The Royals Next Door

by Karina Halle

  “Men will be in the what?”

  Suddenly I hear a sharp whirring sound on either side of me, and I look up in time to see a man in camouflage gear rappel from the top of a hemlock straight down to the ground.

  “Holy shit!” I swear just as another man comes down a tree on the right side of me. Tree men! Secret agent tree men!

  Harrison just lifts his hand up, as if to tell them to stay back. “This is Isaac and Giles. They’ll be here temporarily. And if not, you’ll get used to them. But until the gate goes up, we have to ensure the couple’s privacy. I also have someone patrolling the water from a boat, just in case you see them.” He pauses, studies me.

  His gaze is unnerving, even covered by his sunglasses.

  “What?” I ask.

  “You have pastry in your hair.”

  My hand shoots up, trying to figure out where, when suddenly it becomes stuck and I know that I must have a huge blob of sugary goo in my hair.

  Meanwhile, I swear I see a smirk on Harrison’s mouth, the corner of his lips turning up a millimeter. If he wasn’t so fucking aggravating I might actually find his lips quite lush and sexy, but that would only make things worse.

  “At any rate, Ms. Evans,” he says briskly, “I’m going to need you to sign a nondisclosure agreement.”

  I practically growl at him, my patience seeping out as I also wrestle with my hair. “An NDA? Why?”

  “For obvious reasons.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  I don’t know why I’m arguing with him over this. I mean, of course I’ll sign an NDA, if it makes them comfortable, and I have no doubt that most islanders would band together to try to let them have as much privacy as they want.

  But everything that comes out of his mouth pisses me off.

  He looks behind him briefly at Isaac and Giles, who are similarly stone-faced, dressed in camo gear like it’s no big deal, their rappelling ropes leading back into the trees.

  Then Harrison looks back to me. “If you don’t sign the NDA, things will get very difficult for you.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Does it sound like a threat?”

  “Everything you say sounds like a threat,” I grumble. “Yes, of course I’ll sign it.”

  “And have your mother sign it.”

  “Yes.” I sigh loudly at that. I don’t know how that is going to go down. I’ll probably just have to forge her signature or something. It’ll be hard enough to explain why there’s a giant security gate going up, plus secret agent men in trees and officers patrolling in boats. She doesn’t leave the house very often, usually just goes for walks in the neighborhood when she’s feeling especially energetic or aggravated, but throwing all of this stuff into the mix isn’t going to be easy. I’m going to have to have a real talk with her and hope she listens and learns that the royals are not the enemy.

  God, I hope they aren’t the enemy.

  Harrison’s face remains forever grim. “British Columbia has a privacy act that protects people from the media, that specifically creates the right to sue if privacy is being invaded. That’s one reason why they chose this place instead of anywhere else. Keep that in mind.”

  “Are you done for real now? Can I at least go home?”

  He nods. “Sure. Might want to take a shower too.”

  “What does that mean?” This guy gets worse and worse.

  “Your hair,” he says, nodding at my gooey, frazzled blond mess. I make a mental note to get a blowout for the next time I see him.

  Then, to my surprise, he fucking smirks. “I’ll be seeing you later to drop off the papers.”

  He turns, gives the other men a nod as he opens the door to his SUV, and gets in.

  The men begin to go up into the trees again.

  Harrison drives out of the driveway, giving me just enough space for the Garbage Pail to sneak through.

  I start the car and rev the engine to make the small hill that goes up the driveway, and I’m bouncing forward, glaring at Harrison as I go.

  By the time I’m parked in my spot, I’m livid. Having the royals next door isn’t going to be fun at all, not if Harrison is going to be running the show.

  I head into the house, and this time Liza comes barreling toward me, her tail wagging, tongue hanging out of her mouth. Judging by how excited/desperate she is and the silence in the house, my mother is asleep and Liza needs to go out.

  I quickly take her through the woods and down the steps to the dock, stopping at the top just in time to watch a small dark speedboat slowly cruise past me.

  I wave at the man, who then stops the boat and stares back at me.

  He doesn’t wave back.

  Instead, he presses into his earpiece and says something I can’t make out. He’s wearing glasses identical to Harrison’s, so I can’t see his expression, but I know he’s looking at me the whole time. Finally, after a staring contest that must go on for minutes, he looks away and the boat continues on.

  I head back to the house with Liza, hating the fact that even being outside on our property is starting to make me feel watched, judged, and overall uncomfortable. Once I’m inside, I find myself pulling the curtains and blinds closed, and it dawns on me that I’m one step closer to turning into my mother.

  It’s just after dinner, with my mother still sleeping (don’t worry, I checked on her), when there’s a knock at the front door. Liza starts barking like crazy, which scares the shit out of me, and I’m an angry barrel of nerves by the time I rip open the door.

  No surprise, it’s Harrison. It won’t get dark here until ten at night, but even so I’d bet he’ll still be wearing his sunglasses.

  He doesn’t have any papers in his hands, though.

  “Yes?” I say to him.

  “Are you busy?” he asks me.

  Now my brows are raised. “Am I busy?”

  “The Duke and Duchess of Fairfax request your company.”

  Oh. My. God.

  “Now?” I practically stutter.

  He steps back and gestures to the path. “If you please.”

  I could easily close the door on him and say hell no. I’m not at their beck and call, I have a life to live and a podcast to upload.

  But I slip on my shoes, close the door behind me, and follow Harrison down the path toward my new neighbors.

  Five

  He’s got a nice butt.

  I frown at the thought in my head, mentally swatting it away. One minute Harrison is demanding I immediately drop everything and go and meet my new neighbors, as if it were an order, not a choice. The next I’m ogling his butt as he walks in front of me down to where my driveway intersects with theirs.

  But it really is a nice butt. His suit jacket just skirts the top of it, but there’s no denying how perky and muscular it is, like he does a lot of lunges, or . . .

  As if he can hear me, he shoots a sharp glance at me over his shoulder, and I immediately still my thoughts, bringing my eyes up to meet his. Or, his sunglasses.

  He jerks his chin down toward the road, where a bunch of flatbed trucks with planks of wood and other building materials in the back are parked in the cul-de-sac.

  “They’re all ready to go, once you sign a few papers,” he says gruffly.

  Jeez, that was fast. I should stop being annoyed at everything Harrison is throwing my way, but it irks me to think that he’s got all these builders at his beck and call, as if they know I’m going to sign the papers, as if everything from this point onward is predetermined, and I have no say in it.

  “What makes you think I even want a gated entry?” I ask him.

  “Believe me, you will,” he says over his shoulder as we start up the driveway to the mansion. “I take it you’ve never dealt with the British press before.”

  I don’t have anything to say to that because
obviously he’s right, of course, and I’ve seen on Twitter alone just how intrusive, rude, and downright cruel they can be. If the duke and duchess are moving in here, then I’m probably going to want that fence.

  I don’t have a lot of time to think about the fence and the gate, because soon we’re approaching the front of the house.

  I’d be lying if I said I’d never seen it before. Many a time I’ve scrambled up the slight slope through the ferns and hemlock to take a look-see. But I’ve never gone farther than the driveway, even if I knew no one was staying there at the time.

  Even now, it feels kind of wrong, but from the way Harrison and his nice butt are marching forward, I need to follow.

  The mansion at first glance seems smaller than it is. The paved, tree-lined driveway does an elegant swoop into a massive A-frame three-car garage that’s attached to a one-level made of bricks of pale stone. But the closer you get, you notice that the bulk of the mansion is behind that one-level, sloping down to the ocean in sections.

  Harrison goes straight to the ornately carved front door, which looks like it was cut from a massive tree, and rings the bell. As we wait, his posture goes straighter, his hands clasped behind his back. I want to ask him where he’s living, since he’s ringing the bell and not walking right into the house, but then I see a shadow pass through the narrow windows at the side of the door and suddenly I’m nervous as hell.

  It finally hits me what’s happening. I’m actually going to meet Prince Eddie and MRed. Right here, right now.

  This is absolutely insane.

  And then the door opens.

  I hold my breath.

  A petite woman in her early fifties appears at the door, dressed in a gray shift dress and flat shoes, her graying hair pulled back into a neat bun.

  She nods at Harrison and then gives me a small smile. “You must be the neighbor,” she says in a crisp British accent. “I’m Agatha, the housekeeper. Please come right in.”

  Harrison walks in, and I follow him into the foyer.

  “Should I take off my shoes?” I ask, reaching down for my boot, even though Harrison has strolled in without taking his off.

  “That’s quite all right,” Agatha says. “The floors can be a bit cold at the moment. They’re supposed to heat up, but I think we need an electrician in here to fix it.”

  “Well, good luck getting a reliable electrician on the island,” I blurt out with an awkward laugh. “They only show up when they feel like it, like you’re a huge inconvenience for hiring them.”

  I’m not exaggerating. There’s a faulty baseboard heater in my room, and I called the electrician about two months ago and he still hasn’t shown. Keeps texting me, saying, “Hope to pop by soon,” but that “soon” never comes.

  But from the firm smile on Agatha’s face, perhaps it’s not my place to joke about that.

  “We will be hiring from off-island,” she says.

  “Of course,” I say back, matching her smile. I should figure they’ve got all this worked out. It accounts for how they’ve got trucks full of building materials out front, ready to go.

  “It will be nice for the duke and duchess to have you next door,” Agatha says as she leads the way across the marble floors through the first level, which is sparsely decorated with some art prints of the Pacific Northwest. “We’re all a bit fish out of water at the moment.”

  “That’s what I’m here for!” I say, way too enthusiastically. “Anything you need, any questions at all, I’m your gal.”

  “I’m your gal”? This isn’t a forties screwball comedy, Piper.

  I really need to dial it down a notch.

  I glance up (way up) at Harrison, who has fallen in step beside me, expecting him to be giving me a look.

  And he is. He looks rather amused.

  But what’s catching me completely off guard is that his sunglasses are up on his head.

  Which means, for the first time ever, I can see his eyes.

  And . . . dear lord . . . am I in trouble.

  Harrison’s eyes are this gorgeous blue, a color that flirts between the sky and smoky sage green. At the moment they’re crinkling slightly at the corners, yet I can tell how quickly they’d change in intensity. No wonder I could feel his gaze even beneath his glasses.

  I swallow hard, unable to take my eyes away. At least until he raises his brow, those beautiful blues seeming to smirk at me.

  They seem to ask, Which do you prefer, my eyes or my ass?

  To which I’d say, That’s an impossible choice.

  “Watch your step,” Agatha says quickly.

  I look down in time to see that I’m in the middle of stepping off a landing.

  Harrison’s arm shoots out and grabs me by the elbow with so much force that I’m practically frozen in mid-step before he pulls me back.

  “Oops,” I say, giving him a quick, red-cheeked smile. Shit. I nearly ate it just because I was caught up looking at his eyes. I can only hope he doesn’t bring that up or else I’ll probably never stop hearing about it.

  He lets go of my arm and gives me a nod, and still, there’s that amusement in his expression. The kind that says he’s laughing internally at me.

  “Here we are,” Agatha says, leading me over to a living room type of area with a see-through gas fireplace in the middle and floor-to-ceiling windows. The room looks over their sloping backyard, a spacious tile patio among a cultivated rose garden and sun-bleached brown grass beyond that. There are a few massive fir and arbutus trees and a stone-worn path that leads down to the private dock where a fifty-foot powerboat is tied up, sea-green waves crashing against the hull. In the distance, a ferry passes.

  It’s stunning. Absolutely. But in the back of my mind I can’t help but notice that this would be our view if it weren’t for where my house is situated and the trees that block it. It’s like I’m realizing for the first time that my mother and I really do live in what used to be a very rich family’s servants’ quarters. We’re buried in the trees, forgotten; they’re up here in the open with the sun and the waves.

  “Please sit,” Agatha says, pointing to a modern-looking wing-back chair beside a polished wood coffee table. “I’ll let them know you’re here.”

  She walks off, and I half expect Harrison to walk off too.

  But of course not. He wouldn’t leave a potential “threat” alone in their house. He’s standing in front of me, as if I’m going to make a run for it and start rummaging through Monica’s underwear drawer or something, though his attention is out the window.

  “Do you have the same view?” I ask him. I’m too nervous to sit down, so I just stand awkwardly by the chair.

  He looks to me and gives me a strange look. Now I can see that laser focus in his eyes. It’s almost unnerving, like they’re seeing right through me. Maybe it would be better with his aviators back on.

  “I beg your pardon?” he asks, his brows together in that formidable line.

  I nod at the windows. “I was wondering if you had the same view. If you lived here with them.”

  His face is like a mask. “I will be living . . .” He pauses, clears his throat. “I live above the garage. Agatha lives in the lower level.”

  “Was it like that back in the UK? Did you live with them?”

  “I had a cottage on the compound.”

  “So this is a big change for you too.”

  He shrugs with one shoulder. “I can deal.”

  But I’m staring at his shirt collar. When he shrugged, it moved over a little, exposing the skin above his collarbone. I swear I saw a tattoo.

  I’m about to ask about it (because clearly I have no filter when it comes to him) when I hear footsteps behind me.

  Harrison immediately drops his chin, his hands clasped in front of him.

  I turn around, and there they are.

  Pr
ince Eddie and Monica.

  In the flesh.

  They both smile at me, and suddenly I have no clue what I’m supposed to do.

  Curtsy? Right?

  Or bow?

  So I end up doing a curtsy-bow hybrid that makes it look like I have stomach cramps.

  “How do you do?” I say to them as I straighten up, keeping a smile on my face while wincing internally at how ridiculous I must look.

  “Monica,” MRed says to me as she comes over, her hand extended, a beaming smile on her face.

  I’m in a daze as she shakes my hand, focused on how damn pretty she is. I mean, this is the woman I watched accept her Grammy for best new artist; this is the woman in the infamous burlesque R&B video that had her in a blond wig, grinding against Zac Efron; this is the woman on People’s 50 Most Beautiful People list (who should have been on the cover instead of Blake Shelton). I even watched her wedding on TV.

  And she’s standing in front of me, giving me a genuine smile and a hearty handshake. She’s so much more beautiful in person. I didn’t think that was even possible. Her dark skin is even-toned and glowing, her curly hair piled into a messy topknot, not a lick of makeup on, and yet she looks like she’s ready for a photoshoot, even though she’s just wearing leggings and a flowing tunic that gives her this boho chic vibe.

  “Hello,” Eddie says in a quiet voice, his accent as proper as can be, bringing my attention to him. “I’m Eddie.”

  Again, I’m drowning in disbelief here. Eddie is only a few years older than me, and as I grew up, I watched as he grew up. His face and the face of everyone in his family have been constants in my life, whether I was paying attention or not. I mean, his father is on our twenty-dollar bills.

  In person, he’s also better-looking. Compared to his older brother, who most people fawn over, Eddie is an unusual-looking guy with a piercing stare that says way more than he ever verbalizes, but he’s still handsome. He just has a way about him, and right now, I’m picking up on that quiet kind of charm. It helps that he’s wearing dark jeans and a navy polo shirt, a lot more casual than the Eddie I’m used to seeing in the press.