Playing Dirty (A Bad Boy Sports Romance) (25 page)

“We have art historians here to look at them from time to time,” the Queen said, when I asked why I’d never seen these pictures before, “but they all say the same thing: don’t move them. There are some paintings, held in galleries throughout the world which I think will never leave the rooms in which they are now housed and are destined to be seen by only a few. The argument being that they are too precious to risk moving them. I always think that if they are not being seen, then really you might as well break them up for firewood. But I suppose in the future perhaps…who knows. A Queen is not supposed to have an opinion on these things. It can be most frustrating at times. Ah, here is something a bit different.”

At the end of the gallery was a much later painting, and though it did not have the quality or innate fascination of a Velazquez, I was still glad to see it, as it portrayed the current royal family.

“Photographs are all very well and no doubt an art form in themselves,” the Queen commented. “But I do believe in keeping up old traditions like official portraiture. And really, if a woman who rides around in a horse drawn carriage can’t keep up outdated traditions, then who can?”

Her eyes sparkled with good humor, and I smiled before craning my neck to get a better look at the portrait.

If it lacked the patina of an old master it was at least a good representation, capturing accurately the likenesses of the Queen and her two sons, and I found my eyes straying of their own accord to Prince Andrew. The painter had certainly caught his good looks and also the swagger in his bearing—even in a two dimensional painting, Andrew’s cock-sure attitude seemed to leap forth. But there was something else too; a weight seemed to rest upon the shoulders of the painted monarch-in-waiting, a seriousness that lay behind his eyes and a decency that shone from his features.

All of this was a lot to read into a picture, and I knew why. I’d read in a volume of art criticism that the paintings we really love (not necessarily the best, but the ones that most capture us) were the ones to which
we
brought something. The more a painting appealed, the more worlds a viewer was able to read into it, and the more it seemed to speak to them personally. To put it another way: it was possible that everything I read into the painting of Andrew was stuff in my head that I was projecting onto it. And yet I still saw it clearly.

In my long study of the picture, I’d almost forgotten that I wasn’t alone in the gallery, and I jumped slightly when the Queen spoke.

“You like it?” There was a curious look in her face as she asked. She was a very perceptive woman, and I hoped she hadn’t noticed exactly where my stare had been directed.

“I…yes,” I replied. “He’s definitely captured something.”

“Perhaps.” The Queen seemed less certain. She turned her own eyes to the painting for a few more moments. “I daresay one is always overly critical when it is oneself on the canvas.” She looked back to me, that curious expression back on her face. “How are you finding it, working under Andrew?”

I swallowed uncomfortably, somewhat disconcerted by the Queen’s choice of words. Had she overheard Michael’s accusation? Was ‘working under Andrew’ her way of asking if I was sleeping with her son? Whether it was or wasn’t, it seemed clear to me that the Queen had noticed my preoccupation with the Prince in the portrait and was pursuing it. Honesty seemed the best policy, because during our very brief association, I’d come to like and trust her.

But honesty with a side order of discretion, perhaps.

“We got off to a bumpy start,” I said, which was an understatement but largely true. “But now I think it’s fine. He was quite apologetic about…about the bumpiness. And perhaps I wasn’t completely blameless either.”

Andrew’s sleazy, jerkish reaction yesterday might have been uncalled for, but I was willing to admit that the vacuum cleaner at eight in the morning had been wholly malicious in its motivation, seeing as I’d heard Rogers mention that Andrew had been to a charity soiree the night before.

“Good,” Queen Constance replied, though I could tell that this answer had by no means satisfied her completely. “He is respectful?”

“I think so,” I said. At least he had been this morning. He’d been looking at me rather oddly, but not in a sleazy way; not like yesterday, and he’d even apologized when I noticed.

“It was always going to be a little awkward because—I don’t know if he told you—we’ve briefly met before,” I continued. “When he was in New York. That’s where I’m from.”

The friendly nature of our relationship and the trust the Queen seemed to place in me had motivated me to tell the truth—I didn’t wish to keep things from my boss and saw no harm in it. But as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I saw her stiffen, and I realized that I’d made a huge mistake. It was one thing for the Queen to break rank enough to enjoy an afternoon of art appreciation with a servant, or even to discuss the problems in her own family, but there were lines, and I’d apparently crossed one.

“In New York, you say.”

It was not a question but a bald statement. The Queen seemed a different person from mere moments ago; then she had been a person, now she was the sovereign, retreating behind the crown.

With a shock, I suddenly recalled all the pictures of Andrew that had been in the papers and magazines and plastered across the internet, from his time in New York. Pictures of him with one girl or two girls, or a whole crowd outside the bar where we’d met for that one ill-fated drink. All the girls were anonymous conquests, and the idea that any might pursue her son for some claim to him had clearly panicked the Queen.

I hastened to explain that I wasn’t one of those tabloid girls. “Oh, your Majesty, I don’t want you to think that—”

With a silencing hand gesture, the Queen interrupted me. “Please, I do not wish to know the details. I am aware of my son’s life choices but I have no desire to hear about them. Perhaps that is cowardice in me, and perhaps my inability to face it is the reason he runs as wild as he does, but there it is.”

“But what I meant to say is that I’m not one of those girls from the gossip columns,” I said. “We didn’t….it was different.”

I’d thought that the Queen might be angry, but instead she met my statement with an almost inexpressible sadness in her eyes. “I know, my dear. No one ever thinks they’re one of those girls. They’re always ‘different’. But they never are.”

A cold streak of doubt passed through me. If it hadn’t been for those girls outside the bar, then I definitely would’ve gone back with Andrew, and we definitely would’ve slept together, and then…what? I would’ve been just another one of those girls? Another notch on his bedpost? On the night, I’d tried to convince myself that that was all I wanted; my first one night stand. But even then it had been wishful thinking; I’d really liked Drew Ellis and wanted more, and naïve as I was, I’d thought he wanted the same. And who could say how many other girls had been in that very position with him?

And yet…no. I
was
different, at least in one way. I hadn’t slept with him, even though I’d had the chance to. And for all the strangeness of the last few days, there was something between us. For all that I tried to impose distance and professionalism on our relationship, there existed a spark, a tug, a something that drew us in a way that went deeper than mere attraction. It was impossible to explain, but it was there, and I felt it burning deep within my body every time I pictured him.

“Your Majesty, I think I might’ve given you the wrong impression,” I said, speaking more passionately than I’d intended. “It wasn’t…”

Her hand went up again, and I snapped my mouth shut without even thinking about it. Though her façade had cracked again for a moment, the Queen was all business again.

“I think it best for all concerned if you have no further contact with Andrew. Please go about your duties for now, and I’ll have Rogers reassign you from Andrew’s service soon.”

“But…”

“Are you arguing with me?” All geniality was gone, replaced by icy, regal hauteur.

I demurred. “No, of course not, your Majesty.”

“Then go.”

“Of course, your Majesty. Thank you for allowing me to see the Long Gallery.”

She nodded, and I turned and hurried for the door. For a moment, I thought that I saw something like regret pass fleetingly across the monarch’s marble features, but perhaps I’d just imagined it.

Good job, Keira,
I chastised myself as I headed down the hall. Only my second day on the job, and I’d really screwed up.

No…I’d
royally
screwed up.

Chapter 8

Andrew

As part of my mother’s new drive towards her sons, getting us to pull our socks up and assume some more of the responsibilities of our station, I’d spent the afternoon at a special school for blind children in West London. I’d been shown around classrooms, joined in with the choir and tried my hand at blind football, in which the ball had a bell in it and at which I’d been utterly useless, much to the amusement of the kids. I hadn’t been looking forward to it at all, but to my surprise, it had been a good day. No doubt this was not representative of all the duties a King—or King-in-waiting—had to perform, but it was still an eye-opener. All the stuff which I’d been shirking, skiving and hiding from for years was not as bad as it might’ve once seemed.

By the time I arrived back at Richmond Palace, I had a definite task in mind. During the ride back, and indeed during most of the day, the whole tone of the trip had made my mind turn inevitably to Keira. Now that I came to examine that thought, I wasn’t quite sure why I should regard it as inevitable. You’d have to go by a long and tenuous route to draw a direct line between Keira and a school for blind children in West London, and yet my subconscious had apparently drawn that line, as everything I’d done and seen during the day reminded me of her. I’d been visiting a school—Keira had presumably gone to school. I’d sung with a choir—choir sounded a bit like Keira. I’d played football—football was a game Americans referred to as soccer and didn’t generally like, and Keira was American.

See? The links were there as plain as the nose on my face.

It was as if the universe was trying to tell me something, and who was I to mess with the universe? It was much bigger than me. I also considered it notable that the teacher who’d shown me around today was absolutely gorgeous, and I hadn’t even thought about that except to think one thing: Keira was better.

Way bloody better.

The girl was firmly in my head, and as far as I could see, there were two possible reasons, each denoting a clear course of action. Firstly: in New York I’d planned to sleep with her and had been denied by pure bad luck. When a girl turned me down, then that was one thing; from that I could move on, but this was grossly unfair, and on both of us, too—Keira had been denied a night with me, which seemed totally unfair on her. That would explain my constant obsession with her and suggested an obvious course of action…

Sleep with her.

Get her out of my system by getting myself into hers. One night of passion and all this daydreaming would be behind me, and I could get back to other girls.

There were two problems with this first possibility. Firstly, it was a load of bullshit. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to sleep with Keira, but that wasn’t where my mind kept taking me. I wasn’t imagining her in bed, riding my cock or writhing under me as I fucked her senseless…instead I was imagining us chatting over a drink, going for long walks, and all that other crap that I’d never previously had any time for. I could pretend that all I wanted was a roll in the hay—and Richmond Palace’s stable block presented ample opportunity for that—but it just wasn’t the case.

Secondly, I didn’t want her out of my system. I treasured every wasted moment spent thinking about her. Far from wanting to get back to other girls, I found that I’d rather dream a conversation with an imaginary Keira than have raucous, animal sex with an actual woman. A few years ago, I’d had minor surgery, adjacent to my groin and the doctor had told me to abstain from sexual activity for two weeks. Within days, I’d practically been humping the furniture in frustration. But now…I felt barely anything. I was frustrated about how things were between me and Keira, but that frustration wasn’t sexual.

Okay, maybe it was a
little
bit sexual…but still, my point held.

So if the idea that I was obsessed with Keira because I still wanted to sleep with her didn’t hold water, then that left only option number two.

I had feelings for her.

There were people who had an almost allergic reaction to using the ‘L’ word, but I took that to a whole other level—I could seldom bring myself to even use the ‘F’ word.
Feelings.
Feelings were for other people, people who had given up on ever having sex again; pussies and pathetic daydreamers. I’d divided the women of the world into those I wanted to have sex with, those I didn’t want to have sex with, and those with whom I’d already had sex (and I seldom went back over old ground). My ‘feelings’ never went beyond that.

Whether or not I had any sort of feelings for Keira, I was largely unable to say for the simple reason that I’d never had them, or anything like them, for any other woman, and so I had no idea what it actually felt like. For all I knew, I’d picked up some rare disease in New York, for which the symptoms included sweaty palms, dry throat, butterflies in the stomach, constant day-dreaming and of course, acting like a total bloody prat. What the hell had made me think I could treat Keira in the way I had to make her respond with anything other than contempt? If I had ‘feelings’, then clearly they weren’t contagious, or if they were then they could be cured by someone practically waving his morning wood at you.

Again, why the hell had I done that to her?

With no other options left and a whole bunch of sappy, romantic literature confirming my symptoms, I had to confess that, in all likelihood, I had feelings for Keira. But why her? We barely knew each other from a bar of soap. I guess it was just
because
. Because she was Keira Valencia. Because she was special. And what made her special? The fact that she was Keira Valencia.

Jesus, I sounded like the ultimate pussy right now, and I sounded completely illogical as well.

So the question now became: what the hell was I going to do about it? By my ridiculous behavior, I’d made things supremely difficult for myself, and if she never forgave me, then all I could do was applaud her good judgement. But I had one hope; the hope that the feeling was mutual. Perhaps I was being wildly optimistic, perhaps it was all in my head, but I felt sure that I’d felt some spark between us, some tug, something that drew us together in a way I couldn’t put into words. Love forgives all.

Dammit. Now I’d gone and used the ‘L’ word as well, which was utterly ridiculous. I didn’t
love
her…love at first sight was a bullshit invention of fairytales that little kids grew up believing in before being slapped in the face by the cold, hard hand of reality and adulthood.

As the sun set, the car drew up outside Richmond Palace, and I came to a decision. “Just take me round the servants’ entrance, would you, Perkins?” I asked the driver.

“Of course, your Highness.”

“Thank you.”

Though he was too well-trained to ask, Perkins was bound to wonder why, but I had no head-space to worry about that. Right now my primary concern was getting to speak to Keira without anyone noticing. I certainly didn’t need anyone in my family thinking that I was sleeping with the staff, and that would certainly be the conclusion to which they would jump. And, however close-lipped the servants were when dealing with the press, they were terrible gossips amongst themselves, and any meeting between me and Keira was sure to make its way back to the Queen somehow.

Fortunately, it was now late enough in the day that the house was operating on its skeleton overnight staff. Most of the maids, footmen, grooms, under-butlers and so on had either retired to their rooms in the house’s upper floors, and those who lived off-site had headed home for the night. It was therefore quiet when I sneaked in, trying not to look
too
sneaky since Perkins was still watching. I didn’t venture into the servants’ corridors often, but as a child I’d spent a great deal of time down here, playing hide and seek with Michael and our cousins. It was a great place to play hide and seek. The memories flooded back now as I sought to get my bearings. I missed those days; things had been so much simpler then. Royal or not, a child is a child, and all that mattered back then was having fun. Perhaps I’d tried to cling to that credo too long into adulthood. My determination to have fun hadn’t changed, while my definition of ‘fun’ had changed radically—if all I wanted to do was play hide and seek, then my behavior would probably not represent such a problem, and I wouldn’t be plastered all over the gossip columns every five seconds.

Once I’d worked out where I was and which doors were which, I proceeded along the corridor. I wasn’t sure if Keira lived in or out—her early morning start argued live-in, but the fact that she was new staff suggested out—and either way she would be hard to find. She might have already gone home if she lived out, and if she lived in then she was most likely up in her room, and there was no chance of me seeing her there without being seen by a score of others. In fact, now that I stopped to think about it, I had to admit that the chances of finding her down here were extremely slim, and this had been a pretty dumb idea.

I seemed to be having a lot of pretty dumb ideas since meeting Keira…another symptom of the ‘feelings’ no doubt.

But just as I was about to give up and leave this quest for another day, a noise caught my attention. It was the sound of someone crying.

I might be single-minded and selfish, but when I heard someone crying, my instinct was to comfort. I followed the sound to a door which stood ajar at the far end of the corridor. Gently, I pressed it open, unsure as to how I should announce my presence.

Given that I’d decided to do what I could to help, regardless of who the afflicted party turned out to be, I felt for a moment that I was being rewarded as I saw that the crying sound was issuing from the same woman who’d occupied my thoughts for the better part of the day. I was so pleased to see Keira that, without realizing that I was doing it, I found myself smiling, an expression that was clearly inappropriate to the situation. Keira sat on a sofa in the day staff changing room, head in hands, gently sobbing. She was half dressed, as if she had begun to get changed and then not had the energy to continue as she was overtaken by grief.

I had no idea how many women I’d been with, and yet I felt as if I’d never witnessed such an intimate moment before. It was a raw scene—the sort of thing that no one would knowingly share—and I realized that the longer I eavesdropped upon it, the less thoughtful and the more creepy my presence became. Just loud enough to be heard but hopefully not loud enough to startle, I cleared my throat.

Keira jumped a little and turned, her tear-reddened eyes wide.

“Oh,” she said, a small and desperately pathetic sound. She gathered her clothes about her, making sure she was decent if not presentable. “I’m sorry, your Highness, I didn’t hear you…”

I held up my hands, dismissing her apologies. “Don’t worry, don’t worry. What’s wrong? Can I help?”

Keira shook her head, swallowing back tears and forcing a false smile. “No. But thank you for asking.”

I edged further into the room, not wanting her to feel trapped or pressured but not willing to leave her when she was so clearly upset.

“You can tell me—what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m fine. Every girl needs a good cry from time to time. That’s why we watch weepy movies. It’s how we roll.”

I looked around the room. “Are you watching a weepy movie? Because it doesn’t seem like it. And people don’t cry for no reason.”

“I’m sure they do.”

“They don’t.”

“Then I guess I must be the exception.”

I sat down beside Keira, careful to leave a respectful distance between us. “Look…” I stopped to select my words. “I’m an ass. In so many ways. And a prick. And I think you said ‘bastard’ yesterday—that too. And a whole bunch of other words. But I’m also here. And for all that I may be an ass…”

“And a prick.”

“And a bastard, yes. I care.”

Keira met my gaze, her eyes still damp and her light makeup streaked. “Care about what?”

“Believe it or not, I care about all kinds of things. But right now I care most about you. And I can understand why that would be hard to believe given the way I’ve behaved, and if I’m honest I can’t really explain it because we hardly know each other. But there it is. I do care about you, and if something’s wrong then I’d like to help if I can.”

It seemed that she was searching my face for some sign of insincerity, trying to gauge if I was genuine or if this was just a line I used. I tried to look honest, which wasn’t easy as I considered that I’d been born with a thoroughly untrustworthy face. But it seemed to satisfy Keira, to a point at least.

“I just haven’t had a great day, that’s all.”

“I did try to be better behaved this morning,” I said.

Keira rolled her eyes. “Number one: having enough self-control to not parade your penis around shouldn’t be an effort, that should be a given. Number two: not everything is about you.”

I grinned at that. “Sorry.”

“Although I suppose this is a little about you,” she admitted.

“Oh, good,” I replied. “I mean…not ‘good’ per se. But if it’s about me then maybe I can fix it.”

Keira looked at me with an expression that was tough to read. “There’s a quality to you that’s either naivety or idiocy. I can’t tell which. It’s irritating but occasionally quite sweet.”

“That’s my jam.”