I never wanted to move. Charlie shifted on top of me, but I wrapped my arms around him, holding him there.

“I’m crushing you,” he said with a laugh.

“I like it,” I told him, but let him go so he could get up and dispose of the condom.

He quickly returned, wrapping me up in his arms and hauling me against his broad chest. Dropping a kiss on my forehead, he grinned down at me.

“H’lo,” he said.

“Hello,” I responded, feeling a belated surge of embarrassment, my cheeks growing hot.

He pinched one. “None of that,” he ordered. “You’re a damn good lay,” he teased.

I couldn’t help giggling. I never giggled. But there was a lot of stuff I had never done before that suddenly seemed natural when I was around Charlie.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” I told him, like I did that all the time.

He rolled onto his back, keeping me against his chest. It was then that I got my first real look at his apartment.

It was beautiful. But not in the way the hotel had been beautiful. That had been elegant and untouchable. Everything there had looked as if it required constant upkeep and it would be better if no one touched anything.

Charlie’s place looked like him. Immensely touchable. It was all dark wood and cozy furniture. It was huge, of course, but didn’t feel cavernous. There were books everywhere, and the usual scattering of clothes and dishes, but it was tidy overall. Not that much different from my room back home. Except for the fact that it was probably worth several million and was in the center of one of the most expensive cities in the world. Other than that, they were very similar. I smiled to myself, thinking how funny it was to consider that any part of my life was similar to Charlie’s.

“Your flat is gorgeous,” I told him, propping myself up on my elbow to look at him.

He gave me a grin. “Not nearly as gorgeous as the lady occupying it at the moment.”

I laughed. “Smooth,” I teased. “Very smooth.”

“Hey.” He rolled onto his side, facing me. “I’ve been told I have some moves off the court as well.”

“You do,” I informed him. “Very good moves.” I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively.

He winked at me. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll show you a few more.”

And he did. All night long.

* * *

A girl could get used to this, I thought as I sat in his bed, and watched Charlie—in just a pair of tight black briefs—make me coffee. We had been up all night, enjoying each other’s company, and not just physically. Everything I learned about Charlie just made me like him more. And made him seem less like a prince and more like a normal guy.

OK, if normal guys were drop-dead gorgeous and amazing in bed.

But there was more to him than just the playboy tabloid reputation. He was also a guy who struggled with the responsibility of being born into a family that was constantly in the public eye. He hadn’t asked for that, and although he didn’t complain about the privilege that position gave him, I could tell it had been a tough ride for him, trying to figure out how he could forge his own path with so much weight of expectation on his shoulders. I could relate. I just had my dad’s expectations to live up to, and I still felt the pressure. He had a whole country weighing in on his life. It didn’t matter that he and his brother were royalty. At the end of the day they were a family, and they had family issues like everyone else.

There was a knock at the door, and Charlie went to answer. He opened it just enough to get the delivery from that day’s security guy, but still shield me from prying eyes. Bringing our breakfast over, I saw that it had the name of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant on the side of the bag. I gave him a look and he shrugged.

“We didn’t get to eat there before, but trust me, the food is amazing.”

And it was. A special-made breakfast for us, delivered early on a Saturday morning. OK. So Charlie wasn’t just a guy. He was a guy with lots of perks.

“What do you want to do today?” he asked, as we lounged in bed.

“Don’t you have training?” I asked, in disbelief. He was midway through the biggest tournament of the year, and tennis seemed like the last thing on his mind.

Charlie shrugged. “For what? I could drill a ball a hundred times, and it wouldn’t make a difference come my next match Monday.”

“You act like you don’t care about winning,” I said, trying to figure him out.

“I don’t.” Charlie shrugged. He saw my disbelieving expression. “Really, I don’t! Look, Emmy, I’m a decent player, but I’m nothing special. The highest I’ve ever ranked is twenty-two, and that was a year all the big players were out with injuries. It’s OK,” he added. “I love the game, I love the competition, but I know my limits. I’m lucky I even made it this far, but there’s no way I’ll make it past the quarter-finals. So, I could spend all weekend running around the court, practicing for a match I’m sure to lose, or I could spend it enjoying myself with you. I know which I’d rather,” he added with a wink. “So, let’s try that again: what do you want to do?”

I was wearing his shirt from last night—the one I had ripped off of him and was currently without half of its buttons. Licking jam off my thumb, I considered our options. I knew that it hadn’t been easy to keep him from getting noticed last night, and that despite the disguise, we had gotten lucky with some help from a crowded bar and the dim lighting. In the daylight it was bound to be a lot more difficult to keep things undercover.

“What would you like to show me?” I asked him.

He leaned back on his elbows, giving me a great view of his gorgeous chest. A chest I was pretty sure I’d never get enough of. Even now I had to shove a scone in my mouth to keep from drooling all over the bedspread.

“We could go outside the city,” he suggested. “Lots of beautiful parks and places to explore.”

Places we won’t be as noticeable. It was unsaid, but it was clear that both of us were thinking about it.

“That sounds wonderful,” I told him, but then, looking around, I realized that the only clothing I had was my bar-hopping outfit from the night before. “But I’ll need to stop at my aunt’s flat to change.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, with a smoldering look. “I think you look fine as is.”

I threw a tiny muffin at him, but he caught it easily and popped it into his mouth.

“I can have my driver take you over there and pick you up when you’re ready,” he told me, but the wicked little gleam in his eye told me that he wasn’t quite ready for me to leave.

Heat pooled in my belly as his hot gaze swept over me. I let his shirt slip off my shoulder, revealing the bare skin beneath.

“Oh yes?” I asked, toying with the buttons, the invitation clear.

“Oh yes,” he growled and practically tackled me to the bed.

Almost an hour and three—three!—orgasms later, I was in the car in last night’s outfit, unable to wipe the smile off my face. The last twenty-four hours had been incredible—like something out of a dream. And it wasn’t even close to be over.

I bit my lip, thinking of the hot kiss Charlie had left me with. There was no doubt in my mind that today’s date would end exactly how yesterday’s did—with us burning up the sheets together. I had never thought of myself as a sex kitten, but I felt insatiable when it came to Charlie. I wanted to do things I had never considered before. Unable to keep myself from blushing, I thought about how badly I wanted to take him in my mouth, how I wanted to press his cock between my breasts, how I wanted to make him come with my hand.

If this is what I’d been missing out on for the last few years of celibacy, then I was ready to make up for lost time.

But all those naughty thoughts immediately disappeared from my head when the car pulled up in front of Aunt Suze’s place, and I was blinded by bright lights and a wall of sound.

My stomach dropped.

“What is going on?” I asked the driver, who was swearing under his breath.

“Someone must have tipped them off,” he told me, and my heart sank to match my stomach, too.

“Them” were the paparazzi, and I could hear them shouting out questions from their huddle on the sidewalk, all of them shoving their microphones in the direction of the car, their cameras pointed right at me.

The me who was wearing last night’s dress with sex-mussed hair and no makeup. It was possible I had a hickey somewhere visible on my person, but even so, there was absolutely no mistaking what I was coming home from.

My walk of shame was about to get very, very public.

Charlie’s driver got out of the car, and opened the door for me, shielding me as best he could, but there was no way he could block me from the mass of people that had gathered. Waiting for me. Lights flashed, and I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience, my pulse already racing in panic as the driver hustled me out of the car.

“Out of the way,” he ordered, in a voice that would have made me step back.

But either the paparazzi had backbones of steel or they just didn’t care, because no one moved. We had to push through the crowd with physical force, and I kept my arm on his just to get my bearing, because I was doing everything I could to keep from looking up. It felt like we were under attack from all sides, and I was shaking by the time we got inside.

Once he had made sure I was OK, and out of sight, Charlie’s driver went back to the car, fighting the crowd that was still trying to get a picture of me. I slammed the main door behind me and turned and raced up the stairs as fast as I could manage, but my legs felt unsteady, and I had to stop on the landing halfway up and grab the rail before they gave way.

What had just happened? How did they know about me? How did they know where I lived?

The questions whirled in my mind, and I took a gulp of air. I could still hear the pack outside, and I couldn’t stay in the hallway forever, so I forced myself to keep walking. I managed to make it up the next flight of stairs and down the hall to Aunt Suze’s apartment.

“Oh my God, Emmy!” Paige leapt up. She was sitting with Suze at the dining table, both of them with their phones in their hands. When I walked in, they jumped up and enveloped me in a hug so tight that I knew immediately that the paparazzi outside wasn’t the worst of my troubles.

“Sit down,” Aunt Suze said, looking more serious than I’d ever seen her. Even her clothes seemed to reflect the gravity of the situation—there was not a bright color to be found in her ensemble.

She riffled through her cabinets while Paige scooted her chair next to mine and wrapped her arms around me. None of us said anything until three cups of tea—each with a generous spoonful of whiskey—had been set down on the table.

“So,” Aunt Suze started, her eyes tired. She looked like my dad. Worried.

“How bad is it?” I asked, swallowing a big gulp of my too-hot, spiked tea. It burned my tongue, but I was beyond caring at this point.

“It’s bad,” Paige told me, and I was grateful for her honesty. “It’s all over the internet.”

“That I was out with Charlie?” I looked over at their phones, both of which had been placed face down on the table.

“In a manner of speaking.” Paige gave me a sympathetic look. “There are pictures.”

My heart stopped. “Pictures of what?”

“The alley,” Paige said, confirming my worst fear.

Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.

“Let me see.” I reached a hand out for her phone, wiggling my fingers when she hesitated. “Please, Paige. I need to know. I’m going to see them eventually.”

“Take another drink first,” Aunt Suze suggested.

Shit.

I did as she said, and took a deep breath as Paige handed her phone over.

It was even worse than I had imagined. Way. Way. Way worse.

The pictures were obscene. Someone had managed to get pretty clear shots of us in that alley, and they had gotten them at just the right (for them, wrong for me) moment. I was pinned against the brick wall, my legs around Charlie’s waist, his hand on my ass. My head was thrown back, my eyes closed. Charlie, well, Charlie’s lips were on my breast.

I felt sick. The only good thing about the pose was that it hid my nipple, but considering that it was because it was in Charlie’s mouth, it barely counted in the plus columns of a picture that was mostly minuses. If it hadn’t been taken without permission and then plastered all over the internet, I might have been impressed. I looked like I was having a damn good time. So good, I hadn’t thought twice about who would be watching. Unfortunately, now the whole world knew it.

I dropped my head to the table, tears already stinging in my eyes. This was bad. This was really, really bad.

“There’s more,” Paige said quietly.

“Of course.” My voice was muffled by the tabletop. “Why would it only be as bad as being photographed doing something that should be private and having it put online for everyone to see?”

“You’ve been identified,” Paige told me. “Your social media account has blown up. And . . . people are not saying nice things,” she added delicately.

If Paige was being delicate, I couldn’t imagine how bad those internet comments were.

“And your father called,” Aunt Suze added.

My stomach turned over. Oh god. I pushed back from the table and ran to the bathroom where I puked up the contents of that morning’s extremely romantic breakfast.

Fuck. My. Life.

I lay on the cold tile on the bathroom floor, my entire body rapidly alternating between the hot flush of embarrassment and cold sweats from essentially being caught in a compromising position by my father. With the whole world watching.

What the hell was I supposed to do now?

Waiting until I was sure I wasn’t going to throw up again, I pressed my palms against the tile and closed my eyes. I knew from the one yoga class that Paige had managed to drag me to that breathing could be very calming, so I took several long, deep breaths. Finally, I sat up, and making sure the bathroom door was locked, pulled my phone out of my purse.

My hands shook as I went to my social media accounts.

Paige had not been exaggerating. My Twitter and Instagram were overflowing with comments. None of them good. According to the internet, I was “an American whore,” “a trashy bitch,” “a classless, fugly beast,” and my favorite, “not even good enough to wank off to.”

There was a gentle knock.

“Honey?” Aunt Suze’s voice came through the door.

She sounded worried. I didn’t blame her. What was the guardian’s guide for having your niece become tabloid fodder while under your care? And where was the Idiot’s Guide to dealing with getting your make-out session plastered all over the internet? I needed that. Stat.

Instead I got up off the floor, splashed some cold water on my cheeks, and forced myself to put on a brave face before I opened the door. Aunt Suze stood there with another cup of tea—or straight whiskey—her forehead wrinkled with worry.

“I’m OK,” I told her.

It was a total lie, of course, but telling the truth wouldn’t change anything. I just wanted her and Paige to stop looking at me like I was about to fall apart. Because even though I felt that way, I wasn’t going to let it happen. Not in front of them. Not in front of anyone.

My phone buzzed with an incoming call. With a sinking heart, I pulled it out of my pocket, afraid that the paparazzi had gotten my number along with Aunt Suze’s address. But it was Charlie.

“Declan is on the way to come get you. We’re going to fix this,” he told me before I could say anything.

I glanced out the window, down to where the paparazzi were still gathered. Closing my eyes, I remembered the bright flashes of their camera and their eager faces as they shoved microphones in my face. How gleeful they were, trying to get the scoop of their lifetime.

But it wasn’t a scoop—it was my life. And suddenly, I couldn’t hide away even if I tried.

“I really don’t think you can fix this,” I said, biting back a sob.

“Stay right there,” Charlie ordered me. “Everything will be alright. I promise.”

I hung up and put my head in my hands. Because as much as I wanted to believe Charlie, I had a feeling that it was beyond even his control.