by Avery Wilde
When we got to the stadium, we were taken up towards the VIP Lounge, and Lizzy and Connor ran ahead of me, skipping and jumping like a couple of kids. I grinned. I loved seeing my younger sister happy, and with a man who treated her so well. When I’d been her age, dating had been a nightmare. I’d been a nervous wreck and New York guys had treated me like crap—including Josh.
Speaking of Josh, the last I’d heard of him was that he’d had to move back to his hometown after Keeping Current With Kate was canceled, because he couldn’t find another job in the NYC TV industry, and just like with Hannah, we hadn’t heard a peep from him since.
Hmm…maybe someone needed to set those two up on a blind date. They really deserved each other.
To my surprise, Jay was waiting for me in the VIP lounge at the stadium. He was wearing his home colors, and when he saw me, a grin broke out over his face. “You look amazing,” he said as he pulled me close and gave me a kiss. “The most stunning WAG here, by a long shot.”
I smiled and rolled my eyes in a good-natured manner. Despite whatever Jay told me, I was never going to feel as glamorous as some of the other women who were involved with football players. “You’re full of it,” I told him, playfully poking him in the chest as he pulled me close.
“No matter,” Jay said with a grin. “You’re mine, and that’s what counts.”
He leaned down and gave me another brief kiss, but not so brief that I didn’t feel a bolt of lust coursing through my body.
“Come on, knock it off with the mushy stuff!” Connor clapped Jay on the shoulder, and Jay gave me a smile then turned away and embraced his friend.
Ever since Connor had checked into Promising Light, his relationship with Jay had been much better. They were back to living like brothers, and I couldn’t have been happier about it. Even though Connor and Lizzy stayed over all the time, I loved having them around. Lizzy had her own flat, a few blocks away, but she was still obsessed with football, and if there was even the slightest chance that one of Jay’s mates was going to drop by, she was over in a flash.
“Kate, come here,” Lizzy said. She grabbed my wrist and tugged me over to the bar. “I want to talk to you.” She looked at me, her green eyes flickering around nervously. “I think Connor is going to ask me to marry him soon.”
I smiled and raised my eyebrows. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s great. But don’t you think you’re a tad young for that?”
Lizzy rolled her eyes. “Come on, you’re like, two years older than me! I’m not too young!”
I laughed. “Lizzy, you’re five years younger than I am!”
Lizzy raised her eyebrows. “But I’m responsible for your current happiness. After all, I introduced you to Jay,” she said. “Don’t you think you owe me a little more credit?”
I laughed drily. “Fine, I’ll give you that one. But remember, whether you get married or not, you’re only twenty-two,” I replied. “Enjoy it.”
“Yeah, soon I’ll be old and married and boring,” Lizzy retorted. She stuck her tongue out. “Oh, look, the game is starting!”
Grabbing my arm, she dragged me over to the viewing area. We were so far up in the air that Jay and his mates looked like little specks, but I could always tell which one was my husband. I grinned again. I loved seeing him on the field; I loved seeing him do what he did best.
“He’s really something,” Lizzy said, following my gaze. “He’s the best, Kate.”
“Remember the first time you told me that?” I looked my younger sister in the eye. “And I didn’t believe you?”
Lizzy laughed. “Yeah,” she said, taking a big sip of her beer. “You were dumb. But you wised up.” She winked at me, then gave me a funny look. “Even for you, you’re being quiet today. What’s up?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Just a bit nervous about the match seeing as it’s one of the last ones for the season,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t immediately realize that I was lying.
I had a lot on my mind, but I wanted to tell Jay first. Fortunately, the first half of the game went quickly and before I knew it, he was bounding up to me, sweaty and covered in mud.
“You’re doing great, babe. Arsenal don’t stand a chance against you guys,” I said, leaning in for a kiss.
“Yeah, this is a great game,” he replied, wiping his brow. “My mates are really working the pitch. You watching?”
I nodded. “Always,” I said with a little smirk on my face. Then I took a deep breath; I was finally ready to reveal my secret. “We both are.”
Jay gave me a funny look. “You both are?”
“Uh-huh,” I said, nodding and grinning as I rubbed my stomach. Jay looked down and watched my actions, then looked back up to my face for confirmation, and when he realized what I meant, he let out a whoop before grabbing me and spinning me around in the air.
“Bloody hell, Kate, I’m going to be a father?” he asked. I nodded, and Jay let out an exuberant cry as he leaned down to kiss me. “I can’t believe it! What fucking fantastic news!”
I grinned at his colorful language. “You won’t be able to swear like that for much longer. Unless you want our baby’s first word to be ‘fuck’.”
“Could be worse. His or her first words could be ‘I support Liverpool’.”
I laughed, and tears of joy came to my eyes. I didn’t bother wiping them away; I was so happy that I didn’t even care about ruining my makeup.
I nuzzled Jay, leaning in close and smelling his delicious, masculine scent. “Are you happy?”
“Babe, I’ve never been this happy,” Jay said. He grinned at me widely. “And you know what this means, right?”
I shook my head.
He winked. “This means I get to score two goals in the next half,” he said with a smirk. “One for you, and one for the baby. Arsenal are still on zero, so it’ll be a perfect match for us if it stays that way.”
I smiled and nodded, although I knew that even if he didn’t score any goals at all, we still had a perfect match on our hands. Us. We were worlds apart in terms of upbringing and personality, but that meant nothing when it came to two people matching up and being perfect for one another. We balanced each other’s flaws and positive aspects, and we supported each other no matter what.
I put my hand on my belly again, watching as Jay headed back onto the field, and for the millionth time, I thought about how lucky I was that he was my man.
I’d really made the perfect score.
THE END
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ROYAL BABY
A British Bad Boy Romance
Chapter 1
Keira
“But you’re an art student!” My friend Sarah’s words had a tendency to slur slightly when she’d been drinking. “Why would you want to be a cleaner?”
I rolled my eyes and wondered if I looked and sounded as drunk as my friend. I hadn’t had as much to drink as Sarah, but on the other hand, Sarah was a bigger drinker and could hold her liquor better—there was a good chance that I was just as drunk despite only having had two drinks. If that even made sense…I wasn’t sure, which probably meant that I was a little tipsy.
Oh well. Tonight was a night for celebration! I’d just finished my degree, and I was happy to be past all the late nights, cramming, and stressful final exams.
“Well?” Sarah pushed for an answer to her question.
“Okay, firstly,” I began, hearing that drink-induced slur in my own words mirroring that of my friend. “I’m no
t an art student. As of today, I’m officially an art graduate.”
“True. I’ll drink to that,” Sarah replied, knocking back a shot with a practiced flick of her wrist.
“Secondly,” I continued. “I don’t want to be a cleaner, I want to be a maid, which is a bit different. Thirdly, I don’t even want to be a maid exactly, but I’ve got to make money somehow on my gap year. And while it’s pretty easy to ‘maid’ your way around Europe, it’s surprisingly hard to ‘art’ your way around Europe. You go into a temp agency and say you’re looking for any art jobs they have going and they laugh in your face.”
“Jeez, they literally laughed in your face?”
“Well…mostly they snickered behind my back,” I admitted. “But the principle is the same.”
“I guess I can see that,” Sarah replied.
“If I don’t go now, then I’ll end up getting a job, getting married eventually, and having kids. And you know, I do want all that stuff sometime down the line, but if it happens soon, then I’ll never get to do the stuff for me, like traveling and experiencing the world.”
“And seeing all the great art galleries of Europe.”
“Exactly.”
“And getting good and laid along the way,” she added with a smirk.
I shook my head. “I’m just going for the art.”
Sarah shook her head in disappointment at me. “You see, I could understand that attitude if you’d cut loose in college, like everybody else did. But whenever I tried to take you out to meet some guys, you always said you had to work…”
“I did have to work.”
“And,” Sarah continued, waving away my excuse. “You always said that there would be plenty of time for fun once you graduated. Well, now you’ve graduated, and you’re still being boring! You need less Manet, and more man-lay.” She paused and snickered at her artistic pun. “That’s the best I can do off the top of my head. I think there’s something with Botticelli but I can’t quite figure it out.”
“Please don’t,” I said with a grin.
Sarah shrugged. “Anyway, where are you gonna be working?”
I perked up. Although being a maid was not what I’d dreamed of through years of studying old masters, one exciting possibility had come up. “Well, I’m starting in England. I’ve applied for a bunch of places but the one I really want is—drum roll please…”
Sarah did a drum roll on the edge of the table with her hands.
“Working for the British royal family at one of their official residences.”
It was a mark of how impressive this news was that when Sarah spilled her drink, she didn’t seem to care. “You’re shitting me! You’d really be working for the Arlingtons?”
I nodded. “That’s what it’s looking like. I made it through the first stage of the application, so fingers crossed. I just have to wait for them to finish all the background checks and do the second round of applications. As you can imagine, they put all possible future staff through the wringer.”
“But they’re the friggin’ royal family…can’t they afford to hire someone with more maid experience? Like any maid experience.”
“I may have slightly embellished my résumé,” I admitted, my cheeks turning hot. “But I spent years cleaning up after all my younger brothers and taking care of them when my parents were drinking, so that has to count for something, right? Unfortunately they don’t let you put stuff like that on résumés.”
“Yeah, that’s true. Wow, though…if you actually get that job, that’ll be so awesome!” Sarah enthused. “Oh my god! I just thought of something—you might meet Prince Andrew!”
I smiled. “I guess you never know.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Sarah reached for her glass. “Oh, crap, I spilled my drink...”
While Sarah went to the bar to get a new drink, I mused on the possibilities my new job might offer me. Frankly, unlike my friend, I had little interest in the British royal family itself, and only the vaguest idea of who Prince Andrew Arlington was. He was heir to the throne and a bit of a playboy from what I’d read in the occasional gossip column I glanced at, and my knowledge about him ground to a halt there.
What I did know was that the royal family owned the largest collection of old masters in private ownership in the world. There were endless family portraits by such luminaries as Holbein and Velazquez, but there was also the largest collection of Da Vinci sketches gathered in one place, and rarities by British greats such as Constable, Turner and Reynolds. They were the amassed artistic treasures of an empire which had once spanned the globe and which, though the empire itself had now been disbanded, the royal family had been remiss enough not to give back. For anyone with an interest in art, it was like being a kid let loose in a candy store.
I wasn’t foolish enough to think that the first thing the family would do when I arrived was say, ‘Have a look at the art collection first, then get on with cleaning the toilets’. Nor did I think it likely that many of my maid duties would revolve around the galleries or store rooms in which the remarkable collection was housed. But if I saw only a fraction of what they had to offer, then that was enough—I would be seeing works that were usually reserved for academics, visiting dignitaries and the family itself. It would be a thrill, and if doing a bit of vacuuming was the price of that thrill, then it was a price that I was more than willing to pay.
Sarah returned with a bottle of something vodka-based for herself and a tray of shot glasses which spilled as she tottered unsteadily to the table.
“I have come to a decision,” she said.
“Are you replacing your blood with alcohol?” I asked, eyeing the impressive array of drinks as I arched one brow.
“Yes, but that’s more an ongoing project than a decision,” she replied. “I’ve decided that you are going to have fun tonight.”
“I am having fun.”
Sarah shook her head. “Let me rephrase that: you are going to have fun tonight.”
“That’s not rephrasing, that’s just changing the emphasis.”
“Proper fun,” Sarah said, rolling her eyes. “I’ve watched you having fun, Keira. It saddens me to think that you actually think you know what fun is.”
“I do know what it is!”
Sarah shook her head. “Unless you wake up in a place you don’t recognize, naked, sticky and feeling ashamed of yourself but not knowing why, you didn’t have fun. You might not remember it, but you have the satisfaction of knowing that fun was had.”
“I don’t want that kind of fun,” I said.
“You only graduate once, girl!”
“But you do this every weekend!”
“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.” Sarah winked and downed a shot, then picked up her bottle and turned to the room. “I’m going to find myself a hot guy to dance with. He may not be quite as good-looking tomorrow morning, but in these situations perception is all that matters.”
On this unexpectedly philosophical note, Sarah left the table.
I eyed the shot glasses warily and then looked up at the room. There were some handsome men here, and contrary to what Sarah might have thought, I wasn’t a frigid, stick in the mud who didn’t want or know how to have fun. I simply didn’t like to get absolutely blackout drunk when I went out, because my parents had struggled with alcohol addiction earlier in their lives, and I didn’t want to be like that at any point. Also, I was…well, to tell the truth, I was nervous. The truth was that I envied Sarah more than I cared to admit. The idea of going out, picking up a man, enjoying a night of devastating sex and then walking away without another thought was wholly off-putting to me, and yet also massively exciting and attractive. I didn’t want a one night stand; I didn’t want to be that kind of girl. But at the same time, I really envied the girls who were lucky enough to be that kind of girl. It must be so freeing to not give a crap about what others might think.
Could I do it for just one night? As I’d just noticed, there were some sexy men here
at the bar…
But even as I thought it, I knew that it was beyond me. I simply wasn’t the type. And that was fine—I wasn’t horribly unhappy with who I was, and after an adolescence spent fighting against myself, I had finally come to think that being Keira Valencia was not such a bad person to be. It was just a shame that I couldn’t be entirely happy about it.
I watched Sarah dancing with a man whom she’d probably never met before tonight, and I raised my glass to my lips as I mused on what that would be like. For one night it might be nice to be Sarah Keane, but the next morning I would wake up as myself and most likely regret it all. Key to my life philosophy, such as it was, was the belief that somewhere out there, there was something that would make me as happy as Sarah seemed to be all the time. It might be harder to find, but that would just make it all the more worthwhile when I finally found it.
Boy, I hoped I was right about that.
I had no idea what the ‘something’ might be, although a persistent voice at the back of my mind told me that it might be a ‘someone’ rather than a ‘something’. And if God was kind, then it would be a someone who looked as good as the man who’d just approached and sat down at my table…
I drew in a sharp breath as I took him in. He looked around my age, perhaps a couple of years older. From what I’d seen out of the corner of my eye as he approached seconds earlier, he was tall—very tall—and although he was fully clothed, the cut nature of his body was evident, his muscles somehow imposing their presence through the constricting fabric. He reminded me of a sculpture; something strong and perfect carved by the brilliant hands of an ancient artist, aside from the tattoos twining up his upper arms and disappearing under his shirt. Ancient sculptures definitely didn’t have tattoos, and I didn’t need a fine arts degree to know that.
