Playing Dirty(95)

I couldn’t resist it. I was aiming to get a rise out of her, to remind her of the previous morning, because if I could make the conversation a bit more adversarial, then I was sure I would feel more confident. I wasn’t used to feeling even the slightest bit insecure when I was semi-nude in front of an attractive woman—in fact it was a situation in which I was usually at my most cocky. I didn’t like the tables being turned.

Not one bit.

But Keira didn’t take the bait. Indeed, she didn’t seem to even notice that the bait was there. “I didn’t want to wake your Highness,” she said demurely. She indicated the table by the window. “I laid out breakfast for you. If you would prefer to shower and dress first, I can keep the food warm, or I’ve laid out a robe for you if you would like to eat now.”

Her voice seemed almost devoid of emotion, as if she had consciously surrendered her personality to better deal with my shitty behavior.

“I’ll eat now, thank you,” I said, trying to sound as polite as possible. I went to get out of bed then thought better of it. “Could you pass me the robe, please?”

I couldn’t help it. This was how I woke up every morning, and I didn’t want a repeat of yesterday; flashing my erection for the world to see. Well, if Keira counted as ‘the world’, that is.

Keira complied with the same bland obedience, picking up the royal blue robe and passing it to me, then turning her back so I could put it on without worrying about offending her—something which had not bothered me yesterday at all, but today rather did.

My mother had spoken to me yesterday afternoon in somewhat heated terms, and although she’d made no mention of specifics, I’d assumed that it was a consequence of my conduct with Keira that morning. Now I wasn’t so sure. If Keira had squealed on me to the Queen, then surely her behavior would be cockier—she’d got one over on me. If I’d been in her position then I would’ve flirted outrageously in the knowledge that nothing could be done about it.

But perhaps that was the point: she wasn’t me. Not everyone looked for a way to rub their success at a task in the other person’s face. It was odd, because whether Keira had spoken to my mother or not, her behavior right now was a far more effective chastisement to me than any telling off from my mother could’ve been. The fact that she was acting maturely, and that she had put the events behind her, just went to highlight how childishly I’d been acting. One way or another, Keira had won, and I found myself at a loss as to figuring out how. She was an impressive woman, to be sure.

I realized that was probably the first time I’d thought of her as a ‘woman’ and not merely a ‘girl’.

With my robe tightly secured to avoid any embarrassment, I crossed the room to eat my breakfast while Keira set to work making the bed up with fresh sheets after stripping the others. Try as I might, and though I knew it was partly what had got me into trouble yesterday, I couldn’t stop my gaze from wandering over to her. But today I wasn’t leering, today didn’t feel like voyeurism—I was simply watching a beautiful woman. I wasn’t sure if that distinction would be apparent to a third party, or would be to Keira if she spotted me, but I knew it existed. There was more to Keira than I’d been looking at yesterday, and I found myself thinking back to our first meeting in that bar yet again.

Of course I’d initially approached her because she was an utterly stunning woman with a great body, but there’d been times in the ensuing conversation when I’d found myself genuinely lost in what she was saying to such an extent that I almost forgot what a great body it was. That was really something for a guy like me to say, considering my history. Yesterday I’d certainly been focused on that body, just like my regular old self, but today I looked at the same body and saw something else, and I found my conduct of twenty-four hours ago to be quite contemptible. Not least because it’d made me miss something so much more than sexuality. There was something about Keira. It wasn’t just how she looked, how she acted or what she said—it was something more, something about her, something intangible and indescribable that I’d never seen in any woman before.

I thought back to our conversation at the bar, and how she’d spoken so passionately about her studies and future plans. She really was a wonderfully determined person, and I admired that a hell of a lot—so many other women I met weren’t at all passionate about their futures and basically had no ambition. But not Keira. In the short time I’d gotten to know her that night, she’d made it clear that she wasn’t the sort of woman who saw men as financial plans and never cared about their own careers. She was independent, and she’d proved that by temporarily moving halfway across the world and getting a menial job, just so she could see all the art she’d always dreamed of before properly pursuing her long-term career. That took real passion, determination and guts, especially seeing as she’d done it alone.