There's A Prince In The Kitchen

By Wesley Jade

Lucio De Luca finally has the life he wants in the small town of Rosenwood. A home, a restaurant loved by everyone, and a friend he can count on. But a past tragedy holds him back from attaining the one thing he still desires. Someone to share his life with.
An intense encounter with the gorgeous and arrogant Julian Romero sees opportunities knocking.
But can Lucio let go of the past, move forward and allow the willing man into his life?
This is his journey of healing and coming to terms with a past that has always haunted him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wesley Jade
• Release date: Apr 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370137817

Wesley Jade

Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Wesley can be found in the bastion of knowledge that is a library, where he happily works for his bread and butter, though he will deny that he is doing a job.When he is not pretending to "not work", he can be found at home, where he can safely remove his adult disguise and geek out on anime, books, and writing what he likes. You may on occasion find him at comic conventions dressed as a Pokemon, or in a bookshop with a panicked look on his face because he can't choose which book to buy.Wesley has also written a short story called fatal performance which can be found in the anthology CEA Writers without Boundaries, found here https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/719911.If you need to drop him a line, don't do it at [e-mail]. Just kidding! Please do.

Book preview

There’s a Prince in the Kitchen

Wesley Jade

Copyright Wesley Jade

For my Nano Group, and Bernie

Thanks everyone.

Chapter 1

I can’t breathe.

I am sleeping.

I am having a nightmare.

I know without a doubt what is happening, yet the terror and gut-wrenching fear still rushes through me like a tidal wave. My vision blacks out, and I feel myself being pushed down and dragged. Sniggers and vulgarities are being thrown down at me like sharp stones.

They were gonna get me good, teach me a lesson. Faggots like me didn't belong on God’s beautiful blue world.

My body shudders and I try to scream as hard as I can when I feel them pull my jeans off. I get kicked in my head for the trouble and blood gushes out of my mouth. Another kick spears into my abdomen.

‘No! Please let this nightmare stop!’

But it continues. It seems I have to play this out.

Eyes wet, gasping, I feel their brutal, hard hands roam my body. The tears sting my eyes and moisten the blindfold, tied painfully tight around my head. The cold wind knifes through me after my shirt is torn off.

I hear a belt buckle loosen, and my mind screams in terror.

Stop, I plead with them, but they laugh, these faceless monsters, and I whimper as I realize what is going to happen to me.

So I shut up. I would not give them the satisfaction of screaming out.

One of their clammy hands touches me, and I struggle not to wrench myself away, I know I am just going to get beaten more. This has to be over quickly. This nightmare has to end now.

Why couldn't I wake up?

And then I feel it, sliding between my buttocks. And then the stabbing-

I shot up out of the bed and landed in the corner of my room, breathing painfully hard and loud.

Just a nightmare, it was only a nightmare.

A keening sound disturbed the silence in the room, and I realized it was coming from me. After some effort to calm down, I shook my head and stood up shakily from the carpeted floor. Blindly, I walked toward the bathroom, turned on the shower as hot as I could handle, and stepped in after I shed my sweat drenched pyjamas. I let the scalding water fall over my body for a minute before I proceeded to scrub my body.

And scrub... and scrub... and scrub.

***

Twenty minutes later I felt as refreshed as I could be. After years of trying to forget and put that ordeal behind me, the nightmares had started up again. I would never set my foot in another big city as long as I could breathe. Those noisy, crowded cities filled with anonymous people could forget about Lucio De Luca returning forever.

Donning my chef's uniform, I headed downstairs to what my life was now. After that day I worked and worked until I mastered the one thing I knew I could do well, creating satisfying dishes, and eight difficult years later, I had my dream.

Lucio's was my life, the one thing I threw myself into passionately, and it had paid off. My family bistro was doing well, and there was never a slow day. I immersed myself in making people happy by filling them up with food that would satisfy them and keep them coming back for more. Perfection was something I demanded, from myself and everyone that worked under me, and as a result I was sure many of my staff members thought I was a tyrant. However, I was never mean to anyone. I was kind to a fault, which was probably worse for them. It gave them no choice