by Parker Swift
“You’re my hero.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No. I love you.” He pulled the car over to the side of the road. We were near the highway but hadn’t yet left the village. “I’m so sorry for laughing—it’s just that, it’s…it’s almost a relief. You can’t imagine how often I’ve wanted to say that to him, for others to say that to him, but you actually did.” He was silent for a moment, taking it in. “Lord knows he deserved it. You’re bloody amazing.”
I laughed a little, relieved myself.
“But, baby, I’m also sorry he did that. That’s horrible. No one should have to deal with someone being so cruel, so insanely rude. And don’t mistake my laughter for not taking this seriously—I want to kill him for saying that to you.” And the anger that flashed through his eyes as he said these words left zero doubt in my mind about their veracity. “But, baby.” He paused, trying to find the right words. “You just showed my father, better than I ever could, what something real looks like. What it means to actually love someone. I could tell him until I was blue in the face that you are not with me because of my money or title, and he wouldn’t believe me for a second. Not believing me, not listening to me, is his standard perspective. But in one conversation you showed him.”
The more I learned about Dylan’s relationship with his father, the sadder I was for him. I could see the prison Dylan lived in more and more clearly, the bars coming into focus.
“I hated telling you that,” I said.
“You didn’t tell me anything new, not really. There’s nothing you could tell me that would make think differently of him at this point. I’m only sorry you were exposed to his particular brand of malice so early. I had hopes I could spare you, at least until we move in together?” he said, raising his eyebrows hopefully, looking at me.
I smiled, relieved to hear the question. “It’s too soon, Dylan. I just feel overwhelmed—not by you or us, but by the press and life and the store. I need a little more time. It just feels like too big of a change after so many changes.” His smile faltered a little. “But keep asking, okay?”
He nodded, then took my hand in his again and brought it to his lips.
I hadn’t known exactly how I’d felt about moving in with him until saying the words—I’d been saying no, and it had become a game, but what I’d said was true. I knew he wanted me in his house, and given that we’d only been together a couple of months, his wanting it seemed like enough. But if I listened to the voice buried beneath relationship conventions and anxieties about our current circumstances—if I dared listen to that voice—I knew what it would say. That a future without Dylan simply wasn’t an option.
Chapter 17
By the time we got back to his house that night, his reaction to his father’s bribe had settled more into anger and frustration. Now that the dust had settled, he was squarely back in the vortex of pressures—his work, his father, and the emails.
We sat in the lounge off his bedroom, and we were polishing off glasses of wine. He ran his fingers through his hair as he began preparing me for the week ahead, another long week in which we’d likely see very little of each other. “The Olympic committee is about to have my head, I’m afraid. If I don’t submit the revised designs for the stadium by Friday, I won’t be surprised if they look elsewhere.” He’d been rubbing is forehead while he spoke from the chair where he was seated. He looked so stressed, torn. I stood up from my seat on the couch and walked towards him.
“I know you’ll get it done,” I said, stepping closer, standing between his legs.
“Of course I’ll bloody get it done,” he said sternly. “I’ve never been late on a design in my life, and I’m not going to start now.”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m Thomas,” I said, equally sternly, and Dylan removed his hands from his face and wrapped them around the backs of my legs, pulling me closer and looking up at me. I threaded my fingers through his hair.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m not mad at you. I’m still furious with my father. What he said to you…And then he dares to be relentless, holding my grandfather’s name and company over my head—” Just then his phone chimed with a text. He picked it up and scowled at it in a way that made me very glad not to be his phone. “Tristan fucking Bailey,” he mumbled under his breath, and he tossed the phone back onto the table.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
Dylan nodded. “Like I said, my father’s relentless.” He reached his firm muscular arms around me and pulled me down onto his lap and against his chest. “Until I figure this out, I’ll be busier, I’m afraid. This week in particular.”
I pulled back so I could look him in the eye, and I gave him a raised eyebrow. “Oh yeah, knighty? Well, I’m busy and important too, you know,” I began. “The store opens in less than two months, and there’s mountains to do. So, you know, I’m just not going to be able to cater to your whims and—”
“Cheeky thing.” He chuckled and pulled me against him again. His hands ran up and down my back, stroking, soothing, apologizing for his outburst. He kissed the top of my head and pulled me closer. “I wish I could protect you from all of this.”
“What do you mean?”
“You deserve a simpler relationship, one that doesn’t involve a man being pulled in a thousand different directions by despicable parents, duty, and career.”
“You mean one without the man I actually want? The man who has a complicated rich life but handles it with grace? That relationship? No, thanks. I’ll stick with you.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“Well, true,” I said, smiling into his chest. “But I’m obviously extremely witty and genius-like, and you can’t seem to stay away, so we’ll just have to cope, won’t we?”
“Indeed,” he said softly into my ear. He was thinking—I could practically hear his mental wheels turning. “You know what?” he asked.
“What?”
“I’m going to take a page from your book.”
“What do you mean?” I asked again, this time for clarification.
“I’m going to tell my father where he can shove it. He and Hale Shipping can wait,” he said with total determination. “I need to get back to my own work. I’ll spend some time with the security team of course—we still have to identify whoever is sending you emails. I won’t let up on that. But otherwise—”
“Otherwise, you’ll be at Hale Architecture and Design, doing your thing. I think this is the best idea you’ve had in a while.”
Dylan kissed my hair in response, and while I couldn’t see his face, I could feel his satisfied smile against my skin.
“I mean, it’s even better than that whole velvet-rope idea you had—”
Dylan slapped my outer thigh, making me jolt in his arms and laugh. I look up into his calmer, happier eyes.
“To bed with you, wench,” he said and carried me towards the low luxurious bed behind me.
* * *
The week that followed was flying by, and I couldn’t quite believe when I looked up from my desk in the middle of the day to realize it was already Wednesday. I had moved into the office at the back of the storefront, which in itself had taken all of Monday and most of Tuesday. The upside was that I now could be where I needed to be with deliveries being made, construction happening, designers stopping by. The store was also closer to Dylan’s house, making the whole walking-to-work thing easier. The downsides were that there were no windows, I was mostly alone back there—apart from the deliveries, construction crews, and designers—and I missed Fiona and Josh.
That was why, after two ten-hour days in the shop and a morning of phone calls and emails with suppliers, I had decided to finish out the rest of Wednesday from the main office. Having just said goodbye to Frank outside the building, I was still in the elevator when I started to hear the excited giggles coming from reception. When I walked into the space, I saw Josh practically hyperventilating, the intern squealing, and Fiona rolling her eyes.
“This lot,” she said, pointing to Josh jumping up and down, “is going mental. All because a couple of posh dunces are swooning and in love.” She huffed.
“What?” I asked, confused.
Josh struggled to speak through his excitement but managed to get out two important words: royal and wedding.
“There’s going to be a royal wedding?” I asked. “Who’s getting married?”
“Oh, like you don’t know!” Josh screamed. “Oh good god, you’re going to get to actually go, you tramp!”
“Wait, no, seriously, who’s getting married?” I asked, still confused. I put down my bag, which was heavy with binders of information to go over with Hannah and was hurting my shoulder.
Josh was back to breathing heavily and was now feverishly searching the Internet at his desk for more details about this engagement.
“Prince Richard and Lady Jemma Kirk,” Fiona explained dryly.
“Oh—” I began but was interrupted by my phone buzzing in my pocket. A text from Dylan:
WEDNESDAY, 1:47 pm
If you haven’t heard, Richard is engaged to whatshername.
WEDNESDAY, 1:47 pm
Just heard. Josh is going into excitement-related cardiac arrest over here.
WEDNESDAY, 1:48 pm
Well, you’d better not tell him you’re going to the engagement do.
I looked over at Josh, who was now reading aloud a post about guesses at who would design the wedding gown. Hannah was apparently on the list, which was making the intern jump up and down again, and Fiona was headed back to our office, where I could hear phones ringing. I turned back to my phone.
WEDNESDAY, 1:49 pm
I am?
WEDNESDAY, 1:50 pm
You are. Two weeks Friday?
Also, I wish you hadn’t been asleep when I got home last night—I was very ready to do very naughty things to you.
WEDNESDAY, 1:50 pm
Oh, were you?
WEDNESDAY, 1:50 pm
I was rather. Nearly woke you but decided to let you sleep through it instead.
WEDNESDAY, 1:51 pm
Very funny.
WEDNESDAY, 1:51 pm
You love me for my wicked wit. And my massive…
WEDNESDAY, 1:52 pm
Ego.
Gotta run, knighty. Wake me up tonight. It will be worth it.
WEDNESDAY, 1:53 pm
You say that as though you have any say in what will happen. Do as you’re told, and be ready for me. And by ready, I mean naked.
Home around 10, damsel.
WEDNESDAY, 2:02 pm
Oh, and damsel? I love you.
I didn’t even see that last text message until after six when I was headed down in the elevator. It was a cold, rainy night and dark already, so I slumped into the backseat of the Jag and let Frank drive me home. I’m not sure who was happier about that, me or him.
When I checked my personal email for the first time since lunch, I also found that there were already three royal-wedding-related events Dylan and I were set to attend over the next month—the upcoming engagement party, a tea of some sort for friends and family, and some kind of aristocratic traditional thing in which Dylan’s father would be nominally involved.
That last one, it turned out, I wouldn’t be able to go to, being neither an aristocrat myself nor married or engaged to one. I had a twinge of discomfort at the reminder of these social mores that kept me separate from Dylan, but ultimately my relief won out. As it was I would be talking to Hannah about borrowing at least two dresses for these events. Luckily it was a situation that, at least so far, benefitted us both. I got the high-end glamorous clothes I needed for these parties, and she got low-friction publicity.
Dylan did wake me up that night, well after ten, and he did deliver on his promise. A flicker of optimism had dampened the distance between us over the past week, and even seeing so little of each other, I could feel that wedge between us narrowing. Or at least I hoped it was.
Chapter 18
The next morning I sweet-talked Dylan into walking with me to the shop, not wanting to let him go. We hadn’t had a non-text, non-sex conversation in three days. As we walked past Lennox Gardens, I noticed that for the first time in weeks Dylan was holding my hand while we walked, and he was…Was he actually sauntering? He seemed so much lighter than normal.
“What’s with you this morning?” I asked, gripping his hand a little tighter.
“What do you mean?” he asked while raising our linked hands to his mouth and kissing our joined knuckles. Something was definitely up.
I gave him my best oh please look. He was lighter.
He guided me around some dog poop as he answered, “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”
I looked closely at him and could see his mind wandering a little, but wandering happily. Then it dawned on me. “I know what it is. You’re working. It’s architecture—you’re designing. Did you finish the Olympic plans?”
“I did, and they’re splendid,” he said in a very satisfied Dylan kind of way while pulling me against him so his arm was wrapped fully around my waist as we walked. “And I just heard they’ve wrapped up work on the Amsterdam project, so that business with Piers Reynolds is finally off my plate.”
“Dylan, that’s great,” I said. I couldn’t believe how stark the difference was. Dylan was an architect through and through—this was the man I’d met and fallen for. He’d been determined to focus on his own work, and within four days he’d returned to himself. It had never been so clear to me that no matter what happened, Dylan had to keep designing.
We’d arrived at the door to the shop front, and I was now leaning against the plywood wall covering the windows, hoping my back wouldn’t be covered in dust when I rose from it. Dylan was hovering over me, stroking my cheek.
“I can get behind this walking thing,” he said, smirking. “If for no other reason than to see these cheeks all flushed.” His earthy refined smell filled the air around me, and it comforted me and seduced me in one breath.
He reached into my coat and slid his cool fingers around my waist, pulling me against him so he could kiss me, but I rolled my eyes at him before his lips met mine.
“I would take that eye roll as disapproval, but we both know you’re just as randy as I am.”
“Sure, sure, knighty. Whatever. You’re all talk these days,” I replied, to which Dylan just raised an eyebrow. Then a lightbulb went off—I could see it in his eyes.
“Do you think Hannah will mind if you’re gone for a bit next week?”
“What?”
“I want to take you away.”
“Um,” I said, not hiding my smile. “I mean, I haven’t taken a day since I started, and everything’s going well here. I can’t do much else until the furniture is in. It would probably be fine. Why? What are you thinking?”
“It’s a surprise. Ask Hannah, and tell me as soon as you know. We’d leave Wednesday evening, and I’d have you back for work Tuesday. No. Fuck it. Wednesday. It will be a celebration of sorts. Jobs well done. You need a break. I need a break. Let’s get out of this mad city.”
“I like the sound of that,” I said, all of sudden deeply in the dream of six long days with Dylan, no interruptions, indulging in this new, freer version of my boyfriend. It would be a huge departure from the chaos of London, his family, my work, his work, the watchful eye of the press—it sounded perfect. Maybe we’d shaken something loose. Maybe we were past whatever stressful weather system had been chasing us.
* * *
Two hours later I finally found a moment to talk to Hannah in her office.
“Fiona tells me you’re having an audience with Her Majesty this weekend?” She was looking up at me from her desk chair, but somehow she always managed to keep me on my toes. I had come in to ask her about the time off but had been greeted with this question instead.
“I am. This weekend. I think it will be brief, and I don’t expect—”
�
��What are you wearing?” Man, she was putting the bossy in boss this morning.
“Um, an Alexander McQueen that I found at Harvey Nichols.”
Hannah scowled. “I gather you didn’t want to wear one of mine,” she said while reading papers on her desk. Oh crap. Seriously?
“Hannah, you’ve been so generous already, and I didn’t want to inconvenience you. We don’t have any formal agreement about this, and I didn’t want to assume. I was actually going to—”
“I gather you’ll be attending some wedding-related festivities with your boyfriend?” she asked coolly.
“Yes—”
“Good, then let’s make it formal. I want to dress you for future events.”
“Oh, Hannah, that would actually be—”
“The deal is that you give me control over the styling, and if it’s appropriate, you’ll agree to be photographed in the dresses and you’ll credit me when asked about the clothes.”
“Actually—” Her head snapped up and she looked at me, clearly as surprised as I was that I’d just interrupted her. I cleared my throat. “Actually, while I’d be honored to wear any Hannah Rogan gown to one of these events, this will only work if I get approval rights over the gowns. And while I’m happy to work with Stephen or others on styling, again, I’ll veto and give my input as appropriate.”
She paused for a moment and then nodded. “Fine, then it’s settled.” She smiled and finally looked at me for the first time during this conversation. She actually looked a little relieved. Me wearing her clothes to these events would help her, probably more than it would if Amelia Reynolds were wearing them.
“Great. And thank you, Hannah. I think this arrangement will work well for both of us,” I added. “And speaking of the shop, I was wondering if we might discuss a title change that was better fitting to my new role?”