by Zee Monodee
His own bluster astounded him as the words spilled out of his mouth. He’d never had game. Guess it would come into play when necessary, inspired by Rio’s presence.
Before she could respond, someone barrelled into her, pulled her close, and dropped a deep kiss on her lips. She pulled away and pushed the bloke with a hand on his chest.
Zediah shifted, ready to punch the disgusting prick who had assaulted her. However, her trilling laugh stopped him in his tracks.
“Mistletoe,” Gary Bicknell said with a wide, smart-arse grin as he waved a festive green and red branch over her head.
What the fuck? What was the buffoon doing, kissing random women at his very own engagement party, no less? The poor chit who was marrying him.
“I see you’ve already met my Millie,” Bicknell said as he turned towards Zediah and pulled Rio tightly into his side.
Everything around him froze to black, the light shining only on this couple before him.
Her name was Rio, though, not Millie. What was going on?
How could this be going on?
And he’d looked at her left hand at some point. She hadn’t worn any jewellery there.
“I didn’t see the ring,” he said softly. He hadn’t missed it, surely, being so totally obliterated by her.
“I’m a bloody fool, mate,” Bicknell said with a laugh. “Got one too big and had to send it back to be resized.”
When he dangled the mistletoe again over her head, she laughed and pushed him aside. Nevertheless, probably to soften the blow, she dropped a kiss on her fiancé’s cheek and giggled when he grabbed her waist and crushed her to him.
Her fiancé.
The one woman who’d caught his attention in his twenty-three years, and she was taken already.
Darkness slowly crept up on him and shaded his heart which had beat so hard and fast just mere minutes earlier. He couldn’t stay there any longer. He would wonder why he hadn’t crossed her path earlier before she met Bicknell. Before she found love with another man.
Mumbling an apology as etiquette was something that had been drummed into him from his youngest age, he then turned on his heel and hightailed it out of this party.
***
Three years ago …
Zediah breathed a sigh of relief as he once again found himself walking along the snow-coated streets of London during the holiday season. He’d turned twenty-five during the year, and it seemed to have been code in his mother’s eyes, meaning he was now of marriageable age. Not a week went by when he was back in Bagumi when some matchmaker or another wasn’t sending in an illustrious proposal for him.
He didn’t kid himself. Born a prince in one of the last absolute monarchies in the world, he would most certainly be marrying for duty and not love, never mind that he was the spare to the actual spare. But he was twenty-five; he hadn’t lived enough already.
His older brothers Zawadi and Zik had told him it was par for the course. They, too, had been afflicted by this manic need to see them settled with a noose around their necks asap. He had time, surely.
And just as well, really, because he didn’t mind needing to marry for duty and country. The only woman who had ever stirred his heart was happily married to someone else. He would cave only for her. Not going to happen, though.
So, he’d made a pact with himself. He’d marry at thirty to whoever his family deemed fit.
In the meantime, he would keep on spending his time between Bagumi and London. It hadn’t been easy to wrangle his way back to the English capital after graduation. His sister, Isha, had sweet-talked Mama Sapphire, who had, in turn, sweet-talked the king. Zediah had been allowed to pursue humanitarian work with aid agency Angelos at their headquarters on Canary Wharf.
On the side, he made good use of his specialisation in entertainment law as an angel investor with young music artists who wanted to go indie or who were setting up their own record labels. He’d always been drawn to music, playing the piano as a five-year-old without taking music lessons. The notes just making sense to him as he experimented with the keystrokes.
The keen ear enhanced his work—he almost had the knack of figuring out who and what the next big thing would be in music, just by listening and trusting his gut.
In this capacity, he found himself walking towards Camden Market, where the NGO Tempo was located. He’d heard about the dance recital they’d organised for the annual Lighthaven Foundation gala to raise funds for its many charitable endeavours.
Unfortunately, Dilmas, an artist he’d invested in, who was supposed to produce the original music for this performance, had gotten embroiled in a legal battle with his record company. It sucked all his time, leaving these kids in the lurch.
But not as long as Zediah was there.
He found the building where the organisation occupied two-thirds of the ground floor, the remaining part holding a vinyl store in its premises. The thump of pounding music already thrummed in his blood as he stopped in front of the door—guess they did not have soundproof walls. Then again, they were an NGO; these never had enough budget for anything, let alone frivolities.
The blare grew louder when he pushed the door open. Across the polished wood floor, he could see his reflection in the mirrors covering the entirety of the far wall.
“And five, six, seven, eight!” a woman was repeating in a lilting cadence as she led the group of young dancers into an elaborate routine that frankly impressed him. He’d seen professional dance troupes put on less rhythmic and flowing choreography.
He stopped to watch them, transfixed. They were good, and so was the teacher. He’d have to find out who had come up with this arrangement using chairs so skilfully as a prop. Though a laudable cause to help out here, that person was seriously underusing their talent.
He had been so caught up in the flow and flips and kicks all done seamlessly, it took him a few seconds to reckon the song had ended and the performance had stopped. Unbidden, his hands started clapping. The kids all turned his way, as did the teacher.
His hands clapped, then froze. It took just a flash to recognize her. Rio Mittal.
No, Rio Bicknell.
So she was a dance teacher? No wonder she had moved so well on the day he’d seen her. The same day he’d known he’d never have anything with the one woman who had caught his heart forever. The organ hadn’t beaten for anyone before or since.
She blinked upon seeing him there.
“Switz?”
Something in her tone made him pause to really look at her. She seemed … different. Fragile. Despondent, even. No longer the shining beacon she had been on the day of her engagement party.
Had something happened to her?
Was that prick not looking after her?
He should cool his heels. She wasn’t his, would never be. But something in the way she looked … really like her light had dimmed, wasn’t right. The sensation stopped him in his tracks.
It suddenly dawned on him how everyone was looking at him, so he shook himself out of his unrighteous feelings and gave her a curt nod.
“Rio,” he bit out.
She blinked a few times, then smiled at him, and he saw a glimmer of that girl in there, the radiant personality that couldn’t help but shine so bright.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Business. He was here for business. “Meeting with Ben Scholes.”
She nodded. “Ben got caught in traffic. If you’re in no rush, you could wait for him in his office. Let me take you there.”
“Sure.”
He followed her, just a pace behind. At least they had good heating inside this building. He’d fear for her health otherwise because of the thin workout top moulding to every curve of her muscled back. He didn’t dare let his gaze wander lower as he'd already ascertained, with a quick glance, how enticing her arse looked in the yoga leggings.
“Here we are,” she said as she pushed open the door to the office and waved him in.
“Thanks
. So, how are you?” he asked.
They were, essentially, strangers since their first meetup had hardly made them acquaintances. But more so than small talk, he wanted to know how she was doing. As much as he tried to fool himself, he cared for her.
“I’m … good,” she said with a smile that rang fake as it never touched her eyes.
He also didn’t like the hesitation in her tone.
“You?” she asked.
“Fine,” he bit out.
She nodded softly. “Well, if you’ll excuse me?”
“Go.”
He settled down in one of the seats, grateful the dance floor wasn’t visible from the office once the door closed behind her. But something kept niggling at him, and he yearned to find out.
Zediah had never been one for gossip, but maybe it would help shed light on why Rio’s light seemed to have gone out since the last time he had seen her.
Ten minutes later, he powered down his phone while wondering if he could break something while imagining the prick, Gary Bicknell’s face, as the object.
Bicknell had indeed made it into the Premier League, making Rio a WAG. Added to his good looks, he’d earned a direct passport into the world of sports gossip. It also appeared Bicknell couldn’t keep his dick in his trousers, fucking a new trollop every other month. Meanwhile, his long-suffering wife existed silently in the background.
No wonder she’d gone so dull. It was all her husband’s fault!
“I’m sorry, Switz. Ben is stuck in traffic and won’t make it—”
The sound of her voice made him jump to his feet. He needed to get out of here.
However, Rio stood in the doorway, blocking his path.
Unless he brushed against her as he made his way past.
Not something he wanted to contemplate. Not now. Not knowing what he knew, with his heart breaking all over again.
He stopped just before the threshold, and she stood there on the other side, all tiny and delicate and breakable. So utterly breakable. She raised those brown eyes flecked with hazel his way. Even they seemed to have turned into murky darkness, shadowed by pain and hurt, their rims looking hollow and gaunt.
He had to curl his hands into fists to stop himself from reaching out for her, from placing his palms gently on her face to then press a soft kiss on her forehead. He’d be tender at first, so she’d know she was safe with him, would always be, before taking her full, pouty lips and showing her the kind of red-hot passion she evoked in him.
One blink. Two, from Rio. “Switz?”
“If—” He took a deep breath, knowing he was unable to stop himself from saying it. “If you were mine, I would never hurt you.”
With those words, he stormed out of Tempo and into the brittle cold of November that came like a welcome ‘wake up!’ slap to his face.
***
Eighteen months ago …
Zediah was taking his time strolling on the east side of St John’s Wood that early summer evening. Though it got dastardly cold in winter, he still loved London and would miss it when he left for LA in a week.
Over the past few years, he’d realized he was completely into music, way more than any of the politics back home or even the life of a prince. The offer to partner with a world-renowned DJ launching a record label in Los Angeles had seemed like an answer to all his prayers.
He’d done his mandatory two years of national service, had chosen charity work instead of pursuing a military career. If only his family would let him show them all the good spreading music around the world could bring! Duty first, they’d said. Well, his heart wasn’t in it.
Actually, his heart belonged to Rio Mittal, but that was also a non-starter. It appeared she had filed for divorce from Gary Bicknell, especially after the splash his affair with an up-and-coming Caribbean singer had made.
From what he’d gathered, public opinion had sided so much with Rio, the starlet’s record label had pushed back the release of her first album indefinitely. Rumours of the Mercato when clubs traded players said Ashton Rovers were looking to offload their scandal-mongering left midfielder.
Rio. Under other circumstances, and if he were not on his way to LA, maybe there could’ve been something.
He slowed in his stroll when a cab drew up a couple houses farther away, and a woman stepped out. As the vehicle drove off, she looked up, and he found himself flummoxed. Rio. She was there, just in front of him.
She seemed just as stunned as he, and she stood there for a few seconds, looking stricken.
“Switz?”
Again, the sound of his moniker coming from her tongue sent a shiver down his spine. He also didn’t pick any despondency this time in the word. Just—pleasurable?—surprise.
He jogged the remaining few steps to reach her and couldn’t help but smile as he saw her more clearly now. It may be evening, but twilight was still hours away, so the soft ambient light bathed her beautiful features in a gold wash. She looked healthier today, less fragile, more like the woman who had captured his whole being during that party.
“Fancy seeing you here,” he found himself saying. Sometimes, he amazed himself with what came out of his mouth around her.
She gave him a soft, sardonic smile. “I live here.”
When she nodded towards the house behind her, he laughed. Good one on him.
“What about you?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Just out for a stroll.”
She nodded, already starting towards the main gate to the low-built, lateral detached dwelling. With her hand on the latch, she paused, then turned to him.
“Would you like to come in for a drink?”
Every fibre of his body screamed in the affirmative. Yet, a careful part of his functioning brain knew this as a bad idea.
Rio was single now, and though he wasn’t a madman who couldn’t control himself, he wouldn’t make any effort to if she gave her full-blown consent.
“Sure,” he heard himself saying. Guess the brain had been overruled.
He followed her down the wide carriage driveway, the gravel crunching under their feet. She paused to open the front door, then stopped on the threshold just as he was about to enter.
Rio lifted her face to his, and he took in the pretty features that looked a little pinched tonight. Must be due to the swept-back hair she’d pulled tightly away from her face.
The look sure didn’t suit her. It was the softness that lit her up, gave her such an aura of delicateness belying her laughing nature and cheerful disposition. He knew in his heart the real her was the woman he had met at the party, not the one at Tempo.
Her lips parted, and his gaze was drawn to the light hint of moisture lingering on them as if she’d just wet them with her tongue. Just imagining it made him grow hard. Down, boy.
She kept on staring at him like that for what seemed like ages but must just have been seconds, then she took in a deep breath and stepped inside the house. He followed on her heels, and she didn’t break eye contact once.
“Switz,” she whispered. “What … what you said to me back then. You meant it?”
If you were mine, I would never hurt you.
He remembered, all right. “Every word.”
The door closed with a push of her hand, and then she was in his arms. She was kissing him, and he was kissing her back, savouring the plush feel of those luscious lips against his, finally. The lean and wiry, yet muscled and strong frame she could move so beautifully pressing against him.
He knew where this was going, and so did she. But he had to be sure.
Forcing himself to break free from her kiss, he stared into her eyes. “Tell me to stay …”
She huffed, her chest rising and falling with her heavy breathing.
Then she said it. “Stay.”
They kissed again, and somehow, he was being tugged up a sprawling staircase to a level upstairs. Right ahead lay a closed door, and when she pulled him into the adjoining room through the opened doorway, he wasted no time pro
testing, for he could see a bed in there.
On it, they fell, clothes flying all over the space, lips and hands searching and seeking, exploring, touching, tasting.
Zediah found enough functioning brain cells to reach for his discarded trousers and get a condom before letting lust drive him to finally sink into her.
They soared together, and their climax was so strong, he collapsed on the bed and rolled over onto his side so he wouldn’t crush her. After, he had no idea when an exhausted sleep claimed him.
When he woke up, night had clearly fallen, a hint of moonlight bathing the room through the curtains that had not been closed. The bed was empty, though. With a frown, he got up and pulled on his boxers, then padded his way across the carpeted landing to the stairs, taking them to reach the ground level. Something told him it was where she’d be.
Once in the lobby, he glanced around. A drawing room to the left, from where he could see outside, and it was empty. He tried his luck to the right, across the formal dining room, then into an adjoining living room that opened on the back garden. He glimpsed marble counters in the room at the far end, though. Must be the kitchen. Indeed, it was, and he found her there, standing at a French window in a champagne-coloured silk robe and a glass of white wine in her hand.
“Rio,” he said softly, not wanting to startle her.
She turned her head swiftly his way, blinked a few times. Then she shrugged.
“Figured I’d give you a clear coast for when you wanted to leave.”
He frowned upon hearing this, but the watery smile accompanying the words told him she was putting on false bravado. He should reassure her, make her feel okay and safe and secure and cherished once again.
“You asked me in for a drink,” he said. “Still parched, woman.”
She laughed. Well, more like sputtered a little wine, but at least the glow had returned to her face and eyes.
She nodded towards the island. “Help yourself.”
He went to the bottle and poured himself some of the Sauvignon Blanc. After taking a sip and finding it too sharp for his taste, he put the glass down and went to her, where she stood in front of the French window. Cool moonlight bathed the garden outside, a silvery sheen on everything it touched, even on the woman before him. Gold suited her much better, though.