Dirty Crown: A Bad Boy Secret Baby Royal Romance (with BONUS book - Rebel Rockstar!) (3 page)

“Err, yeah okay,” I nod, trying to look far more confident than I feel.

“Sounds great.”

So we step into the car, and we whiz back through the Cornish countryside. Only this time there’s no chatting or flirting. I’m silent, scared, and wondering what the hell I’m doing. What am I getting myself into?

We eventually pull up at an old-fashioned manor house that had my heart racing all over again. It’s starting to get dark now, which somehow makes the place look even more intimidating, and I wish for a second that I could turn back and forget the whole thing.

Why did I agree to come? What the hell was I thinking?

“Come on,” Edward smiles at me, which gives me a small boost of reassurance – but not enough to feel fully better about this.

“Let’s go inside.”

As he holds my hand tightly in his, I take in some deep and calming breaths trying not to draw too much attention to myself. He only said that his mum
might
be there, so I might be okay after all. If I just keep that thought at the forefront of my mind, then everything will be okay…

“Do you need anything else?” The driver asks, and as I turn around to face him, I realize that it’s the same man from the previous night, Marcus, Edward’s security guard.

I send him a smile and he sneaks one back in my direction before refocusing on Edward.

“No thanks, Marcus.” He says happily.

“Not for a while. I’ll give you a call when Faith wants to go back to her hotel.”

The tight knot in my stomach loosens a little bit, at least I won’t be expected to stay – not that I thought Edward was like that, but it’s nice to have it confirmed. My heart might adore Edward, but I know that sleeping with him would only lead me to getting my heart broken even more, and I’m really trying my best to avoid that if I can.

He takes me inside and he shows me around the endless rooms that I’m sure no one needs. I try to ask him what every room is used for, and he gives me an answer that sounds legitimate enough, but I can’t help giggling all the same.

“I have fewer rooms in my entire home, than in this one wing, in my house!” I tease, and luckily, he finds that as funny as I do.

Eventually he turns to face me and I see a glint in his eye, one that suggests he might be about to kiss me once more, and I feel my excitement levels rise.

Despite everything, even though I know it isn’t wise, I want him to kiss me again, I want to be back in his arms, and there’s no way that I can resist…

“Edward?”

A shrill female voice rings out, which strikes the fear of God back into me, stripping any desire right out of me. That sound can only belong to one person, and I have no idea what to do about that.

The queen.

I glance at Edward, the panic plastered across my face, but he isn’t sharing in my terror at all. In fact, he looks really happy.

“Mum?” He calls back in response, drawing her towards us.

“We’re in here.”

“We?”

Oh God, she doesn’t know about me – this could not be going any worse!

I step backwards, needing to create some distance between us before she sees us, then I try to rearrange myself in the most respectable way possible, which isn’t easy in my cheap, irritating dress.

As the queen enters the room, her daunting presence immediately takes over, and I feel my body turn to jelly.

How the hell am I going to cope with this? I’m not even slightly prepared.

“Mum,” Edward can’t seem to sense the tension at all, as he steps towards her and kisses her on both cheeks.

“It’s so lovely to see you, I’m glad you’re here.”

“Hmmm…” she sneers disrespectfully, and I feel a cold sense of dread overcome me.

I knew this was going to be hard, but I wasn’t expecting her to be so… cold.

“Right. And who’s this?”

She looks me up and down as if I’m a piece of dirt on the floor. I feel myself shrink in on myself as she scrutinizes me. Any happiness that I was feeling about myself has completely gone now.

“This is Faith Harper,” he says proudly as he steps in between us.

“I met her yesterday at Tintagel Castle. We’ve been out today – I took her to the Royal Cornwall Museum.”

I start by awkwardly curtseying before stepping forward to shake her hand. I have no idea how I’m supposed to behave in the presence of royalty, and that’s making me very uncomfortable. But she doesn’t take my hand at all. Instead, she turns away from me, leaving me hanging there like an idiot.

Great, this is just wonderful!

“So what is your plan Edward?” She asks, as if I’m not even there.

“Where will you be going from here?”

My mind races as he answers, tuning them both out. She hates me, and I have no idea what to do about that. How do you make someone like you? It’s obviously because she thinks that I’m below her son, and there will never be anything that I can do to change that.

I should not be in this mess; I should be back at the hotel.

Eventually the queen leaves the room, but it’s too late for me.

The atmosphere is gone, and all I want to do is get as far away from here as possible. Luckily Edward seems to pick up on that, and he reacts accordingly like the gentleman he is.

“Come on,” he smiles sadly at me.

“I’ll call Marcus, let’s get you back.”

As we drive, Edward keeps trying to bring at least some of the happiness back, but I can’t seem to muster it up.

I want to, but it’s too late, and he doesn’t address that until we’ve arrived and I’m just about to step out of the car.

“I’m sorry,” he announces morosely as his face falls into sorrow.

“I’m sorry for the way mum treated you.” I flick my eyes over to him in shock. It didn’t seem like he noticed at the time!

“I know that she can be a bit… funny with people.”

I nod, wanting to say that was putting it mildly, but I force my lips to clamp together. There’s no point in making it worse than it already is. I can’t insult his mom – that would be a terrible start.

“Will you meet me tomorrow?” He asks, looking at me with deep concern.

“I have a surprise for you… if you still want to spend any time with me?”

“Err,” I think over my plans to get out of Cornwall as soon as possible – which I know is the smart thing to do – but yet again my heart wins out and I find myself agreeing with his suggestion.

“Okay, sure.”

I curse myself for being weak – do I have no control over myself? – but when he plants one chaste kiss on my lips, I know that I have no other choice. I have to at least try and see this through.

“I’ll see you in the morning then,” he smiles, before driving away and leaving me stunned outside my hotel door.

I
don’t get
much sleep that night because not only am I very excited about what I have planned for Faith; it takes a lot of organizing too, so I’m awake far into the night hours getting everything together.

What I’m doing might be rash, but I know that it’s right for us. Other people might not be able to understand what we’re doing – or at least, what I hope we’re going to do – but that doesn’t matter to me.

For the first time in my entire life, I’m following my heart, rather than doing what I know I
should
be doing.

The way that mum treated Faith last night made me feel horrible, even though I tried my best to disguise it at the time, but it has actually led to something good.

When I returned to the Hall, I told her that I was extending my time off from royal duties even longer, and there was nothing she could say to persuade me otherwise.

She argued of course, but I felt brave enough to stand up to her and say what I really felt.

I even chastised her for being so rude, not that she could see it herself. She’ll pout and ignore me for a while, but I know that she’ll come back round eventually, so I’m not too worried.

I need to do this, I
have
to and that’s the end of it. This is the first thing that I’ve ever done that’s just for me, and I’m happy about that.

As I step into the car, and tell Marcus to drive me back to Faith’s hotel in the early hours of the morning, my heart races with excitement.

I can’t wait to see her face when I reveal my surprise. I have no idea how she’s going to react to my bold suggestion, but I can only hope that it’s in a positive way.

I climb out onto the road where I know that Faith is staying, and I scan the nearby area for somewhere that I can take her to reveal my news.

There’s a sweet strawberry themed coffee shop nearby that looks perfect – not too busy, and not too flashy either.

Faith doesn’t seem like the sort who would be too impressed by money, unless it’s being spent in the right way. She really loved the museum plan I put together yesterday, so it’s things like that I want to impress her with.

As she sways through the door, looking absolutely beautiful in a white, flowing summer dress, I feel my heart literally skip a beat – just like that first day I saw her – and my face bursts into an automatic smile.

I’ll never get tired of seeing that gorgeous girl, and I hope that I’ll never have to let her go.

“Hi Faith,” I call out, and she races towards me before throwing her arms around me in a hug.

I’m surprised because she seemed very distant when we parted last night, but I can see now that had much more to do with my mum, than me. I can feel her emotions flowing between us, and that makes me even more confident that she’s going to love what I have for her next.

“Would you like to come for a drink in the café with me?”

She grins and nods, which is another good sign.

“It should be nice and quiet in there.”

I’ve been lucky not to get photographed during my time in Cornwall, and if I can go another day then I will be able to explore things without the entire world trying to work out who Faith is. She doesn’t seem like the type of girl who will like that one bit, and I don’t want to force that upon her, just because of who I am.

We sit down and order some drinks, and I find myself tapping my hands against the table nervously. Faith is also giving me an odd look that suggests that my fear of being rejected is plastered all across my face. I either need to start acting normal, or confess what I’m here for.

“Are you okay?” She eventually asks, staring at me intently, and I realize that normal isn’t an option here.

“Yeah, I’m just… I’m…”

Oh God, why can’t I get my words out properly? I’ve never been this way with anyone in my entire life!

“Okay,” I blow out some air. “Here is the surprise.”

Then I place the tickets down on the table, hoping that she’ll get my point without me having to say too much. She picks them up and study’s them carefully, that confusion never leaving her face once.

Oh God, she isn’t getting it. This isn’t going well at all.

“What’s this?” She asks, finally glancing up at me. “What are you showing me these for?”

Okay, just say it. Just do it.

“I know that this is crazy,” I start.

“But I think we have a special bond here, and I’m not ready to lose that yet.”

She sits up straighter in her seat, really paying attention now.

“I want to come with you as you travel, to see the historical aspects of the world with you… if that’s okay.”

“I, err… I don’t know what to say,” she giggles nervously.

“That’s a bit… crazy. And first class tickets?”

“Well you said that you couldn’t wait to head to Belgium, and I would love to come too. So why not travel in style?”

I shrug my shoulders, trying to act blasé as if it doesn’t matter what her answer would be, but inside I was praying for her say yes.

“But… this isn’t an airline that I recognize?” She asks curiously, really studying the tickets now.

“Okay, I’ll admit it,” I’m forced to concede.

“These tickets are fake. We can go on my private airline… if you like. I just wanted to do something symbolic.”

“Wow, this is…” she’s floundering and I know that I need to be silent to allow her to make her decision by herself.

I don’t want to pressure her in any way because the last thing I want is for her to regret her choice later on. This is her trip and I don’t want to impinge on it if she doesn’t want me to.

“I would normally say no, but… I don’t know, this seems like a cool idea.”

“Really?” I ask, wanting her to be really sure. I’m not going to do this unless I’m convinced that she definitely wants me.

“Really,” she nods and smiles, confirming this finally.

My heart lifts with excitement as I realize it’s actually about to happen. She said yes, and we can travel together across Europe – I’m not losing her after all!

“I’d love to go travelling with you.”

“Great,” I grin, feeling happier than ever before.

“I didn’t want to tell you this in case you thought I was pressuring you into saying yes, but I’ve also organized some tours by European history curators, so we can see things that aren’t normally open to the public again – I know how much you enjoyed that.”

“Wow,” she gasps eagerly. “I can’t wait.”

And neither can I…

* * *

O
n the plane
over the Belgium, we write a list of all the places that we really want to visit, and by the end of it, I can’t help but joke.

“We’re never going to get home at this rate,” I insist, as we both laugh.

“We have Paris, Rome, Cork, Helsinki, Budapest, Gothenburg…”

“Okay, okay,” she finally concedes.

“I know that we can’t see them
all
, but we can do quite a bit of it can’t we?”

She gives me pleading eyes, which I really struggle to resist. I know that I only have a limited time before my royal duties kick in once more, but in this moment, I really want to give this woman the world.

The way that she’s looking at me is making me feel all funny inside, and I cannot believe my luck that we’re here together, about to explore the world – or some of it at least.

“We’ll see what we can do,” I promise her.

“But we can be certain of one thing; this is going to be amazing.”

And I’m not wrong.

Each city that we visit is beautiful, astonishing and I fall in love with each and every place. I even picture myself living everywhere, living a normal life with no title and no responsibilities… although I know that can never happen. Once born into royalty, there’s just no escaping it.

But I can fantasize at least.

On top of that, Faith and I get on amazingly, growing closer every single day.

The only slight struggle we have is when one of her friends emails her a candid picture that must have been taken of us while we were in Venice, which sparked a small media interest.

Luckily, and by some miracle, the national press didn’t manage to get their hands on the picture, so it died down pretty quickly – but it did upset her, and understandably so. She didn’t sign up to be in the public eye, and I know firsthand how unnerving it can be.

I didn’t want to explain to her that being watched is what my life is all about.

I can never do anything in complete privacy, and if she were to choose to spend more time with me, that would be her life too. I don’t want to do anything to put her off me, so that shock has caused me to keep my distance. I don’t want to drag her in unless that’s really what she wants. I would never do that to anyone. When booking this trip, I thought that it was going to be the most romantic few weeks of my life, but I’ve been forcing myself to keep my distance until she lets me know that it’s something she wants. We’ve been acting more like friends than anything else, which does break my heart, but it’s better than not having her in my life at all.

If I’d lost her back in Cornwall, I would have been spending this time utterly bereft.

Luckily, everything changes when we get to Ireland. Just as I’ve started to give up on anything romantic
ever
happening between us, she does something very brave and she actually asks me about it, forcing me to explain.

“Edward?” She queries, as we’re sitting gazing out over the river.

“Do you… do you not like me? Really like me, I mean?”

“What?” I gasp, feeling awful.

Have I really made her feel that bad?

“Of
course
I do. I just… I didn’t want to do anything that you didn’t want to.”

“You English boys are so different to what I’m used to,” she muses thoughtfully.

“I’m more used to guys being overly forward.”

“I… I’m sorry that I’m not like that,” I start to feel self-conscious.

Have I been rubbish? Have I put her off me forever with me typical English politeness?

“No, no,” she insists, giving me that gorgeous smile once more.

“I like it. It’s different. It’s nice.”

And then she leans forward and kisses me with a renewed vigor, sparking my emotions all over again.

Oh God, this girl is amazing and I really want her, but I need things to be right between us. I need to ensure that we’re solid before anything else can happen between us – I don’t want to do
anything
that could mess this up. Not when it’s so wonderful.

“Where do you want to go next?” I ask as we pull apart, thinking of all the romantic places that I could possibly take her in the world.

Now that we’ve decided to bring love – or at the very least lust – back into this, I want our next move to be the right one.

“Paris,” she replies breathlessly, and I instantly know that will be perfect.

Paris is known as the city of love – what could be better than that?