At First Sight: (inspired by Aladdin ) (A Modern Fairytale) Read online

  AT FIRST SIGHT

  a m o d e r n f a i r y t a l e

  ~ A L A D D I N ~

  Katy Regnery

  I fell in love with her the first moment I saw her.

  That’s the truth.

  Does it sound corny?

  Maybe.

  Superficial?

  Probably.

  Impossible?

  Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I know.

  The thing is?

  I don’t really care what you lot think.

  I know what I know.

  Love at first sight is possible.

  I’m positive because I’ve lived it.

  I am Ian Ladd,

  a street rat from the back alleys of Limerick.

  She is Valentina Yasmina De’Medici,

  Her Serene Highness.

  This is our story.

  AT FIRST SIGHT

  Copyright ©2020 by Katharine Gilliam Regnery

  Kindle Version

  Sale of the electronic edition of this book is wholly unauthorized. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part, by any means, is forbidden without written permission from the author/publisher.

  Katharine Gilliam Regnery, publisher

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Please visit my website at www.katyregnery.com

  Cover Design: Marianne Nowicki

  Developmental Edit: Tessa Shapcott

  Line Edit: Ellie McLove

  First Edition: June 2020

  At First Sight: a novella / by Katy Regnery – 1st ed.

  ISBN: 978-1-944810-66-5

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  DEDICATION

  PART I: Fifteen Years Ago

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  PART II: Shear Heaven (aka Three Years Ago)

  PART III: Present Day

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  EPILOGUE: One Year Later

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  AMF COLLECTION

  ALSO AVAILABLE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  To everyone who waited patiently for this story:

  Never say never.

  Xoxo

  PART I

  Fifteen years ago

  CHAPTER 1

  Fifteen years ago

  Ian

  “Rake of people here t’night,” says one of the extras, banging into me as he rushes off stage.

  I grab him by the shoulder. “Full house?”

  “Packed. And fancy.”

  “You see her?”

  “Ain’t like she’s wearin’ a feckin’ tiara, Ian.”

  “Huh,” I grunt, letting him go and trying to ignore the sudden wave of nerves that thrums through my almost seventeen-year-old body.

  Tonight’s the final performance—the last time I’ll play Mercutio in the Limerick Youth Theatre’s production of Romeo & Juliet. Because our director—local doctor, Eugene Trímian—updated the play, setting it in the fucking war zone that’s modern-day Limerick, we got a big write-up in the Irish News. Some mank limey in London picks up the story and it goes viral in Europe. Suddenly, we start selling out tickets, and now, here we are—with a bunch of randoms from all over the fucking continent filling up the theater on our last night.

  And the craic backstage is that there’s a princess in the audience.

  A real princess.

  Honest-to-God royalty visiting from Italy with her parents.

  And I can’t speak for the other lads, but I wouldn’t mind a gawk at her.

  Two of my best mates, playing Romeo and Benvolio, line up behind me, ready to go on-stage as soon as Prince Escalus quits yelling at the Capulets and Montagues.

  “Jack Murphy said he saw her arrive in a limo. Said she’s deadly,” whispers my friend, Sean.

  “Jack Murphy can feck off,” says Luke. “Face like chewed toffee.”

  In Limerick, you know who you are early, and you’re either for Keegan-Clancy or for Murphy-Doyle. Seeing as how my mother was a Keegan by birth, I got recruited young. Same with Sean and Luke. We all came up Keegan-Clancy together, but we’ll be lucky if we live to see twenty with the way tensions are on the street.

  That was the whole point of this play, in fact: to give hooligans like myself, aligned with Limerick gangs from the cradle, the chance to act in a theatrical production on neutral territory. Me and my lads got cast as the Montagues. Them from Murphy-Doyle play the Capulets. But the catch is that there was no fighting allowed while we were at rehearsals. No grudges in the theater. Didn’t think it would work out, but somehow it did. We stayed civil with each other for a whole six weeks of summer rehearsals, and I won’t lie, I even started to like a few of those Murphy-Doyle bastards while we learned lines and blocking and theater-style sword-fighting. Even Jack Murphy, who I was raised to hate, ain’t all that bad…especially when he plays Tybalt and you get to watch him die at every rehearsal.

  That said, if there’s a princess here tonight, she ain’t going off with Jack Murphy. If she’s going off with anyone, it’ll be me. But first, I gotta see her.

  “That’s our cue,” says Sean, who plays Romeo.

  I step out on stage in my black t-shirt and tight jeans, my eyes adjusting to the bright lights as I lean against a papier-mache tree and eavesdrop on my co-stars talking about a Capulet bird named Rosaline.

  “Ah, me,” sighs Sean, his Limerick accent thick over Shakespeare’s lines. “Sad hours seem long…”

  “What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?” asks Luke in his monotone robot voice. I roll my eyes. Scrappy as fuck, Luke’s the best brawler I ever met, but he couldn’t act his way out of a paper sack and that’s the truth of it.

  I don’t have any lines until scene four, so I ignore the pair of them and scan the audience, my eyes landing on familiar faces: Mary Murphy, mother of pizza-faced Jack, sits in the middle of the third row like she’s the bloody queen of Éire. Behind her is Horatio Doyle, an up-and-comer in Murphy-Doyle, with a few of his lads flanking him. Two rows behind them, I can make out the dark, beady eyes of my cousin, Jarlath Keegan.

  It was Jarlath what first got me and my little brother running with the Keegans, promising us hot dinners while me mam was high as a kite. She was chewed up and spit out by my twelfth birthday, and Jarlath—ten years older than me—ended up taking in me and nine-year-old Albie. He used to beat us on the regular too, but over the last three years, I got bigger and started fighting back. I know he still gets a punch in on Albie from time-to-time, but not if I’m around. He don’t dare hit the kid in front of me. I’m a mean, whatever-it-takes, street-rat style fighter, just like he taught me to be. And what I lack in muscle tone I make up for in grit. I don’t stop hitting until my enemy is down for good.

  We lock eyes for a second, my cousin and me, with him putting a tattooed arm around my brother’s scrawny shoulders just to rattle me. Albie don’t notice. He’s focused on the action up on stage. I narrow my eyes, warning my cousin to leave Albie the fuck alone, and he winks at me with a lazy smirk on his ugly gob. I fucking hate him, I do.

  Skimming my eyes away, I
look for…for…

  Her.

  Fuck me.

  Her.

  I barely notice that my fingers are curling into fists, but they are, and while they’re at it, my heart speeds up, galloping like a pony at the track.

  Ka-dum. Ka-dum. Ka-dum. Ka-dum.

  The muscles in my chest flex and harden as I breathe deep and hold it. I step away from the tree, straightening up a little and focusing my eyes on the white-blonde of her hair—on the way the stream of a spotlight from the back of the theater tosses a halo over her head.

  A halo.

  Like she’s a fucking angel. Like she’s legendary. Like she’s not even real.

  Princess.

  There’s no mistaking who she is or what she is—it’s clear in the way she holds herself, sitting in a rickety velvet seat that’s seen better days: back straight, neck long, little chin tilted up, and wide, dark eyes fixed on the stage.

  Princess.

  My head tilts to the left and my face falls slack as I stare at her, eyes like fucking lasers, riveted on her beautiful face.

  I’m sure her skin is a regular pinkish color up close, but from here, with that glaring spotlight and from a bit of a distance, she’s almost otherworldly. Her crisp white shirt is open at the neck and a string of pearls hugs the base of her throat. Her light hair falls behind her shoulders in white waves, and tiny white sparkles in her ear lobes draw my eyes. I imagine the softness of that skin against my lips, compressed between my teeth. My filthy mouth waters as I slide my gaze to her mouth. Full and soft, her lips are a high-tone glossy in the light that streams over her head. A mental image of them wrapped around my cock makes my balls tighten.

  Make no mistake: I ain’t lonely. I get it on the regular when I want it, and mostly with who I choose, but suddenly I feel like a green kid who’s never fucked.

  That’s about when I realize I’m wearing tight jeans.

  On a stage.

  In front of the whole of Limerick.

  I tear my eyes away from her and stare down, expecting to see my cock rising like the River Shannon in high tide.

  Sheep. Tea. Rugby. Cricket. Limey bastards. The Queen of bloody England with her thousand-year-old cunt.

  I purse my lips together and breathe slowly through my nose, thinking of everything I hate, trying to get that beautiful fucking image out of my head before I’m sporting an on-stage boner. And thank the good Lord above for small mercies, but I feel my blood recede before the audience notices my struggle, except…

  Except when I glance up again, she’s looking at me. Right at me.

  Her.

  Princess.

  Seemingly aware of my struggle, and definitely amused, she fights not to smile as she lowers her gaze to my cock for a long second, then skims it back up my body to nab my eyes again.

  Brazen as fuck she is!

  Locked with hers, I feel my own eyes widen with disapproval as hers sparkle with laughter.

  Laughter! Laughter?

  Looking away from her, to a spot on the back wall of the theater, I make my face into stone. Fuck her and her fucking laughter. Ain’t had no fucking complaints in bed yet, and certainly no fucking laughter.

  Unable to stop myself, I slide my eyes back to hers and watch as she straightens her lips, lifting her head a touch and shifting her gaze to the stage. Now, she’s haughty.

  Yeah, I think. That’s right, princess. I’m no feckin’ joke.

  But not a moment later, her eyes slip back to mine, and this time—if I’m not mistaken—there’s a question in them. Or a challenge? Hmm.

  Wide and sharp, they lock with mine in a hot look, daring me to…to…—Jaysus, Mary and Joseph—I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. Not a fucking surprise, but I don’t speak princess very fucking well.

  All I know is that she’s asking me for something. I just don’t know what.

  What do you want? I wonder, wishing I could jump off this fucking stage, climb over all the people between me and her, clasp her perfect face in my dirty hands, and ask her.

  “I’ll go along, no such sight to be shown. But to rejoice in splendor of mine own,” says Romeo.

  And then the stage goes dark.

  ***

  Valentina

  Che palle!

  What balls!

  Indignance is mandatory, of course, because no one is allowed to look at me like that. I must be insulted that he’d be so bold, some young actor in a third-rate Irish play…but I can’t help the smile that blooms across my face while the stage crew changes the set for the next scene.

  Tall. Muscular. Dark hair. Navy blue eyes.

  Black Irish.

  He was wearing makeup on his face, but it didn’t hide the scar on his left cheek, and nothing on God’s green earth could quell the simmering intensity in his eyes.

  Dio mio! Scrappy, coarse and brutish, I was drawn to him the moment he walked out on stage.

  Before he noticed me, I noticed him, standing against that tree with an insouciance better left to royalty. As he scanned the audience, the muscles in my stomach coiled tighter and tighter, wondering when and if his searing gaze would land on me. His eyes rested first on an older lady, narrowing with disgust, and I could feel his disdain of her to my very core. Finding him far more compelling than the amateur acting on-stage, I followed his eyes as they slid to the man seated behind the woman, and then to the tall man and teenager sitting just in front of me.

  The tall man had leered at me when I sat down before the play, licking his lips in a way so darkly suggestive, previous generations of De’Medicis would have answered such insolence with poison. Maybe I felt a kinship to the young actor when I noted his reaction to the man—a look of such contempt, I felt like my honor had been somehow restored.

  And that was the moment his eyes slipped to mine.

  I watched his fingers fist and his eyes widen; the way his body straightened, and his chest swelled. For me. All for me.

  I didn’t miss the swelling of something else either, though he stared at the floor with intense concentration until the growing bulge in his tight jeans stopped rising. A fever spread out over my skin as I watched his struggle.

  Why’d you get so mad? I wonder as the lights come up on the second or third scene of the play. Wait. Fourth? I can’t remember. I’ve been ignoring the poorly acted play, glancing up for the sole purpose of scanning the stage for him before losing myself in my own thoughts. But this time…when I look up…he’s back.

  He enters with several other actors, including the ones playing Romeo and Benvolio, and I hold my breath, waiting for him to speak. When he does, I melt.

  “You are a lover,” he says, “borrow Cupid’s wings.”

  His voice is low and gravelly, with a grim color and gritty timbre. It’s older than he looks, like it’s been used a lot longer than sixteen or seventeen years. Like it maybe screamed itself into hoarseness at some point and never recovered.

  He cheats his body toward the audience as he speaks his next line, finding my face and nailing me with his eyes: “If love be rough with you, be rough with love.”

  I gasp softly at the combination of threat and promise in his delivery; at the way my flesh prickles and breath catches.

  “I dreamed a dream tonight,” says Romeo.

  “And so did I,” answers my dark Mercutio.

  “Well, what was yours?”

  I am on the edge of my seat when he grabs my eyes again. “That dreamers often lie.”

  “Non guardare,” my mother whispers close to my ear. Look away.

  I jump a touch, startled by her sharp whisper and annoyed by her command.

  “Perché?” I murmur. Why?

  She narrows her eyes at me, and I huff softly, angling my body away from her and averting my eyes from Mercutio, who is in the middle of a monologued tirade.

  My mother can demand that I observe propriety, but she cannot force me to stop listening to his voice. And though he speaks too quickly for me to understand all of hi
s accented English, I don’t need the words. I hear the passion in his voice. I hear the anger in it when I am no longer watching him. And I know it’s directed at me.

  Though we have never met one another, I feel like we are somehow connected, this young actor and I, and wonder if he feels it too. It’s thrilling to be silently bound to him like this—to this barbarian Irishman who, according to the newspaper, is probably part of a street gang.

  My mother was against my twin brother and I attending the theater tonight, but after reading an article about the way the show was fostering friendships between rival gangs, my father insisted on our presence, telling her that Nico and I were too sheltered for our own good.

  “They are spoiled children who don’t understand the plight of the common man!” he’d thundered. “Pampered royals who don’t know what other children suffer.”

  “You want your children to suffer?” my mother had screamed back.

  “I want them to know that their lives are not normal.”

  “And gang fighting is normal? You want to see it glamorized on stage?”

  “We are Italian!” he’d yelled, his eyes popping out of his head. “The birthplace of mafia.”

  “We are royalty,” she’d answered, eyeing him with disgust. “Above such things.”

  “We may live above such things,” he’d conceded with finality, “but we have a responsibility not to ignore them. Nico and Tina will attend the play…and that’s final.”

  Having spent most of our evenings bored to death in elegant hotels since beginning this European tour, Nico had grinned at me once we were alone in our room.

  “An evening at the theater, eh?”

  “Ha!” I’d chortled, falling back dramatically on the bed. “La Scala is the theater. This is…a joke. Street urchins playing at Shakespeare. Ugh.”

  “You’re such a snob, Tina.”

  “Va bene. I’m a snob. I can live with that, brother.”

  “It might be good.”

  “Un-bloody-likely,” I’d answered, stealing one of England’s more colorful phrases.