Royal Disaster by Parker Swift (7)

By eleven thirty the next morning, Dylan had proved two more times that he could fuck the memories of other men right out of my brain. We’d taken breaks for coffee and croissants while sitting in front of the fire in my living room, and I’d proved to Dylan that his girlfriend could beat him at Scrabble. In fact, he had yet to beat me, even if I was six years younger and hadn’t gone to Cambridge.

While I leaned back against his chest, our legs spread out on the floor in front of us, and his hand playing with my hair, I tried to remember the last time we had just lounged together, doing nothing other than reveling in each other. We had all day, and I was in a state of complete and utter euphoria at the prospect of those hours.

Until his phone rang, and he got up to get it.

I could tell immediately, based on his facial expression alone, before he even said his formal “Yes, Mum,” that it was his mother.

“No, today won’t work. I haven’t seen Lydia all week, and I’m spending the day with her.”

Silence. Dylan pursing his lips.

“Mother, you have no idea what my weeks are like, and I assure you I’m not gallivanting around town. Just ask father. He’s the one who has me at the HS offices about six times more often than I agreed to.” He was curt, frustrated. The second he’d picked up the phone, his whole body had become rigid with tension.

And now he was pacing.

“What on earth are you going on about?” he asked her, his hand tense on his hip.

“Yes, we were there, but—” he said in a skeptical tone and reached for my laptop, bringing up something on the screen, clearly something to which his mother was referring. He stopped cold. What was it?

“Mum…Yes, I understand…You hardly need to tell me—”

Silence and possibly the most pissed off expression I’d ever seen on Dylan’s face. I half expected steam to come out of his ears.

“She had nothing to do with it, and I won’t have you implying that she set this up—” He was actually gritting his teeth. “That’s exactly what you were implying.”

I stood and came up behind Dylan and wrapped my arms around him, wanting to comfort him. I had no idea what was going on, but I wanted to be part of what made him feel better. And then I saw it, over his shoulder.

The website for HELLO! magazine.

Two pictures of me, side by side.

In the first photo I was walking into 42 Park Lane, dressed in my red silk blouse and trim skirt, hair neat and tidy, folder under my arm—I could still summon the anxiety, the anticipation of making my pitch to Giles Cabot as I walked into the lobby. And in the second, I was standing in Dylan’s arms, his lips were on mine, and I was wearing the same skirt, but my hair was askew, and I had on what was very clearly a men’s dress shirt. The headline read:

It was bad enough that they were right—we had been having sex in that hotel. It was worse that Hannah would also now know that I had been having sex with my boyfriend when I told her I’d been running errands. And the worst thing about this was that apparently Dylan was coping with problems at his family’s company, and this media attention possibly made those problems worse. I suddenly felt lost, like I didn’t have the map I needed to navigate all of this.

I was no longer listening to Dylan’s conversation with his mother. I was scanning the article for whatever I could see. I caught the words sordid fling and different shirt. I’d have to read it later to see how they were spinning this, but I could at least tell that none of it felt accurate, except for, you know, the fact we had indeed had a quickie.

“I told you. No. I’m spending the day here,” he continued into the phone, then listened. More listening. A gruff, throaty, complain-y sound. “Fine…Hello, Father…” Dylan sighed deeply then said, almost shouting, “Fine. I’ll come. No. I’ll be there at two, no sooner.” He hung up his phone and closed his eyes in frustration. Then he called Lloyd, telling him to bring a bag of clothes—presumably wearing his rumpled suit from yesterday wouldn’t work for an afternoon with his parents.

When he hung up for the second time, Dylan turned towards me. I was in a partially catatonic state and barely registered that he was pulling me towards the sofa in front of the fire and hauling me onto his lap. I was wearing one of his button-down shirts, not dissimilar to the one in the photograph, and nothing else, and he arranged me so I was straddling him, his hands across my lower back. I didn’t feel like dealing with this. The trouble these photos seemed to be causing made me feel like the ground was shifting beneath me.

“That photo looks bad. I need to get smarter about this,” I said, feeling unsteady about the whole thing. I felt naïve, like such a rookie, like Dylan was dragging around a girlfriend who had no idea how to do the things she needed to know how to do in order to be his girlfriend. It was like that first day of college, when you reveal that you don’t know what the mascot is or where the library is—your every action reveals just how new you are, how far you have to go before you belong. Then again, he’d been at the hotel too. In fact, he was the one who’d gotten curry on my shirt.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, baby,” he said, reading my mind, reassuringly running his fingers through my hair and pulling my head up, so I was forced to look him in the eye. “Look at me. Are you okay?” He searched my face, as though the article might have physically scarred me.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I mean, I don’t love that your mother thinks I did this. On purpose. That I am some fame-seeking whore or something.”

“Lydia, my mother is a full-on lunatic. She was angry with me, baby. As was my father. She’s furious that she can’t control me. But the important thing here is that you are all right.” The tension was clear on his face, wrinkling his brow, and he ran his hand through his own hair as he looked slightly panicked. “I can stay here if you want. I don’t need to go to see my parents.”

Why was he so worried about me? Where was this panic coming from? And then it dawned on me—this was what had happened with Grace.

I put my hands against his bare chest. “I’m okay. Sure, I don’t like this. I hate those pictures.” I crossed my arms against my chest as I spoke. “I hate that, even if just for a minute, I was part of something that might hurt Hale Architecture and Design or make things with your family worse. I hate that apparently, at any minute, without my knowing, someone can add ‘spin’ to my life,” I continued. “But I’m okay.”

“Damsel.” He rubbed his hands up and down my arms. “This shit is going to happen—I can’t stop it.” I could tell by the way he was saying it just how much he wished he could. “My parents have a point—I should have known better. I should have thought about your shirt—it should have occurred to me. I’m used to this, and I need to look out for you better.”

“Dylan,” I said, looking squarely into his eyes, “I’m okay.” The worry was still there, etched firmly in the wrinkles of his brow, but after a moment of staring at me, obviously looking for signs of freaking out, he calmed.

The truth was that I was a little freaked out, but I didn’t need Dylan acting any more protective or worried than he already was. As much as I knew this was a mutual fail, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d let him down. I’d thought I knew what I was doing. I’d thought I had a handle on it. I hadn’t really believed the paparazzi were a thing, not one that would affect us, anyway. So I hadn’t thought twice about how I behaved in public, about how I skipped into his arms or reached for his hand. But I realized now that I was going to have to be much more careful going forward. For both our sakes.

“We were only outside the hotel for a second,” I said, wondering aloud at how easily this could happen.

“A second is all it takes.” He leaned forward and kissed my neck.

“The worst part is that I loved that afternoon, and now it’s ruined.”

He cupped my chin with his palm. “No. Don’t let them taint things. Once you let them take what’s perfect, what’s ours, and change it, we’re doomed. So no. It’s still our afternoon, understand?”

I nodded, still uncertain, and he moved his palms to my thighs.

“I still licked this pretty pussy,” he said as he pried my legs even farther apart, looking down appreciatively. My shirt was entirely unbuttoned and now I was spread before him, completely open.

“I still toyed with these gorgeous tits,” he added, moving his thumbs to my nipples, stroking them. Suddenly, in one fluid effortless movement, he had me on all fours on the couch, and he was behind me.

“And if I recall, I still fucked this marvelous cunt from behind.” He ran his finger through my opening. He loomed over me, taking control, blanketing me.

“So no, baby, that afternoon. This afternoon. It’s all still ours, and you keep it that way. Understand me, sweet girl?”

I nodded, biting my lip.

He hovered, kissing my back, stroking my arm. He was trying to coax me back, but in that moment there was a wedge. My anxiety over the photos, maybe his frustration with his parents, his worry over me. He wanted to bring me back into his fold, regain control of this situation, but I couldn’t quite get there.

“Baby?” he asked quietly after several minutes, and I could hear the resignation in his voice, like he knew I might need more than a minute to digest this. “At least there’s one good thing about HELLO! printing that story.”

I turned my head and looked at him, questioning.

“Now every lame fucking wanker out there who thinks he ever stood a chance with you, who might have pathetically convinced himself that we weren’t real or that I didn’t own every inch of your perfect ass, can shut down any pipe dream they ever had about you. You’re mine, and any article that makes that even the tiniest bit clearer, is fit to print.”

I smiled and flipped onto my back. I looked up at him, leaning over me. Using all of my strength and a little kick to his leg to make him lose balance, I pulled him down on top of me. I whispered into his ear as he tried to prop himself on his elbows to relieve me of having to bear his weight, “You’re all mine.” And for the third time that morning, he made love to me to try to make me forget, only this time it wasn’t so easy.

“I’m sorry about this,” Dylan said, and to be fair he really did look apologetic. “I was looking forward to today.” He was pulling a shirt over his head, and it struck me as cruel to show me that toned torso only to cover it so efficiently with his worn-in T-shirt.

“It’s okay,” I said, slipping on some underwear and sitting cross-legged in the chair. I was disappointed—I wanted the day I had been promised. But if there was any chance that time with his dad might resolve some of the stress between them, then I was glad he was going. I still didn’t know what was going on between them, and I was curious, but I also knew Dylan was private. I figured he’d tell me if it was important. Or I hoped.

“How about a late dinner at Will’s tonight?” he asked. Will was Dylan’s best friend from childhood and the head chef at the restaurant they owned together. Dylan looked at me expectantly as he pulled on the jeans from the bag Lloyd had brought. While I was free to spend the day in his shirt, he had to get dressed if he was going to spend the afternoon, however reluctantly, with his parents. Whenever he went to his childhood home, he always seemed to dress in preparation for a long walk. Jeans were fastened, and up next would be thick socks, followed by a crazy-sexy chunky-knit cream sweater.

“Sure. What time will you be back?” I said as, sure enough, he pulled the socks out of the bag.

“I can collect you at nine or so.”

I nodded. “Who do you walk with when you go to your parents’ house?” I asked.

“Humboldt Park.”

“Who?” I asked.

“That’s what the house is called. Humboldt Park.”

“Oh.”

“I’d like to take you there. If my father wasn’t determined to serve me my arse and discuss the business, I’d take you today, but—”

“Um, yeah. I have a feeling today isn’t the day for me to make a good impression.” I had finished his thought.

“I was going to say that they don’t like surprises,” he said. “I do want you to see it, though.” He paused for a moment, and I could see his mind drift to a more pleasant place. “There are these woods behind the house, and there’s this small lake where deer often congregate…It’s really quite stunning this time of year. Next weekend, perhaps?”

I smiled, imagining him there in the woods. “I don’t know, Dylan. I mean, I don’t get the sense your parents are exactly over the moon that the first girl you’ve chosen to date publicly—”

“At all. Date at all.”

“Fine, at all, is an American commoner.” He looked at me sharply. “I know I’m technically British too—”

“That’s not what I was going to say. I don’t care if you were raised by kangaroos on Mount Kilimanjaro—”

“I don’t think kangaroos live on Kilimanjaro—” I objected, but Dylan swooped in and shut me up with a kiss to my lips.

“Will you let me finish a thought for once?” he asked, half smiling, half scolding. “What I meant was that their disapproval means nothing to me, and your provenance will mean nothing to them once they get to know you.”

“Okay then,” I said, “you can take me to your childhood home, but only on one condition.” I rose onto my knees in the chair and wrapped my body around him, basically climbing him. He caught me as I jumped and landed with my legs around his waist.

He raised his eyebrows at me, waiting.

I whispered in his ear, “Take me to your childhood bedroom and do that thing you do with your tongue.”

“Which thing?” he asked, smiling.

“The one where you put your fingers in me, and then use your tongue to tease my—” He cut me off by diving towards my mouth, kissing me hard and fast, and then gently, slowly rimming my lips with his tongue so lightly that I couldn’t be sure if he was actually touching me or not.

“That’s the one.”

He smacked my ass hard, making me jump higher into his arms, and then put me down.

“Wait, so who do you walk with?” I asked again, gesturing towards his clothes.

“No one. By myself,” he began. “When I get there, I need some time before I see my parents.”

When he said things like that, I didn’t think he realized what he was saying—that he needed to what? Prepare? Brace himself? Before he could spend time with his own parents, the people who should love him unconditionally? Although what was I even thinking? My own mother had disappeared completely.

“Are you sure you have to go there this afternoon?” I was trying not to let it show, but I was so disappointed to lose this day with him.

“I’m afraid so, baby. He was on me about heading out there this weekend to discuss some things about Hale Shipping, and I said no. These photos gave him the excuse to insist.” There was an element of disgust in his tone, and frustration.

“What did the magazine mean about there being trouble at Hale Shipping? Is the company in trouble? Does he want you to deal with it?”

“Possibly. My father fired someone who’s threatened some kind of tell-all about him. It’s a mess.” Dylan walked around the room, picking up odds and ends, then laced up his shoes.

“Does the guy have any real dirt on him?”

“I’ll tell you about it sometime, but not now,” he said, rubbing his temples with his thumb and forefinger, and once again not really telling me what I wanted to know. “I’ve summoned Frank—he’s parked outside. Please don’t go anywhere without him.” He said this with a raised-eyebrow plea, because he knew he didn’t have the authority he wished he did with me.

“I’ll do my best. But, you know, I’m perfectly capable of being on my own,” I said, smiling.

“Oh, I know,” he replied. He shook his head slightly, and as he turned around, he said, “Be good, you little minx. I’ll collect you a bit before nine.”

I watched him walk out of my bedroom and heard him descend the creaky stairs of the little house. That morning I’d woken up feeling impossibly close to him, like the day was ours, like we could settle into our world. But in the past hour, I’d been reminded, once again, of the ways in which his life was a universe away from mine.

It was ten minutes before nine that night when I got a text from Frank.

That was weird. Why hadn’t Dylan texted me himself? Since when did we have a go-between?

“Frank?” Frank asked incredulously as I slid past him and into the warm interior of the Jaguar. It had been the first time since meeting him that I’d called him by his actual name. I’d been so thrown by his text, or more accurately by him texting me instead of Dylan, that I’d slipped.

“Oh, sorry, sweets. Do you need some affection?” I looked up at him, batting my eyelashes and willing myself to smile a little more as I fastened my seat belt and he closed the door.

“Not at all, Lydia, just wanted to be sure it was really you I was texting with and not your sinister evil twin,” he replied happily while pulling into the Saturday night Notting Hill traffic.

“Is Dylan okay?”

“I believe so,” Frank said, looking at me via the rearview mirror.

Ten minutes later, we pulled up to Will’s restaurant. Dylan was there outside the door, looking earnestly at the screen of his phone. He noticed me and came over to open the door and pull me out of the car into his arms before the seat belt had fully recoiled.

“Whoa, hi there,” I said, my words muffled by his jacket. Even though his arms were blanketing my whole body, holding my head close to his chest, I could hear Dylan talking to Frank.

“Abbott, thank you. We’ll see you tomorrow.” Dylan had addressed Frank by his last name, dismissing him. Then he held me just a little tighter. “I missed you,” he whispered into my hair.

I looked up at him. “Everything okay?” He was different from this morning. As though he’d been to war and back.

“It is now. Let’s eat.” But he still had that cold tone he got after spending time with his parents. And before I could press for details, he pulled me into the warmth of Will’s beautiful little restaurant.

Two enormous bowls of pasta later—butternut squash ravioli with sage and some kind of roasted sausage bits—and Dylan, Will, and I were at risk of polishing off our third bottle of wine. Dylan had been quiet, sipping slowly. I could feel that he had slipped into his faraway place, as though he were standing behind a black screen, lost in his thoughts, and I couldn’t reach him. It was concerning—I didn’t like seeing him all knotted up, ruminating—but it was also frustrating. He’d been at Humboldt Park all day, and now that he was back with me, he still wasn’t even really here.

“So, little lady,” Will said, looking at me, pulling me out of my thoughts. “I hear you may head out to the farm one of these days.”

“The farm?” I asked, taking another large sip of wine.

“That’s what we called Humboldt when we were in school—‘the farm,’” Dylan explained halfheartedly. “There is still a working farm on it. I’ll show you.”

“Ahh,” I said. “So would you milk the cows before or after school?” I looked at Dylan smugly, knowing full well he’d probably never even seen a cow being milked in his life. Meanwhile, Will nearly fell off his chair laughing.

“Milk the cows,” Will sputtered and squeaked—the words barely discernable in his fit of laughter. I giggled with him, but Dylan just sighed heavily, resigned to being made fun of. Eventually Will wiped the tears from his eyes. “Blimey. Your girl’s funny, mate.”

“Should I be nervous?” I asked Will, but he looked confused. “About going to Humboldt?”

“Well, whatever you do,” he said, conspiratorially leaning over the table, “don’t tell the duchess that you like the Roman statue in the fountain.” I looked at him quizzically. I could sense Dylan stiffen in warning to his friend, but thankfully Will was too drunk to notice or care. “About ten years back, old Geoff’s lady of the hour chose to drape herself over the statue for his birthday.”

“That’s just odd,” I said.

“Wearing nothing but an enormous red ribbon in her hair.”

“Oh.”

“The statue has been a bone of contention ever since.”

“Understandably,” I added.

“I don’t even remember telling you that horrible story,” Dylan said, staring with a half-glaring, half-puzzled expression at Will.

Will shrugged and continued, “Primarily, I’d be nervous about this man of yours finding the time to take you out there. If old Geoff has his way, this poor bugger”—he pointed at Dylan—“will be running Hale Shipping and taking over for the old man before sundown Sunday.” He put his hand on Dylan’s shoulder. “Why, he’s already got our boy in on more deals than I’d ever thought possible—between HS and the architecture firm, I’m amazed you see him at all. I got an email from him at nearly three in the morning this week!”

“You’ve been working for Hale Shipping?” I sobered a little and looked to Dylan. At some point this week I’d been sleeping soundly beside him and he’d been awake, working. It felt weird not to know that. And it felt weird that Will did.

“A bit,” he said, and I looked at him, worried. He’d just taken on a new design in Amsterdam and was finishing up a bid for the Olympic Stadium in Auckland, and I’d often heard him talking about a personal project he was working on for himself. Working for his father too seemed outrageous. Worry, at least, was a feeling I was familiar with—it had been my primary emotion for eight years as I cared for my father, and as much as I didn’t like thinking about how stressed out Dylan clearly was, and as frustrated as I was that Dylan wasn’t communicating with me about all this, for a brief moment, I actually felt relieved to be on familiar emotional ground.

I may have wanted him to open up to me about all the things that made him rub his forehead the way he was at that moment, but right then I just wanted him to snap out of it, to come back to me. After this day, I wanted to feel close to him again, and I wanted him to feel close to me. I reached over and kissed him on the cheek, and in doing so allowed his hand to slip fully between my legs, right at the top. I heard his breath hitch slightly, saw his eyes widen a bit, and a tiny lustful smirk wrinkled his brow.

I continued to fill Will in on the progress with the store and the goings-on at work, all while slightly shifting below the table. Will shared advice on managing a retail space in central London and clarified a zoning code question I’d found mind-boggling. We talked about business, design, food, fashion. I asked about Will’s famous whisky-distilling family and told him about New York. All the while, I just let Dylan come down from whatever dark place that had him. And slowly I felt him inching closer, chiming in to say how proud he was of my work on the store or about how my father had owned the last standalone sheet music store in New York City. Inch by inch he came back to me.

“So, Dylan, have you asked Lydia about the CBC yet?” Will directed a mischievous look at Dylan as he said it.

“CBC?” I asked, gripping his hand tighter as it rested on my thigh.

“Conservation in Building Conference,” Dylan explained, more relaxed. “It’s an international conference—”

“A meeting of the architectural geniuses of the world, your boyfriend included,” interrupted Will, pointing at Dylan proudly.

“Yes, well. The queen has asked my father of all people to open the conference and to have us for tea afterwards. The first time in his life when he’s taken the least interest in my chosen profession, and of course it’s to serve his own needs.”

“Architecture? Shouldn’t it be you opening it or leading it?” I protested, my hand flying upward and banging into the underside of the tabletop, which caused Will to look down at us curiously and Dylan to firmly clasp my hand and bring it straight back between my legs.

I coughed slightly and took a big gulp of wine.

“It would be improper for Her Majesty to bypass my father and only invite me,” he said. “So he’ll be the star, but I will be there to make him a legitimate choice.” Dylan loosened his grip on my hand only to move his fingers right up against my warm center. The tables were turning. Not only had I gotten Dylan to snap out of his funk, I had awoken the monster.

I took another swig of wine, tried to keep my head in the conversation, and asked, “What did Will think you’d ask me about it?”

“If you’ll go with him, of course, meet the old bat!” Will interrupted, smiling big and answering for Dylan.

“The old bat?” I asked, not fully understanding, and then I realized. “To have tea with the queen?” I looked wide-eyed at Dylan, and he nodded in affirmation. “The queen queen?”

Dylan chuckled and nodded again.

“Uh, yeah. Of course I’ll go,” I said, and I could see the corners of Dylan’s mouth perk up a bit. “You’ll prep me, right? I mean, I have no stinking clue what to say to the queen, for Christ’s sake.”

“Well, not ‘for Christ’s sake,’ for starters, or she may tell you that yes, that is exactly for whose sake she is there.” He was full-on smiling now, clearly pleased that I’d be there. He pulled my chair closer to his.

“When is this shindig anyway?”

Dylan turned more fully towards me and grabbed my face in his hands, pulling it towards his own. “Two weeks, sweet girl.” And he gave me that look. His I love you look. And he kissed me. Softly at first, then harder. He even let just a flash of tongue in before letting me go.

“Ah, Jesus,” snorted Will. “Off with you two, and don’t come back. You’re clearly a filthy pair.” We were near giggling in our seats, and we looked back to Will, not apologetically at all.