The Royals Series

by Bay, Louise

  I’d even dated guys exclusively. Well one guy. For about a week until it became clear that there was no way I was going to be able to avoid sleeping with him, so I ended things.

  Violet grabbed my hand. “I know I’ve said this all along, but what you need is a one-night stand. You’re overthinking the sex thing. It’s just sex. Like brushing your teeth or exercising. It’s a fact of life.”

  “It’s difficult.” I understood and I agreed with Violet—sex wasn’t such a huge deal. But sex after marriage was terrifying. Perhaps because I’d finally be accepting that my marriage was over and also because sex was a precursor to a relationship—a threshold that I had to step over. If I kept on this side, then I was safe. And when things ended, no one could say the relationship was a failure if it didn’t exist in the first place. I didn’t want to go through life leaving a trail of disappointment and broken relationships behind me.

  “It’s really not. And frankly, if you’re really nervous you can just lie there while he does all the work. It won’t be as good but if that’s all you can manage, with your banging body and beautiful face, you don’t need to do anything to get a guy off.”

  “Are we really having this conversation?” I wasn’t nervous. I missed sex. I just didn’t want a relationship that was doomed to failure.

  Violet reached out and patted my hand. “We’re going to keep having this conversation until you get over this issue you have around your first time, first love thing. Your life isn’t a Coke commercial. No one’s life is a Coke commercial. And Marcus has gone and he’s not coming back. Anyway, you know he’s fucking Cindy Cremantes now.”

  I’d heard that particular rumor last time I was at my brother’s house in Connecticut. Cindy was still working at the pharmacy in Westchester as she had since school. I wasn’t sure why she was so much more exciting than I was.

  “I don’t think my life is a Coke commercial.”

  “I beg to differ. I understand that Marcus is the only guy you ever slept with, but despite this décor, we’re not actually in the fifties.” She circled her finger in the air. “You’re not a housewife. You don’t have to pretend you don’t like sex. That’s not what life is like in the modern world.”

  “I like sex plenty. I’m not frigid.”

  Violet sighed. “Marcus didn’t leave you because you’re boring in bed. You don’t have to be afraid.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Marcus wasn’t boring in the bedroom, and I enjoyed sex with him. But I would have been open to something . . . new, more. I didn’t want to throw our car keys into a bowl at the next country club dinner or anything but maybe he could have fucked me on the kitchen floor or talked a little dirty to me once in a while. Once, when we were newlyweds, I’d interrupted his shower and dropped to my knees all ready to give him a blow job when he awkwardly told me he didn’t have time because he was running late for work. “I’m just not ready for a relationship.”

  “Sex isn’t a relationship. You’re waiting to see if these guys you’re dating are Mr. Right until you fuck them?” she asked, drawing her brows together as if it was the most ludicrous thing she’d ever heard.

  I shrugged. “More that I’m avoiding a relationship by not having sex.”

  She nodded. “Okay. Got it. But you’re missing out—having sex with someone doesn’t mean you’re having a relationship with them. Not always. What you need is sex with a stranger.”

  I’d never picked up a guy before—barely even flirted with someone who wasn’t my husband. Marcus and I had been dating since high school. “So how would this one-night stand thing go? If, in theory, I was prepared to do something like that.”

  Violet swallowed her sip of vodka before breaking into a huge grin. “Pick a guy.” She nodded toward a man sitting at the bar, swirling his drink and staring at the bottom of his glass like he had a lot on his mind. “He’s hot. No wedding ring. Get it done.”

  Get it done? It wasn’t highlights or a run around the park.

  “Don’t be stupid. I can’t just pick up a guy.” From what I could see the man at the bar was attractive—a strong jaw, a nicely cut suit you could tell was handmade. But he could still live at home with his mom or have a fetish for peeing on women . . . or men. I was prepared to push at my boundaries, but there were limits.

  “You keep telling me you want to be more adventurous. Now, I think you’ve got no worries on that score—you’ve just let dipshit Marcus get in your head. But in theory, if you did want to have a one-night stand, he would be perfect.” She lifted her chin toward the hot guy at the bar.

  “Just find someone to fuck. Someone you’ll never see again and then when you find someone you really like, you can have a relationship and the sex.”

  “I liked Andrew. And Peter, for that matter.”

  “Maybe you did. But not enough. Maybe it’s all the pressure. With a stranger, there’s no expectation—apart from that you’re both gonna get laid.”

  Maybe that was it. Maybe I just didn’t need to think about it—about anything.

  “You’re doing that thing,” Violet said, frowning at me.

  “What thing?”

  “The thing where you tap your index finger. It’s annoying.”

  “You’re annoying.”

  She just shrugged as if the idea didn’t bother her at all. Violet was always so sure of herself and everything around her. It was almost as if she were wearing super-strength glasses with a prescription straight out of science fiction—she saw things differently, more clearly than I did. Usually, she was right.

  “In theory—because there’s no way I’m ever going to do it—if I wanted to pick up the guy at the bar, what would I do?”

  “In theory?” Violet asked.

  I nodded while taking the two tiny black straws sticking out of my cocktail into my mouth.

  “You wouldn’t have to do much. Just find a reason to go to the bar.”

  “Why would I need to go to the bar? They have table service.”

  Violet exhaled loudly. “I said find a reason. It doesn’t matter what it is. Just go to the bar and order an unusual drink.” She paused, her mouth slightly open as if she were midway through a word. “A French 75.”

  “That’s a cocktail?” It sounded more like a paint color or a dog breed.

  “A French 75 is the cocktail. How do you live in New York City and not know these things?” she asked. “It’s not on the menu, which makes you look cool and sophisticated. And it’s a talking point.”

  “So, I go to the bar, order the drink. And then what? I ask him to fuck me?”

  “Shhh, this is a nice place,” Violet said giggling. “Just go over, stand close to him. Be open to it. Maybe glance sideways at him. In that dress, it’s all you’ll have to do.”

  I glanced down at my dress. It was my red one. I’d worn it for work. It couldn’t be that sexy.

  “Maybe after I finish my drink.”

  Violet rolled her eyes. “Maybe my ass. You’ll never do it.”

  I kept being told what I wouldn’t do. What I wasn’t. By Marcus, by recruitment consultants who’d said I’d never be a finance director after working in treasury, by my brother who said I’d never move to the city.

  Well fuck it.

  I’d done all those things. I could walk up to a bar and order a damn drink.

  “Two French 75s coming right up.” I slid out of the booth and didn’t glance back to see if I’d shocked Violet. I didn’t want to lose my nerve. It wasn’t like I had to talk to the guy at the bar. If anything, it would be better if I didn’t. I could prove to Violet that picking up a man wasn’t as easy as she thought it was.

  My red patent heels clipped on the wooden parquet floor, out of sync with the heartbeat pounding in my chest. The guy Violet had pointed out was sitting at the corner of the bar, so rather than slide in next to him, I went to the corner, that way I could check to make sure it wasn’t just his profile that was handsome.

  I placed my hands flat on the shiny mahogany, delibe
rately not looking to my right. The barman wasn’t behind the bar.

  “I think he went out back for a second,” the handsome guy said with an accent I couldn’t place. I glanced over. Nope, his profile wasn’t the only thing handsome about him. As soon as I looked at him, it was as if my eyes were glued to his. He grinned. “Hi.”

  I sucked in a breath and smiled, curling my fingers under my hands and squeezing my nails into my palms. “Hi.” His eyes, a deep chocolate brown, watched me as if I was the only thing in the room.

  “Ryder,” he said.

  “Oh. Scarlett.” I nodded, still smiling. “My name that is. I mean, my name is Scarlett.”

  Get it the fuck together, Scarlett. He’s just a man.

  Except, he wasn’t just anything. He certainly didn’t look like any man I’d ever met. He looked like a movie star. Even sitting down, I could tell he was tall—taller than Marcus who stood at five eleven. His skin was tan and his hair a shiny chestnut brown. One large hand gripped his glass and the other stroked down his jaw.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Scarlett? As in O’Hara?”

  “No, as in King.”

  The corners of his lips curled up into a half smile and he nodded. “Scarlett King. I like that.”

  I like that, I repeated in my head, trying to sound like he did. And then I got it. He was British.

  His full, pouting lips.

  His almost smile.

  His accent.

  Wow.

  If either Peter or Andrew had been like this guy, I wasn’t sure I would have been able to stop myself from sleeping with them, whatever my concerns. But they weren’t. They hadn’t made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Hadn’t gotten me to push my shoulders back and my chest forward. Hadn’t made me think about what they’d look like naked.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” a man said to my left. I tried to turn my gaze back to the bartender, but Ryder had captured it.

  “Scarlett and her friend over there would like a drink. Put it on my bill,” Ryder said.

  “That’s a bit risky. What if I said I was ordering a bottle of Cristal?” I asked.

  “I’d say they don’t offer it here but the twenty-o-one Krug is excellent. And put it on my bill.”

  I didn’t know how to reply.

  “Martin. The Krug,” Ryder said to the barman. He sounded so authoritative. Perhaps it was just the way each word he said was a little clipped because of his accent.

  Shit. I didn’t want to look like one of those girls that was just after the most expensive drinks she could get. “Oh, no! You don’t have—I really just came over for a couple cocktails. The same again if you don’t mind,” I told the barman. I’d forgotten the name that Violet had given me.

  “You’re turning down Krug?” Ryder asked with a frown.

  “Yeah, this way, I can talk to you without you thinking you bought your time.”

  Ryder raised his eyebrows. “Now that I can live with. So where shall we start?”

  Shit, I had no idea what came next. I’d only gotten as far as ordering a cocktail when talking it through with Violet. He tilted his head slightly and I waited for him to decide. “Tell me what you’re discussing so conspiratorially about over there with your friend,” he said. “You looked like two girls who didn’t want to be interrupted.”

  Weren’t we supposed to start with the basics? What I did for work? Did I live in New York? Something in the way he looked at me told me this guy wanted my soul straight out the gate.

  “You first,” I said. “Why are you here? Drowning your sorrows? Bad breakup? Lost a trillion dollars?”

  He chuckled. “Nothing like that,” he said, taking a sip of his drink. “Trying to keep myself awake so I wake up tomorrow without jet lag. I flew in from London earlier today.”

  London. Interesting.

  “You’re here on business?” I asked, leaning against the barstool, letting myself relax a little.

  “I’m based here and my business is here too. You live in the city?”

  I nodded. “So you were just visiting London?”

  “Yeah, my grandfather had a fall and so I flew back to check on him.”

  I rolled my eyes. What a cheeseball. “You were visiting your sick grandfather?” I stood up and looked to see if our cocktails were ready. “Does any girl believe it when you tell them that?”

  He laughed. “You’re right. That sounded like a line. But it’s true. Luckily he’s fine and you haven’t hurt my feelings.” I didn’t know if he was playing with me.

  “Well, if your grandfather is sick, then I’m sorry.”

  His eyes seemed to sparkle as he watched me, giving me lots of time to finish what I was thinking. “Thank you,” he said finally. “If I was wanting to be cheesy, I’d ask you to tell me something about yourself that no one else knows.”

  “That’s cheesy? I think it’s kinda nice-cheesy. Rather than sleazy-cheesy.”

  “Well it’s good to know which box I’m in.” His sparkle was back. His eyelashes were so long, I had to look closely to check he wasn’t wearing mascara. The city was full of metrosexuals, but I wasn’t about to go to bed with a man who wore makeup. I liked a guy who thought anything other than shower gel and shampoo was strictly for people with vaginas.

  But Ryder’s lashes were bare of any enhancement.

  “So, why don’t you tell me something that no one else knows? Something real,” I said.

  He narrowed his eyes as he looked at me as if he was trying to figure out whether he could be honest. “Sometimes I can’t sleep at night because I worry I won’t get it all done before I die,” he said, looking away and into his drink.

  The sparkle left his eyes when he’d spoken and I reached for him but didn’t want to touch, didn’t know where that would lead, so left my hand resting on the wood next to his drink. “Get what done?” Maybe he was back from visiting his grandfather and contemplating his place in the world.

  “Everything I’m here to do.” He stared at my hand and I pulled it away. “You never think about it? What’s left at the end?”

  His expression was so sad, I wanted to make it better.

  “Not on a Tuesday,” I replied in a matter-of-fact way.

  He looked back at me, grinning. “That’s a good strategy. I’m going to try it. Now, your turn.”

  “Something no one else knows?” My family knew me very well and Marcus knew me inside and out. “I’m not sure there’s anything no one else knows.”

  “Liar,” he whispered.

  I was pretty sure this conversation wasn’t the sort that led to bed. It certainly didn’t feel like foreplay.

  “Okay, one thing no one else knows,” I said, pulling my shoulders back and picking up the two cocktails the barman set down in front of me. “I think you’re a sexy guy.”

  And before I could catch his expression, I turned back to Violet with our drinks.

  Had I just said that? Well, it was true. And no one else knew it except me. I mean, I’m sure plenty of people told him he was a sexy guy. But I hadn’t told anyone. Not until I’d told him. I wanted to let out a squeal. I couldn’t believe I’d actually said it. I was pretty sure Violet would approve.

  “Why did you leave him? It looked like it was going well,” Violet complained as I sat back down opposite her.

  “What did you expect? That he’d flip me over the bar and fuck me in public?”

  “Maybe,” she replied.

  I chuckled. I’d not gotten his full name. And he’d not asked for my number. But it had been fun. And not as scary as I’d expected.

  “Well at least you’ve lightened up. Just think how much lighter you’d be if you’d fucked him.”

  “Sex isn’t the answer to everything.” It wouldn’t save my company or pay the mortgage.

  “Yeah but good sex makes everything a little bit better,” Violet said.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” a man said from beside us.

  I snapped my head around to find Ryde
r standing over our table. How much had he heard?

  “I think you’re sexy,” he said, staring straight at me. “And I want your number.”

  “I’m just leaving,” Violet said, grabbing her purse and scooting out of the booth.

  “Wait, I’ll come with you.” It had suddenly gotten very hot in here and I needed some air.

  “No you won’t,” Ryder said. “You’re staying here for a little while. With me. I want to get to know you a little better.”

  Violet’s mouth widened in a bright smile. “You heard the man with the accent. Call me later. I love you.” And before I had another chance to argue she’d disappeared and I was left sitting opposite the sexiest British guy I’d ever met, who didn’t seem to find me boring at all.

  Chapter Three

  Ryder

  I hadn’t planned on fucking anyone tonight. I’d only gone to the bar to avoid falling asleep in my apartment. I’d left London at noon and if I could stay awake until midnight Eastern, I wouldn’t be plagued by jet lag.

  But jet lag was the last thing on my mind now.

  Even if I didn’t go home with her and fuck her into the early hours, the beautiful woman in front of me was going to keep me awake all night. The memory of her raven-black hair and the way she kept trying to swallow her smiles would keep me bright, alert and hard.

  “You live in Manhattan?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I have a small place in SoHo. I moved from Connecticut just less than two years ago.”

  “Connecticut?”

  “Yeah. I grew up there. Got married there. Stayed until my divorce . . .” She trailed off at the end as if she didn’t want me to hear.

  Interesting. She didn’t look old enough. “Were you married long?”

  She slid the napkin that sat underneath her drink to the left. “Long enough.”

  She wasn’t giving much away. She was hot. And feisty. And had more than a little Scarlett O’Hara in her. But I didn’t have Rhett’s patience. Sex was an escape. It wasn’t about emotions or opening up or any of the shit that women thought it was. It was release—mindless oblivion.