terms and English words

Pulling Princes Acknowledgements

Stealing Princes Acknowledgements

Footnote

About the Author

Pulling Princes
Dedicated to Cordelia O’Connell, my muse, my consultant … well, let’s face it – my adviser in all things stylish!

Stealing Princes
To my divinely regal, wildly intelligent, stunning daughter, Cordelia, because she is my role model and the most inspirational muse any writer could wish for.

 
PULLING PRINCES
 

• • •

 

You have to pull a boy from the pond and kiss him before you’ll know whether he’s a frog or a prince …

 

 
ONE:
Saint Augustine’s
 

 

Talk about random. This was the
worst
worst-case scenario in my long history of worst-case scenarios. But then, my entire life is a random series of worst-case scenarios.

At fourteen, you start to realise these things.

On the flight back to school after the Easter break, wedged between an enormous professional-mom type and a smelly backpacker, I had weighed up my tactics for turning my life around during the summer term at Saint Augustine’s.

Life at Saint Augustine’s had been hell since Day One, which was why I’d made a decision that I would do everything I could to get the cool crowd to accept – if not respect – me. I mean, OK, so I suppose I knew deep down they were shallow and mean, but … well, there is only so long you can spend as the form freak before you actually go mad and start wanting to be part of the cool set.

I knew I had a tough term
*
ahead of me if I was going to finally start fitting in. I knew I was going to have to reinvent myself. That is, become the sort of girl who can pull boys – particularly really fit ones.

So it was sorted; I was on the case.

I knew radical action was needed.

But it was cool – I had a radical plan.

I had even factored in the possibility of things getting worse before they got better.

In short, I was prepared.

But even I, the Queen of the Doomsday Prophesies (my mom’s nickname for me – what can I say, she’s hilarious), hadn’t considered the possibility that I would be forced to share a dorm room with The Honourable Georgina Castle Orpington …

The girls, all dressed in our hideously evil Saint Augustine’s uniform – maroon pleated skirt and green ruffled shirt – were all crowded, with their toff parents and toff valets in tow, in the dimly lit, wood-panelled entrance hall, peering at the noticeboard to find out which dorm they were in and who they’d be sharing a room with that term.

‘Oh great, I’m with the American Freak,’ I heard Georgina whisper sarcastically to Honey O’Hare, a member of her cool pod of friends.

That’s what they called me – American Freak. They do
these horrendously bad piss-takes of my accent, which is ironic, really, because when I go back to Los Angeles during the holidays everyone starts talking like Dick Van Dyke, imitating what they perceive to be my proper English accent. You can’t win, really.

Standing at the back of the crowd, waiting for my chance to see the list, I pretended not to have heard Georgina’s lament and tried to think of something really cutting to say in reply. (I rarely actually say the cutting things that I think up in my head, though, because I have discovered that it is better to stay under the radar and keep my witty remarks to myself.)

BOOK: A Royal Match
8.91Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Long Time Running by Foster, Hannah
Controlled Burn by Delilah Devlin
His Last Duchess by Gabrielle Kimm
Mrs. Lizzy Is Dizzy! by Dan Gutman
Vaalbara; Visions & Shadows by Horst, Michelle
A Warrior's Promise by Donna Fletcher
Bringing It All Back Home by Philip F. Napoli