Holy shit!

I pushed past Paige and ran back to the tea tent. But even that didn’t help me escape the face of the guy I had been face-to-face, lip-to-lip with, only a few hours ago. Because there were TVs set up in the tea tent, presumably allowing Brits to get their much beloved tea and not miss a second of the match.

Charlie’s gorgeous face was on every single screen when I rushed in. I nearly knocked over Mr. Smyth, totally distracted by the combination of my embarrassment and the uncontrollable reaction my nipples seemed to have at the very sight of Charlie. The camera was zoomed in on him, his forehead scrunched in concentration as he returned each volley with a grunt, sweat rolling down his temples. His muscles flexed with each stroke, showcasing his arms and broad shoulders. I knew next to nothing about tennis but I could tell he was in the zone, his eyes focused, his jaw clenched.

“What was that?” Paige had followed me, her nose wrinkled in confusion. “You went all pale and then you just bolt without any explanation. Are you sick or something?”

I pulled her behind the bar where Jules was sitting, and ducked down, pulling both of them down with me so we were out of sight.

“What the bloody hell?” Jules demanded as we crouched behind the bar.

“I kissed him,” I hissed.

“What?!” Paige and Jules asked in unison.

“Kissed who?” Jules wanted to know.

“And when?” Paige added.

I put my face in my hands, my words muffled.

“The prince. In the dressing room. Before the match.” It was like an embarrassing, hook-up version of Clue. Emmy Anderson. With the tea tray. In the one place where she shouldn’t have been.

“YOU KISSED SOMEONE?” Paige practically shouted.

I slapped my hand over her mouth.

“YOU KISSED THE PRINCE?” she said against my hand, her voice still remarkably loud.

“Shhhhh,” I ordered. “The whole world doesn’t need to know.”

“Why the hell not?” Paige pulled my hand away from her mouth. “If I kissed a prince I’d tell the whole damn world. I’d live-tweet that shit.”

I face-palmed.

“And here I thought you weren’t looking for a guy,” Jules said with a naughty smile. “How’s that working out for you?”

“Yeah!” Paige crossed her arms. “I’ve been here a week handing out my phone number to every Tom, Dick, and Harry, and you’re here less than twelve hours and you’ve already found your own Prince Harry.” She slapped me on the boob. “You suck.”

“Ouch!” I slapped her back. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“No? Did your tongue just fall into his mouth?” She pulled Jules and me to our feet. “Actually, I don’t care how it happened, I just want to know all the details. And I mean ALL the details.”

We were once again surrounded by screens bearing Charlie’s face. The three of us let out an involuntary sigh as he served, his shirt lifting up with the gesture, showing off those abs, the ones that might have been an eight-pack.

I could now confirm, they were definitely an eight-pack.

Paige turned back to me. “Ok, babe,” she demanded. “Spill.”

So I told them, their eyes getting wider with each ridiculous twist of my ridiculous story. Saying it out loud made it seem even more fanciful, and if I hadn’t experienced it myself, I would have totally doubted its truthfulness.

But to their credit, neither Paige nor Jules doubted me. Once I was done, Paige sprawled against the bar in a swoon, while Jules fanned herself.

“If you weren’t my best friend, I’d hate you,” said Paige. “But because I am your best friend, I am damn proud of you.” She gave me a hug. “If anyone deserves a hot fling with a prince, it’s you.”

“I hardly think one kiss constitutes a fling,” I protested.

She pulled back, eyes round. “You’re not going to see him again?”

“How?” I asked. “It was some crazy fluke that landed me in his dressing room. How the hell am I going to casually run into a prince? Especially at Wimbledon, where he’s playing?”

Paige exchanged a look with Jules and wrapped her arm around my shoulder.

“Friend, have you ever heard of something called an ‘after-party’?”

* * *

As soon as our shift ended, Paige and I were on the tube, heading to my Aunt Suze’s place. She had generously offered to put us up during our time in London. Despite the long commute, it was saving me a ton of money—money I was hoping to put towards marketing my Etsy store once I got back to the States. Or towards fashion school. All decisions TBD.

Paige had been staying at a hostel since she arrived before me—she wanted a chance to live the backpacker’s life, even if it was just for a week—but now the two of us, plus Paige’s overstuffed suitcase, were on our way back to King’s Cross to change for the after-party Jules had told us about.

“Everyone will be there,” she’d said. “Staff, coaches, managers, and of course, the players.” This was followed with a wink.

The truth was that I didn’t expect a repeat of what had happened in Charlie’s dressing room. A guy like him—gorgeous and confident—could have his pick of any girl. Add in the fact that he’s a professional athlete, and a member of the fricking royal family, well, it was unlikely I was the first girl to wander into his dressing room before a match. I might have just been the only one there on accident.

I wanted to smack my head against the wall of the tube. No wonder he had looked surprised when I asked for his name. It was probably the first time he hadn’t been recognized immediately. I was such a moron. He’s been all over the tabloids for years, but I was always more interested in the fashion pages. I remembered seeing photos of some dark-haired guy, hiding under sunglasses from the paparazzi, but how was I supposed to recognize his face up close? I was too busy focusing . . .

Lower.

However, if I did run into him again, there wasn’t any way I could feign ignorance again, especially since Paige was giving me his entire life history—not to mention a play-by-play of his tennis career—as we zoomed towards Aunt Suze’s.

“Total black sheep,” she was saying. “Bad boy of his family, but that’s to be expected with the second son of a family like his. You know the expression, the heir and the spare?”

I shook my head. I was pretty sure I knew less about royalty than I did about tennis.

“The first-born son—the heir—is the one who will inherit his father’s title and land and all that comes with it. That’s Charlie’s brother, Hugh.” Paige stuck her nose up in the air, affecting a nasally accent. “The perfect royal in every way. He’s always opening hospitals and dedicating ships, you know, stuffy and proper.”

I laughed.

“And then there’s Charlie,” she said with a sigh. “The spare. He was basically born just in case something happens to the heir. You know, like how Colin Firth had to take over in The King’s Speech because his brother fell in love with Wallis whatshername? Charlie is kind of like a combination of Colin Firth and Prince Harry, only much further from the crown.”

“That’s so cold.” I put my hand to my chest, imagining how it must feel to be seen as a permanent understudy for an older sibling. I was an only child, but I didn’t think that kind of mindset was conducive in creating a healthy family dynamic.

“That’s royalty.” Paige shrugged.

“So what makes Charlie the black sheep of the family?” I asked.

“Tennis,” Paige told me. “When you’re someone like him, you’re expected to treat your title like a job. He’s also expected to find a wife—like Hugh did—and start having little royal babies. But Charlie likes to party. He lives the life of a professional athlete, not a prince, and it drives his family crazy. He’s always in tabloids. And there’s his temper.”

I frowned. “His temper?”

Paige nodded. “Like I said, he’s a beast on the court. Lots of natural talent, but he’s cocky as hell and hates to lose. Not exactly a favorite among tennis fans, though he’s got a pretty good following of people who like to root for an underdog. Especially one as hot as he is. And there are plenty of rumors about parties turning into brawls when he shows up. He’s gotten into quite a few fistfights with Killian Black, one of his major rivals.”

I put my hand to my forehead. “Suddenly this after-party sounds like a terrible idea,” I told Paige. “The last thing I want to do is watch a bunch of guys punching each other in the face because they lost a match.”

Paige shook her head. “That hardly ever happens,” she said.

I didn’t feel reassured. At all.

* * *

Aunt Suze was out when we arrived at her flat. Being a professional musician meant that she had a lot of late nights and considered her role as our chaperone as more of a state of mind, then something that required actual physical chaperoning. Which suited Paige and I just fine. We were adults. Even if my dad didn’t think so. It took a lot of begging, pleading, and eventual ultimatums to get him to agree to let me spend the summer in Europe. I knew that at twenty-two, I shouldn’t have needed my dad’s permission for anything anymore, but after my mom died, it was just the two of us, and he worried.

Boy, did he worry.

We were getting ready for the party when my phone rang and I saw I was getting a call from him on WhatsApp. I had texted him when I arrived in London, and even though it had been practically the middle of the night, I had gotten an immediate response, making sure that I remembered our agreement to call him every single day while I was gone.

I sighed. I loved my dad, but he had a tendency to forget that I was twenty-two, not twelve.

At least I had been able to pin the idea of the trip on Paige. She was the tennis nut, the seasoned traveler, the risk-taker. Usually I watched her adventures from the sideline, but this time she had insisted I tag along. Not that I put up much of a fight. I had wanted to go to London ever since I was a little girl.

That was my mom’s fault. She was the hopeless romantic, the unfailing optimist, the one who believed in magic. Our favorite shared pastime had been watching romantic comedies together and the ones that took place in London were some of her favorites—Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually. She liked to joke that my dad had been a bit like Hugh Grant when they first met, except that my dad was American and never got arrested with a hooker.

I suppose it was possible my dad had once had the foppish, bumbling charm of old Hugh, but I’d always had a hard time picturing it. My mom was always the one with the sense of humor. The one with the charm. Sometimes I wished I had a little bit more of my mother’s daring, but when it came to taking risks, I was my father’s daughter through and through. I liked to look (and look and look) before I leapt. People always said I got my creativity from my mom, and my sensibleness from my dad. I was a “reasonable artist,” as Aunt Suze had dubbed me when I was little.

I had always liked being an equal blend of my parents. And it had always worked for us; as a trio we got along like gangbusters. It was only after my mother died that everything seemed to fall apart. My dad and I had worshipped her, and neither of us seemed to know what to do without her.

It had been four years since the car accident, and while things between my dad and I had gotten better, we both had very different ideas of what my post-college life should look like. My dad is a professor, so in his mind, there wasn’t any problem that can’t be solved with more education. He had been offering to find me a job at his university, so I could live at home and take graduate-level classes.

I want to be a designer. In undergrad I started selling hand-painted shirts and shoes to fellow students, who would approach me after seeing Paige in one of my designs. In between classes and a part-time job at the campus coffee shop, I managed to build up enough of a following to start an Etsy shop, but I hadn’t been able to focus any significant time or money into promoting it outside my college.

If I was my mom, I’d probably try to start my own fashion line, or something equally ambitious. But, being my father’s daughter, I knew that making a living as a clothing designer was something that happened more in movies than it did in real life. Still, I wanted to do something creative with my life—whether that was working for someone else’s brand or going into marketing.

So far, my dad and I were at a standstill about my future. I had promised to interview for jobs at the university in exchange for spending the summer in London. That gave me a few months to figure out how to convince him to let me go to fashion school. So far my only argument was, “Well, it is additional education.” I was counting on Aunt Suze to help me shape a stronger case for my dreams.

“Hey, Dad,” I answered the phone.

“Hey, Ems,” he said, though I could already hear the worry in his voice. “How’s Londontown?”

“Good,” I told him. “Except I don’t think anyone calls it Londontown.”

“Hmm, I guess I’ll have to check with your aunt about that.”

It was hard to believe that Aunt Suze was Dad’s younger sister. They were so different.

“She’s out at a gig,” I informed him. “Said she’d be home late.”

“So it’s just you and Paige at the flat?” he asked, clearly digging for information. “You must be really tired from your flight. Guessing you two will want to go to bed early.”

“Um, yeah.” I didn’t think it would be a good idea to let him know that I was going to a party. Especially one with professional athletes. And princes. In fact, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be telling him anything to do with either, unless it pertained specifically to my job.

“Did you have a hard time getting to Aunt Suze’s from the airport?” he wanted to know.

“No, the tube is really easy to use.” I did my best to sound reassuring. “And it’s really clean. Not like you’d imagine public transportation to be.”

“That’s good.” He did sound a little less stressed. “And getting to Wimbledon? That was OK as well?”

“Yep.” I glanced over at Paige, who was going through my suitcase, looking for something to wear to the party. “Listen, Dad, I should probably go.”

“Of course,” he said. “You’ll want to get a good night’s sleep.”

“Um, yes, exactly.” I felt bad keeping things from him, but the last thing I wanted was for him to worry about me when he didn’t have to. “Love you, Dad.”

“Love you too, Ems.”

“Talk to you tomorrow.”

Paige had already emptied the contents of my suitcase onto the fold-out bed when I hung up. She was completely ignoring her own packed-to-bursting suitcase, choosing to dig through mine instead.

“Can I wear this?” she asked, holding up a draped, backless top that I had painted vibrant, delicate feathers onto the front of.

I nodded, knowing that it would look a billion times better on her. Then again, most of the things I made I tended to make with Paige in mind. She just looked good in my designs, and she wore them with the kind of confidence I could never pull off.

Pairing it with some tight black jeans, Paige modeled the shirt. As suspected, it looked amazing on her.

“I totally need to put this on Instagram.” Paige handed me her phone. “Everyone is going to want to know where I got this top.”

I took a few pictures of her, making sure to make them as flattering as possible, even though it was pretty hard to take a bad picture of Paige. She thumbed through them and posted them to her extremely popular social media accounts.

“I’ll put a link to your Etsy store,” she told me, but I shook my head.

“I don’t think I’ll have time to make anything while we’re here. Besides, I really need to save up and build an inventory before I can really sell anything seriously.”

Paige rolled her eyes. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “You know how crazy people were about your stuff at school. Why don’t you do the creating and I’ll do the promoting? We’ll build your brand in no time.”

“I just feel like I need a plan first,” I argued, but she waved her hand dismissively.

“Who needs a plan when you’ve got talent like yours?” She looked down at the shirt. “If I could do this kind of stuff, I’d be starting my own brand.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“But you’re not even giving it a shot,” she retorted. “Why not try while we’re here? You could set up a little booth at Shoreditch Market and see how it goes.”

“I’ll think about it,” I told her.

“Just you wait.” She did a little spin. “Once people get a look at me tonight, everyone is going to want one of your designs.”

* * *

The shirt I ended up wearing wasn’t as risqué as the one I lent Paige, but it wasn’t that modest either. I loved using soft fabric, heavy enough to create a sexy drape that hinted at more than it showed, either on the back or the front of a shirt. It was also the easiest to paint on, so a simple black top, like the one I was wearing that clung to my shoulders, revealing my clavicle and just a hint of my extremely generous cleavage, was transformed with color. This one clung to my waist and hips, where I had painted delicate, almost skeletal leaves twisting around me like I was caught in a fall breeze. It looked especially good on a dance floor, as turning made me look like a blur of beautiful golds and oranges.

When we arrived at the party it was already crowded, the club that had been rented vibrating with the heavy bass beats of the music. Somehow, Paige was able to find Jules, who had sour apple shots waiting for us.

I was never one for doing shots, but a tiny sip revealed that it didn’t burn the way cheap tequila had in college. Paige and Jules threw theirs back and were already on their second when I finished drinking mine. Instead of getting another, I opted for a beer, which I nursed as I took in the room.

There were people everywhere. Everyone looked like they were having a great time, laughing and dancing. I couldn’t help but sway in time with the music. I loved dancing, and couldn’t wait to get out on the floor and shake my thang.

“Any sign of Emmy’s prince?” Paige asked Jules.

I rolled my eyes, convinced that there was no way I’d be able to find Charlie in this crowd, even if I wanted to. And after everything Paige had told me about him—bad boy of tennis, fist fights, and partying—I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Sure, he kissed like a god—a fact my pesky nipples couldn’t seem to forget—but he probably did stuff like that all the time, and I did not.

“The British tabloids can’t get enough of him,” Jules was saying. “He’s always getting caught stumbling out of nightclubs first thing in the morning, or with a new girl each weekend. But he hasn’t been out that much since Wimbledon first started up.”

“I heard he has a new coach.” Paige was practically shouting to be heard over the music. “Former pro. Very tough.”

“Think he’ll beat the beast out of him?” Jules asked.

“I hope not,” Paige laughed, and I heard the two of them high five.

One of my favorite songs started blasting through the speakers.

“Let’s dance,” I called to them, and without waiting, headed towards the dance floor.

I was already grooving by the time I joined the crowd of energized dancers, rolling my hips and tossing my head—and hair—back and forth. Paige and Jules could worry about the prince, I was just here to have a good time. I didn’t need him for that. In fact, I didn’t even want to find him here.

At least, that’s what I thought, until I spun around, and through the crush of people, and dim lights of the club, from halfway across the room, I found him. He was sitting in some fancy VIP section way above the dance floor, looking down. And he found me, his blue eyes catching mine as if drawn by magnets. He grinned, and my knees went weak.