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 a
ll 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.”
My heart stopped. I suddenly put it all together.
“What?” I managed with a whimper.
“He knows, Eliza, that your father works for the tabloid and that all of this is probably paid for because of stories he has written about his family. He knows!” he screamed. “He is finished with you. You are nothing to him but trash. I tried to warn him,” he said as he grinned. “But you know Drew; he wouldn't listen to me. I tried to tell him that you are a nobody and he needed to keep his distance from you.”
He opened the door handle and walked out. Turning toward me, he spoke once more. “Maybe now he'll listen to his best friend, instead of his dick.”
My heart sank as he walked down the hall because my only fear had manifested itself. Drew knew, and he was coming to tell me that he wanted nothing else to do with me.
I sat on the couch and began to cry. It was my own fault. I had the opportunity to tell him, but I didn't. I was afraid of losing our friendship. Now, I had lost it all because Clayton told him first. Drew would never forgive me, and I had no one to blame but myself.
The sudden knock caused me to jump, and I slowly walked over to the door, dreading seeing his face. I could almost feel the disappointment through the door between us. Part of me didn't want him to come in and part of me knew that he had to. My hand was shaking as I turned the knob and opened my fate.
13
Drew
My head was still pounding from getting drunk the night before, and my eyes had dark circles around them that looked as if I had been punched hard by a fighter and left with two shiners. I didn't care. The news about Eliza's father had hit me hard, and I felt that I deserved to go on a bender and get wasted. I had to, if for no other reason than to take my mind off of it all. Once I was sober, I would simply go talk to her and get it all worked out.
“Did I wake you?” I asked when I heard her soft voice answer the phone.
She explained that she had been napping. “I need to talk to you about something serious. I'll be over in an hour.”
“Okay, I'll see you then,” she said.
I hung up without another word because all I wanted to do was to get to her quickly. I had missed talking to her all day, and I wanted to be with her in person when we discussed this, and not on the phone. I wanted to see her beautiful round face full of freckles light up when she opened the door and saw me. I wanted to hold her small body against mine and feel safe from the outside world. I wanted to smell the aroma of peaches on her hair that took me back to the orchard where I played as a child. She was so much more to me than just a study partner or even a friend. Though I hadn’t known her long, she felt like home.
The hot water running from the shower over my aching head felt good as I stood beneath it. I needed to hurry, but it was relaxing me and helping with my hangover, so I just stood stoic and unmoving, allowing it to work its wonders on me for a few minutes longer.
I dressed rather quickly and splashed on my cologne that Eliza loved and headed out the door. My mind was fixated on getting to the bottom of the mess with Clayton so that we could move on.
“Bloody hell!” I said when I saw Clayton's car leaving the curb beside of her building. “Has that ass been here hassling her?” I was livid at the thought of my best friend confronting the girl I was falling in love with.
I reached for my phone to call him but decided that it was best to not get into a tussle with him at the moment. I would handle Clayton later on if he had, in fact, been at Eliza's place.
There was a nervous tension laced with dread eating away at me. Asking Eliza about her father's job didn’t top the list of things I wanted to discuss with her, but it had to be done to clear the air between us. If we were going to have anything between us, honesty was a must. She’d already broken the trust between us by withholding that fact from me. She had to know I’d find out about her father sooner or later, and more so—how guilty she would look for not being honest from the start.
I knocked on her door and waited rather patiently. The look of sheer terror on her face when she opened the door told me everything I needed to know.
“Clayton was here, wasn't he?”
She broke down into tears and dropped her head. She wouldn't speak, but her silence told me everything I needed to know. Sniffing hard, she began to sob. “Oh, Drew, I'm so sorry.”
My heart broke for her. “Sorry? For what?”
The look on her face told me that she was not expecting my reaction. She probably had expected me to act in the same manner that Clayton had most likely acted when he was there. I was giving her an out for her honesty.
She sniffed and wiped her face with her palms. “For not telling you myself.”
“I don’t understand why you felt the need to keep something like this from me, Eliza.”
“I-I … I really wasn’t—”
“It’s alright. I understand how that could have been a difficult discussion to have, and I’m not even angry with you.”
“What? You're not?” She sounded confused and alarmed.
“Not terribly so, no.”
She shook her head, beyond confused at that point. “But, Drew,” she said as she
took a seat on her couch. “My father is...” She trailed off.
“I know who your father is,” I replied as I led her to the couch to sit. “I don't care. I mean, I do care in one sense, but what good does that do? It's not like you wrote those things about me or my family. You can't help what your father does for a living no more than I can help that my mum is the Queen of England.”
I meant every word I said. Eliza wasn’t responsible for her father’s articles, and I wasn't going to hold it against her.
“Oh my God, Drew,” she said as she let out what seemed to be a breath that she had been holding for weeks. “I can't tell you how this has worried me. I have wanted to tell you for over a couple of weeks now. I even tried one night, but I just couldn't.”
“You do understand my disappointment, however?”
“I do, and I hope you can forgive me for not being forthcoming with you. I do understand how this could have even been a compromising situation.” She looked down at her fingers that were nervously weaving a piece of string that she had in her hands. “Please know that I have not told a single person about you and I being study partners.”
I smiled. “Study partners? Is that what we are?” I was teasing her, hoping it would cheer her up and make her grin. It was clear how stressed the misunderstanding had made her. It was all unintentional.
“Well, yes. And...” she said, not finishing the sentence.
“And what?” I prodded.
“And ... well, you know.”
“I do know, Eliza, and I want you to know.” I took her face in my hands and pressed my lips gently against hers. She tasted of salty tears and rose perfume. She was sweet with a bit of sadness.
I pulled back and looked into her gorgeous eyes. “Eliza, I am falling in love with you. Don't you know that by now?”
Royally Loved: The Royal Romances Books 1-5 Page 25