Chapter 5
On the drive back to the hotel, Callum’s hand rests on my leg, his thumb tracing absent circles on my trousers.
“Margaret’s roast potatoes were incredible. I need to tell the palace kitchen staff to learn her technique,” he says.
“Please don’t start a diplomatic incident between Clarence House and a semi-detached in Didsbury.”
“Too late. I’ve already mentally drafted the letter.” He leans his head against my shoulder. “Sarah reminds me of you. Not so much in what she looks like, but how she approaches the world.”
I can’t object to his characterization because I noticed that too.
“I wonder what it would have been like to have grown up with siblings,” I say instead.
“Based on today, you’d have a lot of stories about property damage,” Callum says.
I laugh.
“I used to want full-time siblings so much when I was growing up that I invented an imaginary brother,” Callum says. “But then I spent time with my actual siblings and discovered there are some potential downsides.”
I find his hand in the dark.
“You’ve got Nicholas,” I point out, and he brightens.
Callum and his brother Prince Nicholas are such different people, but they are definitely growing closer the more time they spend together.
Especially since Nicholas has returned from his royal tour to New Zealand and Australia.
I think the events there reminded them both of how important family support is at critical moments, and also gave them common ground in what they want their royal legacies to be.
Nicholas’s charm always seemed slightly brittle to me, but around Eoin, he seems calmer and more steady. Like he’s somehow surer of his place in the world.
“I’ve got one brother, and now you’ve got two,” Callum says. “I like the fact that our child is going to have three uncles. And it’s going to be interesting to meet Josh, although potentially weird given how much he looks like you.”
“I just hope I’m not going to upend his life.”
“I think your family thinks you’re worth it,” Callum says with a smile.
We arrive in our hotel room. We’re staying in the top-floor suite at The Midland Hotel, which has been hosting royalty for over a century, as well as other historic moments, like the first meeting of Rolls and Royce before they formed their car company.
The door has barely closed before Callum’s arms are around me from behind, his chin resting on my shoulder.
“Thank you,” he says quietly.
“For what?”
“For letting me be part of today and for sharing your family with me.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” I say honestly.
I turn so I can cradle his face in my hands and kiss him. It’s one of those kisses that says things words can’t quite manage.
But Callum makes a sound against my mouth, and the tenderness between us catches fire.
Suddenly, all that matters is showing this man how much he means to me.
We stumble until Callum’s back is against the wall, and I press into him, one hand still at his jaw, the other finding his hip. He’s warm through his shirt, warm everywhere, and I tilt his head back to take the kiss deeper.
I might be known by every person in the United Kingdom, but this is the only place I’ve ever been fully understood.
Eventually, I manage to wrench my mouth away from his so I can kiss along his jaw to that spot below his ear. The sound he makes goes straight through me. His hands fist in the back of my shirt, untucking it, his knuckles dragging up my spine.
“Bed,” he manages.
“In a minute.” I’m busy. There’s a whole stretch of his throat I haven’t attended to, and I’ve never once left a job unfinished.
He laughs, low and breathless, and the laugh becomes a groan as I press my thigh between his. “Oliver.”
My name in that voice undoes whatever patience I had left.
We shed clothes in a haphazard trail to the bed. His jumper ends up on the armchair, my shirt on the floor, our trousers kicked off in tandem.
When we’re both naked, I take a moment to just look at him. The golden tone of his skin against the white hotel sheets, the way his stomach muscles tense under my gaze.
“I’m thinking there should be less looking and more touching,” he says.
“As my husband commands.”
I reach out and stroke down his shoulder, across his collarbone, resting my hand flat over his heart, next to where my grandad’s tags rest against his skin.
His heart beats steadily under my hand. He covers my hand with his own for a moment, holding it there.
Then his hand finds my scar, as if to complete the circuit.
His fingertips trace the raised edges before he bends to press his lips to it. That quiet ritual when we’re in bed together never fails to crack something open inside me.
When he pulls back from my scar, he doesn’t come back up to kiss me. Instead, he tangles his fingers in my chest hair.
“You know, I was thinking about this today,” he says conversationally, as if we’re not both hard and pressed together. “I’m guessing the chest hair is genetic. Which means I have your father to thank for my favorite thing about your body.”
I groan. “Are you really bringing up my father right now?”
“Okay, I agree it’s bad timing.” He trails his fingers lower, skimming my stomach, then stops deliberately short. “Though technically, without him, none of this would exist.” He gestures vaguely at my body.
“Callum, if you don’t stop talking about genetics and start touching me properly, I’m going to lose my mind.”
His eyes are bright and his smile cheeky as he regards me.
“How will you lose it? Like, in a sexy way or in a call-the-doctor way?”
I solve the problem by flipping him onto his back. We kiss until we’re both breathless.
Then I reach for the lube and start working him open. Callum gives himself to this experience totally, the way he does everything. His fingers dig into my shoulders, and his hips shift restlessly as I take my time with him, reading every catch in his breath.
“I love your hands,” he murmurs. “They’re very prime ministerial hands. So authoritative.”
“I’m not prime minister anymore.”
“Your hands obviously didn’t get the memo.”
I curl my fingers inside him, and whatever joke he was building dies on his lips, replaced by a moan that goes straight through me.
When I press into him, his hands come up to my face, holding me there so our eyes are locked together. This is the part that still undoes me. The way Callum looks at me when we’re in bed together. When there are no titles, no roles, no thousand-year institutions. Just us.
We move together slowly, finding our rhythm. His legs wrap around me, pulling me closer, deeper, and the noises he makes undo me completely.
I touch my forehead against his. “I love you.”
“I love…” His breath catches. “…roast potatoes.”
I laugh, and he laughs, and I can feel his laughter everywhere. The fact that we can always laugh together, even in the middle of something this intense, just makes it even better.
Then Callum’s laughter dissolves into a moan as I shift the angle. His fingers dig into my back, and we’re not laughing anymore. We’re just moving together, climbing toward something inevitable.
Callum comes first, his whole body tensing beneath me. I follow moments later, and it’s the kind of release that empties you completely, leaves you hollow and full at the same time.
Afterward, we lie tangled together, Callum’s head on my chest, my fingers combing lazily through his hair.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask because I will never not be fascinated by Callum’s mind.
“The Crown Jewels,” he replies.
I’m used to my husband’s random leaps, but that was still not the answer I expected.
“My crown jewels, or the actual Crown Jewels?” I ask.
“Well, both are infinitely valuable assets to the United Kingdom,” he says with a wicked smile. “But it’s the actual Crown Jewels I’m thinking about.”
“What about them?”
He pulls away so he can prop himself up on his elbow to meet my eyes.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever told you about the time I first saw them.
It was during that whole time when everyone wanted me to date Rose, and Gran took me to see them at the Tower.
I stood in front of St. Edward’s Crown in complete disbelief that I would wear it one day. ”
God. I remember that period of our lives. When I’d fallen desperately in love with Callum but couldn’t work out how to reconcile that fact with my position as the prime minister.
“I don’t think you ever told me about it.”
“Well, I guess we had a few other things going on around that time,” he says.
“Anyway, I was just thinking about how jewels like that are held up as the epitome of wealth. Gold, diamonds, rubies. And none of it…” He trails off, then tries again.
“I don’t know if you noticed when Sarah laughed so hard at dinner she snorted wine out of her nose.
And Margaret just handed her a napkin without even pausing her conversation.
Like it was the most normal thing in the world. ”
“It probably is, in their house.”
“That’s what I mean. That kind of ease with each other isn’t something you can ever buy or inherit. It’s not sitting in a vault under armed guard. But I think the value of being part of a family like that is beyond the worth of any of the Crown Jewels.”
I absorb his words, letting them settle inside me.
“I spent my whole life thinking proper family was something that happened to other people,” I say finally. “And then I found you, and I thought, this is enough. More than enough. And we are now creating our own family…”
“But?”
“But now we’ve both got a chance to be part of another family. I’m sure parts of it will be hard. But I really want to try.”
“I want to try too. Not only for our sake, but also for the sake of our child,” Callum says. “He or she deserves to know that kind of wealth too.”
His words settle over me like a blanket. I think of our child, who will grow up experiencing Sunday roasts at a semi-detached in Didsbury and state dinners at Buckingham Palace. Who’ll know Margaret’s gravy and Sarah’s pranks and the sound of Grant’s laugh, which is apparently also my laugh.
We drift toward sleep, and just before I go under, my private phone buzzes. I fumble for it with heavy eyes.
Sarah has sent me a photo. She must have taken it this afternoon, when Callum was explaining to a disbelieving Margaret how all sandwiches at palace teas must be served in circular shapes rather than having pointed corners, due to an old superstition that someone serving sharp edges to the monarch was subconsciously trying to overthrow the throne.
Grant and I are standing side by side at the kitchen counter, heads tilted at exactly the same angle, both smiling at our spouses.
Beneath the photo, Sarah’s written: Like father, like son.
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