Royal Flush

After two weeks of being in the United States, meeting with the president to talk about the current energy crisis, all Jonathan wanted to do was fall into bed and sleep for the next 48 hours. But he knew that he didn’t have that luxury. As the future King of Canada, he knew that he had a day full of meetings he needed to attend and obligations he needed to tend to. And the sooner that he got started, the better.

“Abby!” he yelled, calling for the woman who was basically his keeper and made sure that he was in the right place at the right time. “What’s my schedule look like for today?” he questioned, knowing that she was probably lurking right outside the door, waiting for him to wake up.

“You have a meeting with the president of Greece to go over the plan that you developed to help the recovery of their economy at 9:30. Then you’ll have lunch with Prince Harry whose making his rounds through Canada. After that you have to pick up your tux for the ball tomorrow night,” Abby rattled off as she stepped into Jonathan’s bedroom.

Groaning softly, he rubbed a hand over his face. He absolutely hated going to balls. It seemed like he had to attend one at least once a month. Sure, it was a way for him to get out and meet the people, which was really important to him. It was always good to know the people that he would one day rule over. But for his mother, she saw it as a way for him to find his future wife, no matter how many times he had told her that he wasn’t looking to date, let alone marry, anyone right now.

“So what’s the ball for this time?”

Abby hummed softly, glancing down at the papers that she held in her hands. “It’s the yearly ball for your mother’s charity.”

“At least I won’t have to pretend like I’m interested.”

Chuckling softly, Abby looked up from the papers, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “True. You just have to make sure that there isn’t another mishap like at the last ball.”

Jonathan winced slightly at the reminder of the last ball. It had been to raise awareness to save the whales or the polar bears, he honestly couldn’t remember. He had just gotten back from a month long trip in Europe and had been dead on his feet. Halfway through the night he had barely been able to keep his eyes open and had snuck off to the coatroom to catch a quick nap. Three hours later he was being woken up by his very disappointed mother. It was something that he was still paying for.

“Speaking of your mother,” Abby started, snapping Jonathan out of his thoughts. “She wants you to stop in your father’s office before you go to your first meeting because she needs to speak to you.”

Jonathan frowned slightly. “Did she say why she wanted to speak to me?”

“Nope,” Abby answered with a shake of her head. “Maybe she just wants to make sure that there won’t be a repeat of last time, Sleeping Beauty.”

Jonathan rolled his eyes, raising his hand so that he could flip her off. “Remind me again why I haven’t fired you yet.”

“Because you love me and you know that you would never be able to find anyone as good as me,” Abby replied, smirking. “Now get your lazy ass out of bed, get dressed, and go speak to your mother,” she added before she was walking out of the bedroom.

Chuckling softly, Jonathan shook his head. As bossy and demanding as she could be, Abby was right. He knew he would never be able to find someone that could do the job as well as Abby did. He knew he didn’t say it enough, but he appreciated all the things that she did for him.

Climbing out of bed, Jonathan yawned softly as he trudged into his bathroom. He turned the water on for a shower, quickly stepping out of his sleep pants. He then stepped into the shower, groaning as the water hit his tired body. He wanted nothing more than to spend the next hour in the shower, just letting himself relax, but he couldn’t do that. He had people to meet with and he couldn’t make them wait. Especially his mother.

So he quickly washed the past few days of grime off his body before stepping back out of the shower. Wrapping a towel around his waist he shuffled back into his bedroom. He smiled lightly when he saw that his stylist, Dayna, had already laid out the suit that he was supposed to wear for the day. A part of him found it silly that he had his own stylist, but Dayna was good at making sure that he looked good, so he really couldn’t complain.

He pulled the suit on, peeking into the bathroom to make sure that his hair looked semi-presentable before he was walking out of his bedroom.

“Duncan, Brent. Nice to see you too,” he greeted the two bodyguards that were standing right outside his door.

“Morning Jonny,” the two replied in unison as they fell into step with him.

Jonathan wrinkles his nose, shaking his head at the two. “I hate when you two do that. Do you practice?”

“Practice what?” the two asked together, both raising their eyebrows.

“Fucking creepy,” Jonathan mumbled under his breath, rolling his eyes at the two of them. “So, do either of you know why my mom wants to see me?”

“No idea,” Duncan answered, shaking his head.

“You’ve been pretty good lately; kissing babies and visiting the poor. All that prince shit that you have to do,” Brent added.

“Maybe she wants to make sure that you don’t end up in the coatroom again like last month,” Duncan commented, smirking.

“At least he was by himself in the coatroom. Can you imagine what would have happened if the Queen had walked in on him with some girl?” Brent asked, chuckling quietly.

“I think that Andrée would have actually been happy to walk in on him with a girl. God knows that she’s been trying to marry him off since he turned 18,” Duncan stated teasingly.

“Shut up!” Jonathan snapped, glaring at the two bodyguards.

Listening to the two of them talk back and forth like that was like trying to watch a tennis match and it was giving Jonathan a headache. So he was glad that they were close to his father’s office. He nodded to Marián and Michal, his father’s top two bodyguard’s, in greeting before he was knocking on the door.

“Come in!” his father called out.

“Good luck Jonny!” Duncan and Brent stated, both of them giving him a thumbs up.

Jonathan resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he opened the door, stepping into the room. “Hello father, mother,” he greeted.

“Jonathan dear! It’s so good to see you!” Andrée stated happily as she walked over to him, pressing a kiss against each of his cheeks. “I hope that your trip to the United States went alright.”

“It was. The president and I discussed renewable energy and started to talk about a way to get the rest of America to see how good it is.”

“Good good,” Andrée murmured as she took Jonathan’s hand, leading him over to the chairs that were set-up in front of his father’s desk. “Now have a seat.”

Jonathan did as he was told, sitting down in one of the chairs. He frowned when he saw that two of the seats were already taken. One of hem was taking by Abby and Kelly-Rae, his mother’s personal assistant, was sitting in the other one.

“I’m glad that you had a good trip,” Bryan started. “But we have some more…pressing issues to deal with.”

“Like what?” Jonathan questioned as he turned his attention to his father.

“Like finding you a wife.”

“But I don’t want a wife!”

“Well…finding you a husband than.”

“No! I don’t want to get married at all!”

“Jonny,” Andrée cut in before her husband could speak. “You know that one day you’ll have to get married.”

“I know, I know. There’s just so much that I haven’t done yet. I’m not ready to get married.”

“Your father and I were married two who years by the time we were your age.”

“And that’s great for you, but that’s not what I want.”

“Jonathan, you are 26 years old and the next in line to become king. You need to start acting like it. You aren’t a child anymore,” Bryan stated firmly.

Jonathan had to bite down on his bottom lip to keep from snapping at his father. He knew that his parents only wanted what was best for him, but sometimes they could be so overbearing. Why couldn’t they just let him find a wife on his own time instead of pushing him to do it now?

“Fine,” he finally muttered. “But this is going to take some time. I’m going to have to find a girl who I’m interested in and who’s interested in me. Plus, I’ll want to date her for at least a year before I think about proposing. Then it will take at least a year to plan the wedding.”

“Normally, yes,” Bryan agreed with a small nod.

“What does that mean?”

“Abby and Kelly-Rae have come up with an amazing plan,” Andrée stated, clapping her hands together excitedly.

Jonathan narrowed his eyes as he turned to face the other two women in the room. “Oh really?” he asked darkly. Normally he thought of the two women as his friends, but now he was seriously thinking about having them sent to Siberia.

Abby just smirked as she shifted through the paper’s resting on her lap. “Kelly-Rae and I were talking about your love life, or your lack of one, and we decided something needed to change.”

“Exactly!” Kelly-Rae piped in, grinning at Jonathan. “We thought of maybe setting you up on some blind dates. Find some nice girl that would make a good queen someday.”

“And while that was a good plan, we knew how much your mother wants you to be married as soon as possible,” Abby added.

“So that plan went out the window because it would take at least two years before you probably even thought about getting married,” Kelly-Rae stated.

“Prince William was like 28 when he got married,” Jonathan grumbled.

“True,” Abby stated with a slight nod of her head. “But Prince William and Princess Kate have also know each other for years.”

“Prince Ha-“

“Prince Harry isn’t going to be inheriting the throne anytime soon. He has time to get married,” Kelly-Rae cut him off.

Jonathan sighed heavily, leaning back in his seat. “Fine. Tell me more about this plan that you came up with.”

Abby glanced over at Kelly-Rae, grinning widely. “So after the whole blind date plan fell through, we thought about looking up some of the girls you used to date. But all three of the girls that you had serious relationships with were either married or engaged. So that was another plan down the drain. But then Kelly-Rae came up with the best plan yet.”

Kelly-Rae nodded her head excitedly. “It’s the perfect combination of the previous two plans. It would be like an arranged marriage of sorts.”

“An arranged marriage!?” Jonathan exclaimed. “Are we suddenly living in the 1800’s!?”

Abby rolled her eyes lightly. “Calm down. It isn’t as bad as it sounds.”

“It’s actually a wonderful idea, dear,” Andrée chimed in.
“This isn’t going to be like your typical arranged marriage,” Kelly-Rae promised. “We want you to be happy and we want your future wife to be happy as well. So we came up with a list of about a dozen women we think would be perfect for you.”

“All of these women have similar interest as you and are all very good-looking. Most of them are daughters who have parents that work in the government. People who work at the embassy or Senator’s from the States,” Abby explained.

Jonathan raised an eyebrow slightly. “Alright, but I don’t see how that really speeds up the process of getting married.”

“Like I already said, this won’t be your typical arranged marriage. We made up profiles for all these women for you to look through. Then we’ll have you meet the women so you can pick which one you think would fit best with you,” Kelly-Rae explained.

“Once you pick out a girl, we come up with the backstory. We’ve already decided that you’ll have been together a year and a half, but managed to keep it hidden for so long because she’s been attending school in a different country. Then, after a few weeks, when everyone has moved on from the shock of finding out you’re in a relationship, you’ll propose to her.”

“And the girls agreed to this?” Jonathan questioned with a frown.

Kelly-Rae nodded her head. “We already contacted the girls and explained the situation. All of them are willing to lie about the relationship. Most of them see it as a way to move up in life.”

Jonathan blinked slowly, turning to look at his parents. “Do you think this is a good idea?”

“Absolutely!” his mother replied.

“I hate that you’ll be lying to the people,” his father stated. “But there are worse things that you could be lying about.”

Sighing heavily, Jonathan ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

“Of course you do, darling,” Andree stated, frowning slightly. “All I want is for you to be happy. If that means that you’ll wait a few years before getting married, so be it. That will just give me more time to plan the perfect wedding for you.”

Jonathan nibbled on his bottom lip, staring down at his lap. He really didn’t want to go along with the plan. He wasn’t ready to get married. He knew that it was something he needed to stat thinking about, but it wasn’t very high up on his list of priorities.

But he also knew how much this meant to both of his parents. His mother had been casually dropping hints about him finding a nice girl to settle down with since he had turned 18. For his father, Jonathan knew that it had more to do with him being ready to take over as King instead of finding a girl he loved and wanted to settle down with. Ether way, this was something that both of his parents wanted and he had never let them down before and he wasn’t about to start now.

“All right. I’ll do it.” Jonathan stated as he looked up at his parents.

“You will?” Abby, Kelly-Rae, Andrée, and Bryan exclaimed at the same time.

Jonathan gave a nod of his head. “I will.”

“Oh darling! That’s great!” Andrée stated happily as she moved over to Jonathan, pressing a kiss against his cheek.

“You’re making a good decision son,” his father stated proudly.

Abby exchanged a look with Kelly-Rae before she was clearing her throat. “I’m glad that you agreed to do this, Jonathan. The next part of the plan is for you to go through the profiles of the women and pick out five or six that really interest you and tomorrow night you can meet them.”

“Tomorrow night?”

“Yes,” Bryan answered. “All of the women have been invited to the ball tomorrow night. I expect you to spend some time with each of the women you pick out and by the end of the night I want you to have picked out the women that you would want to marry.”

Jonathan swallowed hard, giving a nod of his head, not trusting himself to speak.

“Great,” Bryan stated, clapping his hands together. “Now that it’s all settled, we shouldn’t keep you any longer. Wouldn’t want to keep the president of Greece waiting.”

“Right,” Jonathan mumbled as he slowly got to his feet.

Andrée smiled widely as she gave Jonathan a hug. “Thank you so much for doing this. I promise that you won’t regret it.”

Jonathan forced a smile to his face as he hugged his mother back. “I know I won’t,” he murmured before he was pulling away.

“Here are the profiles,” Abby stated, holding some folders out to Jonathan. “Look them over tonight then make a list of the women that interest you the most and text it to me.”

“Can do,” he stated softly as he took the folders.

“You made a good decision,” Kelly-Rae assured him with a smile.

Jonathan just smiled weakly, giving a wave of his hand before exiting the room.

God. He really hoped he was making a good decision.