The Princess & Her Alphaholes by Renee O’Roark
About Charity Delcour
Charity Delcour is a part time, working mum to three little monsters. She is married to her husband and partner of fourteen years. Her house is full of animals including two dogs, five ferrets, two snakes, a bearded dragon and a chameleon. Together they all live in a small town in Scotland, UK.
When she isn't writing or acting as a taxi for her children, she loves sewing. She is obsessed with all things supernatural and loves to read anything in that genre. Green tea is her drink of choice and chocolate is one of her major food groups. She is Harry Potter obsessed and is still sad she didn't get a letter from Hogwarts.
Charity would like to thank you for taking a chance on a new author and hopes you will enjoy reading.
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Chapter One
Torn Stars
Campbell
“Fuck no! Absolutely not! We’re popstars not a bunch of Z-List celebrity wannabes—”
Her voice grates on my ears and I have to close my eyes when she interrupts me and slams a small stack of gossip magazines on the polished boardroom table.
I should’ve known that when she insisted on having the meeting at the label’s HQs rather than on my yacht or someplace else, it meant trouble.
And I should’ve known that letting her blow me three years ago after the MTV music awards, when I was so drunk and high that I only vaguely remember collecting the award for Best Pop Band, was a lose-lose idea.
My grandma used to say “never mix business with pleasure” and fuck if she was right.
And as far as I’m concerned, there was very little pleasure because Leila was a complete disappointment when it came to making me come. Pun totally not intended here.
Pro tip: plump dick sucking lips don’t necessarily mean good head.
I wish I could tell that to past-Campbell and avoid all of this.
Because somehow if you have any sort of sexual contact with a woman, then she thinks that you owe her something.
“Camp, are you listening to me?”
If only she could stop screeching, that would improve the situation tenfold.
I focus my attention back on her and I barely open my mouth before she begins again. “Are you hungover?”
I don’t even dignify her with an answer. I’m obviously way too sober to tolerate her nonsense.
“You should thank me for pitching this idea to the board. The label was ready to write Torn Stars off—”
It’s my turn to interrupt her. “Really? Is it all down to your persuasive abilities? The fact that ‘Abilene’ has been number one in the singles charts for seven weeks doesn’t have anything to do with all this?”
Leila isn’t swayed by my statement and continues on her quest to make my life hell. “‘Abilene’ is a drop in the ocean of what you owe the label. You haven’t released anything for three years And it’s been already a year since you recorded ‘Abilene.’ Without Chaz Atwood, Torn Stars is dead. All you are is Porn Stars!”
She points a beige lacquered talon at the stack of magazines and my eyes dart to the images on the cover on the top of the stack.
It says Porn Stars and it has a photo of me on the deck of my yacht with two girls I don’t even remember the names of; one has her hand inside the crotch of my shorts and I’m holding a handful of the other one’s ass.
There’s one of Colton on a tropical beach somewhere surrounded by naked chicks, the important bits all blurred out, and one of Cruise in a night club dancing with a blonde.
His hand is disappearing up her mini dress and they both look sweaty as hell under the dance floor lights.
My only defense is a lame. “We’re twenty-one-year-old men. What the fuck do you expect us to do in our free time? Be in bed by ten o’clock and be tucked in by our moms?”
She snaps at me, obviously as aggravated as I am by all this.
“I don’t know anymore, Campbell. First of all I’d expect you guys to understand how serious the situation is and have the professionalism and basic sense of self-preservation to bother to attend this meeting.”
Her brown eyes skim over the empty chair by Colton’s side, Cruise is late, as usual.
As if my thought just summoned my best friend, he enters the room without knocking.
He’s clad in black leather from head to toe and he’s holding a motorcycle helmet in his hand, which he unceremoniously throws on the shiny mahogany table.
Leila narrows her eyes and her voice is dripping with poison when she greets him. “Oh, how nice of you to join us, Cruise.”
Cruise is a brooding asshole and I know for a fact that he hates Leila even more than I do.
So he smiles at her and winks.
See, this is the thing, it isn’t a real smile, it doesn’t reach his light blue eyes. I call it his serial killer smile.
The smile has the desired effect, because Leila stops talking and visibly recoils in her seat.
I’ve never seen Cruise lose his temper but normally he doesn’t need to, that smile is scary enough, it carries the promise of unspeakable and mysterious pain to whoever bothers him.
And I haven’t met anyone willing to challenge Cruise and find out exactly what you get for crossing him just yet.
After a tense moment of silence, Leila brings Cruise up to speed.
“Look guys, this is the bottom line. Your contract with MMM expires next week. Since Chaz quit the band you’ve had nothing but mediocre events where you appeared as guest celebrities. No albums, nothing notable to speak of. The only thing you managed to do, was to earn the nickname of Porn Stars thanks to your antics.”
Cruise raises a finger to object but Leila cuts him off, she doesn’t meet his eyes obviously still intimidated by my best friend.
“Don’t say that you recorded ‘Abilene.’ The money that song brought in doesn’t even cover half of what the label has invested in a band that hasn’t toured, recorded or done anything to bring in any money for the last three years. Your last album still brings in solid royalties but most of the rights are owned by your ex-band member Chaz Atwood, since he wrote the whole album. Same with ‘Abilene.’ The situation is such that the label was ready to drop you, but I got you one last chance. One last ditch effort to save Torn Stars. It’s obvious that without Chaz you guys are nothing. So I came up with an idea to find his replacement. A new frontman and lead singer.”
Cruise sighs. “So, auditions?”
Colton speaks for the first time, shaking his light brown hair. “No, dude. She’s fucking crazy.”
Leila throws a withering look his way and then sets her eyes back somewhere on the table while she tells Cruise what she got the label to agree on. “We’ll have a nationwide competition to find Chaz’s replacement. The first selection has already started. We’ll narrow it down to twenty contestants. The twenty will become ten during a televised event—”
Cruise sounds bored when he asks, “Like the X-Factor?”
Leila beams, nodding enthusiastically when Cruise doesn’t look particularly bothered about the talent show portion of her plan. But she hasn’t dropped the bombshell that pissed me off royally and I know that Cruise’s reaction won’t be as composed as mine.
“We want you guys to have a say in picking your next singer and guitarist. I had to plead a lot to make them agree to it, reminding the board that when Torn Stars was born you guys formed quite a friendship bond.”
Right. I almost fell for it too. Leila is a professional at buttering a shit sandwich, I have to give her that.
“This is why you’ll be given the opportunity to get to know each finalist before you make a choice. After the contestants are whittled down to ten, you’ll enter a mansion here in Hollywood with the Torn Stars hopefuls, a choreographer, and a singing coach. There’ll be cameras all over the house. You’ll sing and interact with each contestant and there’ll be special tasks and tests for them all leading up to a Friday night show where each week one hopeful will be voted out by the public, you and a panel of judges. You move into the house on the Fourth of July weekend and the final night is on Labor Day. The winner will be chosen among three finalists after a live concert where you’ll perform a set with each of the hopefuls. When a winner is chosen, Torn Stars will commence a relaunch world tour.”
For once in his life, Cruise has been shocked into silence.
He stares at Leila for a long moment and I can clearly see that he’s gobsmacked by the enormity of what our publicist and manager just sprung on us.
“I must have misunderstood part of what you just said. We’re judging a reality TV show? Where the contestants live in a house like in Big Brother and we vote one off every Friday night? You didn’t just say that you expect us to move into the house with them, right?”
Leila nods and her voice is surprisingly firm.
“That’s exactly what I just said. And let’s get this straight from the very beginning. You’ll be under constant scrutiny by the label and the public. You’ll have to sign a new contract where you agree to participate in the reality show portion of the band’s relaunch and commit to the world tour. There’ll be a few girls among the finalists but really, the label wants Torn Stars to remain an all male band. There’s a clause in the contract that forbids you to engage in ANY sexual activity with the contestants. If any of you sticks their dick where it doesn’t belong, Torn Stars will be terminated and the penalty you’ll have to pay MMM is sky high. So, no sex, no drugs, no excessive booze and no groupies. The label is investing a lot on you and my job is on the line too. If you fuck up, we’ll all be collecting unemployment together.”
Cruise laughs but it’s a dark, deep sound. There’s no mirth nor amusement in it and his light blue eyes look like two pieces of ice.
“Yeah, no. Fuck the label and quite frankly, Leila, fuck you too. There’s no way in hell I’m doing your stupid reality TV show.”
Leila doesn’t lose her cool, she looks at me and Colton and asks if we feel the same way.
I nod and Colton, always the polite one, the Prep School educated, rich kid, explains to her why her expectations are unrealistic.
“Leila, how can you expect us to live like monks? We’re motherfucking pop stars! That’s how we became famous! Our fans love our antics as much as they love our music. After all every girl dreams of hooking up with us. If you say no sex, you’re killing the appeal—”
Leila shakes her blonde head.
“Yeah. That was three years ago. I don’t have to tell you anything about all the recent sex scandals in the movie and music industries. Three years ago you were nothing but kids. Now you’re grown men and the last thing the label wants is to have to deal with potential legal trouble. After all, your fan base is still mostly teen girls and guess who gives those girls money to buy your albums and your merch? Their parents.”
My voice is pure sarcasm when I say that we’re fucking role models.
“As unbelievable as that may sound, you kind of are. Your fans look up to you and—”
Cruise had enough of this. He stands up and grabs his helmet, shaking his head. “It doesn’t fucking matter. I’m out.”
Leila tilts her head and asks him if that’s his final answer.
“You bet!”
It’s her turn to smile.
“I call bullshit. All your money is tied up in a chain of restaurants that’s failing. You’re a hell of a drummer, Cruise, but as a business man you kind of suck. Colton squandered everything with parties and girls and drugs. And you, Campbell? Your agent really screwed you over. You worked for peanuts. The only one that could afford to quit was Chaz because his parents negotiated an amazing contract when he started writing all your songs. And after the way Chaz almost died in that car accident and screwed up his hand, the label decided that enough is enough. If you guys hadn’t lived in a giant non-stop after party, Chaz would probably still be playing. So the only way Torn Stars is still gonna have a label is by completely cutting the shit out during the reality show and keeping it reasonable once you’re on tour.”
Cruise doesn’t budge. “Sorry sweetheart, it ain’t happening. We’ll find another label.”
This time Leila is the one with a cruel smirk on her over inflated lips.
“Yeah, good luck with that. You’re declining pop stars with a bad name in the industry. Three years ago and with Chaz? You’d have found another label just by snapping your fingers. Now? No one else will bet on you. You’re lucky that I’ve always had a personal friendship with you all and I begged the label’s execs on your behalf.”
Yeah, right. She’s got a personal friendship with us all right, like a seal with a killer whale.
I can despise Leila as much as I want but she knows she has us all by the balls; this is Torn Stars’ last chance at a musical career.
We all look at each other and after Cruise and Colton nod, I stare into Leila’s hard brown eyes.
“We’ll need to show the new contracts to our attorneys.”
“I’ve emailed you all a copy. Don’t take too long, the offer expires tomorrow at midnight.”