Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
OLIVER
“How am I supposed to cope with having a stranger all up in my business every day?” I ask my friend and business partner Chase Cooper as I pace around the living room of my Manhattan apartment. Chase has been listening on the phone patiently for about half an hour.
“Sorry for going on, mate,” I continue. “But you’re the only person who understands what this is like, the only one I know who has to constantly guard their privacy against press intrusion the way I do.”
“Oh, it’s not the same way at all.” Chase laughs. “No one cares about people like me who make a shit-ton of money playing dress-up and pretending to be other people in movies. But you and your family? You truly mean something to people. They really do care about you.”
“They definitely care that I’ve let them all down.” I stop at the window seat with its view of the Empire State Building.
“Well, isn’t that the whole point of writing the book? To share your side of the story?”
“Yup. I just wish I didn’t have to tell it all to a ghostwriter first. The publisher’s picked a bloody journalist, for fuck’s sake. What if she leaks a bunch of stuff to one of her reporter friends and it gets taken completely out of context and makes me look bad?”
“Those are the words of a man who’s been burned way too many times,” he says.
“And that’s exactly why I live here now.
” New York is fan-bloody-tastic. Look at it.
All this hope, all the energy, all the everything-is-going-to-be-great-ness that buzzes in the streets outside these windows.
“And the fact that if I position my baseball cap correctly, I can get in and out of the coffee shop without being recognized.”
“Ha! What name do you give them?” Chase asks with a laugh. “His Royal Highness?”
“I use a different name every time. Always something simple so I don’t have to repeat it. Like Steve, or Jeff, or Ted, or something.”
“That’s a cool story for the book.”
“Not likely. If word got out, I’d never be able to grab a sneaky mango dragon fruit drink again.”
“Way too much sugar anyway,” says the man who starts every day by blending his own organic smoothie.
“Maybe, but the whole point is for me to get out and do normal things. As normal as I can, anyway, with Dane and Cole following me around.”
Dane and Cole are my two ex-marine security guards.
Two others cover the weekends, but these are my main guys.
They’ve been with me since my first month in New York four years ago, and I trust them with my life—literally.
Cole is outside my apartment door right now.
Dane will take over for the night shift.
I’d never needed protection until the backlash over my move to the US.
Well, there was once a marry-me-or-else incident, but generally the members of the public I heard from treated me like a rock star and were pretty good-natured.
The death threats only started after I left the UK and hardcore haters thought I’d turned my back on my homeland, or abandoned my duties, or had no respect for the royal family.
“And paying those guys is one of the many reasons you need to get the book written even if it means you have to work with this journalist,” Chase says.
“I know. I know I have no choice but to put up with her. I just called to complain about it.”
Selling my private events company when I left the UK four years ago did net me a tidy sum, and the income I get from investing it is good. But it’s not enough to live off forever.
Getting rid of the business was a relief. All part of cutting my mental and physical ties with the UK and with the wasteful, extravagant clients who, like my family, are all image all the time.
Quitting my royal duties has also meant I no longer get any expenses paid for by the Firm, as we call the family.
So, here I am, thirty-seven years old and having to make my own living for the first time with no skillset other than throwing lavish parties for the obnoxious egos at luxury brands, and my royal attributes of cutting ribbons, shaking hands, and making insufferable small talk with total strangers I’ll never see again.
“I can come over if you want.” Chase lives in Soho. “If you need some moral support around when this woman shows up.”
“That’s a fantastic offer, mate, but it might look a bit weird.
Can you imagine her walking in to meet me and finding you here too?
I don’t mean this to sound bad or ungrateful or anything, but I don’t want her first impression to be that I spend my whole time hobnobbing with the rich and famous.
I’ve had quite enough shit from the British press about me being the lazy ungrateful layabout of the family without her jumping to the same conclusion two seconds after meeting me. ”
“Okay, man, whatever you think best,” he says. “And of course I don’t think you’re ungrateful. You’re one of the kindest, biggest-hearted people I know. Call me if you need backup.”
“Amazing. Thanks. I’m going to put the kettle on for tea so I can be a polite British cliché the second she arrives.” My phone beeps. “Oh, hold on, Chase.”
“Sure.”
I flip to the other call. “Hey, Cole.”
“Miss Lane is here for you, sir,” he says.
“She’s early. I’ll be right there.”
I go back to Chase. “Hey. She’s here.”
“Okay, my friend. May the force be with you. Let me know how it goes. See ya.”
“I feel a bit sick. But yeah, see ya.”
I rise from the window seat and head toward the door, stopping in front of the huge, gold-framed entryway mirror to tidy my hair. I probably should also have put on a clean hoodie. This one has a stain from some strawberry jam that fell off my toast this morning.
Oh, well. Whatever. It doesn’t matter what the hell I look like in front of someone I don’t want here anyway.
And she’s not going to care. She’s going to just want to write the book so she can get her paycheck.
Christ, my parents and grandparents would be so fucking disappointed in me if they knew I was doing this.
And that’s the main cause of the knot in my stomach as I reach for the door handle—all I’ve ever been to them is a letdown, and writing this book behind their backs will only compound that opinion.
I’ll have to tell them at some point, obviously. But I’m leaving it till the last moment before the publisher announces it, so that even when the family puts the thumbscrews on me to not do it, it will be too late.
On a deep inhale, I pull the door open.
“Miss Lane, sir.” Cole gestures to the woman beside him.
She looks up from rummaging in an army-green crossbody bag, flicking her bobbed brunette hair off her face at the same time, and fixes me with a pair of ice-blue eyes.
They’re eyes that mean business. Combined with the slight furrow in her brow and the way her feet are planted solidly hip-width apart like they own the patch of floor they’re standing on, her entire demeanor screams I don’t take any shit.
And I don’t want to be here either. And we don’t need to be friends, we just need to get this over with.
But those piercing cornflower eyes are like a shock to my system. Not like electric paddles that bring you back to life, more like a really fucking refreshing change.
While my gaze holds hers, my peripheral vision takes in a white T-shirt, loose light blue jeans that might be a couple sizes too big, trainers, and the way the bag strap cuts between her breasts, emphasizing their curves.
“Hi,” I say. It comes out all croaky and I have to clear my throat and try again.
“Hi,” she says at the same time as my second attempt.
I release a sort of weird giggle.
She doesn’t smile at all. Just holds out her hand. “I’m Lexi Lane.”
“Sounds like the name of a superhero.”
“Never heard that before.” Her expression says she has, indeed, heard it many hundreds of times before.
Great first impression, Oliver. Well done.
“I’m Oliver.” I take her hand and shake it.
Her grip is as firm, solid, and as sure of itself as her gaze.
But her skin is soft and warm, and I hold on to her hand for a little too long.
Or do we both hold on too long? Either way, my heart sure is doing its blood-pumping job more enthusiastically than usual.
As our hands slide off each other, she nods at the apartment behind me. “Should I, um…”
“Yes. Sorry. Yes. Of course.” I step back, pulling the door wide open. “Come in.”
This is going to be even worse than I thought.