Playing Dirty (A Bad Boy Sports Romance) (30 page)

Chapter 13

Keira

“Wakey wakey!”

I woke up, blearily rubbing my eyes, and then I shot up in bed as I saw Andrew standing over me, holding a croissant and a takeaway cup of coffee. He was dressed in a casual grey hoodie, faded blue jeans and some sort of weird black wig, and I pinched my arm.

“This is a dream, right?”

“More like a nightmare, judging by what I look like in this outfit and wig,” he replied with a grin, setting the breakfast down on my small wooden bedside table.

“Why are you wearing it? And how did you get into my apartment?” I asked. “Thanks for the coffee, by the way.”

He held up a key, his eyes glimmering with mischief. “Well, seeing as these apartments are owned by the royal family, I can get master keys quite easily. But I didn’t even need one, because you actually made the age old mistake of leaving a spare key under the doormat. Not very safety-conscious of you.”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly expecting someone to try and get in. Nothing really worth stealing in here,” I said, gesturing around to the bare-bones apartment. Seeing as I was hardly ever here, there really wasn’t much—just the furniture that came with the place, and the things I’d brought over from home.

“You’re worth stealing,” Andrew said with a wink. “And that’s why I’m here. I checked the palace staff roster, and you’ve got a day off today, so I’m stealing you for the day before anyone else can make plans with you.”

I arched an eyebrow. “And the wig and hoodie?”

“Well, do you think I can just go out in public and have a nice time with you, looking like myself? We’d instantly be mobbed by reporters and the like.”

“I know. But…do you really want to go out somewhere with me?” I asked hesitantly. “Somewhere that isn’t either here or on the palace grounds?”

“Yes. I thought you could show me one of those museums you love so much.”

My heart swelled at the prospect of sharing something I loved with Andrew, and the fact that he’d even suggested it showed how much he cared about me and my ambitions.

We’d tried to tell ourselves that our relationship was just a playful fling that needed to come to a halt after our near miss with Michael in the library, but we both knew that wasn’t going to happen. We simply couldn’t end it, no matter how much we told ourselves we needed to. There was something between us; something that couldn’t be stopped no matter what, and it felt like we’d already known each other for an eternity.

I just wished we could
really
be together, in public and with the knowledge of our friends and family. Then we’d be complete.

“Are you absolutely sure no one will recognize you?” I finally asked.

“It’ll be fine. I’ve done this before.”

“Broken into women’s apartments?” I asked in a teasing tone.

“Gone incognito, I mean. That’s how we met, after all.”

“True.”

“So what do you say? Show me around the museums?”

I grinned. “Just let me shower first.”

I hopped out of bed, and a smirk crossed Andrew’s handsome features. “I think I’ll join you…”

***

An hour later, we were looking at my favorite painting in the National Gallery, and Andrew spoke loudly in an unconvincing Texan accent, trying his best to disguise who he really was as another couple approached the painting.

“Howdy, partners,” he said, nodding at them. They shot him strange looks and turned away.

I nudged him. “You know Texans don’t really say ‘howdy, partner’ every five seconds, right?”

“This Texan does,” he replied, scratching his wig, which almost made it come askew. I hastily fixed it for him. “Thanks, partner,” he added.

I grinned and rolled my eyes. “Anyway, as I was saying…see the brushstrokes there? And the way he’s perfectly captured the expression on the girl’s face? She looks serene at first glance, but when you look closer, you can see how much more there is going on in her mind. Especially in the eyes. The eyes say it all.”

Andrew grinned. “Come to think of it, I do see it now. Like there’s two different layers to what’s happening in the scene.”

I nodded, glad that he was understanding me. “Exactly.”

“You know, I always used to think art was quite boring, but you explain it so well. I actually kinda get it now.”

I smiled. “Well, this is just a really good example to show first-timers,” I said, gesturing to the painting again. “It’s actually one of the first paintings that made me fall in love with art.”

He looked down at me, squeezing my hand. “I think this painting is making me fall in love too,” he said softly, his eyes conveying a clear message. “With art, of course.”

“Of course. Art,” I said, trying to suppress the urge to grin and cheer as an unspoken sentiment passed between us.

I knew how I felt about him, and now I knew exactly how he felt about me. It didn’t need to be said; not yet. It was too early, and although I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we were both feeling it, it wasn’t the best time to say it, not while we were in disguise in a crowded museum. A better time would come along—a perfect moment—and when it did, I’d be happy to admit what I’d just realized out loud…

I was really falling for him.

Chapter 14

Keira

On the morning of my next day off a week and a half later, I woke early and lay in bed, just thinking. It was a happy pursuit, and I did it with a smile on my face. Actually, I found that I did most things with a smile on my face these days, especially since the moment Andrew and I had shared at the museum. It wasn’t that life was perfect—our situation was far from ideal, seeing as no one could know about us—but perhaps the secret was to stop worrying about life not being perfect.

That just made everything easier.

I wasn’t entirely sure how things were going to progress between me and Andrew in the future, but I liked things the way they were right now, and I was happy enough for them to continue in this vein for a while. We couldn’t ‘date’ in the usual meaning of the word, so we’d invented our own form of dating, a form which I was currently enjoying far more than I’d ever enjoyed dating in the past. It wasn’t just the sex—although the sex was amazing—but also the fact that our attempts to find time and places for surreptitious sex had inadvertently led to us talking.

A lot.

There’d been the nights at my place and the day we’d sneaked off to the museum together, and yesterday, there’d even been a clandestine picnic in the hedged off gardens beyond the stables of Richmond Palace. Come to think of it; maybe we
were
dating like normal people. We weren’t really in a position where we could go out to dinner, go to see a movie or go dancing every night, so instead we sneaked around in disguises, had sex and talked endlessly. And although we essentially did the same thing every date, I was in no way tired of it.

Did it bother me that a lot of it seemed to revolve around sex? Not really. First because the sex was, as previously reported, amazing. But also because that was what it was like at the start of a relationship: that passion, that desire, that craving to be with the other person. And ‘relationship’ was a word that I was now comfortable using to describe what Andrew and I had, and I was sure that he’d comfortably do the same. Sure, we’d jumped a few steps in the normal relationship, but maybe that was what happened when you met the right person. The bottom line was that, while to anyone observing it might have looked like two people enjoying casual sex on a regular basis, there was nothing casual about it.

Not at all.

Perhaps, if I was forced into a corner and put on the spot, I’d admit to disliking all the sneaking around and hiding, because it made me feel that I was doing something wrong…although I guess I was. But had it not been for that unfortunate necessity, then our relationship wouldn’t have developed in the way in which it had, a way that I was very happy with. I tried not to think about the future, about being found out or coming clean ourselves, but I was increasingly sure that when that day came, Andrew would be beside me. I trusted him.

Life, I considered as I lay back in bed, was pretty damn good.

A moment later, I leapt out of bed, ran to the bathroom and hurled my guts out. It wasn’t the best end to a nice morning, but life was still good aside from that. There’d been a bug going around the staff at the palace recently, and it seemed I was the latest one to fall victim to it. Luckily, I’d heard that it was a twenty-four hour thing—one day of horrible vomiting and diarrhea, and I’d be back to normal.

When the vomiting and nausea happened on and off for the next three days, however, I became unsure. I looked back over what I’d eaten in the last week, and I checked to make sure my fridge was working and got rid of a bunch of food. But the next morning I was sick again, and an unpleasant feeling claimed my stomach that had nothing to do with my nausea. After a grueling day of work while feeling nauseated, I Skyped with Sarah.

“Do you think I’m just sick?”

“I think you wouldn’t be talking to me if you thought you were just sick. You’d be talking to a doctor.”

There was some truth to that, and I fought to suppress the real reason that I’d called my friend and not a doctor.

Sarah, however, preferred to take the bull by the horns. “You guys have been using birth control, yeah?”

She was evangelical about birth control, for obvious reasons.

“Of course,” I replied.

“What kind?”

“Condoms.”

“And you guys use them every single time?”

“Yes. I even keep some on me every day just in case he doesn’t have one.”

“You’re telling me man-whore Prince Andrew isn’t always packing condoms?” asked Sarah. “Not buying it.”

“Well, he’s been getting through quite a few recently.”

“And I admire and respect you for that, but…well, you know the things aren’t one hundred percent effective, Keira. I think you need to do a test.”

“Yeah. I do.” I’d pretty much known how this conversation would end, but I’d still wanted to talk to my friend. “Sarah, what am I going to do if it’s…you know…”

Sarah smiled as best she could. “Well, shit…you always said you wanted kids, right? I know this is earlier than planned, but you’ve still got some time to go look at museums, then…”

“I meant what do I say to Andrew? Or anyone else? He’s a friggin’ prince, for god’s sake, and I’m just a palace maid! The media would have a field day with the news…or more like a field century.”

“Just do the test first. You could be worrying about nothing. So get that out of the way before you start to worry about any massive royal baby scandals.”

I knew that was good advice, but I couldn’t help thinking that once I took the test, the whole thing was so much more concrete. For the present, the possible baby was in a state of simultaneous existence and non-existence—Schrodinger’s baby, as it were. Once I took the test, and if the test was positive, then its existence became an absolute. I knew that if it existed, it existed whether I took the test or not, but the uncertainty made it much easier to ignore for the time being.

On the other hand, this wasn’t the sort of thing I could ignore forever. I found myself wishing that Andrew was with me, and with that I realized that that was what was missing—I didn’t want to take the test alone.

I wanted to take it with the potential father.

And with that thought came an unexpected glimmer of happiness. As unbelievably messy as this whole debacle was, and as hard as it could be if I really
was
pregnant, part of me actually liked the idea. I’d always wanted to be a mother—it had always been part of my life plan—and perhaps I hadn’t planned on it happening now, or in this way, but nothing about my relationship with Andrew had been how I’d imagined relationships were supposed to be. Given how many steps we’d jumped already in our burgeoning relationship, jumping a few more seemed like it might actually work out. I recognized that this wasn’t how either of us would’ve wanted our relationship to progress, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t be wonderful. The modern world was a different place than it’d been a hundred years ago, and it wasn’t unheard of these days for a royal family member to be with someone who, in the past, would’ve been considered a ‘commoner’.

Maybe I was just being naïve as hell, but the idea of having a family with Andrew made my heart swell…the royal thing would be an adjustment, but as long as I had him by my side, I was sure I could take any of the punches the tabloids might throw at me.

My mind made up to my next course of action, I headed for Richmond Palace. After I arrived, I wound a quick path through the maze of servants’ stairs and corridors and bumped into Margo, one of my fellow maids.

“Hey, Margo, have you seen Prince Andrew?” I asked, keeping my expression neutral.

“Try the yellow drawing room,” she replied.

I smiled, said ‘thank you’ and hurried off. Why the family had stuck to the old color-coded names for some rooms in the house, I was never altogether sure, since the yellow drawing room had been redecorated in blue during the 1950’s. It was tradition, I supposed, which was the answer to so many questions in this house.

I arrived at the door to the drawing room and was about to knock when I noticed the door was ajar and voices could be heard from within—Andrew and his mother. After our last encounter, there was no way that I could have any conversation with Andrew while the Queen was in the room, and certainly not this particular conversation, seeing as the Queen would certainly have something to say about a possible pregnancy...and I had a feeling that anything she had to say on the matter wouldn’t be positive, given my supposedly lowly status as a maid.

I turned to leave, but something made me hover a moment longer. It was something in the Queen’s tone that did it. By the nature of her job, the Queen was expected to say nothing, to have opinions on nothing, to make decisions about nothing, and so she had developed a way of making her opinions clear by fluctuating tones in her voice. I hadn’t had a long enough acquaintance with her to be able to read those tones accurately, but I was more than familiar with this particular tone:
disapproval
. I’d heard it in my own voice enough times in my early teens, when I’d been dealing with all the crap my parents threw at me before they’d finally sorted their lives out and quit drinking.

It was also a tone that I automatically associated with the Queen talking about me and my acquaintance with Prince Andrew, given the way she’d spoken to me in the Long Gallery all those weeks ago, and I was filled with a maddening curiosity. Was it possible that Andrew had told his mother about us? Possible, but not likely—surely he would’ve told me if he was planning on doing that. So was it possible that the Queen had found out on her own? That was very possible, for her Majesty was exceptionally intelligent and insightful, but she also hated confrontation and it seemed unlikely that she would put her son on the spot about his fooling around with a maid. That said, she might scold him by inference as she so often had in the past.

Knowing that I would never be content with wondering if the jig was up or not, I stole back to the door. I checked up and down the ornate vestibule looking for anyone who might catch me in the act of eavesdropping, which was the cardinal crime of a royal servant, but there was no one. Cautiously, I leaned closer to the crack in the door and held my breath, listening intently.

“…to your left,” the Queen said.

“To my left,” repeated Andrew.

“Other left.” The Queen’s tone was withering.

“Sorry. I was thinking stage left.”

“Why?”

“Not sure, really.”

“Andrew…” That tone of distinct disapproval that I knew so well had re-entered the Queen’s voice. “I can’t help feeling that you are not giving this matter the attention it requires.”

“Does it really require that much attention? We’re essentially talking about seating arrangements.”

“If you address the person to your right rather than the one to your left, then the whole dinner is rather for nothing.”

“I understand that,” Andrew said. “But a) I have met Princess Alexandra before, and I know what she looks like. And b) the person to my right is Rear-Admiral Tobias Grieg, and I would ask you to give me credit enough to acknowledge that I can tell the difference between a bearded sailor in his late sixties and a Swedish princess. I realize you have a low opinion of me, but this I can do.”

“It’s important, Andrew.”

“I know.”

There was a pause before the Queen spoke again. “Andrew, you are brushing me off again.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Andrew replied. “Look, we’ve met before, so I do know her. We got along well.”

My intake of breath was so sharp that I feared I might be heard, but the speakers were too busy with their own conversation. Were they still talking about the aforementioned Swedish princess? If so, why?

“You do like Princess Alexandra, don’t you?” the Queen said, confirming my suspicion.

“Like I said, we got on very well before. I mean, we were kids back then, but still…”

“That didn’t sound very sure.”

“I like her fine.”

“Nor did that.” The Queen sighed. “I hope you know, Andrew, this is not how I would have preferred it to happen. Your father and I loved each other very much. It was a convenient marriage but it was our choice first and foremost. I would rather you have the same experience.”

“We both know you think I make dumb choices,” he replied.

Oh. My. God.

I knew what this was now. They were discussing a royal marriage…Andrew’s, no less. The Queen was setting him up with this Swedish princess, and Andrew was just calmly responding to her as if it were the most perfectly natural thing in the world.

What the hell?

There was another pause as the Queen seemed to consider something. “Ill-advised choices, perhaps,” she finally said. “But not dumb. I wish this could be your choice, but Princess Alexandra…there was an agreement. And none of us can escape our duties forever.”

“Right.”

“I hope the two of you get along.”

Andrew yawned before replying. “That would make things easier.”

“Quite. You’ve had months to get used to the idea, so I hope it’s all settled into that head of yours.”

Another yawn. “Uh-huh.”

I listened in quiet shock.
Shit.
He’d known. He’d known that he had to marry someone else; this Princess Alexandra. It didn’t sound as if it was his choice or that he was particularly excited about it, but he’d damn well
known
, and he was saying nothing to stop it.