Royal Academy

by McKenna James

  I didn't care what he, or anyone else, thought about Eliza. I was falling for her, and to hell with all of them. I was going to be happy with her.

  “Drew, I have to tell you something, and I think I should do it face to face,” he said.

  Whatever he needed to tell me had to have been important, if he was requesting a face to face.

  “Alright, man, meet me at my condo. I'm headed there now.”

  I hung up the phone without a goodbye. I was pissed off at him, and I had no reason to play nice.

  I pulled in and saw him sitting in his car, already waiting for me.

  Damn, had he been waiting all fucking night on me?

  I got out and locked the doors. Two beeps echoed in the night so loudly that it almost embarrassed me.

  “What the hell is so important that this couldn't wait until tomorrow,” I asked in a very rude tone, hoping he would understand that I was ticked off.

  My words didn't faze him. He came toward me with a manila envelope.

  “Let's go inside,” he said. “This is some shit!”

  I unlocked the door, and we both entered.

  “Have a seat,” I told him. “I'm getting a beer.”

  There was no way in hell that I was going to offer him anything or even be polite after the way he’d spoken about Eliza.

  Upon returning to the living room, I sat on the couch. “Okay, let's have it,” I said as I turned up the bottle and nearly chugged it all in one gulp. I was wired with pent-up energy, and I had to do something to calm myself. Between Eliza's body causing my cock to stay hard for a very long time, and Clayton and his nonsense about having some important news, my nerves were frazzled.

  “Alright, man, before I give this to you, you must remember that I did this for your own good,” he said as he opened the envelope.

  I let out a sigh. “Whatever, Clayton, just get the hell on with it and cut out the drama.”

  He pulled out several sheets of paper. Some appeared to be articles, but several of them were photographs of my family. I didn't understand.

  “What is that?” I asked him, confused as to what he was trying to do.

  “This is why you can't get involved with that poor girl from the wrong side of town.”

  His words caused my hand to ball into a fist. I wanted to knock the shit out of him. My sexual tension was quickly boiling into anger, and I might as well use his face as a punching bag.

  “Look, man, if you’ve come over here to call her names and say shit, then you can just fucking leave!” I was angrier than I had ever been, and I knew that Clayton could see the emotions all over my face.

  “Look at this shit before you get pissy with me,” he demanded.

  I scanned the clippings and saw stories about Edward partying, and a story about me and how I was about to begin university. The headline read, “Prince Andrew Goes to Whitby to Escape Hard Ruler of a Mum.”

  I chuckled and tossed them on the floor in front of me. “So what? I've seen that shit before. Why the hell are you bringing it to me?”

  Clayton stood and stared at me. “Pick up the damn papers and read the byline.”

  I picked up one of the articles and asked, still oblivious,

  “So what? Who the fuck is Oliver Noble?”

  “Who is Oliver Noble?” Clayton laughed as if he'd just been given the opportunity to take the last shot in a firing squad. “He's the father of your pretty little pauper!”

  I remained stoic, hiding the initial shock I felt of Clayton’s atomic bomb. I was hurt, confused, but I sure as hell didn't want Clayton to know it. No, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he'd just rendered the final, fatal shot in his little game.

  “So the fuck what?!” I exclaimed.

  “You've got to be kidding me?” he fired again.

  “Who gives a shit who her father is? She's just my study partner, Clayton!”

  My words were lies. She was more than that to me. When I heard myself deny what she meant to me, it hurt me terribly. Why did I do it? Why did I just say that she was only my study partner?

  God, I didn’t know. My head was pounding as if it would burst. My heart was hurting by her blatant betrayal. And I was angry at my best friend for not accepting her just because of some stupid ranking system in society.

  “Yeah, well, I hope so,” he said in a much calmer tone. “Because if you give her anything to report to her dad, then you're royally screwed, no pun intended!”

  Without saying goodbye, he walked out the door. I was left in my oversized leather chair that Edward and Maggie had helped me pick out especially for my new place. The amount of emotions flowing through my heart and mind were almost incomprehensible to me. Why didn't Eliza just tell me who her father was? Why did Clayton get so much joy out of hurting someone else? What did all of this mean for me, and for us as a couple?

  I had no idea, but I knew that I couldn't sit there and think about it any longer.

  I went to the fridge and took out five more beers. I was going to drink until all of that shit was out of my mind.

  ***

  The alarm went off promptly at eight am. “Ughh,” I groaned as I reached to turn it off. I had rugby practice at nine, but there was no way that I could get up after drinking all night. I rolled over and went back to sleep. Nothing was getting my tired ass out of bed today. I was going to hide from the world. I wanted nothing to do with anyone, not even Eliza. For the time being, I wanted to just be alone until I could sort out what had taken place the night before.

  Chapter 12

  Eliza

  I normally wasn't up at the break of dawn on a Saturday morning, but today was different. There was an excitement in me that I couldn't quell. The night before with Drew had left me breathless, and I had replayed every moment of it over and over in my head until sleep took over and I drifted off. I was in Heaven thinking about our bodies molding perfectly together as we embraced. The smell of his cologne and the taste of his soft lips were still on mine as I lay in bed and smiled at the mere thought of it all. I took a long, deep sigh and let it out.

  “Prince Andrew, I think I'm in love with you,” I said, as if he was there to hear it.

  I giggled at the thought of actually saying to him. It was something I didn't know I could ever do without him having said it first, and there was no way I was going to tread into such dangerous territory so quickly with him. No, I wasn’t going to scare him off.

  I could feel my heart beating faster as I pictured the two of us making love for the first time. Where would it be? How would it happen? I supposed it would be great since he was such a fantastic kisser and how he possessed the ability to make my body seem to scream out for his. I didn't know when or where, but I knew that it would be the most wonderful night of my entire life, and I was looking forward to it. Drew was old-fashioned in the sense that he wanted to wait. I couldn't believe it at first when he backed away from me after hearing that I was a virgin, but I was elated that he respected me enough to not take advantage of me at a delicate moment. It made me fall even more in love with him.

  He was such a gentleman.

  I looked over at the clock to see that it was only seven a.m., but I was already awake. I knew exactly what I was going to do with the day. First, I would head to the gym for an intense workout to get rid of all of the sexual tension that Drew had left me with. Then, after a shower, I’d work my shift at The Pour Pauper, and end my day with a stroll through town. Although I wasn't certain that he would even ask me out, I felt confident that we would be together that night because of how everything had been going up to that point.

  “Eliza Noble, this is going to be the most exciting night of your life,” I told myself in the mirror as I pinned my long curls atop my head. Grabbing my gym bag, I closed the door of my flat and headed out happily.

  ***

  Hot yoga and spin class were torture, and I found myself not being able to fully concentrate on either that morning. My mind was with Drew, wherever he
was, and I just couldn't snap out of it enough to get into classes. After chalking it up to new love, I headed to the locker room for a quick shower.

  “Hey, aren't you Eliza?” I heard a voice from behind me say.

  Turning around, I saw two rather leggy females wrapped in towels almost sneering at me.

  “Yes, I am,” I answered.

  “I thought so,” the blonde said. “You're in my class. You are Andy’s study partner,” she said in a slow, snide tone.

  Andy? Did they mean Andrew? Who were these girls?

  “Well, I don't know him as Andy, just Andrew,” I said as I tried to take a comb through my half-dried hair.

  “Well,” the other one giggled. “If you know him like we do, then you can call him Andy.”

  They turned and started to laugh. I had no idea who they were because the class was rather large with almost a hundred people in it, and I had only barely gotten to know those who sat close to me. I shrugged them off and continued getting dressed. I chalked it up to being two girls with crushes on the Prince, and I tried to leave it there. But there was something in the way they called him Andy that stuck in my mind. Did they know him in a way that I didn't? Had one of them, or possibly both of them, been intimate with him?

  I didn't know and, frankly, it didn't matter. What Drew did before he met me was none of my business, so I let it go. I knew there would be talk of us working together as partners because Clayton didn’t like me, and he would do anything to cause Drew problems with it.

  ***

  My first stop after work was Cantella's Fashion Boutique. It was pricey—really pricey—but I didn't care. It was way out of my price range, but I figured it couldn't hurt to just look around and see what was popular at the moment.

  One last glance in the rearview mirror caused me to second guess myself. I saw my pale face with freckles and no makeup, and I began to question what I was doing. I was certainly not like the two girls whom I had just encountered in the locker room with their long legs, fake breasts, and tons of mascara. No, I was plain and simple. What did Drew see in me? Why was he even the slightest bit interested in someone who looked like me when he could have someone who looked like either one of them?

  I sat there in my dented hatchback and contemplated going in. Would it be worth it to suffer the embarrassment of knowing I couldn't afford anything in there just to get a look at what was hot for the season? I figured that I would even be able to afford anything that was on their clearance rack—even if they had one, which I highly doubted.

  “Eliza, what are you doing? You don't belong here,” I said to reflection.

  I was better suited to go into one of the large department stores in the mall where everything had come in bulk and nothing was above my price range. Downtrodden, I decided to put the car in gear and head over to Wellington Mall where I would feel more at home.

  ***

  My concern that Drew hadn't texted or called me was growing more and more by the minute. After all, it was nearly six p.m., and his rugby practice would have been over by eleven at the latest. I could only imagine that he had gotten caught up with his friends or family and lost track of time. Looking at my phone one last time, I finally made up my mind to call him. It was something I hadn’t done before now, but I felt it was okay given our situation and confession of feelings last night.

  “Voicemail,” I said.

  “After the beep, you know what to do to get me to return your call,” his sexy voice said in the recording.

  “Hey, Drew, it's me, Eliza. I just wondered how practice went this morning, and I thought maybe if you weren't busy later you might want to grab a pizza and work on our project. Just give me a call or text if you would like to. I mean, or not. It's up to you. Bye.”

  Oh God!! I had stumbled over every freaking word of the entire thing.

  “Eliza, why in the bloody hell did you just call him?”

  I was beyond frustrated at myself for doing it, but it was too late. He would call me when he got the message, and we would go from there. I wasn't accustomed to calling guys at all, much less the bloody Prince of England, but I did and that was that.

  Two hours and less than a hundred pounds later, I had my new dress. It was perfect. Classic red with a plunging neckline to accentuate what Mother Nature had given me. That would definitely cause Drew's heart to flutter when he saw me in it. He seemed to have been such a huge fan of my breasts the night before, so anything that showed them off would cause him to want me even more. I giggled as I sat in my car looking at the dress that I had halfway pulled from the bag to give it one last look.

  “It's bloody perfect!!” I shouted as if I was telling someone else.

  I suddenly realized that I was alone with no one to show my dress to and no one to tell how excited I was to be dating Drew. There was no way I could confide in any of my old school chums because they would let it slip, no matter how much they promised to keep it to themselves. And I knew for a fact that it was something that I couldn't share with my sister because she was known for having loose lips around Mum and Dad. The last thing that Drew and I needed was for my father to find out that we were dating or even that he was my partner at school. H would be hounding me every single day wanting intel on the Prince. No, I was alone in this, and I had to keep it to myself.

  After stopping for coffee, I headed home still feeling a bit sad that I hadn't heard from Andrew. I realized that we didn't know each other well enough to really know what the other’s schedules were on the weekend. I mean, he might have standing plans with family each Saturday that he couldn't get out of, so I resigned myself to just chilling out and allowing him to call me whenever he wanted and trying not to freak out if he didn't.

  ***

  When my phone rang at eleven p.m., I was startled out of sleep. I jumped so hard that I almost flung myself off of the couch. Before I even picked it up, I was hoping it was Drew, and seeing his name on the screen caused my heart to beat a little faster before I answered.

  “Hello,” I said in a kind of groggy, kind of sexy tone. Well, maybe not sexy, but definitely groggy.

  “Hey, did I wake you?” he asked.

  “It's alright. I just dozed off while reading.”

  I sat up and tried to straighten myself, hoping that would wake me fully.

  “What have you been up to today?” I asked, hoping that he wouldn't mind.

  “You wouldn't believe the day I've had.” His tone told me there was something wrong.

  “Oh,” was all I could say.

  “Yeah, it's pretty serious. I need to see you and talk about some things.”

  His inflection was serious, and my heart dropped.

  Oh God, what if he knew about my father and that was what he wanted to talk about. I knew it was all too good to be true.

  “Sure, would you like to come over?” I asked.

  “Yes, I think it's best if I do. I'll be there in about an hour.”

  He hung up without saying goodbye and I started to worry more. I could feel my palms starting to sweat, and a fear set in that I had never felt before. This was it—I just knew it. Drew had found out who my father was, and it was all over.

  I was pacing the floor back and forth in my living room when he rang the buzzer.

  “Calm down, Eliza! You don't know yet what he wants to talk about. Get a grip on yourself,” I told myself out loud as if I was someone else talking to the terrified girl in front of me.

  My nerves were frayed, and my stomach felt like it was churning upward into my throat when I heard the buzzer go off again. This was it, the moment of truth. I walked toward the door, pushed the button, and without saying a word, I let him into the building. Although I was hoping against all hope that it wasn’t about my father, my gut instinct told me that it was. I had braced myself for the moment that he knocked on my door.

  Two short raps and I immediately opened the door to see Clayton standing before me. I was in shock. “Clayton, what are you doing here?”


  The look on his face was one of disgust as he pushed past me. He looked around my flat with disdain and plopped down on my couch uninvited.

  “Well, look at this nice, cushy little pad you've here. I didn't think you had it in you, pauper,” he said in the most vile tone I had ever heard come out of a human.

  I was petrified almost immediately.

  “What do you mean?” I managed to mumble.

  He leaned back and crossed his left leg over his right as if he was getting comfortable for a while. “I mean, I thought you were poor,” he said in a mocking tone. “How in the world can you afford something as nice as this place?”

  His questions stung. God, how I wished that Drew would hurry.

  “Clayton, I don't think that my finances or my flat are any of your concern.”

  I carefully took a seat on the chair across from him.

  He stared at me with narrowed eyes and pursed lips.

  “Oh you don't? Well, do you think they are any of my best friend's business?”

  “Actually, no. My ability to afford a flat is nobody’s business but my own.”

  God, where was Drew?

  “Tell me something, Ms. Noble,” he stated flatly, sounding as if he was a barrister and I was on trial. “How do you pay for such lavish digs as this?”

  I wasn't going to answer him. It was none of his business that I had gotten up every morning and gone to school, gone to work right after, and worked until bedtime for two years straight to pay for it all. It was none of his concern that every summer of those two years was dedicated to working to earn money for university instead of having fun with my friends.

  “That is none of your concern, Clayton.”

  I stood and walked toward the door. “Now I must ask you leave my flat. I refuse to put up with this nonsense.”

  He stood slowly and grinned as he walked toward me, his long, black designer coat swinging with each step. “I'll go, but I want you to know that Drew knows everything.”