Playing Dirty(118)

We’d met in the library—purely by ‘chance’ of course—and after coming up with some tortured justification for why this was a valid ‘last time’, we were in each other’s arms with hands hastily trespassing into the other’s clothes.

Keira suddenly froze.

“Did you hear that?” she asked.

“All I can hear is the sound of you being sexy as hell,” I said with an exaggerated wink. I knew I wasn’t funny, not even in the slightest, but Keira seemed to love my sense of humor.

“I’m serious! Listen,” she replied before holding a finger to her lips.

We were both silent, and when the sound of our own hearts and heavy breathing had died away enough, we heard footsteps coming our way. We ducked behind a bookshelf just in time as the footsteps reached our aisle before coming to a halt.

“Hello?”

I tried not to make a sound, forcefully holding my breath, and I could feel Keira doing the same thing. The voice had been Michael’s.

“Is someone there?”

The footsteps now began down the aisle, and we tiptoed as quickly and silently as we could down the adjacent one. Fortunately the library of Richmond Palace didn’t have those slot-together shelves made of thin metal that you find in public libraries—these shelves were solid English oak, loaded with thick, heavy books, guaranteed to slow the speed of sound to a crawl and create a soundscape of echoes that made you wonder if you’d actually heard what you thought you’d heard and from which direction you might have heard it.

“Tch!” Michael tutted to himself as he reached the end of the aisle, where we’d been hiding mere moments before. “Hum.”

That seemed to indicate that he’d written the noise he’d heard off as one of the many creaks and whispers that emerge from any old building.

Keira and I listened to the footsteps as they went away, terminating in the opening and closing of the heavy library door. We both breathed a sigh of relief.

“We really do have to stop soon, don’t we?” Keira said, a dejected tone in her voice.

“I think maybe we do.”

“So…make this the last time?”

“Well, he’s gone now,” I said with a nod. “It’d be stupid to waste the opportunity.”

As I took Keira in my arms, I wondered if, despite all the good reasons to do so and all that we were risking, I was really capable of letting her go. I knew it would be the right thing to do, but a sneaky voice in my mind told me the truth as to whether I could really do it or not.

Not a chance in hell.





Chapter 13

Keira



“Wakey wakey!”

I woke up, blearily rubbing my eyes, and then I shot up in bed as I saw Andrew standing over me, holding a croissant and a takeaway cup of coffee. He was dressed in a casual grey hoodie, faded blue jeans and some sort of weird black wig, and I pinched my arm.

“This is a dream, right?”

“More like a nightmare, judging by what I look like in this outfit and wig,” he replied with a grin, setting the breakfast down on my small wooden bedside table.

“Why are you wearing it? And how did you get into my apartment?” I asked. “Thanks for the coffee, by the way.”

He held up a key, his eyes glimmering with mischief. “Well, seeing as these apartments are owned by the royal family, I can get master keys quite easily. But I didn’t even need one, because you actually made the age old mistake of leaving a spare key under the doormat. Not very safety-conscious of you.”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly expecting someone to try and get in. Nothing really worth stealing in here,” I said, gesturing around to the bare-bones apartment. Seeing as I was hardly ever here, there really wasn’t much—just the furniture that came with the place, and the things I’d brought over from home.

“You’re worth stealing,” Andrew said with a wink. “And that’s why I’m here. I checked the palace staff roster, and you’ve got a day off today, so I’m stealing you for the day before anyone else can make plans with you.”

I arched an eyebrow. “And the wig and hoodie?”

“Well, do you think I can just go out in public and have a nice time with you, looking like myself? We’d instantly be mobbed by reporters and the like.”

“I know. But…do you really want to go out somewhere with me?” I asked hesitantly. “Somewhere that isn’t either here or on the palace grounds?”

“Yes. I thought you could show me one of those museums you love so much.”

My heart swelled at the prospect of sharing something I loved with Andrew, and the fact that he’d even suggested it showed how much he cared about me and my ambitions.