by S. A. Gordon
“Hal,” said David, placing his hand on the small of Caitlin’s back as she drew alongside him, “I’d love you to meet Caitlin Meadows. My love, I’d like to introduce you to Henry Beaufort, my oldest friend. Everyone calls him Hal.”
Hal leaned down to kiss Caitlin once on each cheek. “I’m delighted to meet you. He’s never called anyone ‘my love’ in his life. Especially me, right, Davide?”
“Davide?” Caitlin said, amused, as she turned to the prince.
“Hal likes to think he’s French,” said David, shrugging. “It seems cruel to disabuse him of the idea.”
“Oh, shut up,” Hal said, then turned to lead the way inside. “We have lunch ready for you. I presume you’re hungry?”
David looked enquiringly at Caitlin, who nodded.
“We are,” he said. “And thank you so much for letting us stay here. I didn’t want to keep Caity cooped up in KP.”
“Tsk-tsk, Day, don’t alliterate,” came a sing-song voice from the staircase. “It makes you sound like you’re trying too hard.”
“Rita!” David said delightedly.
Caitlin watched his face transform as he swept up the young blond woman in an enormous hug.
“Caitlin, this is unexpected but please meet my darling sister Margaret.”
Caitlin suddenly felt shaky—his sister? But she was meant to be away. Caitlin had been minding her cat. Caitlin had been sitting on her sofa. She wasn’t meant to meet her. Not yet.
“David calls me Rita,” said Margaret as she grabbed Caitlin in a hug almost as enthusiastic as her brother’s had been. “I hope you will too.”
“Oh.” Caitlin faltered. “S-sure.”
“You were in Gstaad,” David said, wagging a finger. “I’m sure of it.”
“When you called Hal and asked to use the house, of course, we both had to come back,” Margaret said, rolling her eyes. “I could hardly miss out on meeting the young lady who has finally—finally, I tell you, Caitlin—made my brother very happy. Alix and I thought he’d never meet anyone who could stop him brooding around the place. But you have.” She beamed and squeezed Caitlin’s arm. “I can see it. He hasn’t look this relaxed in years.”
David glanced at Caitlin with concern. “Don’t put pressure on her, darling. We’re just here for a couple of days before she has to go back.”
“Lucky Hal and I had some time off, wasn’t it?” Margaret smiled delightedly at her boyfriend.
“You always have time off, Margaret Mary Anne,” David said, glowering.
“He’s such a spoilsport, Caitlin, don’t pay any attention! Now come on—I’ll show you to your room. We’ve given you a separate room just in case you want to escape my brother. Lord knows I want to escape him all the time.”
Margaret poked her tongue out at David as she took Caitlin by the hand and drew her up the stairs. Caitlin turned back to see David looking curiously after them and she tried her best to look relaxed. She was in a beautiful house in the middle of the glorious Cotswolds countryside. Meeting David’s sister was always going to happen if she and David kept seeing each other. But that was the part she wasn’t sure about. After this week—after everything that had happened and was now happening—was she ever going to see him again?
*
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” David said as he led Caitlin by the hand.
“Beautiful and … dark.” She shivered as she looked at the trees around them. “What are we doing here?”
“We’re getting away from everyone.”
Caitlin could just make out David’s mischievous smile in the gloom of the late evening.
“It would be hard to … be together in that house,” David said.
“But it’s huge! There’s plenty of room.”
“And plenty of staff. Everyone knows everything. Out here …” David sighed loudly. “Well, only the trees can see us. And we can still see the house. It’s not like we’re in the middle of nowhere.”
Caitlin looked over her shoulder at the lights blazing from all three stories of the home. She shivered again.
“It just feels …” She looked back at David.
“Illicit?” He nudged her. “Forbidden?”
“I guess that depends on what we’re doing out here,” she whispered dramatically.
David turned around and faced her properly. He grasped the back of her neck with one hand and the other wrapped around her waist as he drew her to him.
“We’re doing this,” he whispered back, kissing her forcefully. Caitlin felt a trembling in her legs as the moistness of his lips found hers. She tried biting his bottom lip, gently, and was rewarded with a hand grabbing her ass.
“Lie down,” David commanded. He took off his jacket and laid it on the earth.
“Are you even allowed to do this?”
“By ‘you’ do you mean me, personally, or people in general?”
“You, personally. Where are your protection officers? Shouldn’t they be here?”
“Watching us fuck outdoors?” David said and she could hear the teasing note in his voice. “I hope not.”
“I just thought … Couldn’t someone be around? Someone they need to protect you from?”
“Not likely. Hardly anyone knows I’m here, and Hal has security on the perimeter. It’s discreet, so you wouldn’t have noticed it—and they’re outside the walls, my love, don’t worry.” He huffed. “But why are we even talking? What I really want to do is see you naked on this grass immediately.”
He tugged at her top and then pulled it swiftly over her head, unhooking her bra before she even had time to take another breath. One warm hand came to her breast and stroked it while the other pushed down her pants.
“Am I going to be completely naked out here?” she squeaked.
“Yes,” he said firmly. “And so am I.”
David’s sweater and shirt came off, followed by his shoes and jeans, and Caitlin smiled as she saw how hard he was as he slid off his boxer shorts.
“That’s the reaction I was hoping for,” he said, lying back on his jacket. “Now come here.”
He took her hands and pulled her on top of him. She propped herself on his shoulders and looked down at him, her breathing quick, matching his.
“Fuck me,” he whispered and she gasped. Just those words—the way he said them—made her instantly wetter. She reached down to grab his cock and pulled him inside of her. He growled and she pressed down on him, hard.
“Kiss me,” he commanded and she complied, biting him, sucking him, pulling at his tongue with her lips, wanting to take all of him. She had never wanted anyone so much and never been wanted so much in her life. It was intoxicating.
As she continued to kiss him she bucked against him and was rewarded with him pressing up against her each time.
Then she sat up, her hands on his chest, her knees pulled up beside him, and half closed her eyes as she leaned back to undulate against him. His hands held her hips and when she glanced down at him she could see him watching her, smiling.
“It looks like you’re having fun,” she murmured.
“And you are too,” he replied.
“I think—” She sighed. “I think I’m about to have even more fun.”
He pouted. “Already?”
“What can I say?” She grinned. “You get me there pretty fast.”
“Then fuck me hard as you come,” he said, his voice low. “And I’ll do the same.”
Caitlin closed her eyes and kept moving in faster and faster waves, panting, pulling at David’s chest as he held her tighter.
Their rhythms were in perfect sync as she felt the wave—that now familiar wave— rising from her pelvis up her spine.
“Oh,” was all she said as what felt like an explosion rocked through her.
“Indeed,” he responded as she felt him pull her to him.
“Kiss me,” he said, and while both them shook, she did. Their trembling was violent, but her kiss was tender.
She la
y on top of him as their breathing slowed down.
“I love you, Caitlin Meadows,” David said after a minute or ten had passed. “I don’t ever want to let you go.”
“And I don’t want you to,” she whispered, then rolled onto her back, pulling him with her. “So keep holding me this next time.”
He grinned—and obliged.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Sitting at her desk, staring at her computer screen, Caitlin wondered if she’d dreamed everything about the past week. There were parts she sincerely hoped she had—especially Lisa’s behavior and the paparazzo—and other parts that were so vividly etched into her memory that she knew she hadn’t: David’s home; David’s smile; David’s kiss, and the way he smelled. The feeling of safety she had with him even when a photographer was yelling at her. And how he looked naked. How he felt naked, when he was on her, inside her, anywhere near her at all. This might have been just a lust haze, but she doubted it. She’d loved him before she’d ever made love to him. They were both way beyond lust now.
Caitlin had had fun there, too, she realized. She hadn’t expected to—she’d expected that David’s life would be bound by routine and overseers. But there had been room for spontaneity in among his duties and his visits to his father, which had taken place twice daily. He’d also seen his older sister, but never at their homes, only at Buckingham Palace, so Caitlin hadn’t met the mysterious Alexandra. Caitlin had used that time alone to read, to doze, to daydream. It had been a weird kind of holiday that way—it hadn’t been arranged as a holiday but she’d ended up having a break, and she’d needed it after the shock of being exposed in the press. She hadn’t realized how much of an impact that would have. She also realized that David and his sisters had it happen to them on a regular basis, but he seemed used to it. Or successfully kept it to himself. Given that it was Caitlin’s first experience, though, it had seemed literally shocking, and the encounter with the paparazzo had intensified it. That encounter had been David’s stated reason for not taking her to meet his father. His father’s office had been less than pleased at the news that the woman in the photographs was, indeed, his girlfriend and they had asked—commanded, really—that she be kept out of sight for the rest of her stay.
Now Caitlin was back at work and people who had never bothered to learn her name were finding excuses to walk past her desk and shoot covert or not-so-covert glances at her. She kept wearing her hair out so she that when she tilted her head forward it formed a curtain to protect her from passersby.
When she’d arrived back at the apartment she’d found a note from Lisa saying that she’d moved out but would pay rent through the end of the month. On the one hand, Caitlin hadn’t been at all surprised; on the other, it felt like a death—her best friend had not only sold a story about her to the press but had just moved out, leaving only a note. Was this what fame—even her low level of it—could do to people? To other people? She had never considered that famous people had anyone other than themselves to worry about, but here was proof that fame made other people behave in very strange ways. Caitlin felt quietly devastated that her years-long friendship with Lisa had only been worth whatever it was Lisa had made from the story. Lisa hadn’t even bothered to explain anything in the note, obviously believing that there was no need—it was all so self-evident. Caitlin had no idea if she had a future with David but she wondered if any relationship was worth the price of finding out how badly people behaved. She no longer had a choice about paying that price, though—Lisa had made it for her. She had cried for her friend—for the years of friendship they now wouldn’t have—but she knew that there was no way she could see Lisa again now. As much as Caitlin might want an explanation, she wasn’t going to get it. She didn’t know whether this was just what growing up felt like or whether it was an experience exclusive to knowing David. She also didn’t know if he’d ever known the difference.
The phone on her desk rang—it showed the front desk’s number so the call was patched through from there. Caitlin felt relieved. So many calls for her had come into the office but she’d been shielded from most of them. If it was a member of the press calling, they wouldn’t get through. Or so she hoped. There had been a few calls that had, but only in the first hour.
“Caitlin Meadows,” she answered.
“Putting your cousin through,” said the receptionist.
“My cous—?” Caitlin started but she was cut off. She wasn’t close to any of her cousins, so she half wanted to hang up immediately.
“Caitlin?” said a voice she didn’t recognize.
“Who is this?”
“Sherri Blakewell, USA News.”
“I don’t—”
“Prince David has been seen out and about with a mysterious red-haired woman. What do you have to say to that?”
Caitlin’s face colored as her brain warred between knowing that this woman was trying to bait her and wanting to say something sharp back.
“Nothing,” Caitlin said evenly.
“They were canoodling in a London park,” the woman said with what sounded like a hint of triumph.
Caitlin took a breath. “Can I help you with something to do with our subs department, Ms Blakewell?”
“I said they were canoodling.”
“May I refer you to our editor instead?” Caitlin pinched her thigh to try to keep her voice from quavering.
“Thanks for nothing, sweetheart,” Caitlin heard before the call was abruptly terminated.
Caitlin breathed out loudly just as a head appeared above her partition. “Everything okay?” It was Jay from the art department and Caitlin was disproportionately relieved to see him.
“Sure,” she said, trying to smile.
“A journalist?” He raised his eyebrows.
“How did you know?”
“You’re getting good at those noncommittal answers.”
“Have you been listening in on my conversations?” Caitlin wasn’t sure whether to be cross or relieved that he’d been paying attention.
“Heyyy! I have to come up here all the time—you know that. I can’t help it if you’ve had a lot of phone calls and I’ve just happened to hear them.”
He looked around and leaned closer to her.
“But it’s getting noticed by other people too,” he stage whispered.
Caitlin suddenly looked distraught. “Am I in trouble?”
“No. But only because they’ve never had something like this happen before and they’re not sure how to handle it.”
“They’re not sure? What about me? I’m not sure! It’s all ridiculous.”
Jay smirked. “So that wasn’t you in that photo coming out of a London restaurant with a handsome prince by your side?”
Caitlin’s face went hard. “Did it look like me?”
“It looked like that coat you bought in Saks last year when you and I went on a shopping spree,” he said with a satisfied grin.
“There are a lot of coats in the world, Jay.”
“So where were you last week?”
“I told you—I had to take off for a while until that story died down. My mother told me to. And luckily the bosses agreed.”
“It hasn’t died down, though, has it?”
Caitlin made a face. “No.”
“Because you’re fucking a prince.”
Now he waggled his eyebrows and Caitlin wanted to slap him, but she could hear David’s voice in her head: Don’t react. That’s what they want. Never react. Instead she took a deep breath.
“My, my, you have an active imagination, don’t you?” she said. “Now, let me get back to work.”
“Oh, you’re good, missy,” he said, waving a finger at her. “You’re a keeper. I bet that’s what he’s thinking. You can keep a secret. Mmm-hmm.” He put his hand on his hip. “I’ll get you drunk and get it out of you.”
“Goodbye, Jay,” Caitlin said, swiveling in her chair so she faced her screen again, hoping that he couldn’t see her swallowing nervously or r
ubbing her hands down the sides of her legs.
*
Caitlin tried changing the channels on the television set but there was absolutely nothing that held her attention. She didn’t want to watch shows about making cakes, nor did she want to watch dramas about young women being victims of crime. She couldn’t concentrate long enough to read a book; not even magazines held her attention. And she couldn’t go online—there was no way she could get anywhere near a news or magazine website, and that left online shopping, which she wasn’t partial to anyway.
After work that day she’d come straight home, a large hat jammed on her head so that her features and hair were rendered unrecognizable—or so she had hoped. These days she expected to see a photographer jump out at every corner.
So here she was, alone in the apartment that she couldn’t afford to keep on her own after the end of the month—which Lisa would have known when she left—having tried to call David but not reaching him. She couldn’t leave a voicemail—on that particular phone of his, voicemail was deactivated because the King’s office was worried about the voicemail being accessed by parties who were not members of the royal family or the royal court. She knew he’d recognize her number, though, and what had begun as her feeling perplexed that she hadn’t heard from him had now become a feeling of abandonment and something close to despair. She hadn’t heard from him once since she’d arrived back in the US; she was starting to feel that she was out of sight and out of mind.
These feelings hadn’t been helped by a phone call from her mother earlier that evening, in which her mother had asked what she was still doing with “that playboy.”
“What do you mean?” Caitlin had retorted.
“He sleeps around,” her mother had said. Her mother—who only listened to NPR and read no gossip magazines—had somehow formed an opinion about a member of a royal family whom she had once said should be “shoved into a grand building in Ottawa, since the Canadians like them so much.”
“Mom, you can’t believe what you read,” Caitlin had protested tonight, but weakly, because she’d seen with her own eyes that David liked to date a range of women, of which she was just one. And as much as she believed that she wasn’t just one of a conga line of candidates, she only had his word and what was in her heart to go on.
