Page 73 of The Thing About My Prince
I rub my hands together at the memory of them on my skin. “Then, as I stepped outside, Wendy pulled up in her old red car, opened the back door, and told me to crouch in the footwell. Then she tossed a blanket over me. Being smuggled out felt even more like being in a spy movie.”
Lexi’s keyboard clicks continue next to me, but she says nothing.
“Once we were clear of Glenwither and out on the open road, she told me I could get up and put on a seat belt. Then she put on her Oasis album, which my mum hated and wouldn’t let her play in the house, and we sang along to it full tilt till we got where we were going.” I smile to myself at the memory of us belting out “She’s Electric” along with Liam Gallagher.
“Anyway, turns out Wendy was taking me to her favorite spot from when she was a kid. I remember we had to park in a gravel area and walk a bit through some woods, then we got to an amazing waterfall. I’d never seen anything like it in my life. To me, at that age, it looked like Niagara Falls, but I imagine it’s probably not that big.”
The sound of it replaces Liam’s voice in my head. “I can remember the loud rushing noise it made. And how sunny and warm it was. And how clear the water was.”
Lexi sighs, as if she’s sharing my memory.
“Then Wendy got out a couple of blankets and a picnic. But before we ate, she took me over to the rocks by the edge of the water and said we were jumping in on the count of three. And we did. I’d never felt so free in all my life.” I pause for a second and inhale, taking myself back to the freshness of the air, the coolness of the water, and the sheer unadulterated squeal-inducing pleasure of it all. “Nor since.”
I roll back onto my side to face her as she catches up with her notes.
Lexi’s free spirit has real potential to rub off on me. Just look at her, planning to whiz off halfway around the world by herself to a dangerous area. And the shower-sex-noises game she invented on the hoof showed such a who-gives-a-shit attitude. She’s free both physically and mentally. And I could definitely do with a dose of both of those.
I prop myself up a little. “Right, now you have to tell me why you hate rich people.”
“Shh.” She concentrates on typing for a few seconds more then looks down at me. “This is not a tit for tat. You don’t get a question for every question I ask. Asking you questions is literally my job. I’m just doing my job.”
Is that really all this is to her? All I am to her? A job?
I certainly didn’t feel like a professional obligation when our tongues touched in the library.
I tug playfully at the hem of her shirt. We’re not allowed to touch or kiss, but touching her clothing doesn’t count, right? “So if this weren’t your job, you wouldn’t want to know about me?”
“If this weren’t my job, I would never have found out that I want to know about you.”
“Ha, interesting information. Because I definitely want to know about you.”
“Well, I have plenty more questions before we get to that, like why are little kids wearing ties? Why didn’t your security stop the bullying? Have you ever been back to the waterfall? Where is Wendy now?”
“Okay. Answers.” I check them off on my fingers. “Posh private school. Security guarded the outside of the building only. Nope. And sacked. Mum fired Wendy when she found out she’d taken me off the property without permission to take part in a ‘dangerous activity.’”
Lexi snorts. “That figures. Your mom doesn’t exactly seem like someone for whom fun is much of a priority.”
I nod. “But as soon as my events company was makingmoney, I set up a trust to give Wendy and her husband a monthly income that’s enough to live on and to put her two daughters through university.”
“Wow.” Lexi shifts toward me. It pulls the edge of her shirt out of my hand, but that’s a small price to pay to get my eyes on hers. Her luscious, dark hair is framed by a glow from the castle’s decorative exterior lights that came on when it got dark.
“So the little girl and the polar bears isn’t a one-off then?”
“What?” Now I sit up too. “How did you know about that?”
“I overheard you talking. And went up to them afterward and asked. It didn’t really take finely honed investigative reporter skills.”
Lord, her sharp tongue is hot.
And I know for an actual fact that it’s not truly sharp. It’s soft and warm and slides against mine in the most delectable way. Simply thinking about it causes a stirring in my jeans and makes my mouth yearn to taste hers again.
“Okay, different topic,” she says. “How come you sold your events business? You could have still run that from New York, and then you’d have fewer money concerns.”
“Because I came to hate it and everything it stood for. I never saw myself getting into a business like that. But when I graduated university, I had no clue what I wanted to do, so when I was asked to sit on the board, I took it because it fell into my lap. Then when the owner wanted to sell the company a few years later, I bought it—again, because I had no idea what else to do with my life.”
She’s typing again now. “You’ve never had any ambitions?”
“Never had a clue what I wanted to be. Or maybe,whoI wanted to be.” I shrug. “But I did learn a lot from running that business. I got to be good at dealing with difficult people, pitching ideas, telling brand stories, and knowing whethervisuals worked or not. But after a while, the waste sickened me. The irony of staff who work all hours to get by, clearing up discarded goodie bags filled with thousands of dollars’ worth of giveaways was not lost on me. When I found out the clients threw it all away, I introduced a policy that all leftover PR products from every event be donated.”
