Then something in my periphery twitched, and I jerked my head sideways. Pembroke’s main drive bent around and connected with a slim back street alluringly named Beef Lane, at the corner of which I could swear a camera lens was poking out at us.
“Nick,” I said, nodding toward it. “I think we’ve got company.”
Nick whipped his head around and squinted. “Are you fucking serious?” he said.
The heat between us evaporated as his coat fell down to his side, and I felt the frigid raindrops crash anew onto my head. As if he were conjured by magic, PPO Twiggy crept up Beef Lane and shoved the camera lens with his hand, as PPO Stout blocked me from sight and unlocked Pembroke’s door in a fraction of the time my freezing, stiff fingers could have done it.
Nick looked shaken and irate, the very image of a guy whose careful bubble had just burst. But he had nothing on the murderous expression on Twiggy, who had a cameraman by the scruff of the neck and was waving Nick over, his face scarlet with rage.
Lady Bollocks appeared in the open doorway, ready to pop open an umbrella. She stopped short at the kerfuffle.
“Now you’ve bloody done it,” she said to Nick, not unkindly.
“Can you get her inside, please, Bea?” Nick pleaded.
“Wait, is that seriously the paparazzi?” I asked.
But he’d already turned to go, Stout by his side. Bea all but lifted me inside the college and closed the door. I skidded on the wet stone entry and had to stabilize myself on her arm.
“Did they see your face?” she demanded. “What have you done?”
I was too breathless to do anything but stare blankly at the closed door. Bea grabbed me and forcibly turned my face to her.
“Were you snogging him?” she snapped, eyes narrow, which was their default state where I was concerned. “I could throttle that boy, carrying on with the Sofa Queen in public. You’d best hope you’re not the ruin of him.”
And she barged out the door, leaving me hot and bothered in several senses of the word.
*
The camera crew turned out to be from Prince Charming Productions, owned by Nick’s uncle Edwin, who is something of a gadfly and entirely a fool. After quitting the British Royal Navy claiming that he had raging seasickness, and then catting about being of extremely little use for two decades, Edwin was told in no uncertain terms that he had to do something. Evidently he chose the movie business, and planned for the first Prince Charming production to be a documentary about growing up royal, including candid footage—so he called it—of Nick being a university student. A documentary he’d told no one about, much less gotten approved.
“It was all a terrible misunderstanding,” the round, red face of Edwin had told the BBC. “The camera wasn’t even on. We’ve all had a tea and some biscuits and sorted it out.”
The papers had a field day with this, until a pop star on Celebrity Lawn Darts came down with necrotizing fasciitis. Never a speck of footage emerged, but Nick vanished to Clarence House yet again, presumably to figure out if further PR spackle was required, and I hadn’t seen him since that evening. I could still feel his hands on me, and I wanted to feel them again. It was like reverse electroshock therapy: one jolt and I was out of my mind.
“So, you two were just huddled up in the doorway. How close was he to you, exactly?” Lacey asked for the umpteenth time, on our umpteenth phone call, the week after Edwingate.
“Pretty close,” I said. “And he touched my face, and then it was like we froze.”
Lacey sighed dreamily. “Oxford is so romantic,” she said. “I went out the other night with a guy who spent the entire time talking about Tom Brady, and you’re five seconds away from making out with a prince. It’s really not fair.”
“I wish I knew what to do,” I said, getting off of my bed and going over to my window. “The old Bex would just march up and kiss him, but I can’t seem to find her right now.”
“That’s because you actually care what happens for once,” Lacey said wisely.
“But what if he doesn’t care?” I lamented, pressing my forehead against the cool glass of the window.
“I know it’s scary,” Lacey told me. “But you can’t pretend you don’t feel anything, Bex, and you’ll be miserable if you do.”
I hung up the phone and tapped it lightly against my chin, then wrapped myself tighter in my giant woolen cardigan and poured another glass of boxed wine—the official drink of emotionally confused women on a budget. Suddenly, a soft knock came at my door in the cadence Nick usually used. With embarrassing speed, I leapt up and threw open the door, and Clive saw every inch of how far, and fast, my face fell when I realized it was him.
“And there it is,” he said, pained.
“What do you…um,” I stammered, unable to salvage it.
Silently, Clive pushed inside, at which point I noticed he was clutching his laptop. He opened it, tapped a few keys, and turned it so I could see what was on the screen: a grainy still of Nick huddled up with a woman right outside the Pembroke door. You couldn’t see my face, but the intimacy was as screaming as my red scarf.
“I knew that camera was on,” I said. “Where did you even get this?”
“I have sources,” Clive said. “The only people who’ve seen these are in the very innermost circle.”
I stifled the urge to tell him to cram it. Clive did so love being in the know.
“I owe you an apology,” I said instead. “I’ve been a total jerk. I should have talked to you about…well, I should have talked to you. Period.”
“No arguments there,” Clive said, closing his laptop with a click.
“But I swear this was totally innocent. It was pouring and my hair was stuck—”
“Come on, Bex,” Clive interrupted with a reproachful look. “I’m obviously not a prince, but I’m not stupid.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. Clive deserved the honesty I had been too scared to give to myself.
“I care about you, for whatever that’s worth,” I said. “But yeah, there’s something there with me and Nick. At least on my side.”
Clive sat down on the edge of my bed, deflated. He’d known the score, but it didn’t sting any less to hear it.
“Congratulations,” he said. “You just added yourself to a long list of girls who’ve decided Nick is their destiny.”
“I know, it’s predictable as hell. I hate that,” I said, sitting down next to him. “Girl goes to England, girl meets prince…”
“…Girl sleeps with his friend a lot…”
“…Girl fucks up royally. Pun intended, I guess,” I said with a wry but unhappy smile that Clive did not return. “Look, I don’t know if you and I would have worked out even if Nick didn’t exist. But he does. And I guess I kept thinking it would be easier if you and I could just…drift apart. How do you break up with someone you’re not officially dating?”
“But just fading out, Bex?” Clive asked. “You knew I liked you. You knew it wasn’t just sex for me. You had to know.”