The Prince and His Involuntary Bride

9. A Grave Warning

Charlie was puffing out like a bull pacing back and forth inside his large office, having the memories of the video that had been circulating on the internet for the past three days, ever since his brother and Isabella’s wedding, the royal couple who had left for their honeymoon. And even though they were hesitant about leaving him in such a state, Charlie argued that he would be able to pull himself together and work on himself and they didn't need to cancel their plans for him.

Besides, he persuaded them that they needed to be away from any sort of negativity during such a crucial time in their marriage.

He couldn’t shake his head off from it, no matter what he did and whatever he tried.

He had been trying his best to not to let the worst controversy of his life get to him.

He even had the old news reporter, who telecasted the video and was also a producer on his news channel, summoned by his team but he did not plead guilty of his acts and instead, kept wagering his moto to go on a full fledge war against the American Media,

The Media, the entire media, including the social network that wasn't as much of a fire the past five years ago, had uplifted the video that was taken form YouTube and only had five hundred views prior to its telecast and was resting over twenty million views, in just a matter of three days and Charlie only expected even worse results and the video to grow even fasted over the upcoming further days, which was no good news to him.

He grumbled, remembering the picture and the roast served to him in that idiotic video.

When he was going through many of his flings the last thing he wanted was to settle down for any and during one such of his flings, he came across with Enola, a Spanish model, whom he met in Los Angeles and the two immediately began banging one another.

They enjoyed their company and even went together to Vegas, where some paparazzi caught their pictures of being intimate with Charlie in an utmost uncomfortable condition, whereby his shorts were bulged out slightly, giving the impression that he was having a boner, in broad daylight.

This was a huge controversy, whereby a Prince of a country, who was supposed to handle quite fair and grave matters of the state was roaming by with a model and carrying his hardened c**k around.

His parents and the crown had to call him back to London, where he was asked to stay in the shades for a while where he wasn’t allowed to get out of the palace and in to the public eye for almost three months and once the controversy settled down, he was sent back to Harvard to complete his masters but not alone.

This time, he was sent with a bodyguard who was to make sure that Charlie didn’t interact with anyone outside of his regular circle and specially anyone famous in any part of the world.

The special bodyguard, that was to keep track of Charlie’s activities was no one but Dexter himself, who had known Charlie since college but back then, two were not that close, as they had come to become during their time in the states together.

Whereby, Charlie was the cool boss and Dexter was allowed to flirt with other woman, all the while performing his duty.

But it wasn’t Dexter that had kept Charlie away from women but in fact, it was his last meeting with Isabella when he had met her during the time he was hiding in his parent’s palace.

He still remembered his conversation with her, when he was lying on his bed and feeling extremely low and Isabella walked inside his room, shaking him up from his bed.

“Come on! Let’s go.” She urged him and he only slumped back, shrugging her touch off him.

“Leave me alone!” he almost yelled at her and she laughed back.

“I didn’t come here to leave you alone and Harry and I are planning taking you to a perfect cozy trip today to a Welsh state, so shut up and get your lazy ass up!” she smacked his shoulder, making him scream out in pain.

“Gosh! Your hands are so strong. What the hell do you want?” he yelled, getting up from the bed and looking at Isabella’s smiling face that immediately melted his heart and made all of his worried vanish within just an instance but he still tried to maintain his posture in front of her, not letting her know on to his true feelings.

“I want you to come with me and Harry, we are going to visit this beautiful cottage by a Welsh village and you need to come with us.”

“What if I say no?”

“Then, we both simply take our picnic stuff and have a nice and cozy picnic inside your room, does that sound fair?”

Charlie rolled his eyes, dragging his body towards the bathroom and freshening up.

“My first and the foremost rule as we go on this trip!” he announced walking out of the bathroom in a pair of fresh sweats and a polo shirt, “You two will not mention anything about my punishment!”

Isabella snickered lowly, “Punishment! Are you a child?” she retorted at him, earning a snarly look back.

“Alright fine! But you should have been careful at the first place, before getting yourself in that trouble.”

“I... I got my own self in trouble?” Charlie huffed in aggression, unable to contemplate Isabella’s words.

“How could you even say that?”

“Because you need to stop messing around.” She told him, taking him by surprise.

“Messing around? I was not messing...”

His words died in his mouth as Isabella held a cocky look over her face, urging him to speak another sentence so that she could reprimand him right off the bat.

She pulled him towards her and sat him down, over the edge of the bed.

“I know this is not you Charlie.” She told him, making him look up at her with complete bewilderment.

“What do you mean, I thought you took me as an asshole.”

Isabella shook her head at him with a soft smile of acknowledgement covering her face.

“I did take you to be a complete and an utter asshole but not after I got to know how much caring you are towards the ones that you love and I think of myself and Harry to be among those people that you really care about and you know what? You need to stop messing around because one of these days, the woman that is meant to be yours forever, is going to come around and you might miss your chance with her because of your habit of messing things up. So, be genuine and you would see, that the one that is meant for you, would tear apart worlds and fight every single odd just to be with you.”

Isabella’s words deeply touched Charlie’s heart.

He didn’t know whether it was because of the fact that they came directly from the woman that he loved or if they were just a reflection of what he needed to hear from someone in that moment but ever since her guidance and urgency, Charles had stopped messing around with every single girl and in fact, distant himself off from flings and simple hook ups.

He had then, began dating in real terms, where he tried to make sense of the feelings of love he had in his heart for someone other than Isabella but no matter who he went out with, all his heart longed for was Isabella.

He couldn’t place, why it was only her that he loved.

He wanted to know whether it was the need to be known the way Isabella knew him or if it was simply a mere matter of an unrequited love, he just wanted to give away his love to someone else but his stupid imbecile heart only made it impossible for him to love anyone but Isabella.

The door to his office opened up and he called out the person on the other side, premising them to get in.

“Come in!”

She stated and the door opened up to have his assistant, Michael walk inside.

The beautiful shiny dark skin, over the man’s  large buff and tall body, reflected the lights of the room as he walked the entire length of the large ceramic coated and beige walled office room, passing through the larger than life bookshelves that were filled with history to romance, covering every aspect of literature.

“Mr. Dexter Finnan just checked in to the premises of the palace and he will soon be here, are you ready to meet him?”

Charlie nodded at Michael, who nodded his head at Charlie and bowed down in respect, walking out of the room and asking the entire staff to clear the way out for Dexter, who soon entered inside the office and stood in his black ops uniform, wearing black t shirt, paired with black military pants and black ankle boots, with a black striped holster wrapped around his entire body, that secured weapons around the man’s body.

“I am guessing you came direct in from work?” Charlie threw his joke at Dexter who only nodded his head at his friend and stepped ahead, placing down a file in front of him.

“I had the woman from the video that you asked about, investigated and I also sent out a team to America, to get the rest of the people involved in the video and bring them to the Kingdom, we will make sure that no one will get to know about their whereabouts during the upcoming few days. And I also think that none of them is proud of that work, because no one has came forward to claim that video to be theirs or for any copyright infringement claims as well, given that the video is being used at multiple platforms and was uploaded by an old college fraternity channel with only eight subscribers on YouTube.”

Charlie extended his arm forward to grab the file but Dexter placed his hand on Charlie’s making him look at his friend with a confused look covering his face.

“Out of everyone in the video, why did you ask of her to be investigated?” Dexter urged upon his question and Charlie stood back for a second, contemplating over the very fact that out of all the people in the video why did he have the one particularly petite brunet investigated.

He didn’t want to insinuate upon anything but he also didn’t want to tell anyone that there had been a woman stamped inside his mind over the past entire week.

Her hazel eyes stuck in his brain and the scene of her falling right in to his arms being played in front of his eyes over and over again.

The woman gave him a sense of courage with her fierce actions but at the same time, he made a wave of nostalgia rush through his system, as she particularly reminded him of the fact that she was known by him at some particular point in life.

Whether it was his childhood or adolescence; it felt to him that he had known her and all the possible coincidences of them crashing in to one another and then her being a part of a viral video that humiliated him, Charlie knew that there was some sort of thread that tied them and pulled them together.

“Well... I told you that I knew that she was in the Kingdome and she was the hostess at the club where Harold’s bachelor’s party was.” He told Dexter.

“Okay! But why is she the one that you just asked about and why not anyone else in the video?”

“Because I know about her whereabouts, so let’s just begin with her at the moment.”

“Did you know that she was American?” Dexter put forth another question to Charlie, who by that point felt being interrogated by Dexter.

“Yeah, I heard her American accent.”

Charlie dryly replied Dexter and picked up the file, until Dexter called him out.

“I must warn you about something.”

“What is it?”

It felt unusual to Charlie that Dexter was acting way too grave regarding to the matter of that simple woman.

Charlie had began already suspecting that there was more to the case, than he had expected it to be.

“Ever since you took the responsibility of handling the safety and welfare of the security of the country, you have been devoted towards your job and you have definitely prioritized the state above all matters and I have been following your orders, based on my believe in what you decide is definitely for the best of this country and I hope when you look in to this case you would know that our decision should solely be a reflection of the welfare of the state and nothing personal should influence it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Charlie felt confused by Dexter’s words.

“This woman, Celeste... that you asked me to look in to, even though she once mocked you with her words and acts maybe knowingly or unknowingly, although the chances of her heritage may prove that the former one might be correct but as you look in to her file, just know that she is not any ordinary American citizen and even her brother is not a legal immigrant but is staying here on a passport of a man who is actually deceased. They can not apply for nationality here because actually, they have been banished off from the country and they are actually staying here to hide, because no one can suspect them to be present in this country. Making it a perfect hide out for them.”

As Dexter began narrating clues of his investigation regarding Celeste, Charlie felt highly suspicious of the woman, who seemed to be completely and figuratively, sated with her condition as she stood proudly in front of her boss, taking a stand for herself and a pole dancer and her waitress friend. He couldn’t even in thousand years of his life, would have guessed that the woman was indeed a fugitive of the state.

Picking up the file Charlie finally opened it up, swiping through different pages of the information that Dexter had collected with in the time of three days that Charlie had given him only to come face to face with the truth and realize that Dexter was indeed correct and it didn’t seem like the case of a misplaced woman, who once worked as a small artist and then became a waitress but in fact, she was declared clearly as the enemy of the state.

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Well, what are your guesses about the condition of Celeste?

What do you think is the truth about her past that Dexter has found out?

Thank you for always reading and supporting my work <3