Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
EMILY
Iwake with a start, jolted into consciousness by my phone, which is currently humming on the nightstand like a vibrator turned to the “ultimate annihilation” setting.
Oh God, not again.
What is it this time?
I fumble for it blindly, still wrapped in Oliver’s arms. We shifted position sometime in the night, and his chest is currently warm and comforting against my back.
All I want to do is throw my cell at the wall and go back to sleep, but notifications can be serious business these days, and the light filtering through the curtains is way too bright.
How long have we been out?
Fingers finally wrapping around my phone, I squint at the screen—9:47 AM.
Shit. We’ve slept late. Really late, which isn’t a surprise considering we were up until the wee hours of dawn having fantastic sex.
But still, it’s awfully early for—
“Twenty-three notifications?” I hiss, my stomach balling into a knot.
What fresh hell have we stumbled into now? Did photos of us mauling each other in the solarium break on the gossip sites this morning? It was dark in there, yes, but—as I warned Oliver—the walls were made of glass.
Why-oh-why did I think it was okay to get half undressed in front of an innocent puppy in a room made of glass!
Blinking panicked eyes, I scroll to the text thread at the top, a series of a dozen or so messages from Maya.
Maya: HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEWS???
Maya: You are SO in the clear after this.
Maya: SQUEE! Call me NOW!
Maya: Or like…at a decent hour if you get this after two a.m. my time.
Maya: I promised I’d meet my mother at church tomorrow. I have to catch the train to Jersey at the ass crack of dawn, even though Deedee and I were out dancing until one.
Maya: But OMG, we had so much fun, Em! We have to go dancing as soon as you get back.
Maya: Or maybe I’ll fly over and we can go dancing in London on New Year’s Eve!!! Doesn’t that sound amazing?!
Maya: God, life feels so…alive right now!
Maya: It’s probably the champagne. And I’ll probably regret it tomorrow. Or…today. Shit, I have to be up in five hours!
Maya: Okay, scrap calling me, just text when you’re awake. I’ll have my cell on silent so it won’t disturb my beauty sleep.
Maya: Love you, bye!
Maya: And congrats again!!!
“Congrats?” I mumble with a frown. “On what, you maniac?”
But I should know better than to expect clarity from drunk Maya. She rarely parties, but when she does, she hardy parties.
She really should have known better than to promise she’d go to church with her mom after a Saturday night on the town.
Sending her “no hangover” vibes across the ocean, I tap back to the main message screen, hoping my other texts will be more illuminating.
But the missive from my mother—“Oh, honey, can you believe this? What’s happening to the royals these days? Are they on drugs? You aren’t on drugs, are you, sweetheart? Have you met the prince? Is he well? Mentally? Text me when you wake up.”—only give me a slightly clearer picture.
“Something about the prince,” I murmur, keeping that in mind for googling purposes as I check to see what Isabelle’s had to say.
Isabelle: OMG I’M DYING!! This is so much more embarrassing than anything you and Oliver have done. Like, ten times more embarrassing. Maybe a hundred. Is that man okay?
Isabelle: Seriously, is he okay?
Isabelle: Have you met him?
Isabelle: I mean, you know I’ve always thought he was crazy hot. And he’s still hot, but that was…weird. He might be having some kind of breakdown. Should Oliver check on him, do you think? If they’re friends?
Isabelle: Are they friends? If so, I NEED YOU TO INTRODUCE ME, EMILY! ASAP. I mean, yes, I’m engaged, but I had SUCH a crush on him growing up.
Isabelle: Is it mortifying that I had posters of a man who’s distantly related to your boyfriend all over my bedroom as a teenager?
Probably, right? Don’t tell Oliver, okay?
Just in case. Anyway, I hope you’re having a great weekend!
Call me when you get these. And good luck at the Fletchers’ pitch tomorrow! ! I’ll be rooting for you.
I’m putting the pieces together—this must be about Prince Ronan, first in line to the throne, and my sister’s one and only childhood crush—when Oliver mumbles against my shoulder, “What’s up, buttercup? You’re tense.”
“I woke up to a bunch of texts and thought we were in trouble again,” I say, opening a search window and typing fast, “but it looks like…”
I trail off as the results load.
“Oh my,” I mutter, my eyes going wide. “Oh my God…”
“What? What’s happened?” Olly sits up, peeking over my shoulder at the screen. “Oh, fuck.” He chuckles as I scroll down a page of truly wild photos. “What the hell was Ronan smoking last night?”
“I don’t know,” I murmur, clicking on another headline—PRINCE IN BEASTLY SCANDAL: Ronan’s Midnight Ride Shocks the Nation. “But it must have been something serious. Wait, it looks like there’s video.”
I roll over onto my back, holding the phone up so we can both watch.
The video is just grainy security footage, but it clearly shows the future king astride one of the Trafalgar Square lions at 2:54 AM.
He’s singing what sounds like “I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am,” wielding a kebab like a saber, and tossing chunks of meat at the security guard trying to bat him down with a traffic cone.
“Bloody hell,” Oliver says, squinting. “Is he naked?”
“No, I think he’s wearing underwear.” I narrow my eyes. “Or a diaper? Is that a diaper? God, why was he wearing a diaper?”
“No fucking clue. Christ.” Oliver runs a hand through his hair, making it stand up at even more ridiculous, adorable angles.
“But I bet the Palace press office wishes they were wearing nappies right about now. They’ll be shitting their collective pants.
What happened? Is there any explanation in the articles? ”
“I don’t know. Let me look.” We scroll through article after article, of which there are many.
Every British news outlet has abandoned all other stories, and #LionKing is trending on social media worldwide. There are already memes, including one of Ronan’s face photoshopped onto Mufasa’s body, that makes me snort coffee through my nose once we’ve moved our research to the kitchen.
“Okay, finally a hint of a motive.” I tap my croissant to my screen as I read, “Palace sources suggest Prince Ronan was celebrating the English rugby win, when a night out with friends got ‘boyishly’ out of hand.”
Olly grunts. “Celebrating by riding a stone lion in a diaper?”
“Not the way I’d celebrate,” I agree. “But maybe?”
He grunts again, wagging his pastry back and forth in the air. “Nope. I’m not buying it. And what’s that ‘boyish’ bullshit? He’s nearly thirty. He hasn’t been a ‘boy’ in nearly a decade. I call foul. This reeks of a press office cover-up up and damn it, I intend to get to the bottom of it.”
My brows fly up my forehead. “Really? You do?”
Oliver grins as he slouches back in his chair, propping his slippered feet up in the seat beside mine. “Nah, not really. I mean, I hope the man’s all right, but he’s a second cousin, and we’ve never been close. I’m just glad to be out of the spotlight.”
“Same,” I say, even as a tinge of disappointment creeps into my chest.
I’m glad to be in the clear, I really am, but…
Well, without an excuse to pretend to be an item, Olly and I will be left with no other option than to have The Talk, and talking feels way scarier in the cold light of day. Last night was intense, and I didn’t get nearly enough sleep, and I can’t afford to have a falling out with Olly right now.
And maybe we won’t fall out. Maybe we’ll manage The Talk beautifully, but with the Fletchers’ meeting bearing down on me in less than twenty-four hours, is it really worth the risk?
“So…” Oliver says, his smile fading as the vibes in the kitchen grow increasingly complicated. “I suppose we should—”
“Still go sledding,” I cut in, heart racing as I force a cheery smile.
“Don’t you think? I mean, it’s already booked, and the paparazzi have been stalking us like crazy.
Someone at the sled rental could have tipped them off, and cameras could be trained on the hill right now, waiting for us to arrive. ”
Oliver sits up, brightening. “You’re right. I mean, just because we’re off the radar for now, it doesn’t mean we’re in the clear. If we book sleds and don’t show up to use them, the paparazzi might start to wonder if there’s trouble in hot mess paradise.”
I grin. “Right. And there’s fresh snow. It would be a shame to waste it.”
“And I could use some exercise after all that pudding.”
“God, yes,” I agree, laying a hand on my stomach. “I think I gained ten pounds overnight.”
“Bollocks, you look fantastic, but sledding would still be good for our health. Cardiovascular fitness and all that.”
“So we’ll go,” I say with a breezy shrug. “Just in case. Just for fun.”
“Absolutely for fun.” His gaze locks on mine with an intensity that makes me tingly…and a tiny bit nervous. “Speaking of fun, I had a lot of fun with you last night, Darling.”
Shoulders tensing, I nod. “I had a lot of fun with you, too.”
“I’d be up for more fun in the shower before we get dressed,” he says, sending relief rushing through my chest.
Talking feels like too much right now, but sex?
Sex, I can absolutely handle.
He nods over his shoulder as he rises from his chair, playing up the casual in his tone as he adds, “Simply in the interest of conserving water, of course.”
“Of course,” I agree.
Ten minutes later, we’re “conserving water” so loudly I’m pretty sure the neighbors can hear, but I can’t seem to keep it down.
He’s just too good.
Way too good to say goodbye to in just a few weeks…
But there are so many obstacles in our way, obstacles that seem far more intimidating without Christmas punch in my system.