Not Your Cinderella

by Kate Johnson

  “Oh. Roadside bomb in Helmand. Small, and badly made, and I was at a distance. Could have been worse.”

  Clodagh stared at it. About four inches of pale pink, puckered skin on his leg. Much further up and it could have hit his torso. A few inches to the left and he’d have had trouble making sweet love to her just now.

  “Jesus,” she whispered.

  “Hey, I thought chicks dug scars?” he said lightly.

  “It could’ve killed you.” She’d known he’d been a soldier, but somehow the geeky, clever guy she was in bed with didn’t match up with a man in camo getting blown up in Afghanistan.

  “But it didn’t. I only had some stitches and bedrest and orders not to wear shorts in front of a camera. Which, I wouldn’t anyway. Hey.” He nuzzled her shocked face. “It’s okay. I’m not going back. And I tell you what, my dresser was much more scandalised by the tat.”

  Clodagh pulled herself together. “At least it’s a proper tattoo that means something. Mine’s just fake Celtic knot garbage. Half the girls on my estate had the same thing.”

  Jamie stroked the tramp stamp on her lower back. “I like it.”

  “You don’t, but thanks for saying it.”

  “I like you.” Was it her imagination or did he hesitate over the ‘like’ part?

  “I’m pretty into you too.”

  Jamie smiled, and then he suddenly made a noise halfway between a groan and a laugh.

  “What?”

  “Olivia. She saw this coming.”

  “So did Davood.” Jamie glanced at her guiltily, and she nodded. “He told me I had a crush on you and I guess…”

  “Wish he’d bloody told me,” Jamie grumbled, pulling the covers over them both. Clodagh settled back into his arms, which was an extremely pleasant place to be.

  “I had no idea you were even interested,” she said.

  “Really? I’ve been mooning after you for weeks. You hadn’t even noticed?”

  Clodagh laughed. “I guess I was too busy trying not to let you see me mooning over you.”

  Jamie groaned. “Do you ever sometimes stop and wonder if you’re not still a teenager and this being a grown-up business is all some terrible mistake?”

  “Oh God, all the time.”

  His hand ran suggestively over her bare back. “Mind you, it does have its compensations. We don’t have to get up for school tomorrow.”

  “You do.”

  “I am a grown-up doing a PhD and I am a prince of the realm and I’m sure if I get Daddy to give them a call I can go in late.”

  Clodagh laughed at that, and Jamie grinned, and she fell asleep in his arms, smiling.

  Chapter Fifteen

  So I didn’t dream it.

  Clodagh was still asleep beside him, all that glorious hair spilling over the pillow. He lay for a long moment staring at her, unable to quite believe it had really happened, until his snooze alarm went off and he reluctantly swung out of bed.

  The cold morning air woke him up a bit as he crossed the lawn to the gatehouse, where Martins was pulling on a jacket with hi-vis strips over her running gear. “Sir.”

  “Who else—” He looked up to see Davood Khan standing there in workout clothes, and exhaled uncomfortably. “Khan. Can I have a word?”

  His bodyguard nodded and followed him outside to the misty garden.

  Jamie stamped his feet and rubbed his hands. “Look. I know you and Clodagh had a… thing.”

  “Sir.” Khan’s face gave nothing away.

  “I’m really sorry about last night. It was… I didn’t mean to rub your face in it. Neither of us did.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jamie searched the taller man’s face. “Is that it?”

  Khan appeared to think about it for a moment, then he said, “She was just killing time with me until you figured things out. I don’t mind.”

  He was letting Clodagh go that easily? Was he insane? “Don’t mind?”

  “She was always yours, really. I feel I should be apologising to you.”

  “Oh God, don’t. We’ll be here til the crack of doom.”

  Khan smiled at that. “Do you still want me to walk her home this evening?”

  Despite his instincts screaming at him that no one else should be walking her anywhere, Jamie knew what Khan was asking. He and Clodagh shouldn’t go public. Not immediately. He didn’t want to scare her off immediately, once she found out what it was like to be in the media spotlight. They should take their time. They’d hidden their living arrangements for this long, after all; their sleeping arrangements couldn’t be that much harder?

  “I’d appreciate it,” he said. “But if it’s too uncomfortable for you—”

  “It’s my job, sir,” said Khan, and that seemed to be the end of it.

  The morning was cold and damp, and by the time they left Midsummer Common to turn for home Jamie was dreaming of being back in his warm, welcoming bed with his warm, welcoming girlfriend…

  Girlfriend. Christ, Jamie, slow down. Don’t get ahead of yourself. She might wake up and decide it was all a terrible idea and then he’d got the rest of forever to live on the memory of one night.

  But when he went back up the stairs and into his room, she was stirring in his bed, opening her eyes and stretching. Oh God, she was gorgeous.

  “Hi,” he said, probably looking like a moonstruck idiot and not caring in the slightest.

  “Hi,” she said, and then she grimaced.

  “What?” No, not right away, don’t let her change her mind this soon—

  “Argh. Ankle.” She sat up and reached under the covers to rub it. “It’s fine, just a bit… well I haven’t been doing that kind of exercise for a while.”

  Jamie sat on the edge of the bed and pulled back the duvet to expose her feet. Her right ankle was still a little swollen, although it was hard to tell unless he looked hard. The bruising had gone, however, and from the vigorous way she massaged it he guessed the pain wasn’t agonising.

  “Can I get you anything for it? Ice pack? Heat pack? Painkillers?”

  Clodagh looked up at him and her eyes warmed to amber. “You could get me something. A kiss?”

  He did. Oh, he did. He kissed her so long and so thoroughly that forcing himself to get up to shower and change was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

  Clodagh followed him downstairs wearing the shirt he’d discarded last night, which was wicked of her because she looked so damn sexy in it he poured tea on his cornflakes and forgot how spoons worked.

  “I’m working tonight,” she said, as he kissed her goodbye.

  “I’ll come in to see you.”

  “Be subtle. I don’t—” She broke off, fingers plucking at a shirt button. “I don’t know about going public with this.”

  “Subtlety is my middle name,” he promised her.

  “No, your middle names are William Frederick Henry,” she said, and he went all gooey inside at her taking the time to find out.

  He kissed her once more, promised he’d see her later, and whistled all the way to the lab.

  “You’re in a good mood,” said Ruchi.

  “I had a good night.”

  “Oh, the concert was good?”

  Concert? Oh, right, the thing he’d been looking forward to for weeks. “Yeah. Really amazing. Blew my mind,” he said, grinning.

  His smile only dimmed when he saw Ruchi’s face darken as Dr Kenyon went past. What the hell. He logged out the system, went to Dr Kenyon’s office and knocked on the door. “Can I have a word?”

  “Ah, Your Royal Highness. Please, come in.”

  Kenyon was all smiles for him. He was all smiles for Hunter, too. Funny how he was so much more cheerful when dealing with rich white men.

  “I noticed Ruchi Sarkar is rewriting her end of term report,” Jamie said.

  His supervisor nodded sympathetically. “Yes. I’m afraid it just wasn’t up to scratch.”

  “In what way?” When Kenyon frowned, Jamie explained, “When I m
ake a mistake you allow me to correct it.”

  “Yes, but Your Highness makes so few mistakes…”

  Brownnoser. “His Highness makes plenty,” Jamie said. “But Ruchi doesn’t.”

  Kenyon was already shaking his head. “With respect, sir, that girl spends far too much time daydreaming. Always on her phone, texting and playing games—”

  “Games?” Jamie played games on his phone all the time. He pretended they were relevant research, but he was totally lying.

  “Yes, the thing with the words…”

  “I’ve never seen her do that in the lab. Only at lunch and on breaks.”

  Kenyon faltered.

  “I’ve noticed that some of the other girls have been punished for not paying enough attention, or have been given lower grades—”

  “I can’t help it if their work isn’t up to scratch,” said Kenyon, spreading his hands. “It’s not sexism, it’s a meritocracy.”

  Jamie had to employ an awful lot of reserve to keep from rolling his eyes. “It’s not sexism if all the girls are outperformed by the boys?”

  “It’s not my fault men are better suited to-”

  “You finish that sentence and you’d better have your CV at the ready,” Jamie said sharply. “I’m not in the habit of throwing my weight around, Dr Kenyon, but I have friends in the highest of high places, so maybe don’t irritate me by pretending you don’t know you’re talking bullshit.”

  “I beg your—”

  “It’s my grandmother for whose pardon you beg,” Jamie said, “not mine. I know for a fact Ruchi doesn’t waste nearly as much time as Hunter around the lab. She works diligently and efficiently and you know why? Because she has to, because you keep finding fault with her work. Which forces her to actually waste her time repeating perfectly sound experiments. So when she ends up with inferior results, you can say it’s her own fault because you once caught her texting. You can say it’s not your fault men are better suited to science. Or computing. Or whatever you were going to say. Face it. Ruchi could run rings around most of the men here, and that scares the life out of you because you don’t want to admit she might be equal or maybe even better than you.”

  “I’m not racist,” began Dr Kenyon.

  “Funny you should need to defend yourself against something I haven’t even accused you of yet.”

  Dr Kenyon went silent, fuming. Jamie was absolutely certain he’d never been called out like this, or at least not by someone he couldn’t overrule.

  Finally, something his title was good for!

  Jamie stood up. “I’m going to be here for the next three years,” he said, and before Kenyon could open his mouth, he added, “Because we both know I’m not going to fail my probationary year, don’t we? Neither is Ruchi. If this kind of thing continues, they’re going to be a really uncomfortable three years for you, Dr Kenyon. I suggest you research with great haste all possible meanings of the phrase ‘check your privilege’.”

  To his credit, Dr Kenyon didn’t bother to splutter that Jamie couldn’t talk to him like that.

  Jamie walked out, whistling.

  Clodagh spent half the day swearing at her hair, which for once she hadn’t tied up overnight, and now she was paying the price with snarls and tangles. Desperately hoping Jamie wouldn’t come home in the middle of the day, she dosed her whole head with gobs of conditioner and left it in. At least these days she could afford the extra.

  Combing it out in front of the mirror reminded her, as it so often did, of her grandmother and the endless pain of having her tight curls yanked about by a brush. Photos of her first few years on this earth inevitably had her wearing a pink hat or ribbon over her shorn scalp, because neither her Irish grandmother nor her blonde mother had any idea how to deal with ‘that terrible frizz’.

  It wasn’t until Clodagh’s grandmother died that she was allowed to get her hair braided, at a salon the other black girls at school had told her about. And it was years after that she finally had the courage to follow the tips she found online and let her curls go natural.

  At least Jamie likes them, she thought, and caught herself smiling gooily. Today’s haircare was probably a decent price to pay for last night’s luxury; although if she spent the night with him again tonight he’d be getting a lesson in why she tied it up at night.

  At the pub, everyone told her she looked nice, without specifying why. Clodagh figured it was the secret pleasure they ran through her every time she thought about Jamie’s lips caressing her skin, his fingertips trailing fire, his eyes burning with desire for her.

  She found herself counting down the minutes until the lab closed and he might be in for a drink, and when she saw Martins walk in, she beamed.

  Then she remembered herself, and made her face politely neutral as the student gang filed in and started ordering drinks. Jamie was amongst them, unable to speak to her without anyone overhearing, so it was a torturous half hour before he came up to the bar on a pretense of ordering some crisps.

  “I keep thinking about touching you,” he said, and Clodagh had to concentrate on breathing. When he came back for the next round of drinks, he murmured, “I keep remembering how you taste,” and she was glad she wasn’t holding a glass or it might have shattered in her hand.

  Everyone else went home after a couple of drinks, but Jamie stayed longer, until she texted him to go home because he was making everyone suspicious. This turned out to be a bad idea, because once he’d got texting into his head he started telling her all the things he’d enjoyed last night and wanted to try tonight.

  She practically ran out of the pub after Last Orders.

  “Slow down,” said Davood, “your ankle isn’t ready for that kind of speed yet.”

  She made herself walk at a sensible measured pace, because he was right, and also because being out with him in the cold night air reminded her she had some apologising to do.

  “Look, I’m—”

  “Don’t,” he said. He glanced down at her. “He already spoke to me this morning.”

  Had he? “What’d he say?”

  Davood shrugged. “Oh, you know, that he was open to threesomes—” He grinned as she bashed him. “Look, it’s fine. We hardly went out, and it was always pretty clear who you were interested in.”

  Clodagh chewed her lip. She kind of felt rotten that he’d had to be a front row centre witness to all the wild snogging though.

  “A word of advice though? I wouldn’t go around dating all your PPOs in future. He might get jealous.”

  “All my PPOs? Are you expecting me to turn into a global celebrity?” Clodagh said.

  Davood just said, as if she was an idiot, “Well, yes.”

  They’d reached the gatehouse then, so he bid her goodnight and watched her cross the lawn as she tried not to fret too much about what he’d just said.

  She wanted this relationship with Jamie. She’d never felt like this about anybody before, such a strong attraction and yet such easy friendship at the same time. She’d never met anyone she felt she knew bone-deep.

  And yet. Could they really do this? Keep it secret forever? Of course not. Sooner or later the hiding and the secrets would become all-out lying and denial and she didn’t know if she could live like that.

  And yet what was the alternative? Going public? Having the world’s press focus all of its attention on her? Have her every outfit, hairstyle and facial expression scrutinised? She’d seen what happened to Countess Annemarie, who’d been relatively unknown outside her own country, when she formally became attached to Prince Edward. She’d seen the constant attention focused on Princess Victoria, on every aspect of her appearance, what she said and how she said it, who she was friends with, whether her decision to marry the son of a duke was a good or a bad one, when she’d have children, if she was pregnant already, how thin she was and if it was a sign of anorexia…

  And those were two women who’d been groomed for the spotlight their whole lives, who had impeccable reputations and carri
ed no greater scandal than wearing too high a heel or too bright a lipstick.

  She let herself in and leaned against the heavy oak door of Jamie’s house, closing her eyes. If she was even seen in Jamie’s company, if anyone had cause to look her up, to wonder where they’d seen her before or why a half-Jamaican girl used an Irish name…

  Her world would still go on turning. But it wouldn’t have Jamie in it any more.

  “Clo? Is that you?”

  She should end it now. Before it could get any worse. Before she got in too deep and it was too hard to get out. Here was Jamie now, padding barefoot over the ancient oak floorboards of the dining room, hair rumpled and glasses smudged and smiling at her like she was the loveliest thing on earth.

  “Hey, I thought I heard you. Are you hungry? I made Spanish tortilla. Won’t take long to warm up.”

  She looked up into his warm hazel eyes as he took her into his arms and kissed her, and she kissed him back and let him lead her to the sofa and feed her and love her and then, coward that she was, she went willingly to his bed and never said a word about why this was all such a terrible idea.

  Chapter Sixteen

  February saw Jamie flying out to Spain for a Davis Cup match, cheering Andy Murray on despite never really quite understanding the rules of tennis. Scoring, sure, but when the ball was in and when it was out and quite how one won a point were things he had to be reminded of every time he watched a match. Ed was the sporty one, but Ed was off in Wales visiting one of his pet charities.

  He handed his phone over to Geraint so he wouldn’t be tempted to text Clodagh during the breaks. This was standard protocol at most events, so he wasn’t caught on camera fiddling with his phone—even if he glanced at it for a second during a change of ends, the headlines would proclaim he’d been ignoring the whole match to stare at his phone—but he was so in love with her it was hard to be out of contact for more than minutes at a time.

  In love. He might as well admit it now, if only to himself. He didn’t want to scare Clodagh, who he sensed was a little overwhelmed at the idea of publicity. On the one hand, this was great, because it meant she wasn’t in it just for the fame, and it also lent a rather piquant secrecy to the whole affair; but on the other it really sucked because he wanted to tell the world how amazing it was to be in love with such a wonderful woman.