Seventeen
Raindrops trailed down the window of the SUV, my attention on watching them move in zigzag motions as the car sped across the city. The rain had started to ebb, and the sun trying to peek through a sliver in the clouds, bucking at my current mood.
Folding my arms, I stared out the side window, looking much like I was pouting. Maybe I was, but mostly I was trying to hold in the anger and humiliation at myself, willing myself not to cry.
Lennox and I were silent as he drove back to the palace. He didn’t have to speak, his disappointment and anger at me layered on my own, feeling like shouts in the small space.
My mobile sat in my lap, taunting me to look, to show me the mess I made with one decision. My mouth pinched as I palmed the device, turning it on. Within seconds, I found myself plastered over the internet. Nowadays, no one waited for magazines, getting to see your fuck-ups live.
#SpencerSutton was the top trend, along with headlines like “RH going to the dogs.” And my favorite #Duchshund, elevating me to a duchess title to fit a catchy hashtag.
I scrolled through blurry photos of me through the glass doors, holding on to that sweet, scared dog, but then my finger stopped on one shot not taken through the glass. A grunt slid from my lips when I realized what happened.
Or who happened.
The side of a girl’s face, her eyes wide, her mouth in an O-shape, finger pointing behind her… at me. My arms full of the matted puppy when I first brought him out of the room.
“OMG! Guess who’s volunteering at the shelter with me today?” was written underneath it with the tags to the shelter, me, and her.
Poppy.
It went viral within minutes, people and media scouring for my name to pop up. I don’t think she meant to do anything more than get comments from her friends or brag about who she was with, but her need to be popular or cause envy had cost me and the shelter everything.
Anger stacked up my spine like bricks, rolling my hands into fists.
Lennox pulled down a road, one I didn’t recognize as being part of the palace. He pulled up to the gate, several guards outside.
“Hey.” He greeted them, handing them his identi-fication. While a few went around the car with dogs and mirrors, the main guard peered in the car, noticing me.
“Miss,” he greeted me.
I smiled thinly.
Where the hell were we?
“Okay, you’re good.” The guard nodded to Lennox, handing him back his badge. “Go ahead.”
“Thanks.” Lennox put the car in gear.
“Where are we going?” I asked, looking out the window at rolling green grass and trees. The royals owned all the parks over the city but only kept a few private for just their use.
No answer.
“This where you dump and hide my body?”
He scoffed, his head wagging back and forth. “Won’t say I didn’t consider it.”
I snorted, folding my arms up tighter, letting go of trying to get an answer from him.
He pulled the car to a stop in front of some buildings. Turning the engine off, he sat back in his seat with a heavy sigh.
My stubbornness won out over my curiosity, and I stayed silent and pubescent in the backseat. One picture. One. And it completely turned the good intention I had into something horrendous.
“You can only blame yourself.”
My head shot up, my eyes landing on the rearview mirror, his hazel eyes watching me. Ire stomped like a child up my throat.
“Excuse me?” I snapped. “I wasn’t the one who put a Bat-Signal in the air with my location!”
A quick smile hinted on his lips before it vanished.
“Doesn’t matter.” He shrugged. “You can’t control them. You can only control what you do. And today could have gone a lot worse. It also could have gone a lot better if you had come to me.”
“You would have let me go?” I challenged. “With that short of notice?”
“No, but we could have set it up for the next day.”
“They didn’t need me the next day. They needed help today. I won’t wait to get your permission, not when it comes to volunteering to help animals.”
His lids tightened around his eyes. In a blink, he was bursting out of the car door, marching around to my side. The metal door squealed as he flung it open. He reached over, unbuckling me.
“Get out.”
“No.” I sounded like a brat, but my stubborn nature burrowed in, doubling down. The fire in my blood and my passionate nature flared to life. Fire and ice both at once.
His fingers wrapped around my wrist, dragging me out, pushing me back into the car, my breath catching, blood rushing up my veins, lighting me in a blaze.
“You will get my permission.” His voice reverberated with ferocity.
“Not because my ego demands it. Or I’m trying to control you.
I don’t need to play sadistic games because my male ego is fragile, or I only get off when putting a woman in her place.
” He moved in closer, his body looming over mine, sparking fever through me.
My pulse thumped against my neck, my chest fluttering with the need to breathe. I peered down at his frame, then up to his eyes.
“Clearly, you do.”
“Believe me,” he rumbled, a smile twitching the side of his cheek. “My ego’s just fine.”
I didn’t doubt that. From what I could make out, it had every right to be.
Damn.
A smirk inched the side of his cheek higher, fluttering my chest, my skin acutely aware of every inch he touched. The pulse running down my legs zeroed in on my anger.
“What you did today was stupid.”
“I don’t answer to you.” I swallowed, my nostrils flaring. “You answer to me.”
“Goddammit.” Lennox’s palm hit the side of the car by my head, forcing me to suck in, but I held my ground, actually reveling in stirring passion in this stoic man.
“Don’t you get it? You are not the same girl you were just a few months ago.
You are no longer the girl who can slip into the background of nonentity or spend time with animals all day.
” My neck wrenched up at his statement, my lids tapering.
“You made your bed, Duchess. You chose Theo. Being with the prince comes with good and bad. And you can’t have just the good. Not how it works.”
He pressed his other hand into the car, trapping me between his arms. “Now you get me… on your arse twenty-four seven. You can’t go anywhere outside the palace without it being planned.
You want brunch with your friends? I’m there.
You want to volunteer for every shelter in Great Victoria?
Fine… but I’m by your side. There is no spontaneous in your vocabulary anymore.
There is no ditching me and running out the back of a store like it’s some goddamn movie.
Because this is about your life. And if you had already seen and read the things I have, you would be doing everything I said.
There a lot of crazy people out there, and my job is to protect you, even when you fight against me. ”
My tongue slipped over my lips, and my head jerked to the side, emotion clogging my throat and eyes. He had flattened my anger into the ground, leaving me a skeleton of vulner-ability. I swiped at the single tear that squeezed through.
“Hey.” His voice went low.
“What if I’m not made for this?” I croaked out softly, keeping my gaze on the horizon.
“Anyone not raised in their world would feel overwhelmed. I’m just a bodyguard, and I’ve already been in several magazines, trying to find out who Theo’s extremely hot new bodyguard is.”
A laugh parted my lips, my fingers brushing my eyes again as I turned to look at him, shaking my head. “Nope, nothing wrong with your ego.”
He smiled, his gaze meeting mine, causing something to flutter inside me. He cleared his throat, dropping his arms, backing away from me.
“With every move, every word, every outfit, you are being held up to standards no one can live up to.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “It’s a lot, but if you love Theo enough, you will make it work.”
A soft smile lifted my lips, my head bobbing forward.
“Give me your cell.”
“Why?” I gripped the device to my chest with a spike of fear.
“Because…” He held out his palm. “You will constantly look at it, and that is the last thing you should be doing. It will ruin the reason we’re here.”
“And where are we exactly?”
He stayed silent, his fingers curling, motioning for my mobile.
“Fine.” I dropped into his hand. If I continued to look at it, soon I’d be on the ground in a ball.
“Come on.” He shoved the cell in his jeans and started walking, moving around the car to the building.
“After all you said, you’re still going to kill me?”
“Even more now.” He winked back at me, continuing his journey around the first building. Following him, I rounded the structure and came to a halt, my mouth falling open.
“Oh my…” The rest of the sentence got absorbed by the snort of a horse trotting by.
Before me, the crest stamped everywhere was of the royal horse stables. There were huge barns, clean and up to date with all the latest equipment. Trainers, keepers, and animals moved around the huge outdoor space.
“Lennox!” A woman stepped out of a barn wearing khaki breeches, riding boots, and a long white shirt with a black vest. She waved at him, a smile engulfing her face with genuine joy.
“So glad you’re back.” She looked to be in her early thirties, petite, and stunning.
Not a drop of makeup, her long brown hair swung from her ponytail, showcasing creamy skin, blue eyes, and a cute button nose.
I felt a jab of jealousy, an aversion to a woman I had never met, which was not like me.
I normally wasn’t a jealous person or immediately disliked a pretty woman.
“Katy.” He grinned at her, his gaze on her as they moved to each other. Irritation zinged down my spine as she went up on her toes, wrapping her arms around him in a hug. He hugged her with a smile I had never seen before. My attention dropped to my boots, kicking at the gravel.
“Hoping you’d have a few horses that I could borrow for a ride.”
“For you?” She winked at him. “Always.”
Okay, we get it. You want to get into his pants.