Throttle: A Bad Boy Sports Romance

by Teagan Kade

  “How did you—”

  “I have my ways.”

  “Those records were sealed.”

  “And I had them opened.”

  “You—”

  “What? Do you want to hit me, call me names? Go for it.”

  I remain seated, boiling over, still struggling to work out where this Jekyll and Hyde routine has surfaced from. “Why is it any of your concern? Don’t you want your brother to be happy?”

  He tents his fingers. “Spencer is a simple individual. You’re simply the flavor of the month, a cozy little cunny for him to bury his worries into.”

  I stand, pointing. “How fucking dare you.”

  “There she is, the girl from the report, broken, passed out in a puddle of her own puke.”

  For a moment I think he’s bluffing, but no, he knows all right. I can see it in his eyes, the villainous delight in taking me down. “I suppose you want something.”

  “I want you to break poor Spencer’s heart, that’s what. Break his heart and fuck off back to the US to type up your little puff piece.”

  “What makes you think I will?”

  “If you don’t, I’ll ensure your past catches up with you. I’ll let every press outlet in the world know who the Woman in White is and precisely what she got up to back in the day.”

  Take the high road, Grace, but I can’t. He’s got me.

  “You really think it can work, don’t you?” he laughs mockingly. “You think you could be, what, a princess? A queen? You’re nothing, a hack journalist. Spencer knows it. I know it. You seem to be the only one who’s deluded here.”

  I’ve always remained strong in these kind of situations, but the Prince’s words are cutting deeper than expected. I can feel my eyes growing wet, but I won’t let them spill over, not yet.

  “Do we have an agreement?” he presses.

  What I have with Spencer is great, maybe the greatest thing to happen to me, but deep down I know there is truth in Alexander’s words. This world is not for me. I can only ever be a pretender.

  He tries the sympathetic route. “I understand it’s all been very new and exciting. That’s Spencer’s strong suit. But take it from me, he’s far from committed. Given the chance, he’ll drop you in a second. Fuck him, marry him by all means, but do not expect him to be faithful. I’m afraid that’s a trait that runs in the family.”

  “You should go.”

  “It’s your call, Grace,” Alexander says, as he walks past me, “but remember what the stakes are. What I detailed is a fraction of the cluster fuck I can bring down on your shoulders.”

  Fuck you. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.

  I wipe away tears when he’s gone, but my self-loathing is short-lived.

  I’m a journalist. I’m logical. What’s the worst-case scenario? It’s going to come out anyhow. So I had a troubled upbringing, so what? Everyone loves a down-on-your-luck story.

  No, I’m an Everett. I don’t get mad. I get fucking even.

  I take my phone out of my pocket and stop recording.

  Something Alexander said comes back to me. Surely he’s not that stupid…

  You’re a god-damn investigative journalist, I tell myself, no matter what anyone says. A plan begins to formulate, a long-shot, but a plan nonetheless.

  I should have connected the dots sooner. Alexander’s smug, confident, but that will be his downfall.

  I call Marcus.

  “Grace?” he answers.

  “How is he, Marcus?”

  “He’s been better. Holed up in his room at the Palace, won’t let anyone in or out.”

  “He isn’t returning my calls.”

  “I’ll have a word to him.”

  “Marcus?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Tell me,” I begin, “what do you think of Prince Alexander? Be honest now. I’m not recording. This is strictly off the record.”

  He replies, with nary a shred of emotion, “I think he’s a pompous little prick who deserves a good hiding.”

  I smile, happy to have him on my side. “I see. You were in the British SAS, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Perfect. Could you spare an hour or two?”

  “I’m afraid I’m quite tied up with the Prince.”

  “It’s of the upmost importance, for Spencer’s benefit, and mine.”

  “Does it involve teaching Prince Alexander a lesson, ma’am?”

  “Yes.”

  I can almost see his smile widening down the line. “Sign me up.”

  *

  Right through the afternoon and well into the night I keep trying Spencer, but it’s useless. I catch a cab down to the Palace, but it’s mayhem. There’s no way I’m even getting close to the gates. Besides, Marcus warned me to give Spencer time, telling me he’d come around. I sure as hell hope so.

  I head back to the hotel, running through messages, deleting one after the other until my phone rings.

  Fucking Zoe.

  I swipe the call away. I can’t deal with her now. Nopedy nope nope.

  I text Spencer again. “Come on, you idiot.”

  Nothing.

  The picture is on every channel, reporters and talking heads breaking it all down for the masses. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  SPENCER

  I pace around my room. I can hear them outside, the people, the media, everyone waiting like vultures for a glimpse of Prince Spencer, the coke fiend.

  I haven’t even called Grace back. I can’t. Every time I pick up my phone I can’t bear it. What would I say? I shouldn’t have put her in this situation. They are going to find out who she is eventually. She’ll be dragged down into the mud with me.

  She’s too good for that, for you. You know it.

  Shut up. Shut the fuck up. I punch the wall, let the pain soak through until it blots all the emotion and noise out, but it’s not doing shit. The need is too great. I’m too weak.

  The stash I’ve got here isn’t enough.

  I pick up the phone again, cannot fucking believe I’m calling William, but my fingers are pressing the screen.

  “Well, well,” comes his smug voice, “look who decided to give ol’ Willy a call.”

  “I need help.”

  “Yes, yes you do, my friend. I’m prepared to let sleeping dogs lie. The question is, are you?”

  “Can you get me what I need or not?”

  “Whatever you want, Spenny. I’m here for you.”

  I shake my head. I want to punch my own face in. This is how low I have sunk, a junkie and nothing more. “You remember the entrance by the south kitchen, the tunnel?”

  “I do.”

  “Pick me up there in twenty. Bring everything you have.”

  *

  Twenty minutes later, I slip into the hall, inform the boys I’m feeling a little peckish. Marcus is curiously absent, but now’s not the time. I’m focused on the fix.

  I find the tunnel entrance, surprised I can still remember it after all these years. It opens up almost half a mile past the Palace perimeter. True to his word, William is there in his Aston, waiting.

  I look around, make sure we’re not being watched. I slide in.

  William places his hand on the shifter. “So, where do you want to go?”

  “Anywhere.”

  William smiles. “I know just the place.”

  *

  I’ve been to this club before. It doesn’t even have a name. It’s a younger crowd than usual tonight. People see me, tell me they’re sorry, some congratulate me, but I don’t fucking care. The stuff William gave me in the car is already wearing off, the high dissipating and the squalid festering fuck-up of reality seeping back in.

  Grace.

  Once upon a time I would have been loving this, but now the music’s too loud, the beer weak. Girls try to hit on me, but they’re cardboard, one-dimensional creatures of the night.

  “Spenny, why so serious
?” William has his arm slung around two blondes, a sea of empty shot glasses on the table between us. The two of them are giggling and patting his chest, their extensions jiggling.

  I look up from my beer but don’t respond.

  William nods to the dance floor, rising with the two girls, a hand on each of their asses. “Come on, my loves. I’m afraid my friend here isn’t in the mood for frivolity.”

  I watch them melt into an ocean of strobe lights and color. I let my head fall. I’m tired, over this. I want her back, desperately. Fuck, I’ll do anything, whatever it fucking takes to make her mine again.

  Message her.

  I reach for my phone but pick up William’s instead. He must have left it on the table, fucking idiot.

  I’m about to put it down when the screen lights up. On it is an email.

  Don’t, but I can’t help it. In a few seconds I’ve skimmed over the subject line and body:

  UR GOING 2 LUVVVVVV THIS 1!

  Urs for 20 large

  Let me know!

  Willy

  It’s addressed to the editor of the World, that cum-rag of a publication that’s been the bane of my existence for the last four years, always running the images that find me at my worse. I never knew how the paparazzi managed to snap them, I never saw them around, but as I open the attachment, the very shot that’s all over the news, taken with Will’s phone no less, I understand.

  You fucking prick, Will.

  I stand up from the table, my temples thumping and fists clenching tight. I won’t take this betrayal.

  The dance floor dips. I’m unsteady from the booze but drunk enough to blow off what a bad idea this is.

  “Will!” I yell, people parting as I make my way into the middle of the dance floor.

  The sub bass booms, floor shaking under my feet.

  I see him grinding up against one of the blondes, her friend with the super-boobs rubbing Will from the back.

  I come up to them fast and push the tarts away, shove Will in the chest so hard he staggers back into the crowd.

  A space opens up around us.

  “Spenny!” he exclaims. “What the FUCK!”

  I point, shaking with anger. “You filthy, fucking cunt.”

  I see a girl to my left viscerally react to the word, but fuck them all. I’ll deck every fucker in here if I have to.

  William starts to come towards me, arms out. “Spenny? What’s this all about?”

  I take his phone out of my pocket and hold it up, swiping the screen so that he can see the offending message.

  Realization swamps his ugly fucking face. He starts to back away. “Spenny, calm down.”

  I step towards him.

  “I need the money, old boy. I’m in a spot of bother.”

  “There’s no fucking excuse.”

  “I have debts, bad news… It was the only way.”

  “Debts?”

  He steps back into a wall, the crowd either side. He’s trapped. I see the panic in his face. “Daddy won’t help, Spenny. I had to.”

  “No. Fucking. Excuse!” I scream, shaking the phone.

  A hero steps between us and tries to make me back down, but I push him aside—hard—and focus on Will.

  “Spenny, mate,” he pleads. “No one cares. It was just a laugh.”

  He beams that cheeky smile at me I’ve seen so many times over the years, but now I see him for what he is—a pathetic fucking waste of life. All I can do is wipe that grin off his face.

  I draw his phone back and smash it into his face. I do it with such force shards of the screen scatter across the floor, blood pouring from his nose.

  His eyes roll up into his head and he drops to the floor, unconscious.

  I look down at my hand, at the busted phone bent in half and bloody.

  An arm hooks around my waist. I turn and punch, hitting air. Another arm takes me from the side, the carcass of the phone clattering to the floor as a security guard twists my arm up behind my back.

  “Get the fuck off me!” I manage to lash out enough to shake them off, but not before another tackles me to the floor.

  I hit hard, the air knocked from my lungs. His knee presses my face into the floor. I see heels and loafers, feet scuffling away, screaming. I know if I look up I’ll see countless phones recording this disaster. The World will have a fucking field day.

  I don’t care. I just do not fucking care anymore.

  Grace, I think.

  She’s all I care about. All I need. I’ve been blind this entire time, Judas himself right in front of my fucking face. How could I not see it? Was I that deep into this world?

  Grace is what I need. She’s my medicine.

  I will make this right.

  I’ll make it right if it kills me.

  *

  I emerge from the holding cell, my head sore from where the security guard pinned it to the floor with his knee.

  Alexander is there yet again. “It seems like deja vu, doesn’t it, little brother?”

  I take him by the shirt. “Where’s that prick hiding?”

  “Spenny, William is very sorry. Very sorry indeed. He’ll need some stitches, a new nose perhaps, but he knows what he did. He won’t press charges.”

  “William? Press charges?” I spin on the spot, hands on my hips. “I should be the one pressing charges. Do you know what he did, what he’s been doing this whole time, leaking those pictures?”

  Alexander looks around, gestures for the two detectives left in the room to leave. “It’s no good what William got up to, no good indeed, but he will be punished.”

  “By who?”

  “By the Club.”

  “The Club!” I exclaim. ‘What are they going to do? Pump him full of champagne until he explodes?”

  He’s still smiling, but he won’t be for long.

  “By the way, she knows, Alex, about the Chaos Club, about everything. She recorded our whole conversation that night down in the crypt. Maybe she’ll have a change of heart and write about that instead?”

  His face scrunches up in confusion.

  “Yes, you weren’t there, were you? But you know what we talk about. Many, many things were said, like how our good prime minister got into office, for one.”

  Alexander’s expression changes like a storm sweeping over a landscape. “You’re bluffing.”

  I push him against the wall. “Try me.”

  The coward keeps his line. “William will be punished. You have my word.”

  I’ve never noticed just how much taller I am. “I don’t ever want to see him again, is that clear? I don’t want anything to do with the Club. If I so much hear a peep from those boys, it will be the end.”

  “Understood.”

  I push him away and move towards the doors, Marcus waiting as always. “Where have you been?” I question.

  “Busy, sir.”

  “Your girl,” Alexander says to my back. I don’t give the satisfaction of turning. “What about her?”

  “She’s got a past, Spenny, a criminal record.”

  But for once I’m ahead of the game. I look at him. “I know, and if any of it, the smallest of details emerge, I’m going to know precisely whose head to knock off first.”

  I leave it at that.

  “Good to see you, sir,” says Marcus, handing me a coat.

  I put out my hand. “I need your phone.”

  *

  I have Marcus drive Grace out to Wilton’s Music Hall. I stand on the balcony overlooking the stage, the place empty but more beautiful for it.

  “Odd venue,” says Grace, walking to my side and leaning against the banister.

  “The Globe was unavailable, sorry.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  I look around. “It’s completely original, but it’s falling apart. Just like me, really.”

  “Spencer, why didn’t you answer my calls? I was worried sick. I told you, I’m not going to abandon you.”

  “You know, I saw a magician here, when
I was a kid. Loved every minute of it. I’ve donated a lot to the restoration. I think it’s important, history, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but you’re changing the subject.”

  I lean against the banister. I need the support. “I can’t be the one to fuck up your life, Grace. It sounds like it’s been hard enough without me.”

  “I don’t care,” she says, pressing her hand against my chest, my heart beating against it, wanting this, but my head knowing it’s never going to work no matter how hard we try and force it.

  “Spencer, I’m in this, with you, if only to spite your brother.”

  “My brother? What does he have to do with this?”

  “He paid me a visit at the Savoy, told me to break it off with you, that I’d never be good enough to be part of your family. He threatened to reveal my identity, shine a light on my past, not that I care.”

  I hit the banister with the butt of my hand. “That sniveling fuck.” It’s time. She deserves to know.

  “He’s cheating on Lizzy,” Grace continues. “He was speaking on the phone when I came into the room, and then something he said later. I had Marcus check it out. He got to put his sniper skills back into action, came away with some very interesting photos of your big brother.”

  “I know.”

  “That Alexander’s cheating on his wife?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you haven’t told her? She deserves to know.”

  I take a deep breath before speaking. “She already does.”

  Grace looks incredulous. “What?”

  “She’s known for years.”

  “And what, she just takes it?”

  “It’s different, complicated.”

  “Are you actually defending him now?”

  I shake my head. “No, absolutely not. In fact, I just put him in his place at the station.”

  “The station?”

  “It’s a long story, but as far as Alexander’s wandering dick goes, it happens. It’s almost expected men in our position have a mistress.”

  She stands back. “Wow.”

  “You’re saying if, for whatever reason, we got married, you’d find yourself a nice, English mistress?”

  “No, of course not. You’re more than enough woman for me, but my brother, my father? They’re from the old breed.”

  “It’s no fucking excuse, Spencer. I don’t care if cheating is all gentlemanly and honorable here in the motherland, all ‘spill your seed far and wide’, but surely they know it’s wrong, right? Surely Lizzy cares.”