Playing Dirty (A Bad Boy Sports Romance) (41 page)

Chapter 27

Andrew

The response to the tabloid article was instant and as bad as predicted. One of the great inconsistencies of the general public is that a celebrity was allowed to be a lovable lothario, screwing his way around the world, right up until he got a girl pregnant…at which point his actions were heinous and he was to be despised.

The womanizing that these same papers had been enjoying for years was now mutated to paint me as a sexual predator, scattering my illegitimate offspring across the globe. I took it all on the chin, because to all of it there was a degree of truth. In the past, I’d abused my position and behaved like a horny dog, and it was about time I got my comeuppance. But the fact that I’d dragged Keira down with me was something for which I would never forgive myself.

As much as this was my fault, it was somehow also Keira’s fault, according to the media. They’d cast her in the role of scheming seductress, preying on wealthy men, and they’d even invented a whole list of former ‘conquests’. They claimed she was deliberately careless with birth control in her efforts to win a rich husband, and who knew what she might be doing behind that husband’s back? Obviously this wasn’t love, and so ‘evidence’ came to light of orgies in the servants’ quarters and Keira’s astonishing sexual exploits in America. Keira didn’t want to read it but found she couldn’t look away, and she kept musing on how she could’ve possibly had time for all these alleged orgies.

At least she’d kept her sense of humor throughout this debacle.

My mother had immediately come out in staunch public support, denouncing the liars and filth-peddlers who profited from this intrusion into people’s private lives and officially welcoming Keira into the family by announcing the date of our wedding. But it was destined to be a very bad few months despite that. We steeled ourselves, and we wished that we could protect our child from this.

And then, as quickly as it had started—only a day or so later—the furor was gone. The media was like a starving dog, and the only way to stop it eating you was to feed it something else, and a story had just hit the headlines that trumped my and Keira’s scandal and made the public forget that they’d ever really had a problem with us.

I stared at the paper, disconsolately. I should’ve been pleased; I’d been saved from scandal and so had my bride-to-be.

But it had come at a price.

“I can’t believe Michael did this. I can’t believe he actually went to the tabloids and admitted he was the one who leaked the photos and the pregnancy information,” I said.

Keira snuggled up beside me, her head nestled in the crook of my arm. “I think he wanted to.”

I continued to stare at the paper and at the article that angrily tore my brother to shreds. It turned out that I’d been right; a royal prince stabbing his brother in the back, letting his bitterness and jealousy get the better of him, was a bigger story than a prince getting a maid pregnant. The media had never really liked Michael, simply because, when you got right down to it, he wasn’t that likeable, but they’d never had a chance to attack him because he never really did anything wrong, which was one of the things that made him so hard to like. While we might admire men who stuck to the straight and narrow, never straying from their duty and wagging their fingers at those who do, they were not the sort of men anyone wanted to have a drink with.

So now the media had a genuine reason to go after Michael, and they ran with it. It was already known that he was jealous enough of me that he’d sold pictures of me and Keira, but might there be more?

The papers were sure that there was.

They’d hastily dug back through old stories looking for other ways in which Michael might have done wrong. Where evidence didn’t exist, they simply made it up. The bottom line was that where sex (and more pointedly love) was concerned, we all made mistakes, did the wrong thing (or the wrong person) and wound up in situations we wished we could take back—we’d all been there. But to turn on your own brother? Who did that? Who tried to cheat his own brother out of his birthright, nearly drove him away to another country and used the love of his life as a weapon against him? What sort of person did he have to be? The papers eviscerated him.

What none of the media outlets took the trouble to mention was where their surprisingly detailed information had come from. It’d come from Michael himself.

“I don’t see why anyone would want to bring all this down on themselves,” I said with a sigh.

“Sure you do,” said Keira.

I smiled. “You’re telling me what I think now?”

“It’s easier than waiting for you to figure it out,” Keira said. “Look, when they were having a go at you, didn’t you feel a little like you deserved it?”

I hedged. “Maybe a little. Doesn’t mean I liked it.”

“But it made you feel better,” she insisted. “It’s the same with Michael. He wants it to be bad, that way he can get on with his life with a clean slate.”

“I guess.”

“Have you spoken to him?”

“No.”

“You should. You’ve got a question to ask him.”

“I have?”

I’d become used to Keira being able to read my mind, but it was disconcerting when she knew what I was thinking before I did. However, as usual, she was totally right. I had a very important question to ask my brother—after what he’d done to make things up to us by sacrificing himself to the media, I couldn’t think of anyone else who I wanted to be my best man. After all, despite everything, he was family, and family was the most important thing in the world.

And soon, when Keira gave birth, my family would be even bigger.

I smiled at the thought of seeing our baby for the first time.

I couldn’t wait.

Chapter 28

Andrew

There’s no antidote for what ails a country like a royal wedding. When international sporting events go badly and recession threatens, a royal wedding is the palliative needed to get everyone smiling again. Really, you can only pity those countries that don’t have a royal family.

The Queen had personally overseen the details of the wedding, with help from Keira, and it was already being touted in the media as the ‘Wedding of the Century’. All had been arranged with speed and the minimum of fuss, which is what happened when a wedding was organized by people more used to putting on state dinners. No matter how poorly relatives get along, the seating chart for a reception holds no fears to anyone who’s had to arrange one for the countries of the old Commonwealth.

And now, today was the day.

At the altar end of the aisle, I bounced nervously up and down on my toes, casting frequent glances down the aisle to see if Keira had arrived yet. Her friends and family from America were here, still looking quite shocked that their very own Keira was marrying a British royal, but they’d simply have to get used to it, because I was going to stay married to her as long as we lived.

If she showed up, that is. The ceremony was meant to start five minutes ago, and I was starting to worry. Maybe she’d finally realized I wasn’t anywhere near good enough for her?

Michael nudged me, seemingly reading my mind. “She’s too good for you, but if she hasn’t realized it by now, you’re probably safe. Plus, you’ve already knocked her up so I think the odds are pretty good that she’ll be walking down that aisle any moment now.

“You’re a great comfort,” I replied with a smile.

“I’m sure you’ll be just as helpful when it’s my turn.”

“Got anyone in mind? How about Princess Alexandra?” I joked.

“I don’t think she’d like Africa.”

For pretty much his entire life, my brother had been fixated on the throne and how he might acquire something that he felt should’ve been his but never could be. It had been a waste of a colossal amount of energy, and now that he’d got that monkey off his back and accepted that I would be King, he’d found that he suddenly had all that energy to spare. In the last two months, he’d thrown himself into charitable projects and discovered that he had a talent for them. His organizational skills, single-mindedness and dedication, which had been for so long squandered, served him well in this new role. He might forever be branded as the treacherous younger brother, but he could live with that if he was doing good things at the same time.

“You know you’re making me look bad with all that?” I said.

“That’s the little brother’s job,” Michael said. “You have your duties as heir to the throne and I have mine as the other son. And I guess that we’re both doing a pretty good job now.”

“Took long enough.”

“Yeah, but we got there in the end.” Michael checked his waistcoat pocket for the rings for the hundredth time then looked back to me. “Thank you for asking me to be your best man. You didn’t have to after what I did, and…”

“It was a good decision,” I said firmly. “And I think the title fits you well these days. Besides, it’s Keira you should really thank.”

“I have,” Michael said. “You got a good one.”

“The best,” I replied.

The doors at the end of the Abbey opened, and the opening chords of Mendelssohn’s wedding march sounded. I stared down the aisle at the vision in white that was starting to glide towards me, escorted by her father, and my heart swelled. The dress made no effort to hide the five-month baby bump, and why should it? It just made her that much more beautiful.

It was probably the first time in history that a visibly pregnant woman had married a member of British royalty, and it would probably be talked about for years to come, but hey—people were going to talk about this wedding either way, and everyone already knew she was pregnant, thanks to that short-lived media scandal a few months ago. Public opinion had swayed quickly, and the majority of people now seemed to love the idea of me and Keira being together; she was seen as an inspiration for girls all over the globe. The world was changing fast. No longer did you have to be a so-called high-born woman to snag a prince…you could be anyone, and you’d have a shot.

But not with me. I was taken.

Keira had finally reached the end of the aisle, and I grinned at her as she took her place across from me. Our wedding ceremony was being televised across several different countries, and because of that, millions were watching us at this very second. And yet, the whole world seemed to fade away when Keira looked at me, and all I could see and feel in the Abbey was her.

“Ready to officially become a princess?” I asked.

She smiled and nodded. “Ready.”

Chapter 29

Keira

“I thought that went well.”

With the photos, the cheering, the traditional balcony appearance and all the other public-friendly rigmarole of royal weddings over, I found a moment to chat with my maid of honor.

“It had its moments,” Sarah said. “I think some people were a bit surprised when you and Andrew kissed before the Archbishop said ‘you may now kiss the bride’.”

“It was just a peck.”

“Just a peck?” Sarah rolled her eyes. “He was one step away from mounting you on the altar.”

I laughed and patted my stomach. “Well, given that the bride is pregnant, I think making a fuss about us kissing before it was official is a bit silly,” I said. “Anyway, what about
you
?”

“What did I do?” Sarah asked, affronted.

“You caught the bouquet.”

“That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

“Yeah, but you’re not supposed to throw it back again!”

“I don’t want to get married next!” protested Sarah. “I was worried that the bouquet might be legally binding.”

“Well, it’s in all the photos now,” I said. “Should make it a wedding to remember.”

She shook her head. “You married a prince at Westminster Abbey, and it’s me throwing the bouquet back that will make it memorable?”

“Yep.”

I grinned and looked around the room at all the many people I didn’t know—royal families tended to accrue relatives. There, by the window, stood my new husband, with his mother and brother. The Queen took both her boys’ hands, holding them tightly and looking from one to the other. It was, I thought, the happiest I’d ever seen the monarch look. She’d got her wish; her boys had grown up into men that she could be proud of.

“And you’re definitely coming to the US this time?” Sarah asked.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s our honeymoon. Although we can only stay for a few weeks—or else I won’t be allowed to fly back here, given that I’ll be six months pregnant by the time it’s over.”

“Well, that’s plenty of time for us to do stuff,” she replied. “There’s a couple of new bars I want to take you to.”

I arched an eyebrow at her, and she grinned. “What? It could be fun! A pregnant princess in a bar. You met your prince in a bar, after all. And of course you’ll only drink water,” she said.

“I suppose we can try to figure something out…”

Life as the wife of the heir to the British throne did present difficulties when it came to socializing, but I was confident I’d find ways around them. Traditions changed, rules bent, the world moved on. And of course it came with tremendous compensations—for one thing, I could hardly be better placed to study art. I was going to start by writing a book on the hidden masterpieces of the royal family, and Andrew had done nothing but encourage the idea of me writing about my passion. With permission from the family, I was also going to set about restoring some of the paintings which had become grimy and faded over the years, and I couldn’t wait to get started on that.

But first things first. I had a honeymoon to get to before anything else.

As if reading my mind, Andrew came up to us. “Sorry to break this up, but it’s time to go.”

I hugged Sarah. “See you stateside.”

“Damn right. Andy?” Sarah had no problem with addressing royalty however she felt like it. “Could you point me in the direction of the most eligible bachelor?”

Andrew smiled and pointed to a handsome man in a dress uniform, and Sarah slugged back her champagne before heading into attack.

Downstairs, Andrew and I left the palace, walking to our car amidst a cacophony of cheering from beyond the gates.

“I think they like you,” said Andrew.

“I think they like us,” I replied, as they got into the car. “By the way, I have some news.”

He feigned a shocked expression. “Don’t tell me you’re pregnant.”

I grinned. “You really do have the worst sense of humor. Anyway, do you want to hear the news?”

“Of course.”

“Well…it’s a boy.”

“You found out the sex of the baby?”

I nodded. “Uh-huh. Yesterday. We’re having a perfectly healthy baby boy.”

Andrew’s face looked like it was about to split in two from the smile that was plastered across his face right now. “Just when I thought my day couldn’t get any better….you find a way to surprise me.”

“I’ll always find ways to surprise you,” I said with a wink. “Anyway, seeing as we know the sex now, we can start considering names if you want. I was thinking it might be an idea to name him after your father—James.”

Andrew’s smile somehow grew even wider. “James,” he repeated, hand gently resting on my belly. “I think that’s perfect.”

It really was. With Andrew, everything was perfect.

What more could I ever ask for?