Playing Dirty (A Bad Boy Sports Romance) (35 page)

You’re one to talk
, I thought.

Alexandra rushed across the room to hide behind Michael. “I was having a look at the pictures before going to bed when she stormed in with a knife and starting yelling things about me stealing her man!”

A look of understanding entered Michael’s face, and I could see that he believed every word; his own suspicions about me and his brother being confirmed.

“I thought she was going to kill me!” Alexandra continued. “But then she attacked this painting instead. I tried to stop her, but she was too strong for me.”

Michael patted her hand comfortingly. “Don’t worry, you’re safe now.”

“That’s not what happened!” I’d been struck dumb by Princess Alexandra’s lies, but I’d found my tongue now. “She’s the one who slashed the painting, just so she could make me look bad!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Michael said. “Why would she do such a thing?”

“Because she’s crazy! You’ve got to believe me.”

“You’re the one holding the knife,” Michael said. “And you’re the one with the motive. I don’t think we’ve got to look very far to know why you might have a grudge against the princess and against my family.” He indicated the shredded picture. “I think we can count ourselves extremely lucky that you did this to a picture rather than my actual family. But don’t worry,” he said in a mock soothing tone. “We’ll see that you get the help you need. Guards!”

The guards, who’d been rather transfixed by this little drama, sprang to hasty attention. “Take her to her room and ensure that she remains there. We can call the proper authorities in the morning.”

“But…”

But there was no ending to the sentence. I went quietly with the guards, and I shot a last look back at Princess Alexandra and saw the wicked smile on her face. In a way, it was a comforting thing to see, because it strengthened my temporarily weakened resolve. I would not be beaten by
that
woman.

I knew everything would be okay soon enough, anyway. Andrew would be coming to help me any minute now; I knew it.

I just knew it.

Chapter 19

Andrew

Before heading upstairs to my room following the dinner, I sought out one of Princess Alexandra’s personal maids to ask an important question.

“What time does the Princess usually have breakfast?”

There were no hard and fast rules about when a person came down to breakfast at Wellington Castle—the food would be there whether they were early risers or more like me. This meant that, as long as I was forewarned, I could avoid having breakfast with Alexandra and wouldn’t have to endure another meal spent defending my crotch from her, like I had tonight. By the dessert course, I’d been close to stabbing her with a fork next time she tried it.

The maid just shrugged. “It depends what mood she is in, your Highness.” And that, I suspected, could be anything.

I suppose I couldn’t one-hundred percent blame Alexandra. My reputation as a womanizer was well known, and that reputation would’ve given Alexandra every reason to believe that I would enjoy nothing more than a bit of light hand-stuff under the table, perhaps followed by a quickie in the linen closet. How was she to know that that reputation was now obsolete?

Either way, she was now well aware that I had no intention of ever marrying her. I’d told her several times over dinner, even though she’d disagreed on the matter, and tomorrow, I was going to have to figure out a way to discreetly let everyone know that my mother’s announcement at the dinner table had been a false alarm before someone went and told the papers.

It wasn’t exactly a happy thought, but I was still happy in general—as long as Keira existed, then the world was all right by me. One way or another, Keira and I would be together, and what else could possibly matter?

This happy view of life in general was not destined to last long.

My mother met me at the top of the stairs as I headed up to my room. “I’ve been looking for you. There has been an incident,” she said.

“What kind of incident?”

“The kind which we discuss in private.”

“Can it wait until tomorrow?” I asked, not wanting to be near her right now. I was still very pissed off that she’d blindsided me at dinner with the bullshit announcement, but I didn’t want to make our relationship even tenser by showing her that.

“I daresay it can,” she said, her face giving nothing away. “But I don’t think that you would thank me for letting it, once you learn its nature. Come on.”

In a private study just off the library, she told me what had happened in the gallery, with frequent and robust interjections from Michael.

“She didn’t do it,” I said the instant the story was finished. There was no way Keira would ever deface a painting, and Alexandra had already proven herself to be quite the nutjob.

“Well, you would say that,” Michael replied. “It’s nice to know that you have the chivalry to protect your little bit on the side, but in the circumstances you are quite misguided. She had knife, and she has the motive.”

“For goodness sake, Michael.” Our mother pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation. “Stop saying ‘motive’. For the last time: you are not Sherlock Holmes.”

“What motive?” I asked.

“Losing you to Alexandra,” replied Michael. “And don’t bother denying the ‘relationship’ you two have going on.”

“Please don’t use air quotes, Michael,” our mother interjected, still more exasperated. “It makes you look like an imbecile.”

“I’m not denying the relationship,” I said. “I’m proud of it. In fact, I already made you aware of it yesterday, Mother. So even though you’ve gone and tried to guilt me into this engagement with Alexandra by announcing it at dinner, it’s not happening. I don’t understand why you aren’t getting that.”

“Quiet!” she snapped. “We’ve already discussed that unfortunate subject. It’s bad enough that you would use the poor girl as an excuse to get out of marrying a perfectly lovely girl like Alexandra. Now you’ve dragged her down to this extreme. She may end up in prison on account of her misguided infatuation with you and your despicable encouragement of it to suit your own selfish ends.”

“Despicable,” Michael said, nodding sagely.

“Shut up, Michael!” Our mother took a deep breath and paused—possibly in silent prayer to ask the Almighty why in his infinite wisdom he had landed her with two such sons—before continuing. “As I said, because of your behavior, Keira may end up in prison.”

“Will end up in prison,” said Michael.

“
May
,” my mother corrected. “If we bring the official force in, then word will get out, and it would be nice to go a month without our family splashed across the tabloid front pages.”

“She didn’t do it,” I repeated. “Believe what you want about me. But Keira didn’t do this. She wouldn’t, and I won’t sit here and listen to these disgusting lies being spread about the woman I love!”

“So you’re saying that a member of the Swedish royal family lied?” Michael said, implying with his tone that royalty was incapable of deception, which a quick look at his own family would have told him was not the case.

The Queen shook her head. “I can’t believe that of young Alexandra. Such a sweet girl.”

I narrowed my eyes. “When did you last see her?” I asked. “Before yesterday I mean.”

“Well, not since she was a little girl,” the Queen admitted. “But she was a dear child then. A bit wild, but children grow out of such things.”

“Did I grow out of it?”

My mother raised an eyebrow. “If you have something to say, Andrew, then say it.”

“I think,” I said, trying not to lose my cool again, “it’s possible that Alexandra hasn’t grown up as much as you might hope.”

“She could be very sweet at times.”

“And a proper little tear-away at others,” said Michael. He obviously didn’t like siding with me, but he had grim memories of Princess Alexandra. “She stole my bike when I was eight, and when she returned it the seat was gone.”

“I’m sure that was just an accident.”

“It was very nearly a
serious
accident,” said Michael, raising his eyebrows significantly.

“She could be a little changeable in her nature,” our mother finally admitted. “But a lot of children can be and they always grow out of it. Michael used to go from being very polite to sullen and rude just like that. And Andrew, you could be quite charming and then all of a sudden you’d be sneaking off to do mischief of some kind.” She paused mid-thought to consider this. “Of course, some children never change. But I’m sure that Alexandra has changed…”

“Yes, she’s changed,” I said. “And by that I mean she’s ten times worse now. I didn’t want to mention this—I
really
didn’t want to mention this—but at dinner…”

I gave a brief account of the Princess’s wandering hands, and Michael snorted. “I thought you’d like that,” he said.

Our mother ignored him. “So we have established that Princess Alexandra may not be the most reliable witness.”

“But the maid had the knife in her hand!” Michael insisted. “Maybe Alexandra can’t be trusted, but you can’t fault the evidence.”

“Keira would never do such a thing,” I said.

“She had the knife in her hand! How many times do I have to—”

Our mother raised a hand, which drew instantaneous silence. “The painting was badly slashed?”

“Irreparable,” Michael said.

She shook her head. “I struggle to imagine Keira doing something like that. However much she may have fallen in with bad company,” she said, shooting a glare at me, “she is an art lover.”

“But she’s just a
maid,”
said Michael, who firmly believed that the lower classes could enjoy art no more sophisticated than soap operas and amusingly shaped vegetables.

“Shut up, Michael,” she replied, waving a hand at him. “You sound like an ass when you talk like that. Keira could very easily take you to school on the subject of old masters. In fact she could probably take
me
to school.”

“The painting she slashed was hardly an old master.”

“An art lover would never destroy art,” she replied firmly. “Even art they dislike. Much as I find Jake Keillor’s ‘Street’ series to be a descent into vulgarity and laziness, much as I find calling it ‘art’ to be an affront to the word itself, much as I would shed no tears were someone to set fire to the beastly thing—I would never start the fire myself. Art represents someone’s work and thought.” She shook her head. “The more I think about it, the more I think that Andrew is right: Keira wouldn’t have done this. I don’t say she is one-hundred percent innocent either, but clearly there is more to this incident than meets the eye.” She sighed. “If only there were some way of knowing exactly what happened in that room.”

We stood pondering the problem a while before I finally spoke. “Wait…don’t we have security cameras?”

My mother looked sheepishly at me and my brother.

“Let us agree,” she said at last, “to never tell anyone how long we spent talking about this before thinking of the obvious solution.”

We agreed.

An hour later, I sat in front of a computer monitor, watching footage from the gallery. Keira and Alexandra had been brought in to watch the footage with us, and I had a comforting hand resting on Keira’s shoulder, just so she’d know I was one-hundred percent on her side in this mess. She’d looked a little confused and uncertain when she’d initially been brought in, and my heart went out to her. She must have had a miserable night—pregnant and accused of a crime she hadn’t committed—and I cursed myself inwardly for having got her into this.

When Alexandra entered, she’d been incensed to find Keira there, and I wondered if, in the confines of her own mind, Alexandra had managed to convince herself that Keira was actually guilty, or if she was just a very talented and devious actress. The affront that she showed certainly seemed real, and she showed no sign of backing down, even when told that we were going to watch the security tapes. Keira’s face, meanwhile, lit up at the mention of the tapes.

The footage played out on the little screen.

“No sound, I’m afraid,” said the Captain of the guard, who had located the relevant footage.

“You’d think we could afford the sound version,” my mother muttered.

On screen, Keira looked at the pictures in the gallery, and then Alexandra entered.

“This
is
different to the version of events you gave earlier,” my mother said to Alexandra.

“I was panicked,” Alexandra replied. “You can hardly expect me to recall what happened exactly.”

The ensuing argument between the two women yielded little information—without sound it was just two people talking, and although Alexandra did seem to be the aggressor, it could no doubt be argued either way. But then…

“There!” Keira nearly sprang out of her chair in excitement. “She had the knife! Not me!”

The footage showed the moment clearly: Alexandra reached behind her back and drew forth a knife that she must’ve grabbed from the dinner table. The Captain of the guard played it back again in slow motion just to be sure, and there could be absolutely no arguing with the footage. Or so I would’ve assumed.

“That’s not what happened!” Alexandra insisted.

“Alexandra,” my mother said in a tone of gentle remonstration that she might have used on Alexandra when she was a child and had been caught stealing the jam, “it’s there on screen. We all saw it.”

“It may be on the screen,” said Alexandra, with a defiance that suggested she had more legs to stand on than she did, “but it didn’t happen.”

“You’re suggesting that the camera is making this up?” I asked, my voice dripping with scorn.

Alexandra shrugged. “I don’t know how you’ve manipulated this footage. But it’s clear that you’re trying to discredit me and my family for your own ends and I won’t allow this to happen. Not again.”

The ‘not again’ was interesting, and I shared a look with my mother. What was she talking about?

“In the circumstances, Alexandra,” my mother said in a conciliatory tone of voice, “I think we may have to put the betrothal idea to one side for now. And by ‘for now’, I mean ‘forever’. I don’t think it will be necessary to make what happened last night public…”

“What you
claim
happened!” Alexandra butted in.

“What I, and a
digital recording
, say happened,” she continued. “No need to drag anyone through the press. But before we draw a permanent line under this unfortunate affair, I think we can agree that one matter remains outstanding.” She turned to face Keira. “Miss Valencia, I can only apologize for the way in which you have been treated. To simply ignore your version of events because of your accuser’s position was utterly wrong.”

I thought I heard my brother muttering something about Keira ‘holding the knife’ but I might’ve been mistaken.

“You have been treated in a grossly unfair manner,” my mother continued, “and I hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me and my family for that.”

I looked at Keira. I already knew exactly how she would react.