Playing Dirty(84)

Not even a little bit.

Earlier in the flight I’d fallen asleep for a while and dreamed of a girl. That wasn’t so unusual; given the number of girls there were and had been in my life, it was inevitable that some of them would creep into my dreams, and my subconscious could sometimes get pleasantly creative in putting them together. But this wasn’t any old girl. This dream had been about one particular girl, and it was a girl I hadn’t even ‘been’ with—one I’d enjoyed a drink with in a New York bar when I’d tried to go incognito for the night and have some regular fun that didn’t involve stuffy royal duties and so-called elite members of society.

Keira. That was her name.

I was used to having girls drop their panties for me in a heartbeat, and I’d have had hers in my pocket that night if I hadn’t been such an ass and let her go. I’d been watching her from the second I stepped into that bar, unable to believe that such a gorgeous minx was so close to me. I ran into a myriad of hot girls in my day-to-day life, and believe me, they wanted me just as much as I wanted them. Usually more. But none of them were in the same league as this girl. She was incredible. Her caramel skin glowed, her dark wavy hair cascaded down her back like a shimmering waterfall, her brown eyes were warm and intelligent, and she had the sexiest body I’d ever seen. Even under the conservative dress she wore, there was no mistaking the perfect curves underneath. She was a goddess, whether she knew it or not, and I couldn’t even remember the last time a woman had grabbed my attention like this.

Right by the bollocks.

The evening hadn’t ended as I’d hoped, but I’d thoroughly enjoyed Keira’s company, and there were precious few girls whom I could say that about and mean it. She’d been witty, charming and made good conversation that actually kept me interested for over two hours, whereas most people bored the pants off me within five minutes. Best of all, she hadn’t seemed to know who I was at all. So many women only went for me because of who I was, and while that wasn’t something most men would complain about—after all, what red-blooded man would complain about having hot women throw themselves at him—it still got to me sometimes. Who was real, and who was just after my status? It was impossible to tell half the time, and it’d been nice having a night with a woman who saw me as nothing more than an equal to her.

Still, it was strange that she should stick in my mind so much. Strange that she should numb me to the obvious attributes of the lovely stewardess Kathy. Strange that I now found myself missing her. How could you miss someone you barely even knew? Sure, Keira and I had had an amazing chat for those couple of hours in the bar, but that didn’t mean we knew each other very well at all. After all, she hadn’t even known my real name.

For the record, I had intended to reveal my true identity to Keira once I’d got her back to my hotel room, and prior to sleeping with her. I was a playboy, a lothario, a cad, perhaps even a womanizer, and I wasn’t necessarily proud of these labels, nor would I have denied them. But, for all my reputation, I never lied to the women I was with. My encounter with Keira was actually a pretty typical one—total honesty, aside from not telling her my real name. In fact, I’d found that total honesty was a far better pickup line than actual lines. I always made my intentions clear, I never lied to get a girl into bed, and I never led girls to believe that it was something more than it was. I also never lied about my name…for long.

That was the one caveat; my identity did present a problem, and unless I was introduced as Prince Andrew, I always lied about my name initially. I fancied that this was part of a larger honesty. If I said who I really was, then the girl was almost certainly going to sleep with me based on my status alone. The name itself made things unequal. I had a reputation and women wanted to know if I lived up to it. It was quite something to have slept with Prince Andrew, and a woman’s ability to make good decisions took a hit once she found out who she was with. So I lied whenever I went incognito to have a good time, and I became Drew Ellis for a while, and if Drew Ellis could get the girl back to my hotel room, purely on force of personality and good looks, then I would reveal the truth—because then the girl had already made the decision of her own accord. If Drew Ellis got shot down, then I never revealed the truth to try and turn the situation around.

Frankly, I felt that I’d done the right thing by using Drew Ellis, and it grated at me that Keira would forever think that I’d lied to her and egregiously offended her in doing so. I felt bad about that, but there was nothing that I could do about it now—I’d most likely never see the girl again, because I’d been bloody stupid enough to let her walk away.