Four Months, Three Words

C.W. Farnsworth

FOUR MONTHS, THREE WORDS

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or person, living or dead, is coincidental.

Editing & Proofreading:

Tiffany Persaud

Cover:

Sam Palencia

ALSO BY C.W. FARNSWORTH

Kiss Now, Lie Later

The Hard Way Home

First Flight, Final Fall

Come Break My Heart Again

The Easy Way Out (The Hard Way Home Book 2)

Famous Last Words

Winning Mr. Wrong

Back Where We Began

Like I Never Said

Fly Bye

Fake Empire

Heartbreak for Two

Serve

For Now, Not Forever

SYNOPSIS

He’s the guy every girl wants…

Jace Dawson is less than a year away from accomplishing everything he’s spent the past decade striving for. Not only has playing professional football been the dream since he was a kid, the financial incentive isn’t one he could walk away from even if he wanted to. That is, until a chance collision has the unexpected outcome of making Jace realize he might want something more than the goal he’s spent most of his life pursuing. Might want someone more.

…she’s the girl he can never have.

For Vivienne Rhodes, the opportunity to attend Lincoln University represents what she’s always craved more than anything: normalcy. One semester is all she has before returning to a future that’s set in stone. Her mere presence on campus is only made possible by an elaborate arrangement. The essential component of it is that no one can know her real identity. Falling for the star quarterback is most definitely not part of the plan. But it will all be fine, just as long as she keeps those feelings to herself. Because that unchangeable future? Can’t include Jace Dawson.

I. Four Months, Three Words

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

II. Two Decisions, One Duty

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Acknowledgments

About the Author

For anyone who’s wanted to swerve from what’s expected. You only get one life.

PART 1

FOUR MONTHS, THREE WORDS

PROLOGUE

As soon as we emerge from the church, the cheers begin. I clutch my mother’s hand tightly, overwhelmed by the flashing lights and loud sounds. Tugging at the hem of the satin dress I’m wearing with my free hand, I glance over at the two tall men in black suits standing next to us. I usually find their towering presence annoying, but the wall of noise makes me grateful, instead.

My father strides ahead of us to the metal barricade that lines the crowded street, shaking hands and passing off gifts to the agents that flank him. My mother begins to tug me along the stone path, but then halts to speak to someone. I don’t bother looking up to see who it is.

A small, blond-haired boy who looks to be my age catches my attention as he walks over, carefully clutching a small bouquet of flowers. My mother stops speaking, and the woman she’s been talking to leans down to speak to the boy.

“Give the flowers to the princess, Charles,” she urges.

The boy thrusts out his tiny fist, offering the bouquet to me. I don’t move, so my mother squeezes my hand in a silent command. I reluctantly grab one end of the ribbons streaming off the sides of the elaborate bow holding the stems together, letting the vibrant blossoms dangle against my bare leg. Their floral aroma engulfs me.

“Aren’t they the sweetest?” the woman asks my mother.

I don’t give her a chance to reply. “Can’t we go home, Mother?” I ask, my tone a tad whiny. I’ll be scolded for it later, but I’m eager to leave after having to sit quietly for the past couple of hours.

Predictably, my mother looks at me with vexation. “Vivienne, we’re in public,” she whispers.

I let frustration seep across my face in response.

Her expression softens. “Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m tired,” I reply truthfully.

“Fine. Anders?” she calls, and one of the men trailing us appears at her side immediately. “Put the princess in the car,” she instructs him.

I’m shuffled between the two, and then ushered away toward the long line of black cars parked to the side of the church. When we reach the middle one, Anders swiftly opens the door and lifts me into the backseat. The movement jostles my precarious hold on the bouquet. Rather than tighten my grip, I relax my fingers, and watch as the ribbon slips out of my grasp and the bouquet falls to the gravel ground.

I slide across the smooth seat and relax as soon as the door is shut behind me, hiding the abandoned flowers and crowds from view. I stretch out across the cool leather and enjoy the muffled silence after the din outside.

Tucking my hands underneath my chest, I listen to the uneven thuds of my heart as I wait for my parents.

CHAPTER ONE

When I was younger, I thought my life was ordinary. Boring, even. I thought everyone lived in palaces, had staff tend to their every need, wore elaborate, itchy dresses on a regular basis, and was greeted by cheers whenever they emerged from said palace, or anyplace else.

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment that perception changed. It evolved in a gradual realization as I grew older and was exposed to more and more the outside world had to offer.

It began with a creeping awareness that most of the things I accepted as normal life were actually reserved for a select few, and was compounded at age ten when I finally recognized no one else in Marcedenia lived the same way that we did.

I was born with a congenital heart defect that required corrective surgery several times during my childhood. Thanks to my poor circulation, I spent most of my early years traipsing through the palace corridors draped in several woolen blankets to ward off the constant chill. My perpetually frigid skin earned me the moniker of “Ice Princess” from the palace staff when they thought I couldn’t hear them. My aloof demeanor probably contributed to the nickname as well.

My heart finally received a clean bill of health at age ten, which prompted my enrollment at the most exclusive and elite preparatory school in the country, Bridgemont Academy. Until that point, I was tutored privately at home. My interactions with anyone my age were limited to the children of dukes and lords at a few exclusive events.

While the main justification for the perpetual isolation was my poor health, I know my parents were also wary of the risks the outside world posed to me in particular, as their sole heir. As a result, they surrounded me with a constant rotation of nannies, tutors, and security that became a fixed presence in my everyday life.

An hour at Bridgemont Academy was all it took to permanently abate me of the notion that my life was ordinary in any way. Even amongst the offspring of the most privileged, wealthy, and powerful citizens in the country, my status was unchallenged.

Instructors didn’t discipline me.

My peers looked at me with awe.

No one wanted to risk angering the future queen.

I took full advantage of the leniency, essentially doing as I pleased, especially once I realized my security detail would only intervene if they thought I was in physical danger. The deference I was treated with was flattering, but it was also boring.

Eight monotonous years later, my final days at Bridgemont Academy are rapidly approaching. This fall, I’m expected to start my university years at Edgewood College. A prospect I’m thoroughly dreading.

Although the shift to university means I will be living on my own for the first time—in a heavily guarded apartment with round-the-clock staff—my classmates will remain the same stuffy, serious, and spoiled group I’ve spent the past eight years with. The few peers I find remotely interesting were deterred years ago by my omnipresent security.

Adding to my already apathetic feelings about attending Edgewood College, three days ago, I learned of my father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Since it was detected early, the doctors expect it will be at least five years before he begins experiencing any of the more serious symptoms. Hopefully longer, if he responds well to their treatment plan and medications.

The prospect of watching my jovial father slowly lose his mind is both devastating and terrifying. His diagnosis means the couple of decades of relative freedom I expected to have as the back-up are now gone.

My days as a princess now have a set expiration date.

The countdown to becoming a queen has begun.

My father’s diagnosis prompted a rapid reshuffling of the future plans for the monarchy. Now, when I finish university in four years, as my fellow classmates decide on future careers and celebrate the end of academia, I will be preparing to rule the country they all reside in before my father’s condition becomes public knowledge.

I resigned myself, from the very first day at Bridgemont Academy, to the fact that amongst the many privileges my charmed life as royalty offers, freedom is not one of them. My entire life was pre-determined for me before I even took my first breath.

Being the sole heir to the throne offers limited opportunities, but still slightly more agency than the ruling monarch. I hadn’t realized how much that distinction mattered to me until I learned how soon it will become irrelevant.

Just hours ago, I was slammed with the second bombshell of my week, when I found out the antiquated law requiring a female heir to be married in order to become queen still applies to me. My father sought to abolish it as soon as he became king, and he finally convinced the misogynistic men comprising the Royal Council to change it. It was officially signed two days after my birth.

Turns out, I missed my chance at ruling solo by forty-eight hours.

My parents decided not to tell me until now, hoping they would be able to find a loophole, or that I would already be married and middle-aged before having to take the throne.

In light of recent events, the first is looking unlikely, and the second, impossible. I feel as though I’m clutching a bunch of balloons whose strings have just been snipped, now stuck watching the colorful circles float away with no chance of ever recovering them.

I was disinterested in attending Edgewood College before, but the past few days have been more than enough to change my feelings on the topic to strongly averse. Learning the next four years will be my last without the constraints and obligations of being monarch makes the prospect of having to spend them at Edgewood College sound all the more dreadful.

Since I have no alternatives, there’s nothing I’d like to do more than consume a copious amount of whiskey. I’ve spent the remainder of the day, since the marriage bomb was dropped, contemplating a plan to sneak out tonight. My chances of actually leaving the palace grounds are low and my intentions for doing so are entirely selfish, but the allure of alcohol and complete solitude is too tempting to ignore.

Dinner with my parents is a mostly silent affair. The occasional clink of crystal or clatter of china are the only sounds that resonate in the massive dining hall meant to seat a hundred. My father sits at the head of the table, with my mother and me on either side of him. I know my parents are as worried and overwhelmed as I am, but I can’t muster the words to comfort them as I grapple with my own feelings regarding recent events.

When the strained supper finally ends, I sneak into the kitchen corridor, where I snag a black hooded jacket from one of the lockers belonging to the staff. I slip outside without anyone spotting me. The cool night air is tinged with the scent of fresh rain, and I inhale deeply as I emerge from underneath the overhang into a heavy downpour.

I shove my hands inside the pockets of the borrowed jacket and discover the left one contains a keycard for the back gate, which will speed up my exit exponentially. The shiny new SUVs I spotted earlier are still parked in a row by the service entrance.

I snag the keys from the top of the rear right tire and climb inside the driver’s seat. All of the palace’s cars are typically stored in the main garage, but these were just delivered earlier today and haven’t been moved yet. I let out a sigh of relief when the engine roars to life, then pull my phone out and power it off so my security team won’t be able to track me.

The driving rain ensures the evening security guard remains in the booth adjacent to the massive wrought-iron gate. He simply waves me through after I scan the keycard. I’ve given no thought to my destination beyond it being an escape from both the physical confines of the palace and my own troubling thoughts.

I drive along the dark, wet streets, alone in a car for the first time, until I spot a grungy pub that suits my current mood perfectly. The obscure location has the added bonus of being one of the last places a citizen would expect to encounter a member of the royal family, significantly lowering the odds of anyone besides my annoyed security team ever knowing I even left the palace.

A long wooden counter spans the entire length of the pub, where I order a glass of whiskey before taking a seat in the booth farthest from the front door. There are only two other patrons in the stodgy bar, and I use the rain as an excuse to keep my dripping hood up to cover my most distinctive feature: long strawberry-blonde hair.

I remain in the booth for a while after my jacket has dried, and long enough to down two more glasses of amber liquid. I stare across the dimly lit pub at the rain streaking down the outside of the dusty panes of glass, my mind blissfully blank. The dark wood that constructs almost every visible surface is soothing, and I feel stress leaching away as the whiskey warms me from the inside out.

I’m contemplating whether I should call my security team to come retrieve me now or if I should savor the rare moment of freedom longer when the front door swings open for the first time since I entered.

A boisterous group of five boys walk inside the previously silent pub and head over to the long counter. I watch them closely, intrigued by the chance to observe normal teenagers. They push and jostle each other in an attempt to order first, tossing around teasing remarks as they do. I don’t realize how intently I’m staring until one of them turns away from the counter to survey the rest of the pub. He immediately meets my intrigued gaze. I look away, cursing internally for drawing attention to myself.