Handle Me (Royals Saga Book 13), page 1
PRAISE FOR GENEVA LEE
“Sexy, sinful, and downright delightful! Geneva Lee is the queen of writing drama, angst, and the heroes of your dreams.”
CORA CARMACK, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LOSING IT
“A royal tale unlike any other. Heart-stopping, mesmerizing, a delicious treat with every page turned. I only wanted more.”
AUDREY CARLAN, #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF CALENDAR GIRL
“Captivating, emotional, and sexy-as-hell.”
MELANIE HARLOW, USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SOME SORT OF HAPPY
ALSO BY GENEVA LEE
THE ROYALS SAGA
Alexander & Clara
Command Me
Conquer Me
Crown Me
Smith & Belle
Crave Me
Covet Me
Capture Me
A Holiday Novella
Complete Me
Alexander & Clara
Cross Me
Claim Me
Consume Me
Smith & Belle
Breathe Me
Break Me
X: Command Me Retold
HANDLE ME
Estate Publishing + Entertainment
Copyright © 2023 by Geneva Lee.
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
www.GenevaLee.com
First published,2023, first ed.
Cover design © SergValen/Adobestock.com.
CONTENTS
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
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
August
September
October
November
December
January
February
March
April
May
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also by Geneva Lee
About the Author
To sisters,
especially kid sisters
CHAPTER ONE
ANDERS
As long as I’ve been racing, people have asked me why. Every driver gets asked that, and every time the person asking wanted some deep, philosophical answer. I was running from my past or racing towards my future or some other bullshit. The truth was not that profound.
There hadn’t been much else to do, growing up. It had only taken one time behind the wheel—one dose of pure, unfiltered adrenaline—and I’d been hooked. There was nothing like the vibration of the engine when I shifted gears. I didn’t care about the crowds or fame. I wasn’t trying to prove anything. On the track, it was me, the car, and my own mortality. The only thing that ever competed with it in my book was sex. I’d never been able to decide which was better. At least, it used to be that way.
“You’re taking that turn too wide. Tighten it up, Your Highness!” Wilkes shouted in my earpiece.
Translation: I needed to go faster.
“Sod off,” I shot back. I shifted gears, going full throttle as I headed into Copse. I wasn’t a fan of my new nickname, but I had a better chance of convincing the guys the world was flat than getting them to stop calling me that. They just needed a reminder I was the one behind the wheel. Wilkes wanted fast. He’d get it. I entered Copse blind. Taking this corner was always a leap of faith. I had to trust myself and my car. I didn’t hesitate. My wheels hugged the track as I took the turn, knocking it down into seventh before I felt the familiar lift. I shifted into eighth as I took the first left. I’d been told early in my career that you had to be suicidal or stupid not to be scared of this circuit. I had no clue which category I fell in, but these days I’d rather face it than what waited for me past Silverstone’s gates.
Reporters—if the bastards could be called that. Women—that bit wasn’t as bad. And a security detail.
At least on the track, I was free. Out there? My life was becoming a bloody circus act.
All because twenty-six years ago, some wanker I’d never met shagged my mom. Now that wanker was dead, all his dirty secrets were coming out, and I was the biggest scandal of all. The illegitimate son of a dead king with an older brother determined, for inexplicable reasons, to make me one of the family.
“Get your head out of your arse and drive!” Wilkes barked over the comms.
I snapped back into focus and accelerated into the final corner, only taking my foot off the pedal when I straightened my wheels. The team ran toward the astroturf as I slowed the Renault to a stop.
“Don’t bother telling me,” I said to my performance coach. I didn’t want to know my lap time.
Wilkes told me anyway. “One minute and thirty-two fucking seconds.”
He stalked off, leaving the rest of the crew to deal with my sorry ass. Another distracted day on the track, and I’d screwed my lap time harder than a sailor on leave. It wasn’t just practice at this level. Every lap counted when it came to securing the sponsorships that kept the multi-million dollar team running. More days like this, and the only companies willing to sponsor me would be retirement villages. Wilkes flew onto the track, headset in hand, yelling so loudly he was turning purple.
That couldn’t be good. Shit. At this rate, I wasn’t even going to get a retirement home to sponsor me.
Then I realized he wasn’t screaming at me. Tugging my helmet off, I pushed out of my seat and strained to get a look at what had my team boss frothing at the mouth. The crew surrounding the car made it impossible to see. I climbed out of the Renault and got a glimpse of what—or rather who—had him so worked up.
One look at the brunette and I couldn’t blame Wilkes for losing control. She wasn’t just a distraction; she was a walking wet dream. The wind whipped her glossy, dark hair around her face. Oversized black sunglasses shielded me from getting a better look at her. That hardly mattered. Her body demanded all my attention. Tight denim hugged her hips and tapered down to a pair of stilettos so tall, they looked dangerous. If she’d walked onto the track in those, she wasn’t just confident; she was daring. The black blazer buttoned at her waist dipped low to reveal enough cleavage that my balls ached. In the space of thirty seconds, I imagined every wicked thing I wanted to do to her.
A crew member hurried past, holding a tire, but I grabbed his shoulder to stop him. “What the hell is going on?”
“She just showed up and walked in like she owned the place,” he told me. His gaze scanned the mystery woman appreciatively. “I mean, I kinda hope she does.”
“You and me both,” I muttered and pushed him toward the car. He could look, but he couldn’t touch. Whoever she was, she was mine. I’d make sure of it.
“Anders!” Wilkes bellowed my name.
I ran a hand through my helmet-flattened hair as I jogged over. It stuck to my skin in the day’s sticky heat, and I swiped at the sweat gathering on my forehead. Dialing in my most charming smile, I slowed as I reached them. She turned and pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head, and I stopped short. I recognized that face, or I nearly did. She looked a lot like someone else I knew, which meant she wasn’t a stranger. She was the fixer my newfound family had sent to clean up my image.
Charlotte Bishop.
The five-minute phone call we’d shared had consisted of her giving me orders for four minutes and fifty-nine seconds. I’d known she was bossy. I’d had no idea she was gorgeous.
“Mr. Stone,” she called over. “I assume you forgot our appointment.”
Appointment? I must have missed that part during her never-ending list of instructions on how to behave since the world found out I was the bastard son of the late King of England.
“We spoke on the phone,” she prompted when I didn’t say anything. “Well, I spoke on the phone. You hung up on me.” Her nose wrinkled in annoyance as she recalled our first contact.
I couldn’t keep a smirk off my face, however. “If I’d known what you look like, sweetheart, I would have been a gentleman.”
Wilkes barked a laugh as though that thought was un-fucking-believable. Her head whipped around to stare at him.
“Ignore him,” I advised her.
“And that’s why your lap time was off by three seconds. Three!” He held up three fingers as if a visual might help me count. Wilkes shook his head with disgust and turned on her again. But this time, he didn’t bite her head off. Hell, he almost sounded shy. “Miss Bishop, don’t walk onto a racetrack when there’s a car on it.”
She offered him a sweet smile that didn’t match the attitude radiating from her. “Noted. Thank you, Richard. And call me Lola.”
I nearly choked when she said his first name. No one had called Wilkes Richard in years. I imagined his own mother didn’t use his first name. But more surprising was the bashful way my grizzly bear of a coach hung his head and grinned back.
“It’s okay. I just wouldn’t want to see you get hurt.” He looked over his shoulder at me and his expression soured. “We need to go over the readings. If you don’t shave that extra time off, you’re going to start losing sponsors.”
“Damn, you think I don’t know that?” I asked through gritted teeth. The last thing I needed was for Miss Bishop to know I was struggling behind the wheel. I was pretty sure that information would be reported straight back to my family. The only thing worse than having my older brother deliver what amounted to a hot babysitter to my door was getting a lecture from him. I barely knew Alexander, but that hadn’t stopped him from sticking his nose in my business at every opportunity in the name of my new family.
I pushed past Wilkes and headed toward the club.
Lola caught up with me before I reached the locker room. “Look, I didn’t come all the way from London to have you ignore me.”
“Sweetheart.” I turned on her.
Her eyes narrowed, revealing only a sliver of blue through her thick, black lashes. “Don’t call me sweetheart.”
“Okay, boss. Look, I didn’t ask you to come here. Now if you don’t mind, I need a shower.” I didn’t wait for her response. Pushing through the door, I stepped inside and began to peel off my tracksuit.
The door burst open behind me, and she stepped inside. It wasn’t going to be easy to shake Lola Bishop. “Actually, I do mind. You seem to be suffering under the delusion that I want to be here, Mr. Stone. ”
“Anders,” I corrected her. “And no, I’m not suffering under any delusions. It’s pretty clear you’re as pissed about this situation as I am.”
“Well, Anderson.” She stretched my name into its full form and batted those fucking eyelashes. I knew better than to trust the innocent face she pulled. “I’m only here to make sure you can keep your nose clean and your ass out of trouble. If you can do that, we’re good.”
Her words were as frosty as her demeanor. What would it take to melt the ice queen? “Is this because I hung up on you, Lola?” I asked. “If I’d known it would get your knickers all bunched up, I wouldn’t have.”
“I can assure you my knickers are not now—and never were—in a bunch.”
“Is that so?” I snorted and locked my eyes with hers. “Tell me more about the state of your knickers.”
“I’m not here to play games with you,” she said coolly, but color bloomed on her cheeks. The first and only sign I’d rattled her. “I just want to talk.”
“And I just want a shower.”
She tilted her chin, her blue eyes sparkling defiantly as she assessed the situation. Then, she shrugged one petite shoulder. “What’s stopping you?”
It was a challenge. I’d been racing long enough to know when a flag had been waved. So this was how the prim, no-nonsense Miss Bishop wanted to play it? I was game. I finished unzipping my tracksuit and shucked it off my shoulders. It fell to my waist, revealing my bare upper body. Today had been hot and all I wore under the suit was a coating of sweat. Her eyes lifted to the ceiling as she pretended not to notice.
“As I was saying,” she continued on with the barest strain in her voice, “if you would cooperate with me, we could get this over with.”
I kicked off my shoes before pulling my suit off entirely. Lola’s eyes flickered down, widening into saucers at the sight of my boxer briefs. She gulped and looked back up.
“I’m cooperating. You wanted me to listen.” I brushed past her to open my locker door. She shuddered slightly at the contact. “I’m listening.”
“Anderson—”
“Anders,” I corrected her again.
“Anders,” she muttered, her jaw clenched. “Can we get your little show over with, so we can get to work? I need to be back in London this weekend.”
“Absolutely.”
Lola thought she’d issued an order, but I saw it as an invitation. With one swift move, I shed my boxers and threw them into my locker. She startled as they sailed past her diverted eyes and she glanced down. Her mouth fell open when she got a look at the entire package she’d been sent to handle. Her tongue slipped out to wet her lower lip, but she didn’t speak. I’d managed to shock her silent. I waited a moment, enjoying the ego boost, before I continued, “You were saying?”
CHAPTER TWO
LOLA
Anderson Stone was naked.
My brain refused to process more than that simple fact. Although I was dimly aware I should stop staring, no matter how I tried, I couldn’t.
Because it turned out Anders had every right to his arrogant attitude.
“I’m sorry,” he said with a smirk that suggested he was anything but apologetic. “Is this making you uncomfortable?”
That was a challenge if I’d ever heard one. I squared my shoulders, lifted my head, and glared. “No. Why would it be of any consequence?”
A muscle ticced in his jaw at my subtle dig, but he shook it off. “Let’s be clear about this. My brother is worried about my image, not me. I’ve got everything under control.”
“Really?” I arched an eyebrow and began to count on my fingers. “Since you found out who your father really was, you’ve crashed your car during a race, got into a fistfight with your brother at a bar, and been on the cover of every tabloid in the world, looking like you just rolled out of bed.”
“Out of bed, huh?” he repeated, intentionally bypassing my point altogether. “Is that what you imagined? Seeing me roll out of bed?”
“It wasn’t a compliment,” I said flatly, ordering my body not to think about the images he was planting in my head. Anders might have made me blush, and he might have caught me staring, but there was no way I was going to pad his ego any further. “And from the looks of it here, your lap times are suffering. You and I have very different ideas of what under control means.”
His grin fell from his lips, and he stalked away. I followed, doing my best not to look at him and failing miserably. His broad shoulders continued into a lean, muscled back that narrowed into a tight ass so perfect I could probably bounce a penny off of it. God clearly had a sense of humor because Anders was as gorgeous as he was infuriating.
Get a grip, I commanded myself silently. This was ridiculous. He was not the first naked man I’d ever seen, so why was I acting like a teenage girl? “As I was saying,” I continued loudly, “the family thinks I can help you navigate the press and prepare you for—”
“I don’t give a shit about the press,” he cut me off.
“Not giving a shit is not a strategy,” I said tightly. “You need a strategy, or they will eat you alive.”
“Why?” He whirled around to face me, bringing his body uncomfortably close to mine. My nipples tightened into painful beads that poked against the lacy restraints of my bra. Heat pooled in my core, curiosity mixing with my annoyance. I already knew I hated him, but my body hadn’t gotten the memo. It seemed much more interested in this bastard than I was.
