Dominant Prince’s Foreign Bride

Leap

Ziva landed at the Leap international airport. The Leap invitation came just at the right time when she desperately needed to get away from her obsessive trillionaire ex-fiancé. She was pleased to find her driver already waiting for her at the pick up point. The Leap organisers scored a point in her books for that. She hated waiting and had very little tolerance for people who don’t keep time. Looking around on the way to Caper, the capital city, she was greeted by the sea breeze, attractive landscapes and sunshine. Passing different impressive golden skyscrapers and vendors selling honey and many honey-based products, she understood why this tropical country was known as the country of gold and honey. She rolled her eyes when she passed a huge billboard of Prince Richard welcoming visitors to Leap. Tall, sexy and majestic, she had seen too many of his photographs with different women when she was surfing the internet to get herself familiarised with the country. That made him a player in her books and she hated playboys with a passion. “He must really love his own image,” she thought to herself, and continued looking around until she reached the recently established Leap blood bank headquarters.

“Welcome to our beautiful Leap, Dr Harris. I am Laura Smith, the haematologist in charge of the project,” Laura said, nervously shaking Ziva’s hand.

Ziva looked at the beautiful woman in her late twenties with awe. Laura’s melanin-filled skin was flawless, her oval-shaped face, full lips and hazel eyes just perfect. Laura was simply beautiful and reminded her of the former Miss Universe who was also from Leap.

“Thank you for having me and please call me Ziva,” Ziva responded warmly, glad to be meeting a fellow haematologist and secretly relieved that she would be mostly dealing with another woman around her age in this monarch country.

Laura smiled, revealing her sparkling perfect set of teeth. “Thank you so much for accepting our invitation, I am out of my depth with this stuff,” she confessed. She was starting to worry when Ziva did not respond to her invitation. She was used to attending to sick people. Setting up a national blood bank was a different story, something she was never trained in. Had the health minister not approached her personally, she would never have agreed to do it.

Ziva gave her a knowing smile, recalling how nervous and how much she second guessed herself the first time she set up the national blood bank in Asherway. Now years later, she has helped so many countries do the same. “It can be overwhelming at first, but I assure you that your blood bank will be up and functional sooner than you think,” she reassured her, confident in her abilities to facilitate the process.

“That’s a relief,” Laura said, letting out a sigh and feeling like a huge weight was lifted off her shoulders. She did her homework and knew Ziva’s impressive reputation. If the renowned haematologist that helped other countries set up and run successful blood banks was confident that she could do it too, then she definitely could.

Two weeks later, at the rural outskirts of Caper, Ziva stood outside the mobile blood bank container, fuming. Her hands clenched into fists and nostrils flaring, she wanted to scream and curse out at Prince Richard for being an arrogant bastard. She watched him leave the park with the six potential blood donors who would have added to the country’s critically low blood stores. An Asherway citizen, Ziva helped multiple countries set up their national blood banks, but Leap was more challenging than most. The private company that used to run the blood bank there had breached a lot of ethical laws by paying off the donors. The universal rules and laws throughout the world were against paying blood and tissue donors. This was mainly for the protection of the poor who could be easily manipulated into selling off their organs or blood to make some money. The Leap citizens had gotten used to the private company giving them bribes to get them to donate, it was really hard for them to get donors who were willing to donate willingly without being paid. Even with the television and social media adverts encouraging people to donate, they were only getting a handful of donors. For the first time in two weeks, today looked promising. They had at least twenty people who came to listen to their presentation and sounded really interested in being blood donors. The team was thrilled when twelve of the people enlisted to donate that day. That was to be their best day thus far. Six of the twelve had just finished donating when they heard excited screams outside and the six waiting donors ran towards their Prince who had stopped to greet them. Unfortunately for the blood bank team, their six potential donors happened to be young women who were crazy about their prince. They helplessly watched them take selfies and get autographs from him and his friend. Ziva was utterly enraged when she heard the prince invite the women to the event they were attending, leaving them with no more donors.

“You must be kidding me! Did he have to come and recruit them here?” Ziva exclaimed, furious.

Laura sighed, disappointed. She was the haematologist assigned to start and run the Leap blood bank and the one who extended the invitation asking Ziva for assistance. She had hoped that this day would be better than the previous ones. “Just our luck, I guess. Leap girls are crazy about Prince Richie,” she said, unable to mask her disappointment.

“Well, your Prince should know better. We are setting up a national blood bank here. That’s something he should be interested in, not be the one sabotaging it,” Ziva said, irritated.

“I don’t think that was intentional. It’s my fault, His Majesty normally posts where he would be. I should have checked beforehand and avoided the place,” Laura explained, making a mental note to check this on a daily basis going forward.

“You are kidding, right?” Ziva asked, surprised that Laura would blame herself when it was clear who the culprit was on the matter.

Laura shook her head, she really felt responsible for what happened.

“So, you believe that we should be the ones avoiding the egocentric man-who*e instead of him working with us?” Ziva asked, hoping she heard Laura correctly.

Laura's eyes opened wide, shocked. “You can’t call His Majesty that, I’m pretty sure it’s a punishable offence.”

“Your Majesty should stop acting like a spoiled brat, remind me to raise that up when we meet the royals,” Ziva said, walking back into the container and discarding the six forms with missing donors.

Laura shook her head, she wanted to tell her new friend about how kind, fair and compassionate Prince Richard was, but Ziva had a very skewed opinion of him which she intended to address once she had calmed down. She made a mental note to keep the prince as far away from her new very outspoken friend as possible until then.

Two hours later, the team had not recruited any more donors and the weather was not on their side. The clear blue skies and sunlight they enjoyed earlier had vanished, replaced by angry black clouds and it was starting to drizzle. Convinced that they were unlikely to get any more donors that day, Ziva and Laura let the rest of the team go while they were packing up. The plan was to leave the container there and return the following day to give the people another chance before moving on to other towns. Ziva and Laura were still packing up when it suddenly became dark, lit up in the darkness, heavy rain fell accompanied by strong winds and thunderstorms.

“Damn it! I don’t think we will be returning to Caper today,” Laura said, putting on her jacket. Leap had the most beautiful sunny days but also terrible rain and storms.

“That’s okay, I can tell people about my Leap adventure. Sleeping in a container in the park in the middle of the storm should be fun,” Ziva responded, also putting on her jacket.

Laura laughed, relieved. After her outburst about Prince Richard, she thought Ziva would loose it when she realised that they would be sleeping there. “So the Prince upsets you more than the weather?” she asked, amused.

“The weather is a natural phenomenon outside of anyone’s control. I can’t say the same for your Prince,” Ziva responded.

“The people of Leap adore the royal household, especially the Prince. You may say we treat him like you do the weather,” Laura said, hoping to change her friend’s strong opinions of their beloved prince.

“Well, you shouldn’t. He has a brain and responsibility that comes with his power,” Ziva objected. This was the most absurd thing she'd ever heard.

Laura shook her head, giving up on her friend. “I’m going to look for some supplies, we should have emergency torches and blankets in the store cupboards.”

Luckily for them, their cupboards had three extra-sized sleeping bags, guaranteed to keep them warm until morning. The two were about to call it a night when they heard a knock at their door and the people they least expected ran inside the moment the door was opened.

“Good evening, ladies,” the two men greeted charmingly, looking at the two women curiously.

“Your Majesty, Oscar,” Laura greeted back respectfully, while Ziva walked away and took a seat at the nearby chair. Just seeing the prince again brought back her anger.

“Laura? Laura Smith?” Oscar asked, looking at her in disbelief.

“Yep,” Laura responded, shrugging her shoulders.

“You must be kidding! How have you been?” Oscar beamed, looking at her from head to toe.

“The Laura, that broke your heart?” Prince Richard asked, amazed. He only met Laura once, a month ago, but she was introduced to him as Dr Smith at the time.

Oscar nodded “The one and only,” he said.

Laura shook her head. “I didn’t… anyway, this is my friend Ziva from Asherway. Ziva, this is Prince Richard and this is Oscar,” she said when she noticed that Ziva had quietly separated herself from their visitors and focused her attention on the useless form in front of her.

“Good evening,” Ziva greeted her with a straight face without lifting her eyes from the form.

“I had no idea that Asherway had such beautiful women. What brings you to Leap, My Lady?” Prince Richard asked charmingly, walking towards her, leaving Laura and Oscar near the door.

“I came to help Laura set up the Leap blood bank,” Ziva responded with the same tone, already irritated by his deep baritone-like voice.

“Oh, yes. You are the expert Dr Smith told us about. We really appreciate your assistance in such an important project. How is it going?” he asked, ignoring her obvious disinterested attitude.

“You mean before or after you sabotaged our efforts?” Ziva snapped. The prince had the audacity to ask her after he left with their donors.

Prince Richard was taken aback. No one except his siblings ever snapped at him like that. “I don’t follow,” he confessed, wondering how he offended the Asherway expert when they just met.

Ziva rolled her eyes. “Of course you don’t,” she said, before turning her eyes back on the form in front of her. She would not waste her time explaining something when he was obviously acting ignorant.

Prince Richard was taken back again. This was new for him. Everywhere he went, people cheerfully received him and that was not even due to his title, but his good deeds and playful nature that always got people smiling and feeling at home.

“Everything else is on track but the recruitment of donors has been challenging , Your Majesty. The six women who joined you earlier were going to be our biggest recruitment to date,” Laura explained, hoping the prince would understand her friend’s attitude towards him.

“I am sorry, I had no idea,” Prince Richard said, the interaction with Ziva making a bit of sense, but still he thought she must be very bold to actually give him attitude for it. No civilians, with the exception of his very close friends, had ever openly registered their displeasure with him before. “I hope the Asherway beauty will find it in her heart to forgive me,” he added, getting closer to Ziva and looking at her charmingly, a move that always swept women off their feet and granted him his way but it achieved the opposite this time. To Ziva, the prince was a typical playboy, too obvious and superficial. She did not believe that his apology was even genuine.

“It’s your country, your blood bank. You should be concerned more about your people who will die because of blood shortages than flirting with me,” she said sternly, glaring at him. “I wouldn’t be surprised if such serious consequences don’t concern you,” she added, unable to help herself. Her experience in other monarchy countries should have been enough to make her proceed with caution when talking to the prince, but she was too angry to control her temper.

“You don’t like me much, do you, My Lady?” he asked. It did not matter what he tried, Ziva was just not impressed with him.

“The word is indifferent, Your Majesty,” she responded, not bothering to deny his allegations.

Laura shook her head, this was just her luck. She had made a mental note to keep Ziva away from Prince Richard only for him to show up a few hours later.

“Why is that, My Lady?” Prince Richard asked, secretly starting to enjoy this challenging conversation.

“I would rather leave your country with my head still attached to my neck if that’s alright with you,” Ziva replied.

Prince Richard chuckled, somehow intrigued. “I grant you the permission to speak your mind, My Lady,” he said, opening the gates to Ziva’s sharp critical tongue.