Playing Dirty(142)

I grinned. That was the first time in my entire life that a woman had said she trusted me, and somehow, it felt just as important and sweet as hearing the words ‘I love you’. It was even more important coming from Keira, given how hard she found it to trust people, especially a guy with a past like mine. But she did, and I was beyond grateful.

I just hoped I was truly good enough to be loved and trusted implicitly by a woman like her.





Chapter 20

Keira



“We have to tell her you’re pregnant. I’ve been biting my tongue, but I can’t for much longer. I mean, we’re having a baby! I want to tell the world!”

Andrew looked at me, waiting for a response, and I sighed and took a moment to think while I looked over the gardens where we were sitting.

It had always been hard for us to find much time to be together but, following the disastrous Princess Alexandra affair, things had become simultaneously easier and harder. On the one hand, there was a tacit understanding with Michael and the Queen that there was something going on between us. Given all that had happened—and the fact that Andrew had outright told them several times—it would’ve been impossible to deny and was equally impossible for them to ignore. That made things easier, because the prior necessity of sneaking around behind their backs no longer existed, or at least existed to a lesser degree, and I’d still managed to keep my job (which was probably out of their guilt for the way I’d been treated during the Alexandra incident). But on the other hand, while the fact that there was something ‘going on’ between us had become known to them, the exact nature of it remained up in the air.

I knew exactly what that nature was: we were in love. And, though I might once have questioned Andrew’s feelings for me, I was now convinced beyond a shadow of doubt that he felt the same way. The problem was that I was sure the rest of the royal family thought I was just a fling; some girl whom Andrew had taken a temporary liking to, but would be out of the picture soon. He’d told them otherwise, but given his past behavior, they weren’t exactly keen on believing a single word that came out of his mouth in regards to women.

Hopefully that’d change soon.

Also, as Andrew had just stated, there was still the baby to consider. At some point my condition would become obvious, the identity of the father would be equally obvious, and keeping the news out of the papers would become difficult, if not impossible. We had to do something before that point was reached; we had to get ahead of the story and control it before it got out of our control. The first step had to be telling the Queen, but there was a problem with that…

I was completely and utterly terrified of how she might react.

On the other hand, Andrew was all in favor of doing it now, and he looked at me expectantly, waiting for my answer. “I just don’t think the time is right,” I replied, nervously chewing on a fingernail.

“Do you think it’s going to get any righter?” he asked. “We need to tell her, Keira.”

“I know, but I think the more time we spend together, the more likely it is she’ll accept that we’re actually serious about each other,” I replied. “Maybe then it’ll be easier to tell her.”

“You don’t think the fact that you’re pregnant will indicate our seriousness?”

“There are more than enough accidental babies born every year to counter that,” I said. “It doesn’t show that we’re serious. It just shows that we weren’t careful enough.”

Andrew sighed. “I get the impression that you’re not giving me the whole story here.”

“I just worry.”

“About what?”

“About everything!” I exclaimed. “About tabloid headlines like, ‘Playboy Prince Has Knocked Up His Maid!’. That’s no way for a baby to be brought into the world, with that kind of crap surrounding him or her.”

“You’re not just a maid.”

“I am a maid. It’s literally my job right now.”

“Yes, but you know what I mean,” said Andrew. “This isn’t some sordid, backstairs thing—we love each other.”

“And I’m sure that’s how the press will report it...”

“It’s the truth.”

“Since when does that matter to the tabloids? I think Mark Twain once said ‘don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story’.”

“True. Well,” Andrew tried another tack, “telling my mother doesn’t mean telling the press. Once we tell her, we can take it from there.”

I still wasn’t sure. Honestly, I just wanted to pack up and sneak off to hide somewhere in outer Mongolia.