Spare Me

Chapter 18

T he next several days passed much as Alex had planned them—cozy snuggle sessions watching movies in front of the fire in Alex’s sitting room, brisk walks through Kensington’s private gardens with Bertie, and a healthy dose of time spent naked, giving and receiving orgasms on almost every surface of Alex’s apartment.

By the morning of December thirty-first, Maddy was starting to feel uneasy about the whole situation, though. It wasn’t that she wasn’t comfortable around Alex or spending time at his place. Quite the opposite, actually. She had settled into their casual inter-holiday domestic bubble with startling ease. Even after living with Evan for four years, she wasn’t sure they had ever co-existed as seamlessly as she and Alex did after just a few days. Alex wasn’t exactly what she’d describe as “useful” in the kitchen, but rather than being underfoot as she whipped up easy meals to sustain them between bouts of sex, they had perfected an easy dance of sorts with her taking the lead and him accomplishing the easy tasks she assigned him in perfect sync. To be fair, Alex’s kitchen at Kensington was about twice the size of the largest kitchen she and Evan had ever shared. They even worked out well together in his small home gym—him taking enthusiastic Peloton rides and her jogging on the treadmill while giving him a hard time about his faddish exercise routine during her walking recoveries. And him spotting her while she lifted weights had only turned into sex once…or was it twice?

All in all, it had been a blissful week. So as she woke and stretched on the morning that would be her last time waking up at Kensington before returning to Winfield House, she was confused as to why she was feeling antsy, her stomach twisted up in knots. Quietly slipping out of the bed so as not to wake Alex, who was adorable in sleep, one arm thrown over his head, the other reaching across where he’d been holding her, Maddy crept into the bathroom and turned on the shower, hoping the hot water would wash away her feeling of unease.

As she shampooed her hair, she tried to pick apart her feelings. The week had been lovely. Alex was caring and attentive, an adorable dog dad to Bertie, and practically insatiable in bed. She was more relaxed than she’d been in… well… since long before her world had turned upside down. Spending time with Alex was easy, uncomplicated. She could imagine doing this for a lot longer than five days.

And there it was.

This was supposed to be casual. It wasn’t supposed to be a real relationship. She’d submitted her graduate school applications just before the holiday rush began. She’d start hearing back in just a few months. Alex hadn’t said anything about his plans after the wedding, but, as far she could tell, he still didn’t really have a plan for how he would find his place in the royal family post-wedding, particularly since as soon as Ben and Hannah started having children, Alex would be pushed further and further down the line of succession. For all she knew he could be planning to go back to New Zealand as soon as the wedding festivities ended .

So in terms of talking about plans, the future, their feelings they’d certainly been keeping things casual. But playing house wasn’t casual behavior, even if it was a totally unrealistic end-of-the-year liminal space where time didn’t matter and the real world and responsibilities didn’t exist. And she found herself enjoying this stint of cohabitation more than she should have. It was easy. Too easy.

Evan and Maddy had cohabitated perfectly naturally – after a lifetime of friendship, it was easy. They’d gone to work, had dinner together, sat on the couch after dinner while she read a book and he played video games or watched football. On weekends they’d each take care of their respective chores, go to gatherings with their friends where the men would circle around the grill or the TV, depending on the season, while the women chatted in the kitchen, picking at cheese and crackers and drinking wine or hard seltzers. They’d enjoyed each other’s company and wanted the best for each other, but their relationship hadn’t been one of passionate love. It had been easy friendship and companionship. They’d gotten along just fine, but their lives existed in parallel, not in sync.

And with Alex, everything synced almost immediately. Even when they were curled up on his couch each on their phones or reading, Maddy felt deeply connected to Alex after just a few weeks. Things had clicked into place and seemed so effortlessly right . And suddenly Maddy was scared that that was wrong. This was getting too serious, too quickly. If they kept it up like this, they were sure to be discovered by the press. And one of them was going to get hurt when she left. Because eventually she’d have to. Coming to London wasn’t a long-term plan. It never had been. It was an “escape the prying eyes of the American media” plan, get a change of scenery plan, a “take time to figure out who Maddy 2.0 is” plan. Even if she didn’t get into grad school and decided to stay in England, the very nature of diplomatic work meant that the ambassador’s job was only slightly less term-limited than the president’s. Sure, it would probably take whoever the new president was some time to figure out who he wanted to represent him at the Court of St. James, but this position was far too visible and important. Even if it was another Democrat, there was almost no chance that Andrew Stewart would be able to stay on past the end of the administration. And since Maddy’s job had been obtained with far less than the normal amounts of rigor and due diligence, there was pretty much no chance she’d be able to keep hers either.

As grateful as she was for the opportunity to get away, she also knew that London wasn’t her forever home. And she knew that no matter what kinds of feelings he might have for her, there was no way that Alex could make a forever home anywhere else.

No, whatever their relationship was, they had to do a better job of keeping it casual. Even as she came to that conclusion with confidence, Maddy’s heart sank. The idea of going back to her drafty Frankensteined rooms at Winfield House, to being half embassy staff and half Delia Stewart’s gofer filled her with dread. The idea of waking up without Alex’s long arms wrapped around her in a protective cocoon made her miserable. And that was exactly why she had to do it. She had to go back to her regular life. She had to remind herself why she was in London in the first place. And she needed to get some distance. If she didn’t it would spell heartbreak for both of them.

She turned off the water and wrapped herself in a towel before heading back into Alex’s bedroom. He stirred as she entered. “Good morning,” he murmured sleepily.

“Morning,” she replied quietly, locating the leggings he’d peeled off of her the night before bending her over the side of the bed and fucking her so hard she thought she was going to pass out from pleasure. She pulled a Breton-striped sweater over her head, trying to avoid looking at him.

“Why don’t you come back to bed?” he said, his voice husky with sleep and desire.

“I need to pull my stuff together,” she said, still not making eye contact. “I have to get back to Winfield today before people start to notice I’m not there. If the Stewarts get back and find out I’ve been away for so long, they’ll definitely ask questions.”

“I thought their flight didn’t get in until tonight?” Alex asked, sitting up in bed and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, looking over at her with a frown.

“They don’t, but my stuff is everywhere. It’s going to take me a while to corral everything.” Maddy turned her attention to her assorted belongings, which had somehow managed to end up strewn not only all across Alex’s bedroom, but also all over the apartment.

As she walked toward the window seat to collect a sweater and a book she’d been reading, she heard Alex padding across the sumptuous carpet towards her. She stilled as his arms slid around her from behind. “Why are you freaking out?” he asked quietly, pressing a soft kiss to the side of her head.

“I’m not freaking out, who said I was freaking out?” Maddy said, the words coming out too quickly, her voice clearly belying every word she uttered.

“You haven’t looked at me once since you got out of the shower and you’re packing a bag before you’ve even had coffee.” Alex said, stating the obvious in a remarkably calm voice. “Tell me what’s going through that brilliant brain of yours.”

Maddy sighed. As much as she might want to, she couldn’t just race out of Kensington without talking to him. She wasn’t an impetuous, immature teenager, and he wasn’t stupid. “We said this was going to be casual,” she said, turning to sit on the padded window seat and finally looking up at him. “Casual isn’t shacking up for five days playing house. What were we thinking?”

He dropped down next to her. “I was thinking,” he began, “that it would be much easier to keep you high on a steady dose of orgasms if we were here.” He pressed another kiss to the spot where her shoulder and her neck met. “But you’re right. This doesn’t exactly scream casual relationship, does it?”

“It doesn’t. The fact that the entire city is tucked away watching Christmas specials and getting tipsy on fruit cake has meant that we’ve been safe here, but in two days the world will reawaken and we’re going to have to go back to pretending that this isn’t a thing.”

“Are you sure?” he wheedled like a little boy.

“Alex.”

“Yeah, okay, I know,” he said, hanging his head. “You’re right. We agreed that this was casual.” He sighed heavily. “But I can still take you on secret dates, right? I was hoping next month maybe I could sneak you up to Scotland for a long weekend?”

Her resolve softened a little bit, seeing the eagerness in his eyes, remembering the seriousness with which he took his mission to take care of her—in every sense of the word. “Of course,” she said. “But the sleepovers can’t keep happening. That’s a recipe for being caught.”

“Right, okay,” he agreed.

“And Alex…” Her voice trailed off. “Are you sure this is a good idea? I obviously love spending time with you. This week has been a dream.” She swallowed, melancholy washing over her in waves. “But you have to know that this can’t really go anywhere. What are you going to do once the wedding is over? Are you even staying?”

“I… don’t know.” Alex’s voice was heavy. “Part of me would love to run away back to Christchurch. Life there was ea sy. Or, at least, easier. But I hated being so far from my family. If I know Ben and Hannah they’re going to start popping out kids about forty-two weeks after the wedding. I don’t want to miss that. I don’t want to be the odd uncle who lives half a world away and only shows up on a computer screen. My parents aren’t getting any younger. They could use help spreading out the royal duties. But it’s as if they still see me as this little boy who couldn’t even recite his one line in the coronation, who needs to be shielded.”

There was a long pause. “Maybe if I had a cause, had an obvious role to step up into, it would be different. But until I can find that, I feel like I’ll just be stuck on the sidelines. So that’s a long way of saying that I have no idea what I’m going to do after the wedding, Mads. And you’re absolutely right that what we’ve been doing the last few glorious days isn’t going to fly in the New Year. But right now as I see it I’ve got two jobs: one is being Ben’s best man, and the other is taking care of you however you’ll let me, even if I have to fight you for it. We can keep it casual, we can be discreet. I just…” He searched for the right words. “I want you to know what it feels like when someone puts you first.” He swallowed. “I’ve been at sea since I’ve been back, drifting, purposeless… and since we met, I feel like I have a purpose again. To be yours. You were so unhappy for so long. You put everyone else first all the time. You still do. I want to be the one who shows you what it feels like to be someone’s number one priority. Please, can we keep trying this?”

Maddy’s heart had been steadily melting and breaking as he spoke. He’d told her about his childhood early on when they’d started spending time together, of course, and he’d made the occasional passing comment that showed her how unmoored he felt. Even though he was excited about the reparations project he and Eric were working on, he was careful to specify that it was Eric’s project. He was just there to support it. She hadn’t fully realized how directionless he was. When he talked like this, he got a lost look in his eyes that made Maddy want to pull him into her arms and never let go.

“Of course we can keep trying,” she said, putting her arms around him and resting her chin on his shoulder. “We just have to be careful. We can’t get caught.” And we can’t get too attached . But she feared it might already be too late for her.