Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
LEXI
What the fuck is it with Princess and Earl Whatstheirfaces that they have to be so damned obnoxious the whole time?
I thought British people were supposed to be the epitome of manners and that the royal family was raised with ludicrously high standards of anachronistic etiquette.
Giles wanted me to sleep in a separate wing of the house to maintain decorum, for fuck’s sake.
And yet these people can’t even be pleasant. Talk about double standards.
As I re-enter the bedroom, my phone beeps on the desk.
Oliver catches up with me while I’m reading the message.
JULIAN
For God’s sake Alexandra, you’re not supposed to BECOME the story. You’re also not supposed to become the subject’s girlfriend. You’re supposed to be a ghost, remember? I don’t want to have to pull you off the job because you’ve blown your cover.
Guess the social media mud posts have gotten back to him. Shit, I hadn’t even thought about our publishers seeing a video of a silly local tradition in a tiny Scottish village. Never mind the fact that it could jeopardize me working on the book, thereby rendering me jobless completely.
ME
I had to pretend to be his girlfriend to come on this trip with him. And I had to come on this trip with him to have any hope of meeting the book’s ridiculous deadline.
I toss my phone back down, emotion rising in my chest.
At least I can make use of my upset, frustration, and worry about the future of my career by turning it into tears for my bug audience—because if I were really Oliver’s girlfriend, I’d definitely be upset by how his folks just treated me.
“Your parents hate me, don’t they?” I move closer to the nightstand vase as I exaggerate the sobs. “They think I’ve let them down.”
God, if I keep this up, I’ll struggle to figure out where the line is between the real me and the pretend me.
“Hey, hey.” Oliver’s hand is on my arm, pulling me against him. “They have attitudes from the Dark Ages.”
His sweater is soft against my cheek. Maybe cashmere. And smells of fresh laundry with a hint of sexy man thrown in.
It’s cozy and warm. Solid and reassuring. If I were truly his girlfriend and he was doing this, I would be a lucky girlfriend indeed.
He strokes his hand over my hair. “I’m here for you. Totally here for you. I’m the reason you got dragged into all this. It’s all my fault. You asked for none of it.”
His words sound like they come from the very depths of the heart that is beating against my ear. Like he really means it.
Damn, he’s good at this. I tip my head back to look at him and give him a thumbs-up.
“What?” His brows pinch for a second before relaxing with realization. “Oh.” His grip on me loosens as a twinge of disappointment settles on his handsome face. “Yes. Of course.”
Did he think I was honestly upset about his parents? Was he actually concerned and genuinely trying to comfort me?
He steps back, pushing his fingers through his hair, and as he turns away, I detect the merest hint of pink in his cheeks.
He was, wasn’t he? I do believe I just experienced what it’s like to be comforted by Prince Oliver when you’re crying because his asshole parents and staff have upset you.
And if he’d been my real boyfriend, it would indeed have been very soothing. It would be easy to tolerate that level of snuggling for several hours at a time.
And if I’d been his real girlfriend, as soon as he’d stroked my hair, I don’t doubt I would have pushed him back on the bed and straddled those firm thighs.
But I’m not.
This is all pretend.
And now a weird cloud of awkwardness hangs between us—both of us knowing that he accidentally meant it.
So he really is a nice guy then?
I turn away too, at least putting the cloud behind me, where I don’t have to look at it.
Instead, I pick up the vase from the nightstand.
“You know what?” I open the bathroom door. “I was thinking this might look even nicer in here.” I place it on the windowsill over the bathtub at the far end of the room.
“Oh, that’s a much better place for it.” Oliver’s voice comes from the doorway. “We should have thought of that before.”
“Absolutely we should.” I roll my eyes at myself and we both have a little laugh, a little laugh of companionship, of in-it-together-ness, that disperses some of the cloud of awkwardness.
“Have you been out today?” I ask. “You could probably do with some fresh air, right?” I raise my brows and exaggerate a nod.
“Been cooped up all day.” He gets it. “Would love to get out.”
“Great. How about we take a stroll off the property and you can show me the local”—Jesus, what exactly is around here within walking distance?—“fields…and stuff?”
“Excellent idea. I noticed earlier that there are no reporters staking out the gates for a change, so there’s no one to shout annoying questions or follow us.
We can get some fresh air, and you can tell me all about the fun you had this morning.
” He raises his eyes to the ceiling and shakes his head with that attractive sardonic smile.
It takes a good ten minutes of walking until we reach the end of the driveway and the giant gates in the tall, stone wall around the castle.
Oliver presses a button that opens a wooden door to the left of the gates.
He blows out a whistle as we turn onto the street and are finally off the damn property.
Well, it’s not really a street, more a road with one narrow lane in either direction and scrappy grass edges bleeding onto it from either side.
“Let’s go this way.” Oliver turns to the left.
“For any particular reason?” It seems equally rural both ways.
“Even fewer people live in this direction,” he says.
I look behind us to see Dane and Cole emerge from the gates and follow at a discreet enough distance to help in a crisis, but not close enough to overhear every private word.
“I just wanted to get you out of the compound and away from prying ears,” I say, “because whatever the hell is going on with your parents has to have a story behind it. People don’t get to be like that without a reason.”
“Well, my mum’s like that because her parents happen to be a king and queen.
And my dad’s like that because he was sent to boarding school, Oxford, and then into the navy for however many years.
Then my grandparents gave them this castle and they sit here taking part in whatever charity events they’re obliged to take part in, appearing on the Buck House balcony on state occasions, and are generally so insulated from any type of regular feelings or existence that they think they are normal. ”
“Okay. That was quite the summary. But first, Buck House?”
“What my sister and I have always called Buckingham Palace since we were little.”
“I need to record the rest of this.” I pull out my phone.
“You can’t record me.” The level of horror in his voice is more akin to me having demanded his firstborn.
“I have to record you. Did you think you could tell me stuff and I’d remember all of it with one hundred percent accuracy, then regurgitate it precisely and perfectly organized into a beautifully structured book?”
He looks straight ahead and says nothing.
Wow, his profile is good. Straight nose, strong jaw covered in a couple of days of stubble, a fine curve to his chin, and a little shadow under the cheekbone that has the perfect amount of prominence.
“Time is ticking away here,” I say. “We’ve done no work yet, and tomorrow there’s your charity event, which will take up a big chunk of the day. We really need to dedicate some time to getting on top of the book stuff.”
His focus is distant, on a woman riding a horse toward us, and not on the seriousness of the most important and panic-inducing time crunch I’ve ever been under.
“I do have the couple of hundred pages of your draft to work from. So I wouldn’t need to go over the things you talked about in there unless I have questions.
But there are gaps I need to fill in, and you only got about half way through your life, so there’s a whole bunch of new material I need from scratch.
And you’ll have to review what I write as I go to make sure all the details are correct, so I can keep on top of your edits.
We don’t have time for me to finish the whole thing then have you check it afterward. ”
“Could you type interview notes as we talk?”
Fucking seriously? Is he trying to make this even harder?
“My typing is fast, but it’s not that fast. And I need to be able to relax and be fully engaged with you while we’re talking so I can focus on follow-up questions, not be distracted by concentrating on what I’m typing.
And I certainly can’t type quickly and accurately on my phone while we walk along an uneven road where I might break an ankle if I don’t watch where I’m going. ”
He sighs, eyes still fixed on the approaching horseback rider.
“And what difference does it make whether I record you telling me a story or I type it out? It’s the same thing. I’d still have stored it in a permanent way.”
“I don’t want audio of my voice out there saying these things.” He sounds different. No longer the happy-go-lucky tone I’ve come to know and…well, that I’ve come to know.
“You couldn’t possibly guarantee a recording would be secure,” he adds.
“How about if I promised to destroy it as soon as the book is out?”
“But you couldn’t be sure it would be wiped from everywhere. There could be a copy in the cloud or God knows where. And someone, somewhere, one day could dig it out.”
“Why does this worry you so much?”
Before I realize it, he’s stopped, and I have to turn back to face him.
“Lexi, things I say are historic records. Me stepping back from royal life, leaving the country, becoming financially independent, they’re not things that we do.”
His emphasis on we is a reminder that although to me he’s an ordinary guy—well, a special kind of ordinary—there’s a giant gulf in the reality of the lives we lead.
“There’ll probably be academic papers written on me a hundred years from now,” he adds.
Behind him, Dane and Cole have stopped, keeping their distance, allowing us some privacy for what must look like an intimate moment.
And it feels intimate. Like in this short week we’ve become bonded in a common cause. But each for our own, distinctly different, reasons.
The breeze tousles his hair and he has to brush it back off his smooth forehead. For the first time, I notice there are some faint freckles on that fair Scottish skin.
“I don’t want anything I say to be stored so that centuries from now it can be twisted or manipulated.”
“To make you look bad?”
“You mean worse. I already look bad.” His mouth curls into a lopsided, rueful smile.
I reach across the gap between us and touch his arm.
It’s a perfectly innocent gesture that people make in a non-romantic context all the time, but in this moment it feels weightier than that, like it has more meaning.
And the shape of his bicep through his jacket sends a treacherous pulse of awareness up my arm.
He takes half a step closer and rests his hand on my shoulder. From a distance we must look like we’re about to waltz our way along the road.
“How about if I could find some sort of encrypted storage?” I offer.
“And never put it in the cloud? Keep only one copy, store it on a hard drive, and give it to you to destroy once we’re done?
” I’m desperately reaching now. “But I’m going to have to record your words somehow.
There’s no time to do it any other way.”
He squeezes my shoulder, and the pressure of his fingers on the muscle that is tighter than I realized makes my eyelids heavy and my lungs snatch in a deep breath.
I bet those hands would do a fine job massaging away the tension that’s racked my body ever since Julian told me I have to write this book.
The idea of Oliver giving me a full back massage has me involuntarily leaning into his grip. He responds by kneading my shoulder more.
“Does that feel good?” His question is soft and quiet.
I’m tempted to yell fuck yeah, rip off my coat, and turn my back to him so he can get to work. But instead, I nod.
My misty gaze rests on his lips as they now turn into a full smile—a genuinely satisfied and happy one.
“Lexi.” His hand slides inward from my shoulder and up the side of my neck till his thumb tips my face up to look at him.
And his eyes do that thing again, that thing where they look into mine and fireworks pop inside my chest in a burst of sparkles and stardust.
“I do trust you,” he says. “I don’t know why. I can’t figure it out. But even though you’re a reporter through and through, I trust you.”
His touch, along with what, from him, is a compliment of monumental proportions, brings a warmth to my belly that flows lower.
“And I won’t ever betray that,” I tell him.
He makes the tiniest of nods and leans his head down toward mine.
I allow my eyes to close this time, allow myself to sink into this feeling of mutual trust, of our futures being dependent on one another, of us having each other’s backs, of his thumb sliding up my chin and brushing just the very edge of my lower lip.
The ear-piercing honk of a car horn right behind me makes my heart slam into my ribs, and my feet leave the ground.
Oliver’s arms lock around me and pull me to the side of the road as the speeding vehicle hurtles around the horse and rider, who are now almost upon us.
Oliver holds me tight against his strong chest, keeping me safe.
As the car swerves to miss us, it plows through a puddle—a large, dirty puddle—sending the water arcing into the air and landing with a splat on the side of my face.
“Wanker!” the woman on the horse shouts after the vehicle. “You two okay?” she asks as she reaches us. “Oh, I mean, Your Royal Highness. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Oliver says. “And we’re fine, thanks, yes.”
My startled heart isn’t entirely sure it’s fine. Startled not only by having lost my grip on reality so much that I was oblivious to the car until it was just feet from us, but also from being fairly sure that, for the second time in two days, I almost kissed a prince.
I look at that very prince to find him taking in my dirt-splattered face and biting his top lip while his shoulders shake, betraying every attempt he’s making to not laugh.
Jesus, he’s gorgeous.
I wipe my hand down my cheek to get off the thick of the mud, then reach up to smear it on his.
He ducks away like a boxer avoiding a punch. “Oh no, you don’t. Security! Security!”
I reach for him again, and he runs backward across the road to avoid me.
“This is a joke, right, sir?” Cole asks after sprinting up to reach us. “You don’t actually want us to remove the lady, do you?”
Oliver looks at me with a big silly grin. “No. I don’t want you to remove her at all.”
And we all head back toward the castle, where I need to take my second de-mudding shower of the day.
This had better not be an omen.