21. He has small feet
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
he has small feet
AIDEN
It’s been a long week since our return from Florence. After she asked me to meet her friends, she’s been very quiet, and it’s unnerving. I texted her three times to check in, and even tried to make her come to Grafton House for a review.
She promptly answered, asking if Olga can do it or if she can come later.
Super busy catching up with Venetia after Florence
So our fake dating plan is working. Linnea’s happy, working with Venetia. Mum’s happy.
But I’m not.
I thought I was getting somewhere, for a moment. There was so much emotion in her eyes, but I suppose what I mistook for affection was exhaustion mixed with gratitude.
After falling asleep tucked against my chest and snuggling my arm like a pillow, I hoped it was a turning point.
It was not.
The day after, Linnea was back to being as she’s always been.
She was grateful for the trip and kind about it, but nothing extra.
Nothing new. I tried to convince her to stay longer, maybe we could enjoy Florence together properly.
Maybe she’d look at me that way again and there’d be something real in her eyes. But no. She had to get back.
I stare at my phone and the messages between us. At least I get to see her at the picnic this weekend. We have three more weeks until Mum and Will’s wedding.
Huh… This fake relationship has already survived a month.
A whole month without any blog posts about me.
The blogger hasn’t posted in a few weeks, actually, and I’m grateful. Maybe having a steady girlfriend removes the gossip around me?
One of the biggest gossip events of the year is coming up this weekend.
The picnic in the Buckingham Palace gardens.
I’m both excited about and dreading being Linnea’s fake date.
It’s hard to be so close to her, but still feel like I’m miles away.
Sometimes her eyes tell me she wants me to touch her, and then it’s gone again.
Regardless, I’ll need to step up. My performance at Mum’s brunch was shocking.
I need to be the man she deserves.
Present. Caring. Attentive.
And then, maybe, one day, she’ll let me in.
Hey, how’s your week? We’re still on for the picnic on Saturday, right? Lots of useful networking to do.
Of course, will be fun
Okay. That’s something. I recline in my office chair. Three days until I get to see her again.
“Have you been to this picnic before? Who can we expect to meet?” Linnea asks as Mo calmly weaves us through the streets from her Shepherd’s Bush home. Despite it being a forty-minute roundtrip, I insisted on picking her up so we could have some time alone in the car.
“There’ll be royal-adjacents and aristocrats, and owners of high-end hotels and bars who could stock Gisbon Lux. And some influencers and models, I’m sure.”
“Oh, any of your exes?” she asks, her gaze not entirely meeting mine, and I can’t tell whether there’s a note of jealousy in her voice or if I just hear what I want to hear.
“There may be someone I have dated, wouldn’t go as far as calling them exes.”
“Semantics.” She shrugs, glancing out the window and then back at me. “Is there anything about you that I should be aware of as your girlfriend? That someone we meet today might say?”
“Hmm… It’s hard to think of something that would come up. None of them know me very well.”
“It’s okay, we can brush it off as a new couple.”
“I love eighties rock.”
“Okay?”
“And chocolate cake.”
“Me too,” she says, stifling her smile in that way she does.
“My first name is Edoardo.”
“Really?” Her eyebrows shoot up.
I huff a laugh and shrug. “I’ve never told anyone that. It’s my grandfather’s name.”
She looks at me. For a moment there’s only the humming of the car on the tarmac underneath, and I sense she has more questions on the topic. Now isn’t the time.
“I have a tattoo,” I tell her.
“Oh? Where?”
“On my right thigh. It’s a fragmented goddess Venus.”
“Oh. What does that mean to you?”
I consider it for a moment—how to phrase it.
“To me, it means that beauty can be imperfect.” I brush invisible dust off my trousers, hoping she doesn’t ask more about it.
It’s true, but not the whole truth. The tattoo is also a reminder to embrace personal flaws, which is a topic I don’t want to get into.
“That’s lovely.”
She’s quiet for a moment while I mull over anything else she doesn’t already know that someone else does. We’ve touched on a variety of topics in the last few days.
Her visible ear blushes wildly. What’s on her mind?
“If someone’s seen the tattoo, they’ll have seen all of you.”
“Huh.”
“Anything in particular I need to know about?”
“Like what?” I cock an eyebrow at her. Is her mind in the gutter? Tsk, tsk, Linnea.
She stares at me, blinking.
“Never mind.”
“No, come on, what were you thinking about?” My smile spreads on my face, I can’t hold it back. I’ve never seen her ear this red, and it seems she’s aware as she brushes her hair forward to cover it.
If she’s thinking what I’m thinking … that could be an arousal blush.
She was blushing fiercely in Florence after she had her nightmare and called out for me. Perhaps it wasn’t a nightmare after all. I’m intrigued.
“Come on.” I poke her arm, laughing, and she waves me off, but she’s laughing too.
“Stop it,” she breathes, and I lean back again. Her eyes find my face, but her gaze flits down and up again, almost unnoticed.
Almost.
I stifle a smirk as I wait for her to say something. Have I crossed her mind at all? The way she does mine?
She shakes her head and folds her arms across her chest. I lean further back, stretching my legs and watch her as her gaze moves down my long legs.
“You have big shoes.”
“I have big feet,” I say, wiggling them.
She blinks. “Oh.”
What is she thinking now?
I was certain today would be tough when I saw her come down the stairs outside her house. When I had to hold on to the car because the sight of her in that knee-length lavender dress nearly knocked me off my feet. Her long, strong legs showing.
The same legs she stretches out in the car now. Lean calves, smooth sun-kissed skin.
Fuck.
“What about you?” I ask after a quiet moment.
“What about me?”
“Say we meet Henry, is there something he’d shoot my way that I can send back to him with a bow on top?”
“Where to start? I could write a book.”
She picks at the hem of her dress.
“I love this Norwegian pop group, a-ha, but Henry didn’t approve. Until you mentioned eighties rock just now, I’d completely forgotten the old me who used to dance and sing along to music almost every day.”
She turns and stares out the window, and I can’t see her face. Wonder how many little things like this build up over the years with a man like him.
“Umm…” she starts, her smile returning. “He has small feet.”
“Hah. Okay.” I chuckle. Of course he does.
“And he’s not very good with his hands.”
I stare at her. Is she telling me the man didn’t give her the pleasure she deserves?
“That went all personal again, didn’t it? It’s just too easy with you,” she says in a near whisper to the empty space in front of her. Then she straightens the skirt of her dress and shifts in her seat.
Fuck, I want to show her what I could do to her with my hands, make every memory of that man disappear while she moans my name until she’s a quivering mess.
Starting from her smooth-looking calf, I’d run my hand up her leg, over her knee and to the inside of her thigh.
She’d shift her legs, making space for me, and I’d trace gently up to her middle, drag a finger along the side of her underwear, teasing through the thin fabric.
She’d squirm, whimpering, begging for more. Then I’d—
“We’re here,” she says, nodding towards the window on my side. I’m nearly cross-eyed from my fantasy. I can almost feel her warmth on my hand. Taking a deep breath, I pretend my seatbelt is stuck, giving me an extra few seconds to allow my hard cock to subside.
Buckingham Palace is to our right as we exit the car, and I readjust myself before we turn towards the entrance of the royal family’s backyard. Ready to put this fake relationship to another test.