Unconditional: A Coming of Age Romance Novel (Always)

by Cherie M Hudson

“Damage control,” Raph replied with a grunt. “Plus, I didn’t let Horn know where I was going to be for the night and if he discovers I’m not in my room, he’ll panic.”

  The answer made me frown more. “Is that the only reason?”

  He studied me. “Should there be another?” A flash of frustration crossed his face and he shook his head. “Unless you want Osmond to see you half-naked, I suggest you fix your shirt up.”

  And with that, he turned on his heel and left.

  I blinked. I confess, I had no clue what was going on. How had we gone from hot, oh-my-God-I’m-having-an-orgasm making out to this?

  I thought of his question about Brendon and the fact I didn’t give him an answer. Did Raph really think I’d have done what I did with him if I was going out with someone else? Or was his sudden departure about something else? My head filled with the last few moments before Heather had knocked on the door…my shaking hands, his insistence on unbuttoning his shirt.

  My stomach knotted. Was he taking off because he realized he was making out with someone whose hands didn’t work properly? Or was he as impatient to be naked with me as I was with him? Or was it just as he’d said—damage control? With this new media attention, was he going to need to make some kind of statement? Answer to someone? Have a conversation with a royal advisor?

  Who knew being involved with a celebrity could be so goddamn confusing.

  “Is he gone?”

  I started at Heather’s question. Letting out a sigh, I turned my attention to my unbuttoned, disheveled shirt. “Yeah.”

  When I looked up, my shirt once again in an acceptable state, Heather was grinning at me. “Did you ask him if he wanted to have a three-way with you and The Biceps?”

  I threw a pillow at her.

  She laughed, caught the feather-filled projectile and threw it back at me. “Where’s your remote?” she asked, dropping on the bed beside me. “How’s your head, by the way? Did Raph kiss it bet— Ahh, there it is.” Snatching up the remote control to the small television Mackellar House had provided for my stay, she pointed it at the TV and pressed the on button.

  Two perpetually cheery breakfast show anchors in a vividly colorful studio set filled the screen, the coiffed woman waving her hands about her head as an image of a man wresting a crocodile played on the large screen behind them.

  “Am I really on TV?” I crossed my legs into a Buddha position, forcing myself to focus on the television. I didn’t want to think about what had sent Raph running so quickly from my room. Not at the moment. I needed to digest it alone. And after I’d taken my meds. It was smarter that way.

  “You are.” Heather gave me a nudge with her hip and positioned herself beside me. “You look awesome, by the way. Shocked, but—oh, look, look, there you are!”

  I stared at the screen. A hot prickle of shame flooded through me.

  There I was on television, captured in shaky footage—how appropriate—gaping at Brendon and Raph as Brendon punched Raph on the Mackellar House footpath.

  The footage continued long enough to show Raph stagger back a step. Long enough to show Brendon bearing down on him, angry contempt on his face. I could see the word Parkinson’s form on Brendon’s lips—a word I could never, ever escape—a second before Mr. Horn slammed into Brendon, driving him sideways, and then the footage started all over again from the beginning.

  “Australian brother to the future Queen of Delvania.” The voice of the female anchor suddenly filled my room and I realized—on a distant level not befuddled by the whole surreal situation—that Heather had turned up the volume. “But at this point in time we don’t really know why the university’s gym manager hit him.”

  “Two big young men like that?” the male anchor said as video Brendon smashed his fist against video Raph’s jaw once more. “I’m betting it had something to do with the girl—”

  “An American student here on scholarship, apparently,” his co-anchor interjected, the tone of her voice so full of innuendo I wanted to throw up.

  “With the American girl,” the male anchor went on, his tone as suggestive as that of his female presenter. “Oh, and there’s the bodyguard, taking the big guy out. Damn, that’s an impressive tackle. Can we see that again in slow motion?”

  “It was a good tackle.”

  At the sound of Brendon’s humored chuckle, I let out a squeal, jerking my stare from the television to where he now stood leaning against my room’s doorframe.

  He ran a slow gaze over me, worry flirting with mirth in his eyes. “How you feeling, Plenty, Ohio?”

  I shrugged. “Y’know,” I said, my throat tight and dry. “Famous.”

  Heather snorted. “Watch out. She’ll be demanding we follow her around like an entourage soon.”

  Brendon laughed, pushing himself from the doorframe with a shove of his sculpted shoulder before crossing to the bed beside me. “It’d be a bloody horrible job following her around.”

  He reached out and, with gentle fingers, brushed my bangs away from my forehead. I sat still, watching him study the bruise left over from my fight with the light pole. “Look okay?”

  His gaze moved to mine. “Looks amazing.”

  I knew he wasn’t talking about the injury. We may have decided on a nonsexual relationship, but I knew Brendon well by now. He wasn’t going to hide the fact he thought I was special. It was…nice.

  It was also, I suspect, why I felt guilty about what I’d been doing with Raph only a few minutes earlier on the very bed Brendon now stood beside. And why the tremor in my hand chose that moment to become more pronounced. Damn it.

  With a disgusted grunt, I climbed off the bed and hurried to where I kept my meds. I didn’t look at Heather or Brendon while I took them.

  “So?” Heather said behind me, a schooled indifference to her voice. “Today’s plan? Normal classes? Or should we go taunt the paparazzi hanging around outside, hoping to get more action shots? You planning on beating up Raph again today, Brendon?”

  “Depends,” Brendon said. “Has he done something to deserve it?”

  I turned back to them both before Heather could answer. She flicked a glance at me, a question in her eyes. I knew she was wondering if I was going to tell him about Raph being in my room for the night. She had, after all, busted Raph and me…well, let’s be honest, in a rather compromising position.

  “I thought we’d start with my normal session,” I said, recapping the bottle of water in my hand. I really needed to tell her Brendon and I weren’t anything but friends. But if I did point that out now, Brendon would question why I was making a deal of it and I wasn’t ready for him to know Raph had sat beside my bed all night, had been on my bed this morning.

  Had covered my body with his, made love to my mouth with his tongue. Had undone my shirt and bra and made me come by sucking my breasts. Holy wow, by sucking my breasts!

  The pit of my belly fluttered. No, Brendon definitely didn’t need to know any of that. Especially given how insistent he was Raph wasn’t good enough for me.

  Studying me with a contemplative gaze, Brendon shook his head. “Nope. No working out for you today.”

  I narrowed my eyes, my stupid, ridiculous nervousness melding with the unsettled ache the memory of Raph stirred in me. “Why not?”

  “Because the gym is already full of damn near every student enrolled here wanting to gawk at you.” He pulled a face. “And me, for that matter, and I’m not used to being gawked at.”

  Heather threw back her head and laughed. “Oh my God, Brendon. You are so full of shit. You thrive on being gawked at.”

  He chuckled. “Okay, I’ll give you that. But being gawked at because I’m hot and sexy and incredible is different from being gawked at because I’m one third of a scandalous love triangle every man and his dog is talking about.”

  Another wave of prickling guilt swept through me. I knew he wasn’t a third of a love triangle just as much as Brendon did, but I still felt bad. Whether I felt bad for him, bad for n
ot telling him what I’d done with Raph or bad for Raph, I didn’t know.

  To be honest, I think it was just bad, period.

  And to think I’d come to Australia to study koalas and global warming’s effect on them. Huh. It seemed I’d come to Australia to study how to be a character in a bad soap opera.

  “Maybe you need to get an agent?” Heather asked, smirking up at Brendon.

  “Maybe you need to think about who decides how many burpees you do each workout?” Brendon shot back.

  Heather grinned. “You don’t scare me, Osmond. You might scare Raph, but you don’t scare me.”

  He gave her a quizzical frown. “Scare Jones?”

  “With the way he bolted from—”

  “Heather,” I burst out.

  To Heather’s credit, she slapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide as she stared at me.

  Brendon turned to me, jaw tight. “Bolted from where?”

  Once again, the gods of timely door knocks halted the conversation. With the number of times someone knocking on my door had interrupted my life since arriving in Australia, I was beginning to think I’d made some kind of unbeknownst sacrifice to said gods at some point.

  All three of us turned to the door.

  I’m ashamed to say, I was the one who let out a low groan at who we found standing there.

  Mr. Horn regarded us all with a level gaze. “Miss Rowling? May I speak with you alone, please?”

  “What’s the problem, Horn?”

  Raph’s bodyguard flicked a glance at Brendon. His shoulders straightened. His chest puffed out a little. I wondered if the man was aware of it. I couldn’t help but notice a faint purple bruise ringed his right eye, along with a red graze on his jaw. “It’s not any of your concern, Osmond.”

  “Like hell it isn’t,” Brendon shot back. “Your client has already caused Maci enough stress, let alone you fucking off and leaving her yesterday morning when things got a little uncomfortable for the poor baby. None of this crap that’s going on right now would be happening if you’d taken her with you instead of—”

  “Brendon,” I cut him off, keeping my voice calm. I could see his anger growing, turning ugly. Could hear the contempt in his words. If I didn’t do something, it was very possible he’d finish what Horn had started out on the lawn yesterday. “It’s okay. Honest.” I gave him a reassuring smile and held up my hands. Thankfully they weren’t shaking. Too much.

  Turning to Heather, I jerked my head at Brendon. “Think you can control the mountain of muscle here for a while?”

  She laughed. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a hint of apprehensive concern in the sound. “I can do that.” She climbed to her feet, crossed to where Brendon stood and wrapped her fingers around his impressive biceps. A small part of me wanted to giggle. She’d been wanting to do that for a long time, I suspected. I would make sure she knew she owed me one when I saw her next.

  “C’mon, Osmond.” She gave his arm a tug. “Let’s get your famous arse out of here.”

  Brendon’s gaze found mine for a second over Heather’s head. I nodded, needing him to see I really was okay.

  He let out a grunt, fixed Horn with a steady glare and then allowed Heather to pull him from the room.

  Releasing a well and truly pent-up sigh, I looked at Raph’s bodyguard. “Okay, we’re alone.”

  If he was perturbed by my obvious sarcasm, it didn’t show on his face. But then in the few times I’d had some interaction with Horn, he’d never shown anything on his face. For all I knew, he was about to decapitate me in some super-secret bodyguard move. Or tell me about his favorite LOLcats.

  With that same indifferent expression he always wore, he adjusted the front lapel of his suit. My mind—hopped up on adrenaline and meds—pictured an impressively shiny gun tucked in a holster strapped under his armpit. For a fleeting second, I wanted to call out to Brendon and Heather. Instead, I jutted out my chin and met Horn’s direct stare. “Well?”

  God, did I sound surly? Brave? Or petulant?

  Horn adjusted his suit lapel again and then, with a quick glance over his shoulder at the hallway beyond my open door, stepped deeper into my room.

  And then, stare once again returning to me, he closed the door.

  “Errr…” I said, my pulse an insane thumping in my ears. Brave articulation for the win.

  Horn closed the distance between us in four steps, his right hand sliding inside his jacket, his stare locked on my face.

  Holy shit, was he going for a gun? Was he going to kill me?

  I staggered back a step. The back of my knees hit the end of my bed and, totally ungraceful, I dropped into a sitting position, gaping up at him. “What are you doing?” I burst out.

  Expression unchanging—natch—Horn withdrew his hand from inside his jacket and extended it toward me.

  I’m sure you’ve guessed he wasn’t holding a gun—okay, so my imagination may have gotten a bit carried away. What he was holding in his thick, slightly hairy (eww) fingers was a slip of paper.

  A check, to be precise.

  I frowned at it, my brain completely uncooperative at this point. It had nothing to do with my condition and everything to do with the surreal situation. “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Encouragement,” Horn answered, his voice as flat and devoid of expression as his face.

  I blinked. “Encouragement for what?”

  “To cease your interaction with Mr. Jones.”

  You know when you read the phrase in books “the blood drained from her face”, you kind of imagine said character turning a comical white? I’m pretty certain that’s exactly what I looked like. A weird prickling sensation razed my cheeks and lips. My face went really hot very quickly and then really cold. My lips tingled. My throat seized up.

  “What?” I croaked.

  “On behalf of the royal family, I am to inform you it’s in everyone’s best interests if the relationship you have with Raphael Jones no longer continues. This—” Horn shoved the check at me, his brown eyes like dead pool of dark mud, “—is to help you reach that decision.” He had the decency to pause for a second before adding, “Promptly and silently.”

  Lips still tingling, head roaring, pulse pounding, I lowered my gape to the check in his fingers. It protruded out at me from between his index and thumb, the bank’s red-and-white logo on the top right corner far more colorful than a bribe had any right being.

  I swallowed. Raised my hand—oh goodie, it was shaking—and took the check.

  I looked at it. Read the number written on the dollar-amount line.

  Whatever blood remained in my face drained away completely.

  My stomach rolled. My breath caught in my constricting throat. The number typed on that line was more money than I could ever hope to possess. Like, ever.

  Enough to pay for my meds and Mom’s meds for…for…God, probably for the rest of our trembly, wobbly, unstable lives. Enough to pay for specialist appointments and consultations. Enough to pay for a private hospital…

  I swallowed. Blinked. Stared at the check. My eyes burned. My mouth was dust.

  Jesus.

  “This is not a slur against you personally, Miss Rowling,” Horn’s impassive voice scraped against the room’s thick silence. “But the pr—” He paused, a scowl pulling at his face for a second before his ubiquitous impassive expression returned. “But the royal family has plans for Mr. Jones that don’t include an American student.”

  Bam.

  Just like that, scalding, incensed anger flooded through me, destroying the numbing chill of my disbelief. I jerked my head up, not even remotely interested in hiding my glare. “What’s wrong with an American student? Not good enough for some obscure royals no one outside of Europe has heard of?”

  For the first time ever, I saw a flicker of something in Horn’s eyes—disquiet. Huh. This wasn’t what he’d expected. Good. Screw him.

  I snapped to my feet. The move forced Horn to take a step backward. Also
good. “And does Raph have a say in these plans?” I asked, eyes narrowed. Fury and contempt turned my blood hot.

  A muscle in Horn’s jaw ticked. “Mr. Jones is aware of the expectations placed upon him.”

  “The expectations?” I echoed. I was genuinely angry, not just about the slur against me, but for Raph. “Why the hell do his sister’s in-laws have any say in what he does in his life? In who he has a relationship with?”

  The tick in Horn’s jaw grew more pronounced. “If the figure on the check is not acceptable—”

  “Screw the figure,” I snapped. “Screw the royal family.”

  Horn’s dark-brown eyes turned cold. “I have been granted the authority to double the number.”

  It was my turn to suck in a breath. Double the number? Holy fuck.

  Horn’s top lip curled into a sneer. “Now how do you feel about the royal family?”

  I couldn’t find the words to answer him. They weren’t in my head.

  Double the number?

  Double the number?

  “As I thought,” he went on. He plucked the check from my fingers, folded it once and tucked it inside his jacket. “I shall have the new encouragement drawn up this afternoon. Do I need to remind you what you are being encouraged to do?”

  My pulse pounded in my ears. My chest felt like it was being crushed with a cold band of steel.

  I thought of all those zeroes printed on the check. Thought of the cost of being a Parkinson’s sufferer. Thought of Raph’s kisses. Thought of his laugh, his smile. Thought of how he’d made me orgasm and thought of the open hunger and desire in his eyes when he looked at me.

  Thought of how he’d withdrawn from me when I couldn’t undo his button.

  Thought of my future and how no one should be burdened by it. No one. Not even a guy who made me feel so incredibly alive the way Raph did.

  Thought of it all.

  “I don’t want your encouragement,” I said in a flat voice. “You can stick your encouragement up your ass. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have classes to attend.”

  Before Horn could utter a word, I shoved past him, snatched up my bag and strode to my door. I yanked it open—for once my shaky hand was on my side and actually gripped the doorknob without any problem—and then turned to face Raph’s bodyguard. “Make sure you close this on your way out. There are some complete assholes in this place who think they can just invade a person’s life whenever they want.”