A Royal Entanglement: The Young Royals Book 2 (20 page)

He grabbed my arm and pulled me into the carriage next to him, wrapping his arms around me.
 
“You, Lady Alexandra, are full of surprises.”

I looked up at him and grinned.
 
He cupped my chin and brushed his thumb across my bottom lip, his eyes darkening, the amusement fading to be replaced by something a whole lot more intense and something I wasn’t prepared to acknowledge.
 
I waited for him to kiss me again… I wanted him to kiss me again.

“We should go,” he said shifting away from me and the moment was lost.

My good mood had fled.
 
It had been two days since I’d seen Alex, two days since the interview, two days since that moment on the carousel.
 
I hadn’t been avoiding her, my life had just gotten decidedly busier, besides, we didn’t have and scheduled dates.
 
I was just doing what she’d asked and following her damned colour-coded schedule.
 
I really wasn’t avoiding her, or so I told myself.

It was stupid really.
 
We’d been having a good time and I’d managed to make her forget about the disastrous interview and I had enjoyed kissing, but then she had to get up on that darned horse and show me a little bit of the wild child that she kept so well hidden.
 
Who’d believe me if I was to tell them that Lady Alexandra Fornette had stood up on a carousel horse and showed off her tricks?
 
Nobody.
 
Nobody would believe me and I’d be branded a liar.
 
If I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes, then I wouldn’t have believed it either.

She had opened up to me, shown me a glimpse of what was hidden underneath all that armour and it had kicked me in the gut.
 
I’d found myself wanting more than this fake relationship, something more permanent just because she’d done some stupid tricks on a wooden horse.
 
It was ridiculous and unwanted.
 
The last thing I wanted to do was get involved on a permanent basis, this was just meant to be a bit of fun and a way to get my mother off my back and keep Alex from disappearing back to the States.
 
It wasn’t meant to make me feel something for her, something more than friendship.

The damned woman was getting under my skin and I didn’t like it.
 
I was not ready to settle down; I didn’t want to settle down.
 
I liked my life.
 
I was having fun and playing the field and I didn’t need anything else.
 
I didn’t need a woman with big blue eyes and an intriguing smile with a laugh that wrapped around me and made me feel happy with the sound.
 
I didn’t need a woman with a secret tattoo and childhood dreams of being in the circus and a vulnerability about her that made me want to rescue her, made me want to hold her close and tell her that everything would be okay.
 
I didn’t need a woman that made me miss her with an intensity that made each hour we were apart feel like ten.
 
No, I didn’t need a woman like that in my life.
 
If only my damned heart could get the message.

I am not the sentimental type.
 
I don’t believe in love at first sight or soul mates.
 
I do believe in love, but never thought I’d ever experience it, I never wanted to.
 
But here I was falling and resisting with every part of me, except my heart and it seemed to have the ruling vote.
 
I missed Alex more than I could articulate even though my head kept telling me to keep her at arms length.
 
I found my mind wandering to little moments we’d shared when she’d made me smile.
 
I thought about the way she would blink her big eyes at me, the way her lips would curve in a smile when she saw me.
 
I thought about the way those lips felt under mine, the way her hand felt in mine, the softness of her skin and the silkiness of her hair.
 
She was a distraction and one that I could do without, but one that I couldn’t seem to rid myself of.

“Dayne,” I called through the door to my assistant.

“Yes?” he stuck his head into my office.

“Call for a car,” I said, “I need to go to the Palace.”

He raised his eyebrows, “You have an appointment?”

“No,” I said, “You know I don’t.
 
Just get the car and call the Palace to let them know I’m coming.”

He gave me a look before disappearing back into the outer office to do my bidding.
 
I knew Alex would be cranky at me for turning up unannounced, but I didn’t really care.
 
I needed to see her and as much as I didn’t want to give in to that need I knew I wouldn’t get another scrap of work done without seeing her.
 
I would have to ween myself off her, there’s no way I could go cold turkey.

I stood from my desk and slipped my suit coat on before stalking out of the office.
 
I fidgeted in the elevator and then continued to fidget in the car as we drove towards the Palace.
 
I was hopeless, I’d never felt this way about a woman before and didn’t quite know how to deal with it.
 
Usually they came to me, they stalked me, so this was a turn up for the books.
 
Dayne sat quietly beside me reading over some documents, but I could feel disapproval radiating off him.
 
We had so much work to do with the transition of not only my company but my father’s as well and the last thing I needed to be doing was acting like a love-sick puppy and chasing after a woman who felt nothing more than friendship for me, and a very begrudging friendship at that.

I didn’t wait for the footman to open the door before I was out of the car and jogging up the Palace steps.
 
I walked past the waiting butler and headed for the Queen’s office.
 
It was bad form on my part, but now that I was here, I only had one focus, getting to Alex.
 
I stalked into the Queen’s offices and pulled up when I saw Alex’s empty desk.
 
I looked around and saw one of Alex’s assistants and raised an eyebrow.

“Is Alex in with the Queen?” I asked.

She shook her head, “She had an appointment out of the Palace today,” the assistant said.

“Who’re you talking to Penny?” I heard Alyssa’s voice come from the office.

“Lord Bingham,” she replied.

Alyssa was suddenly standing in the door of her office with a wry smile on her face.

“Just the person I wanted to see,” she said, and I raised an eyebrow.

“Oh really?” I asked.

She stood to the side of the door and swept her hand in front of her, ushering me into the room.
 
I gave her a respectful nod and did as she requested.
 
Jamie, one of the Queen’s bodyguards, chuckled as I walked passed him and I shook my head.

“Have a seat,” Alyssa said.

I chose one of the plush armchairs and sat, undoing my suit coat button and resting my ankle on my knee.

“What can I do for my Queen today?” I said, and she stuck her tongue out at me as she took the chair opposite.

“Did you come to see Alex?" she asked, and I nodded.
 
“What can you tell me about this Bradley guy?
 
Should I be worried?”

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose while I thought the question over.
 
I couldn’t tell her the truth, so that meant lying to my sovereign, something she would not be happy about if the truth ever came out.

“Alex has told me that she has no desire to go back to the States,” I said truthfully.

“You’re sure?” she asked, biting her thumbnail, “There’s no chance she has residual feelings for him?”

“Would we be together if she did?”

“So why did she go to lunch with him?”

My angry flight from the Palace was abruptly halted by a trio of blonde women and a harried looking man.
 
The elder of the blondes had an unnaturally unlined face and wore far too much makeup.
 
The dress that was wrapped around her body was about two sizes too small to be decent and the plunging neckline showed more of her than I was prepared to see.
 
The other two women with her were younger versions of her and had picked up on her atrocious dress sense and makeup techniques.
 
There was something vaguely familiar about them, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Excuse me,” I said, trying to get passed them and out the Palace entrance.

“Oh, Lord Bingham,” the woman said, holding out her hand expectantly.
 
“What a surprise.
 
Lady Kiki Fornette.”

I took her hand politely and raised it to my lips in a pretence of expected protocol, but then dropped it as soon as was proper and it was only then that her name registered.

“You’re Lady Alexandra’s mother?” I asked, trying to hide my shock.

She smiled at me like I was lunch and then turned to the man on her right, “This is my husband Eddie and my daughters, Lily and Tina.”

The two girls sketched atrocious curtsies as I shook the hand of Alex’s father, still shocked by the people standing in front of me.
 
They looked like rejects from a very bad American reality television program and I half expected to see a camera crew following behind them.
 
How the beautiful, poised and graceful Alex could have come from such a family, I had no idea.

“I suppose Alex has told you all about us,” Lady Kiki said.

“Actually, no,” I replied, and the woman blanched.

“She hasn’t mentioned us at all?”

“Well, I knew she had parents and—”

“Fool girl,” Kiki snapped, “Whatever made her come to this dreary backwards country—”

“Now, now, darling,” Eddie said.

“I don’t know what she sees in this place,”
 
Kiki went on.

“They don’t even have TMZ,” one of the girls moaned.

“Or Starbucks,” the other said.

“And what’s with the nightlife?” the first one said, “Everything’s closed by midnight.
 
Everybody knows nothing good happens before two a.m.”

“I think the saying is that nothing good happens
after
two a.m
.
,” I said.

“Who’re you?
 
The saying’s police?”

I raised my eyebrows
 
more in shock than confusion.
 
I still couldn’t reconcile my Alex with these trashy people.
 
Had she been switched at birth?