Page 11 of Crush

“I love it. But just so we’re clear. It’sjustdinner,” I explained gently. I didn’t want to lead him on. If the date went well and I felt a spark, I might see him again but I wasn’t about to jump into bed with someone I worked with. Co-worker relationships were also frowned upon, so I’d been told.

“You’re very direct,” Rory replied.

“I believe in being honest.”

“Well, it’s refreshing in a female. My last girlfriend loved to play games,” he admitted. I felt a hint of the ich. One minute the guy had asked me out and the next he was bringing up past girlfriends. Wasthatwhat your regular normal guy did? How would I know when I had nothing to compare it with? I wasn’t a virgin or a slut, but I didn’t do boyfriends. Recently, I had been seeing a coupleof guys (not at the same time) on and off for some casual fun but that was it. Oh, and I’d had two one-night stands which I had decided wasn’t for me.

Rory and I sat chatting over coffee, the conversation moving past exes thank God. Although, he did ask how long I’d been single and I said a few years.

I could feel other members of staff watching us, probably listening to hear what we were talking about. Nosey parkers.

But then I had been the object of fascination for years. My father’s wealth and status along with our titles had seen to that.

I was Lady Amber-Leigh Swift, heiress to Lord Jonathan Charles Swift’s billions. I had dropped the Leigh part when I’d hit puberty. The full version of my name with the added title had always felt over the top.

As well as the money, I was also envied for being fortunate enough to have been born with my late mother’s beauty and a pretty-decent body; albeit one that I had to work hard at. I wasn’t the type of girl who could eat anything and get away with it, but I hadeverythingelse on a plate (no pun intended).

At five foot two, I possessed a petite build with a decent-sized chest and a small waist. My tummy was flat and toned, something Mia always complimented me on. When I let my hair down it fell to my waist in chestnut waves. I say chestnut as that’s preferable to admitting I was ginger. My skin was pale and luckily, the only freckles I had inherited were on my nose. My mother’s had been all over her body. I sayhadas she sadly passed away when I was twelve. God, how I missed her.

To everyone on the outside looking in, I was a Queen. And yet, I wasn’t. I was a square peg wedged into a round hole.

It was all a big fat lie.

I was no Queen. AQueenworked hard, looked after her subjects, and fought for what was right. She served her country; I did fuck all and lately, I wasn’t proud of that fact.

Everything I had was given to me on that previously mentioned plate. I was twenty-one years old and had achievednothing.

As far as the label ‘poor little rich girl’ went, I was all over that and then some. I still lived in the family mansion, was waited on by a houseful of staff and had a driver who would take me anywhere I wanted to go. Even myNannystill lived on the grounds.

In a nutshell, I was as pathetic as shit and hadnothingto call my own.

To add insult to injury, due to my previous relationship and what had happened afterwards, I was also viewed through a veil of pity, and at times that felt even worse.

Not many people knew about that period of my life as my father had paid to keep it out of the media. The sole reason for this was to protect his little princess of course, and not to protect the prince, a man who was anythingbutin my family's eyes. The label, ‘twisted bastard’ sprung into my mind.

But that’s a story for another time. I wasdonedwelling in the past. That’s partly why I accepted my father’s suggestion to work on one of his latest projects. It allowed me to spread my wings and decide what I wanted to do with my life. Well, the rest of it, having already squandered the second half of my teenage years.

Michael Jackson said it best; I’d been looking at my man in the mirror for the last five years and didn’t like what I saw. It was time to make that change.

There wasonegood thing to come out of my teens. And that came in the form of Mia Huntington-Smith. The one true friend who had stuck by me even after I’d made such a mess of things. Mia was also from a wealthy family and privileged like me but as down to earth as they came.

We’d met at a group therapy session and there had been an instant rapport. Mia was tall and slim with chocolate brown hair and curious eyes.

Over the last several years, she’d developed her own channel and was a fashion vlogger and influencer on YouTube. My friend now had thousands of followers and was a career woman in her own right.

I helped her with her inbox occasionally as she received hundreds of emails every week. It gave me something to do. There was nothing worse than too much time on your hands. Thoughts drifted and questions of ‘what if’ surfaced when you had too much thinking time.

Mia was the type of friend I could spend precious time binge-eating and getting shit-faced with whilst we put the world to rights. Shenevermade me feel like the poor little rich girl or the pet project I was, and sheneverpitied me. There was also no jealousy from her, not one iota and she listened, likereallylistened. Mia was the only one who knew the full truth of what had happened in my first-ever sexual relationship. My father and those he’d employed to psychoanalyse when it had endedthoughtthey knew, but they didn’t have a clue. Not really.

Speaking of the devil, my phone started vibrating and I pushed to my feet, quickly thanking Rory who had paid for my drink. I had agreed to dinner the following night and would meet him at a restaurant called Felice’s. It was on the opposite side of the city, but I had the luxury of Dexter, my driver, who also doubled up as a bodyguard. Thankfully, after years of nagging, my father had cut down my security detail. I was a wealthy woman and there was always the risk of being taken (again). That was another reason I now kept my social life out of the media. It hadn’t taken long for the paps to lose interest, as I’d retreated from appearing in public, they had soon gotten bored and moved on to someone else.

As I made my way over to the office I was using, I spoke briefly to Mia on my iPhone. She was in the process of trying to break up with her boyfriend Carl but he wasn’t having any of it. Carl was the clingy type and Mia had always wanted to travel the world once her inheritance kicked in.

When Mia turned twenty-two, she would have access to even more wealth. She had told Carl that she didn’t want to be held back from travelling. Carl now ran his family's business so he wasn’t in a position where he could just drop everything. Mia would be able to vlog from anywhere.

I wanted to go with her, but I wasn’t sure how I’d ever be able to snap my father’s apron strings. He’d probably have me followed. Daddy was overprotective.

My friend started to complain that she hadn’t had sex in over a week. Like that was a long time. “I keep crying so I can remember what it feels like to be wet.”

---