Cocky Duke: A Modern Aristocracy Billionaire Romance (Endowed Book 1) Page 3

  He runs his gaze critically over the uninspired lumps of metal. I'm glad it's keeping his mind off whatever's really bothering him, because something is.

  After perusing two levels of twisted metal shapes, we're back at the main entrance. Uncle Stig glances at his watch for the hundredth time. “Nine ten already? I must leave you here, my dear. I hope that's okay with you?”

  I try not to let my relief show. He pats me on the shoulder and slinks out the door and disappears into the jostling London commuter crowd.

  The Tate's café opens earlier than the museum, so I reckon it's time for a coffee and I'll be first in line for the tickets.

  The café inside the Tate is all glass and chrome, uber–cool with a jaw–dropping view of the city. I take a seat by the window overlooking the Thames and finger the delicate vase with a single fresh rose in the center of the table. Since it's early and the café is nearly empty, I've got the best seat.

  As I'm mentally tracing the outline of St. Paul's dome, the waitress comes over. “Yes, ma'am?”

  “I'll have a cup of coffee and scones with jam and cream, please.” I couldn't eat yesterday, so I'm already relishing the powdery dusting of flour on the scones and the sweet fluffy dough inside, peppered with raisins, the thick clotted cream, and most of all the piping hot coffee, which I can already smell.

  “Um—?” Her forehead wrinkles. “Aren't you the—aren't you the girl … the girl from the video? Yes, you are! The duke's wet T–shirt girl!”

  The last bit comes out as a screech and all the staff in the café turn in our direction.

  Geez, does every Londoner do nothing but watch YouTube? What were the chances? I debate lying, but what would be the point? I'm even wearing the same blazer as last night. I cast my eyes downward.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh my God, c'mere, Janice.”

  A waitress rushes up. “Lord, it is her. I thought so when she walked in. I even said it to Carlos and all.”

  I purse my lips into a tight smile as she beckons Carlos over. These people clearly need to get a life.

  “So what's he like?” the first waitress asks.

  “Did you get a ride in his helicopter?”

  “Um, no,” I say.

  “Oh, here, could I get your autograph?” The waitress called Janice turns around her notepad and shoves it under my nose, followed by a pen.

  “Just in case,” the first waitress says.

  “Yeah, just in case,” Janice echoes, with a giggle.

  “Just in case what?” I look up into her eager face.

  Her eyes widen at my question. “In case you become a duchess.”

  “Right.” I finish my name scrawl—nothing like my usual signature—and hand it back to her. As the café staff mill around, it's clear that I'm not going to have a moment's peace if I stay here.

  “I'm sorry.” I clutch my purse. “But I have to go. Cancel my order.”

  I stumble out of the café, back into the main hall, which has become busier and offers some degree of anonymity. It's then that I feel my damn phone buzzing against my hip bone again. I whip it out of my pocket. He's getting to be really annoying. I've stored his contact as “Big Cucumber.” I even found a still life image of a cucumber by Pavel Shmarov to add to his profile.

  I'm not going to answer. It's either some kind of cat and mouse game for his entertainment, or he really does expect me to pay his dry–cleaning bill. But what if he's tracking the phone? If he is somehow related to the Windsors, then I bet he has access to the highest levels of security and has the power to locate me if he really wants to.

  I picture him, lounging on a rococo armchair, following my SIM card's progress through London on a large screen with a little flashing green light to indicate my position, barking out orders to his SWAT team to intercept me. Yes, I'm being paranoid, but Uncle Stig's told me tales of what really goes on behind the scenes in his own embassy, and in a duke's castle, it's probably a level or two more bizarre.

  I glance around. At the corner to the left of the gallery entrance, there's a man standing holding the Financial Times in front of him like a movie cliché. I'm pretty sure he wasn't there a minute ago. Am I being followed?

  The phone feels hot in my hand. It buzzes again. I've lost count now. I'd take the SIM card out, only this freaking phone is impossible to open up without a paperclip and who the hell goes around London carrying a paperclip? A thought strikes me, and I laugh. This phone is an old thing I brought over with me for emergencies. I don't actually need it, especially if I'm flying back tomorrow. When I gaze through the gallery entrance again, the Golden Jubilee footbridges seem to be calling out to me.

  I start walking. When I reach the middle of the footbridge, I wait until no other pedestrians are looking, take the phone, and toss it over the railing. Down, down, down it falls into the green–gray murkiness of the Thames. I see a distant splash. A couple of gulls flutter away.

  Ta–dah. Track that, cocky duke.

  How easy was that? One fewer man in my life who's trying to control me. I skip along the bridge feeling lighter, reckless, flushed in victory. No one, not even Dad or Uncle Stig, can reach me now. I have the rest of the day to structure as I want to. I just have to buy a cheap hat and sunglasses so nobody else recognizes me.

  4

  ALEX

  SHE'S NOT ANSWERING? Fuck this.

  We went to a fair amount of trouble on her behalf. Marty confirmed the number was real—temporary SIM purchased on May 16th, two days ago, at Heathrow—and he blocked it from his colleagues. I don't know how many times I called her. Twenty? Fifty? Hell of a lot more than she deserves. I know she's using the phone, because it was engaged one time, so she's decided to ignore me. She's probably packing for her flight tomorrow.

  At this stage I just want to wash my hands of Stig Lawson and his fiery little niece. But her hazel eyes keep flashing into my mind and then the image of some scary Azerbaijanis with sawn–off shotguns.

  Marty's right—she's nothing like the women I usually bump into at Jayvees—the sleek, semi–starving, smooth–talking social butterflies who have my net worth calculated down to the nearest pound sterling. It's her innocence—or perhaps her fake innocence—wrapped up in a smart, sassy–mouthed package that gets to me, I suppose. Her eyes sparkle with an optimism that's hard to find in my jaded circles of entitled women. And her glorious and very natural tits, God help me. Why is that breed of woman so hard to find these days?

  I hear squabbling in the next door office. I shove my phone back in my pocket, push my chair away from the desk and get up.

  “Tell him, Alex!” Letty says the minute I cross the threshold. My sister flounces her hair back over her shoulders and scowls at Ken sitting opposite her at the conference table strewn with Town & Country magazines.

  “Tell him what?” I ask.

  “If we allow Town & Country to feature us in August's edition, it'll help with your Saudi wedding bid.”

  I smile. Letty's taking my new venture seriously. I know it's a distraction from business as usual—the running of the family eco–farm conglomerate—but I'm hopeless at figuring out the tenants' accounts and Seb certainly didn't make it easy by just disappearing without a trace with no contingency plan. I've got more chance if I start something new.

  “I don't see how,” Ken says, drumming his fingers on the table. “Abbeydale has ninety–six rooms in much better nick than ours, breath–taking gardens, two hundred thousand visitors last year. The direct comparison can only hurt us.”

  “We should pull out all the stops for the photoshoot anyway,” I say. “Adjust the central heating for the rooms they'll be using, and take off the dust sheets. When is it, Letty?”

  “Friday fortnight. Publication in July's edition.”

  “Okay, we'll call up all the temp staff to come in, get the place shining, and hover impressively in the background on the day.”

  Ken folds his arms. “Which is a bank holiday, in case you hadn't noticed.”

/>   “We'll pay them double.”

  “Throw more money around, and why not?” he mutters.

  “Go sell a racehorse,” I retort.

  “And you a helicopter,” he snaps back.

  “I have a piano I could sell.” Letty's voice cuts in sweetly.

  There's a silence. I can't help but wonder why we've had some kind of argument like this every single day since Seb disappeared. It all seemed so harmonious before. Part of the reason, of course, is that Ken fears that the Saudi wedding bid will be a flop because it's my idea.

  Letty pipes up again. “The Abbeydales aren't nearly as photogenic as we are. Lady Bromwell's hitting fifty. Botox isn't doing it for her. And His Lordship's like a corpse dressed up. I bet the Saudi prince prefers young aristocracy, especially good–looking ones like us.”

  “And when push comes to shove, he's only a viscount.”

  Letty and Ken exchange glances.

  “It matters,” I insist.

  “That's not what you said a month ago.” Ken leans back in his seat. “If I recall, you said ‘fuck the title’ as you threatened to throw the coronet in the duck pond.”

  “Then,” Letty adds, “you proposed faking your own death so Ken could become duke.”

  “You got me on a bad day.” It was three days after the funeral and I was still drunk. “Let's focus on now. And I still say we have every chance of snatching this wedding from under old Bromwell's nose.”

  Letty smacks her lips pensively. “Although with Seb gone, we may have lost some of our star quality.”

  “Abbeydale's south roof isn't falling in either, is it?” Ken asks.

  I sit down beside Letty. “We'll get the roof fixed.”

  “How?” His brow crinkles up into its familiar withering expression. “It's half an acre of slate. That gobbles up our budget for the rest of the year, especially if you're going to keep cancelling our open days.”

  “Ken.” Letty lets out a dramatic sigh. "You're focusing on the negative. The small details.”

  “You're an airhead who wouldn't know a detail if it bit you on your surgically–corrected nose.”

  “All right, all right.” I hold up my hand for a ceasefire. “You are a tad intense these days, Ken, always sweating the small stuff. Look, we couldn't have open days in a period of mourning.”

  Ken rises. “And you just walk in with the solution to everything, except you're the biggest problem. Those YouTube videos? I can't see many Saudi princes queueing up to get married here now, can you?”

  I glare at him. “He won't care about that. The guy runs a personal harem. I'm a Catholic schoolboy compared to him.”

  Ken snorts. “Better be right about that.”

  “Of course I am. Have a little faith. We just need to talk to these people the way they like to be talked to. Why do you think I'm learning Arabic?”

  “Yeah, I forgot, good luck with that.”

  “I think it's brilliant,” Letty enthuses.

  I flash her a grin. “Thanks, Letty.”

  There's a long silence.

  “If we're talking to a prince, then I should at least have a courtesy title too,” Ken grumbles. "He won't know if it's real or not."

  “Yes, Alex, you've surely plenty enough to go around—Earl of Cessford, Viscount of Bowmount?” Letty says with a laugh. "Marquess of Tullibardine?"

  “Okay, I hereby declare you Viscount of Bowmount,” I say in mock solemnity to Ken, happily breaking a venerable 800–year tradition of succession laws.

  His face lightens up, which is what I was aiming for. “I want to be Earl.”

  I pretend to ponder the issue. “Shouldn't we leave that for Seb?”

  “All right,” he concedes. “Viscount it is.”

  “What–what?” Letty rises and struts toward me swinging her feather boa under my chin. “Am I to remain empty handed?”

  “Countess would suit you.” I grin up at her. “But you'd have to marry Peter for that, wouldn't you?”

  “Oooh.” Her eyes glow with mischief. “He's not the only Earl in Britain, you know.”

  Although we all end up laughing, my stomach is churning as it always is at the start of the working day. No incumbent duke wants to be the one who doesn't pass the family estate and business on in a better condition than they received it in. I don't want to be that guy.

  But I'm not Seb. I never will be. I don't have his skills, his workaholic temperament, or his magnetic melancholy that seems to make farmers trust him and the rich want to empty their pockets to him.

  I was this close to hiring a new operations director to sort out the eco–farming business, but Mother begged me not to. She said it would send a signal to Seb that he's not wanted back. That's probably what he's waiting for … confirmation that the world really is the dark, unwelcoming place he thinks it is. Sheesh.

  Meanwhile, I'm left in limbo, not knowing if or when he's coming back from wherever–the–fuck he is. I can keep this game up for another month more, but that's it. If he's not back by then, I'm hiring someone as capable as he is for the tasks of managing this whole shebang, no matter what Mother says. I may have to emigrate if the fallout is too devastating. God knows I wouldn't be the first idle, absentee duke this country has ever known.

  But first things first—get ahold of this Hayley person. I can't have her on my conscience, too. I'll try her phone one last time.

  Huh. It's not even ringing now. What does that mean? I guess the phone's dead. She probably poured a Cosmopolitan over it. Damn it anyway. I don't know why, but I want to know where she is.

  5

  HAYLEY

  “DAMN FINE LOOKING MAN, I'll give you that.” Mara's red hair bounces in the Skype window as she nods her appreciation. Her excited voice echoes off the hard, polished surfaces of the room as if my bestie's right here with me. I'm upstairs in Winfield House—the ambassadorial residence—in the second drawing room with the eighteenth–century French boiseries, marble chimneypiece, and somewhat uncomfortable sofas. I'm waiting for Uncle Stig to be ready so we can leave for Heathrow.

  Mara wants to dissect the YouTube video again because it wasn't embarrassing enough the first time around. The hit count is hitting half a million. Every time I watch it, my nipples seem to jut out further. It's a pity they didn't disable the comments because there's a horrendous number of haters out there, keyboard warriors who feel entitled to attack every aspect of my personality and my body. Or maybe that was the whole point.

  “Oh yes,” I groan. “Big Cucumber improves each time I watch it, whereas I slide closer to slut hell.”

  Mara giggles. “You sure about the big part? There's not much visible on the video.”

  “Oh, I'm sure. You can't be that cocky if you're not well endowed—in every sense of the word.”

  “And you're absolutely sure it was him who kept calling?”

  “Unless it was you, Mara, playing a prank, yes.”

  Her chocolate brown eyes brim with mischief. “I'd have picked up. Just saying.”

  “Well, it doesn't matter now,” I say. Leaving London feels like defeat even after cramming in the Portraits and Tate into a migraine–inducing art marathon yesterday. Mara is about the only person in the world I can bear talking to anymore. She's the only friend who understands the Bermuda Triangle that is the relationship between me, Dad and Uncle Stig. She knows what it meant for me to break free and go on this trip in the first place, and hence she also understands how disappointing this bitter end is.

  “How are things over there?” I ask, keen to change the subject. "Any interesting projects come in?"

  “Not yet. Still waiting.” Her voice is far too perky for an architect's assistant who's done a twelve–hour stint of monkey work. Anyone else would be wilting away if they worked as she did—interning for Mike's little architectural office while studying in Portland at the same time. I suspect I'm the first person she's talked to today apart from her slave-driver.

  "Oh, I met your dad at lunchtime in Freddy's
and he didn't mention YouTube, so you're safe for the moment. He's so isolated, Hayley. This is the one time you should appreciate your rustic existence out on the gorge.”

  Okay, so she's talked to Dad. She often does because he's so much nicer to her than her own emotionally retarded father. “Yeah, but the flight's fifteen hours," I say gloomily. "That's a long time on the Internet.”

  “Should I go over and guard your house and protect him from any gossipy neighbors?”

  “Would you?” I ask, knowing it's impossible.

  Mara shakes her head in amusement. “What did you tell him about your phone anyway?”

  I shrug. “That I lost it.” That particular email went out a few minutes ago. No details. I hate lying, especially to Dad. “Oh, Mara, I'm dreading landing this evening. He'll be so disappointed. This is exactly the kind of thing he was worried about.”

  “No, he was worried about you getting abducted, not flashing your tits at a duke.” Mara's struggling not to laugh. “Although I don't know how thrilled he'll be when he does see it.”

  I bury my head in my hands. “It's practically porn.”

  “All you can do is pretend it's a stunt to draw attention to your … body of work.”

  “Uncle Stig's saying the same thing.”

  “Well, he seems to know a lot about infamy. I'd say his days are numbered as ambassador.”

  I lift my head up again. “No, Mara, Uncle Stig's innocent. It's that stupid duke trying to frame him for something, just for kicks. It's a setup of some kind. The question is why? Surely he's got a whole cabinet of British ministers he could trash if he wanted to—”

  There's a knock on the door.

  I leap up. “Hold on a sec, someone at the door. Back in a sec.”

  It's my uncle, all dressed for outside with his navy Burberry overcoat and matching scarf and umbrella. He strides in, wringing his hands. His gaze darts around the room. “Who were you talking to?”

  “Just Mara.” I point to my Skype window.

  “Right. Hayley, I'm afraid we need to change plans again. The flights, we can't get them. I'm told it's not safe.”