To Play or Not To Play

by Emily Bow

  This was happening.

  I grabbed his shoulders. He was hard, solid, and firm in my dissolving world. Dissolving thoughts, dissolving knees, him…

  I curled my fingers in, holding onto him, urging him…

  He kissed me. His lips were certain and soft, then rough, and then soft. He touched his tongue to mine. Ah. He tasted like… I don’t know. Something forbidden, delicious, and so sexy. He pulled back and looked at me. I looked at him. More.

  Liquid heat melted me, flowed under my skin, spreading sensation from my lips to my toes. I wanted to analyze it. I wanted to stay here longer and feel.

  He ran his fingertips from my shoulders to my palms. Where he touched me, traced me, electric zings were spurred by the melting happening inside me. “Kira.” His voice was deep, and his eyes had darkened.

  I went from holding on to suddenly restless. I needed to feel him. Not the cotton of his shirt but him.

  I ran my hands down his back to his waist. The shirt frustrated me and blocked me from touching his skin.

  He repeated the gesture on me. His hands were firm on my waist, and he dipped his thumbs under the hem of my shirt, touching my waist. It was a shock, a small pleasurable shock that circled through to my core. I loved it.

  I slipped my hands up over his chest and around his neck, clinging to him. He gripped my hips and then palmed my backside, lifting me. I wrapped my thighs around his waist, locking my ankles. He walked me back and then I was down.

  My palms hit the floral window seat cushion, and I maneuvered myself back. He leaned into me. Following me.

  I broke away for a gasp of air, and his mouth moved to my neck. I breathed in as the sensation created new sparks inside me that wanted his lips to melt them, too. Holy crap.

  I lay back and pushed back on the cushion. He followed me down.

  His weight. His presence… Him… This was like nothing I’d ever felt and was everything I’d ever wanted to feel.

  A knock sounded on the door.

  Chapter 13

  Wythe raised his head.

  I pressed my lips together, missing the press of his lips.

  His gaze was longing. And he was looking at me. He touched my cheek.

  Ah. I breathed out and reached up. I slid my hands over his biceps, squeezing.

  The taps grew louder.

  The door. The knocking. People. I muffled a sound and slapped his arm when all I wanted was to grab on. “Go.” My voice came out husky, and the word lacked force. Stay.

  He paused and rubbed his thumb over my bottom lip, making me shiver.

  “I’ll have to think of a new bribe,” I said, trying to lighten the mood but failing because my voice came out breathless and it didn’t match my emotions.

  His eyes darkened, and he put his lips to my ears. “You don’t need a bribe.” His voice was deep and sexy. “If you want a kiss, take it.” He strode to the fireplace, leaving me, but was still looking at me. Wythe. Son of the UK Prime Minister. Head of State.

  No touching.

  I smoothed my shirt down and shifted into an innocent picture pose. Knees together, feet swinging over the side. It felt wrong to be apart.

  Wythe turned and stared into the fireplace. Would getting caught kissing me result in repercussions for him? Probably. I know it would for me.

  Another knock sounded on the door, this time more forceful. And this time, the door opened.

  In came Peppa in one of her gray suits with a woman I hadn’t met. Tall, brunette, dark yellow dress. Thirties. She was smiling as much as Peppa was frowning. No, not smiling, the woman was beaming.

  At me.

  Go away. I did not want to deal with Peppa and a stranger. I wanted to deal with Wythe. To think about that kiss. Could it even be called a kiss? It was unlike any kiss I’d ever had. Better. More spark. More interest in taking it further. More. This was something to explore.

  The beaming woman was making a path right to me, not allowing me my thoughts. “Is this her?”

  This couldn’t be right…or good. I hadn’t done anything beam-worthy. The lady turned to Wythe, shining a smile on him, but it wasn’t a lit-up smile; it was oil-slick shiny. Something lurked beneath it, and I wanted no part of it. Like those documentaries of the ocean. Who wanted to know about all those creatures down there? Not me. I wanted to swim in the ocean in ignorant bliss.

  The lady said, “Brilliant.”

  Not brilliant.

  Wythe went from smiling to frowning to still-faced. He greeted the lady with a nod. “Marsha.”

  “Just oh-so-brilliant, you.” Marsha wagged her finger at me. “But all press, every little bit, goes through me. Sorry.” She walked forward and offered her hand. “Marsha Ovem. U.K. Public Relations.”

  P.R. My mind raced through all the social media possibilities. Was this about the dog show? Wythe’s online recipe hunting? I seized that answer because it had little to do with me. My shoulders relaxed. I was getting praised for the summer dessert debate. “Sticky Toffee Pudding getting a lot of hits?”

  “All Wythe’s recipe requests receive a surprisingly large number of hits.” Marsha’s expression was calculating, like the glint in her brown eyes. She wasn’t truly in the throes of happiness. She was thinking, processing, manipulating.

  That’s what it was. Her expression reminded me of Felicity whenever one of my sister’s schemes worked. Like when she’d gotten Mom to buy her a more expensive prom dress than her half of the budget allowed. Mom’s favorite saying was sometimes Felicity got the bigger slice of pie, sometimes I did. But it wasn’t true. Felicity mostly did.

  Something was going on here, too. This meeting had an underlying suspense to it that made me cringe.

  Marsha grinned at Peppa, her whitened teeth still at a 100-watt voltage. I wished she’d turn it down a notch. She was ruining the concept of a smile. Marsha held up three fingers. “Peppa, head intern here, tells me that all you new interns need at least three points by summer’s end to be a part of the intern photo.”

  Peppa held up three fingers also, and then slowly rolled down her ring and middle finger, leaving her index finger raised. “Kira has one point.” Peppa hadn’t been able to take it away, despite the dog show drama.

  “Yeah.” I sounded wary. I raised my own index finger. It seemed like the thing to do in this situation.

  Marsha rubbed her hands together. “And they are really extraordinarily difficult to attain.”

  Impossible without Wythe’s compliance, but they would have been easy to get if he were the kind of guy who loved the spotlight. He wasn’t. “Yeah.”

  “Well, I get to be the one who shares the very good news. You, my dear, have earned your next point. And it’s a big, fat hopping one.” She held up two fingers in a ‘V’ for a victory gesture. She poked them toward the sky. “That’s two big ones for you.”

  My insides flipped. “Uh. I don’t see how…”

  “A pet.” Marsha shook her head. “Really. I’ve been pushing the idea of a Scottish-fold kitten on the PM for ages. But I got shot down. Every. Time.” Marsha patted the side of her head with her palm, as if her shaking it had jostled her braids. It hadn’t. “But you…” She pointed her finger at me, so everyone knew she was talking about me. “Going to Miss Caroline directly…” She clapped, her gestures growing big with her words. “With a puppy! Brilliant.” She wagged her finger again. “But I’m not just here to award your point. I need you to acknowledge that you’ve had a little gentle reminder. All press, every bit of it, goes through me.”

  I wasn’t getting something here, and it left me confused and leery. Not a good feeling. I tilted my head. “I acknowledge all press goes through you.” Please, go away now.

  “Kitman Carrying On. Clever. Two Ks together would have been better. Like Kitman Kicking It or some such. But as a tagline, it’s good. Catchy.”

  Kitman Carrying On was Felicity’s screen title for her blog. It all coalesced in my brain as I got it. My insides went cold with knowledge and dr
ead. This was about Felicity. She put her personal stuff on the Internet all the time, pictures of her meals, her thoughts and selfies. And on a few regrettable occasions, when she wanted to face me yelling at her, she put my business out there. Now I was really worried.

  Marsha handed her phone to Wythe, and he scrolled to the next screen.

  I rolled my lips together. “May I see it?” I shook my head. “Never mind.” I grabbed my phone. I seldom checked Felicity’s feed, but I knew how to get to there. I scrolled for her newest posts.

  There it was. Felicity had cropped the picture I’d sent her. It only showed little Caroline and the puppy. And she’d posted it for thousands of likes and resends. How could she do that?

  My breath halted. I popped my head up. Marsha was looking at me. Peppa was looking at me. Wythe was looking at me.

  Marsha nodded enthusiastically. “We’ll be doing weekly features with the puppy. You know as he…” She waved her hand. “Explores the garden, sniffing British flowers and such. Without Miss Caroline, of course. We don’t use her for photo ops.”

  Wythe’s expression was flat. I looked back down at my phone.

  I hit the next picture and my insides went from flipping to hurting. Me and Wythe. This time, Felicity had cropped Caroline and the puppy out. Why, Felicity? Why do this to me?

  Wythe was gorgeous in the photo. I loved his expression. I loved the picture of us together, but it was misleading.

  My gaze flew to him. His eyes burned hard, straight at me. But not in a good way. Not like before. I’d never seen them like this. He turned and left the room. Leaving me with Peppa and Marsha, even though this was his study.

  Oh, no.

  My insides cringed. He was the only one I wanted to explain myself to right now. I ran past them and chased him down the hall. “Wait.”

  He stopped and looked straight through me.

  “Wythe.”

  His chest was rising and falling, faster than normal. He turned and kept walking. Straight to Caroline’s room. Every cell in my body urged me to follow him.

  The PM was in there talking to Caroline. She looked from me to Caroline. “So, whose puppy is this?”

  Caroline clutched the dog to her chest and scooted to the edge of the sofa. “Mine.”

  Her little determined expression broke my heart. “It can be mine if he needs to be,” I said.

  Wythe didn’t look at me. He moved beside his sister. “That’s Caro’s puppy, and she’s keeping him.” His words were firm and flat.

  The PM seemed startled but nodded. She glanced at me in the doorway and gave me a nod that I returned.

  Wythe didn’t. It was like I wasn’t there to him. It hurt. It was new, and it hurt. He needed a second to cool off. And I needed time to form my explanation. And I needed to step out of this family’s business.

  I left the room.

  ***

  The new dynamic between me and Wythe lasted days. I spent the first day deleting Felicity’s messages. It was easy on day one. I was too angry with her to do anything but delete them. If I responded, I would have said something very mean, the way I did when I lost my temper, and then I’d have felt bad, as if I’d done something wrong, when it was she who’d overstepped.

  On day two, I had to move my text notification app to another screen, so it wasn’t right there shouting unopened messages at me, forcing me to fight the need to click on them. Why did that little number over the box have that power?

  On day three, it was weirdly easy to ignore Felicity’s messages altogether. That was the day I started to read the intern orientation packet. I needed to understand Downing Street. Every detailed inch of it. And the recommended U.K.gov websites.

  On day four, I got an email from the literature professor. Just a splash of red on a white background. It was the next clue for our literature class. Which we hadn’t been working on at all. Class assignments here were weird, structureless. We probably weren’t the only ones who hadn’t sent in any more literature thoughts, given that the professor was poking us. The timing was perfect because it gave me an excuse to go see Wythe.

  Luckily, I still worked here. If Wythe had intended to kick me out, I’d have known it by now. He hadn’t, so I had an ID badge that still got me into his rooms. He was going to deal with me.

  Today.

  Now.

  Determination fueled my strides, and I got down the stairs to the family rooms in record time. Funny how that worked. If I’d been going to do a normal day’s work, it would have taken me fifteen minutes longer. Because I was going to see Wythe, who made my heart pound, I got there quickly. I found Wythe in the gym doing pull-ups. He wore black sweats and a short-sleeved shirt. Those arms. So large, muscular, and impressive. He’d lifted me over to the window seat as if I weighed nothing.

  He kept going. Up. Down. Up. Down.

  I was annoyed with him, but something about watching him work out while I was angry with him was hot.

  Up. Down. Up. Down.

  I got right in front of him. “You’re going to talk to me.”

  Up. Down. Up. Down.

  I pointed at him. “I will make you.”

  Wythe gave me a look that said I couldn’t make him do anything. But then he narrowed his eyes, released the bar, and dropped down to his feet. He grabbed a towel and rubbed it over his face and sweat-damp hair, and then looked at me with his feral blue eyes. “This internship thing. Did they assign you to manipulate me? Or did you do it on your own?” His accent was the same: posh and rounded but rougher somehow.

  The questions rocked me to the edge of anger. Fast. With no pause for more complex emotions. Just simple burning anger that had been fuming inside me for days. “Yeah. All internships are like this. We kiss guys to make them obedient. And then post their photos for the thrill of a few thousand likes.”

  He turned his back on me and moved over to the granite bar that held towels and a water cooler. He grabbed an ice blue sports drink and chugged it.

  “It wasn’t about you. I was bragging on the puppy because my sister has our dog Trapper with her in D.C.” That made it sound almost worse somehow.

  He chugged harder, not appeased, but he was looking at me.

  I wasn’t mad at him. This was misplaced anger. I shut up and closed my eyes.

  His suspicions were understandable. I needed to do better.

  I went over to him, bracing my hands on top of the cool water tank, and softened my voice. “The Kitman Carrying On thing—that’s my sister’s feed. You can have security check that, confirm it. I didn’t post that picture. I wouldn’t do that. My sister Felicity did.” There. Misunderstanding cleared up.

  Or at least it should’ve been, but I could see from his expression it wasn’t. When people were legit wronged, a simple explanation was rarely enough. They’d ride on the wronged-pony-express until enough sorries made them rein in their sulking.

  He pointed the almost-empty sports drink at me. “Sure, Kira. But you know, I’ve been through this before. Guess what happened with Vihaan, my first Oxford partner?”

  Oh, no. My hands grew sweaty atop the tank, and I dropped them to my sides, wiping them on my hips. Was this where the defiant hands-on-hip pose had come from? Someone had put their sweaty hands on their hips because of nerves and then their only choice was to crumple or brace there. I braced there like Wonder Woman assessing an impossible situation.

  “It was early. Partners were just starting to post pictures and quotes, so the professor would throw out clues in response. We wanted him to define what he wanted for ‘Literature the ultimate.’ A paper on the word ‘ultimate?’ A favorite author? Whatever. Vihaan sold pics of me to the press.” Wythe tossed his empty drink bottle in the bin, and I knew my time to convince him was winding down.

  “I didn’t sell anything.” I tried to catch his gaze, but he wasn’t looking directly at me. I hated that.

  “But you got awarded anyway. With a point. Didn’t you?” Wythe shook his head. “I’m done with this.” H
e sounded formal, final, and cold.

  That made me feel sick, anxious, and frozen out.

  He went over to the intercom phone—the one that called staff.

  “Wythe.”

  “Enjoy your new point. It’s the last one you’ll get out of me.” He sounded like he’d be switching my assignment immediately or tossing me to the street. Guys were better at that—cutting you off totally. And if I were gone, I couldn’t reach him again. Not with all his layers of security. This was it. This was my chance.

  My head spun, twisting the need to blame my sister into this argument, and I couldn’t think. And this stuff with my sister was only part of it. There was the him and me that we also needed to talk about. “Wythe.”

  He punched numbers into the base of the landline. “I think it will be better if you switch back to, what was it? Paper Runner? That would be best.” He was saying it to my face.

  I didn’t care to hear it. “Wythe.”

  Was that pleading in my voice? I hated that. I hated how this made me feel. And how dare he pull this on me? This walk-away BS. Anger steamed at my temples… building, building, hazing out reason. Like when Felicity had taken the last of the hand towels at the airport when we left. And the dispenser gave me two inches of thin paper towel and then it wouldn’t dispense anymore. I’d cussed it and crawled up on the wet counter to bang on the dispenser. It still hadn’t given me more towels. So, then my hands were wet, and the knees of my yoga pants were wet. And I’d just looked stupid. That was me now, angry at this whole thing. And about to do something stupid.

  Think.

  Think.

  I needed more time with him to explain. How?

  The mantle candles caught my eye. Their dried wax drippings had cooled along their sides. Real candles. Fire. I reached up and grabbed the tallest, dark-orange candle, sparkle cinnamon. I grabbed the electric lighter. I searched the ceiling for the smoke alarm. It was close enough to the weight bench.

  I jogged over and climbed up.

  Wythe put down the handset, ending the call he’d been about to make. “What are you doing?”