Spare Me

Chapter 10

Mr. Martini

Bad news bears

Who in their right mind says ‘bad news bears’? Is this a cry for help? Have you been kidnapped?

Mr. Martini

I need to cancel.

Oh, that’s ok. Everything alright?

Mr. Martini

Yeah, it’s fine, I’m just a little under the weather.

Define “under the weather”

Mr. Martini

It’s just a mild flu. Eric had it last week. His kids brought it home from nursery.

“A mild flu”?

Have you seen a doctor? Do you have a fever?

Mr. Martini

I’ll be fine, I just need some time to lie around.

Is Eric there with you?

Mr. Martini

No, it’s Saturday. He’s home with his absurdly attractive husband and their two ridiculously cute kids.

What about the rest of your staff? Your family?

Mr. Martini

My housekeeper only comes during the week, my parents are at Windsor for the weekend, and god knows where Ben and Hannah are.

M addy rolled her eyes. Really, what was the point of having basically limitless generational wealth if not to use it for sensible things like hiring help?

But you have enough medicine and Powerade and stuff, right?

There was a long pause. She saw the bubbles indicating that Alex was typing appear and disappear a few times before she finally gave up and called him.

“Mads, I’m really fine,” he said, in lieu of a more standard greeting. But his voice was raspy and as soon as he got that one sentence out he was overtaken by a hacking cough that ended with a frankly pitiful sounding groan.

“Tell me again how you’re fine,” she said drily. When no response came she went on. “Are you at least hydrating? Have you taken anything? ”

She heard him sigh and a rustling of fabric that made her think he was trying to get more comfortable wherever he was lying. “It’s just a little flu.”

She frowned. “So no and no. How long have you been sick?”

“A few days,” he said quietly. “And I ran out of paracetamol yesterday.”

“Alex,” she said, gentle chastisement in her voice. “Why didn’t you order more? Certainly they have UberEats at Kensington, if you refuse to ask anyone else to help.”

“I didn’t want to be a bother.”

Maddy sighed. She didn’t have plans for the day since she and Alex had planned to watch a movie and order takeout again. Showing up at his house with supplies was taking their friendship a step further than she really intended to. But she was also worried that he wasn’t taking care of himself, which was pretty much her kryptonite.

“I’m coming over. I’ll be there in an hour with more medicine and some Powerade.”

“Mads, really, I’m fine. I don’t want to get you sick.” She noted that his protests were getting weaker and weaker. He seemed to have picked up on the fact that she wasn’t going to give up.

“We’ll see about that,” she grumbled, getting to her feet and slipping into her shoes. “Text me the code to get into your door.”

An hour later, Maddy let herself into Alex’s apartment, opening the door the smallest possible amount to prevent letting Bertie out. She was surprised to find that he wasn’t there, waiting to attack her ankles. “Alex?” she called out, toeing off her shoes in the entryway.

She heard a cough, followed by “I told you I was fine,” wafting down from the second-floor sitting room in a voice that was clearly anything but fine.

She followed the sound of Alex’s wracking cough to find him lying on his side on the couch, huddling under a navy-blue chenille blanket. He was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, and his cheeks were flushed, eyes glassy. Bertie lay in the crook of his bent knees, his small head and paws resting on Alex’s hips. “Good boy,” she said to the dog, whose face wore what could only be described as a look of concern. She scratched him absentmindedly behind his ears as she turned to his person.

“Fine, eh?” she said, putting down the shopping bag she carried and leaning over to feel his forehead. His skin burned beneath her cool hands and her brow creased with concern. “Have you taken your temperature?”

He sighed. “Not today. Maddy, it’s just a flu. I’ll be fine, really. I don’t want you to catch this.”

“I really thought royals were supposed to have staff to dote on you 24/7,” she grumbled. He coughed again and groaned. She softened her tone. “Where’s the thermometer?”

“In my bathroom, in the cabinet behind the mirror,” he said, sounding exhausted and resigned to his fate as her patient.

“OK, I’ll be right back,” she said heading towards the hall.

From her previous visit to his apartment she had a vague idea of where his room was, but she hadn’t actually been in it. She pushed open the door and took in his space. It was large with cream walls and light carpet. Just to the right of the door, a towering armoire stood against the wall. A window seat piled with throw pillows was centered on the wall to the right, overlooking the rest of Kensington Palace. There was a small sitting area anchored by a plush forest-green circular carpet, patterned in elaborately creeping white flowers. His bed was to the left. Medium-brown wood with posts that soared toward the ceiling, it was less ornate than she would have imagined a prince’s bed would be. Not that she’d imagined his bed. Covered in mountains of snowy pillows and a white duvet, it looked surprisingly cozy and inviting. Maddy found herself wondering what it would be like to launch herself at it and sprawl across the large mattress. Or to be thrown onto it from strong, muscular arms…

Realizing she’d been standing there staring, Maddy headed across the room toward a door that obviously led to an en suite bathroom. Making a conscious effort not to be too nosy, she went straight to the medicine cabinet, located the thermometer, and returned to the sitting room.

“Where’s your water?” she asked, pulling a bottle of pills from her bag and shoving the thermometer under his tongue.

“Um…” Alex looked around blearily, his voice garbled by the thermometer. “In the faucet?”

“Doesn’t even have a water bottle,” she grumbled under her breath, as she reached into the bag of supplies she’d brought with her and handed him a red Powerade as the thermometer beeped. “Thirty-eight point six… I have no idea what that number really means, but you’re burning up, so you’re going to take some of these.” He heaved himself up to a half-sitting position so he could crack the seal as she handed him two white pills.

“What have you eaten today?” she asked, looking around and noting a lack of dishes nearby.

“Uhm…” Thinking seemed to be hard for him. “I had a protein bar when I woke up.”

“Oh, Alex.” She sighed. “If I heat up some soup, will you eat it?”

“I don’t have any soup,” he mumbled, snuggling back down into the couch, Bertie resettling himself around Alex’s legs as he shifted .

“Then it’s a good thing I brought some,” she said, pulling a clear plastic takeout container out of her bag.

“Mads, I don’t want any,” he said, almost whining. “I really don’t feel well.”

“‘Mads,’ huh?” she said, smiling at him with amusement.

“You’re so good to me, Mads.” He gave her a loopy smile.

She rolled her eyes. “Ok, I’m going to put this in the fridge. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” he mumbled, miserably.

Maddy found her way down to the small but lavishly appointed kitchen on the first floor. She put a second bottle of Powerade and two containers of soup in his fridge, noting that there was also something in there that looked like shepherd’s pie.

She stopped for a moment, thinking. If she was smart, she’d leave. She’d checked on him, made sure he was hydrating, and brought him food, medicine, and electrolytes. Technically, she’d fulfilled her duties as a friend. But he seemed so pathetic and sick, and he clearly wasn’t going to call anyone else to come take care of him. Against her better judgment she sighed and headed back up to the sitting room, preparing for the long haul.

The medication helped his fever a little, and Alex drifted in and out of sleep for much of the afternoon. She sat in a surprisingly cozy armchair and read a book on her phone, prompting him to drink when he woke and coaxing him to eat a few crackers and even a bit of soup at one point.

As evening fell, though, his fever returned. “Maddy, I don’t feel good,” he whined, thrashing his legs on the couch as he tried to get comfortable and dislodging a disgruntled Bertie in the process.

“I know, Alex,” she said placatingly, coming over to feel his forehead. He was burning up again, but it was too soon for him to take more medicine .

“That feels nice,” he said. She hesitated for a second before drawing a hassock closer to where he lay so she could gently stroke her hand through his hair. He sighed contentedly and quieted a bit. “You’re so good at this,” he said. “I don’t know how some lucky bastard hasn’t snatched you up yet. You’d be such a good wife. Such a good mum.”

She froze. She knew it was the fever talking and he probably wouldn’t remember any of the conversation, but all of a sudden she was tempted to tell him everything. She shook herself a bit and went back to running her fingers lightly through his hair. “That’s sweet, Alex,” was all she said. “But it’s not true.” Maybe someday you’ll understand why.

She almost thought he had fallen back to sleep when she heard him ask, “Did your mum take care of you when you were sick as a little girl?”

“Yes,” she said. “Where do you think I learned how?” She paused for a second, still calming his forehead with gentle caresses. “I was barely ever allowed to watch TV when I was a kid, but when I was sick, I could watch as much as I wanted. She’d bring me meals on the couch and sit at the other end reading her book while I watched TV.” Another pause. “Did your mother take care of you?” she asked, tentatively, almost afraid to hear the answer.

“Well, sort of,” he said, his eyes closed. “She had so many appearances to make so she was busy. It was mostly our nanny, but if Mum didn’t have to go out, she always put us to bed, and when we were sick, she’d usually come to sit with us at least a little during the day. She used to read to me…” he trailed off.

She’d noticed a book earlier, lying face down on the coffee table, open to a page part way through. “Do you want me to read to you?” she asked.

“Would you?” He looked up at her, surprised.

“Sure,” she said and reached for the book. It was a mystery by an author she wasn’t familiar with, but she just opened the book to where he’d stopped and started reading.

At some point she must have fallen asleep, because when she woke up, the book was lying open in her lap and her arm was asleep from where she had rested her head on the arm of the sofa, her elbow a somewhat bony pillow.

She shook herself and quietly reached for her phone to realize it was almost one a.m. She had a brief inner debate about just going back to sleep, but decided that it was going to be odd enough if anyone saw her sneaking out of Kensington Palace at one a.m., let alone seeing what would certainly look like the walk of shame the next morning. Gently, being careful not to disturb Alex, she straightened his blanket and brushed her hand across his forehead again. It was much cooler. His fever had broken. Hopefully with a good night’s sleep he’d wake up feeling much better the next morning.

As she crept over to pick up her bag, Bertie woke and jumped from the sofa, looking at her expectantly. Realizing he hadn’t been outside in hours, Maddy allowed him to follow her downstairs, located his leash near the backdoor, and quickly let him out to do his business. When he was done, Bertie immediately vaulted back up the stairs to resume his position nestled in the crook of Alex’s legs. Maddy followed the small dog up the stairs and took one final peek at Alex’s sleeping form. She resisted a sudden strange urge to drop a kiss on his forehead. Shaking herself, she turned resolutely toward the door, crept down the stairs, stepped into her shoes, shrugged on her coat, and slipped out into the cold night, pulling a bulky scarf up around her ears as she headed toward the gate.

When Alex opened his eyes the next morning, it took him a second to figure out where he was. He was slightly clammy, there was drool crusting one side of his chin, and Bertie was standing on his hips, nudging Alex’s shoulder with his snout, gently but insistently. And then it came to him. His den. He’d been sick. Maddy had taken care of him. Running his hand across his face, he gingerly sat up. “Do you need to go out, boy?” he asked, looking at Bertie, who quickly jumped down and sat in the doorway to the stairs.

He stood up slowly, realizing that he was sore, but that it was from sleeping curled up on his couch, not from the fever, and that he was tired, but not the bone-deep exhaustion he’d felt the day before. Whatever fresh hell that had taken him down for the last few days seemed to have passed. Bertie yipped impatiently and Alex finally started moving, following the corgi down the stairs and toward the back door of the apartment, where Bertie’s leash hung on a hook. Alex shrugged into the barn coat next to it and slid into the hideous but serviceable athletic shoes that rested next to the mat inside the back door before clipping Bertie’s leash to his collar and shuffling outside blearily.

The cold was bracing, the early morning air cleansing his lungs as he took some deep breaths and walked a ways into the park that extended behind his apartment so that Bertie could relieve himself. As Bertie wandered around, sniffing and marking every rock that he saw as his, Alex recalled the previous day.

When he’d texted Maddy to cancel, he never in a million years expected her to show up. Yes, if he’d texted his family someone would have dropped off a care package or sent a doctor to look in on him, but it had been years since anyone had truly taken care of him. He remembered her unique blend of pushiness and gentleness, forcing him to drink some Powerade, coaxing him to eat crackers, chiding him for not having been hydrating or feeding himself before she got there. And the way she’d sat with him, stroking his hair so tenderly it had been like… he suddenly remembered commenting on the fact that she wasn’t married, and groaned. What a stupid, insensitive thing to say. But her answer had been puzzling. That’s sweet, but it’s not true, Alex. What had she meant by that? As idiotic as it had been to hint at the question, he sort of understood why he had—the more time he spent with her, the more frequently he’d wondered. She was intelligent, funny, so kind, and beautiful. If a connection to him didn’t mean the end of a person’s privacy, he would have been begging her to date him, begging her to let him spoil her and take care of her… in more ways than one. He shook his head, trying to clear the mental image that had gone rushing straight to his brain and other critical organs at the mere passing idea of Maddy as his lover? Girlfriend? Wife? Who knows, but his baser side clearly wanted Maddy laid out beneath him, looking up into his eyes, writhing beneath him as he touched her…

He whistled to Bertie, tugging on his leash gently as he urged him back towards the warmth of the apartment. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that, despite Maddy’s best efforts, he’d eaten very little the day before. As he wiped Bertie’s paws and shrugged out of his jacket, Alex suddenly realized he had no idea where Maddy was. Was she still there? When had she left? The last thing he remembered was her soft voice reading his book to him, idly stroking his hair with one hand as she turned pages with the other. It had been dark outside, and she’d tried to coax him into eating some soup quite a while before he’d finally passed out. He glanced to where she would have left her shoes. Nothing. He had no idea what time it was, but it was still early. Frowning, he made his way back to his den and found his phone on the coffee table. He sank back into the sofa, exhausted even from just the short walk outside with Bertie. It was 7:30 a.m., and Maddy was definitely not in his house anymore. Picking it up, he saw that he had a text from her that had come in only a few minutes earlier.

The Hot American

How are you feeling today? Did you get enough sleep? When I left it felt like your fever had broken. Hopefully it hasn’t come back.

Much better, thanks. When did you leave?

The Hot American

After you went to sleep.

Madeleine. What time did you leave?

The Hot American

It wasn’t that long after midnight…

The way she was hedging told Alex it had been late, well into the night, and he found himself fighting off an itchy feeling that was equal parts anger, fear, and… some weird protective feeling that he was a little afraid to unpack too much.

Rather than continuing to badger her via SMS, Alex tapped the call button.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Her voice was soft and dreamy, as if she hadn’t been awake that long.

As if the first thing she did when she woke up was check on you? No, don’t be such a self-centered idiot, Alex.

“I’m much better, but I need to know what time you left my house and how you got home.”

“I told you, it was a little after midnight, and I got home just fine. I’m so glad you’re?—”

He cut her off before she could try to change the subject again. “Maddy,” he said in an imperious voice he had never used with her, but that he knew that, when deployed, brooked no arguments.

He heard her sigh. “I fell asleep reading to you and woke up around one. You were passed out and your fever had broken, so I decided to let you sleep. I took the Tube.”

“You took the Tube ?” he practically yelled. A small part of him knew he was overreacting, but he couldn’t take enough time to listen to that part. “At one in the morning! Maddy, that’s absurd! God knows what could have happened to you!”

“It’s not absurd. I was completely safe. I’m a big girl, Alex. I can take care of myself.” He could tell she was placating him, but there was also a slight edge there, as if she had had just about enough of his bullshit. And yet, he forged onward.

“Maddy, I know you can take care of yourself, but do you ever actually do it? The more I get to know you, the more I’m starting to suspect that you spend so much time looking after other people that you rarely stop to consider the possibility of taking care of yourself!”

The silence on the other end told him he’d pretty near nailed it.

“Mads.” He made a conscious effort to gentle his voice. “thank you so much for coming yesterday. Truly. It means so much to me that you’d just show up and listen to me babble and force red beverages down my throat for hours when you had plenty of other things you could have been doing. But the idea of you wandering around London in the middle of the night…” he trailed off, aware that he was overdoing it, but feeling a genuine, almost primal urge to protect this woman. “Just please promise me you won’t do that again. I can get you a car anytime. I just want you to be safe.”

“Alex, I’m fine. Nothing happened. I walked to the Tube. I was far from alone in taking the Tube even late at night, and I was texting one of my friends from college the whole time.” She paused. “But I appreciate your concern. ”

He sighed. “You’re not going to promise me, are you?”

“Unfortunately, as an American, I’m not one of your subjects, so I’m not actually required to obey you, Your Royal Highness.” Her voice dripped with wry sarcasm. “Even if you had any real authority.”

“Touché,” he responded. “Well, again, thank you. Really. It’s been years since anyone took care of me when I was sick. And I’m glad you got home safely.”

“You’re welcome, Alex,” she said. “That’s what friends are for.”

His heart sank a little with her reminder of their purely platonic relationship. “What are you doing today?” he asked her, trying to remember what a normal conversation sounded like.

“The Stewarts are hosting a tea reception for American Fulbright scholars to the UK, so I’m working. How about you? Have you eaten anything yet today? Are you staying hydrated?”

“Food and hydration are next on the agenda.”

“Good. Take it easy,” she said. “You need to rest.”

“I could say the same for you,” he said pointedly. “If you left here at one, you didn’t get home until two and you were texting me by seven.”

“So you did learn deductive reasoning in that fancy education,” she drawled.

“I was first in my class at Eton.”

“And so modest too.” She sighed and he heard rustling that sounded distinctly like bedding. He tried not to imagine her lying in bed, forced himself not to wonder what she wore to sleep in. “Okay, Alex, I have to go shower and get ready. Take it easy today.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Thanks again, Maddy.”

“Anytime. Talk to you later.”

As he hung up, Alex fought his very un-platonic urge to imagine Maddy in the shower. The way her chocolatey locks would trail down her shoulders towards her breasts. The water sluicing down her naked body?—

A sharp yip from Bertie pulled Alex from his X-rated fantasy. He adjusted his gray sweatpants self-consciously, and set about getting breakfast for both prince and pup.