Cheating the system, p.23
Cheating the System, page 23
‘Already?’ he asked, spinning on his heel and marching to the door of the tiny room in the minuscule church. The room was barely big enough for the two men to be in with the two-seater sofa and an armchair, it was usually used for the minister to give counselling to his parishioners. Today it was their sanctuary as they waited for the unsuspecting bride to arrive.
He opened the door a crack and peered directly into the chapel. Ben, Heidi, Constance, and Freddie and Jacob were already there. Prince Alistair had taken a seat in the front row and the King was at his side.
So, he decided to show up.
Roman did another check of the room—no Marcus Walker. Or any RPO.
Straightening up his jacket and pulling down the cuffs of his shirt, he stepped outside and went to greet the King.
‘Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness.’ He bowed perfectly to the two royals and kept his eyes firmly on the floor.
‘You may rise,’ the King said, his blue eyes scrutinising him intensely. Richard’s hands were clasped firmly over the top of his cane, his smaller one—affected by Poland’s syndrome—was tucked underneath his other. Roman had noted the man was always doing something with his hands, keeping them busy or tucked away whenever they spoke. Roman wondered if it was to distract people from focusing on the affected one for too long.
‘I have to say, I’m rather impressed.’ Richard nodded towards where the sprays of wildflowers decorated the chapel, complementing its simplistic decoration. He’d almost gone just for daisy and buttercups, but the florist had told him that a few pinks, purples, and deep greens would complement Hattie’s favourites very well, and make Hattie herself stand out rather than blending in. He never wanted his heart to blend in, he always wanted everyone to see just how beautiful and special she was.
‘Thank you, sire.’ He dipped his head. ‘I’m pleased you could join us.’
‘Bah, don’t be stupid, I’m not going to say no to seeing one of my grandchildren get married. Even if I’m not sure why she has to have this one when you’re having such a grand one in three days. One that I have spent considerable time and trouble on.’
‘Grandfather, we talked about this,’ Alistair said quietly. ‘This isn’t the kind of marriage that you’re used to. Roman loves Henrietta, and she loves him.’
‘Ridiculous,’ Richard spat. ‘Marriages form strong lines and alliances. They build up a family—or in our case a nation.’
‘That’s a really old-fashioned way of looking at it.’ Alistair shook his head and Roman noticed a twinge of hurt in Alistair’s eyes. Was the Prince thinking of his own future? Was there already a bride waiting in the wings for the moment he was told it was time to do the right thing for his country?
Roman gave a minute shake of his head. It was saddening… And exactly the life he’d be beholden to until Hattie had walked in that morning and given him the prefect way to break free. However, Roman supposed that if someone turned up to The Grand Palace and claimed to be pregnant with Alistair’s child, they’d be whisked off to somewhere isolated and given a huge fortune to keep quiet. Royal bastards couldn’t inherit the throne, but they could cause a schism and uncertainty within the family. It would also give the republicans a lot of ammunition to say the monarchy was no longer fit for purpose.
‘Your Majesty, while I don’t know if Henrietta loves me at this moment in time, I can tell you with one-hundred percent honesty that I love her. I love her with everything I have, with every fibre of my being. I’ve loved her since the first time I laid eyes on her back when we were teens.’
The King made a pfft noise and shook his head. Roman had never been more grateful at that moment that he’d finally confessed his feeling for Hattie to Cormac a few weeks ago, because his words wouldn’t have come out so easily now.
‘You might not believe me, but I speak the truth. I will lay down my life for her, give up my fortune for her, I will spend every single day for the rest of my life making sure that she’s happy, that she never wants for anything.
‘I almost made the biggest mistake of my life by marrying someone like Fiona—and if Prince Arthur wants her, then I wish them well—instead of admitting my feelings and telling Henrietta how I feel, how I’ve always felt—’
‘But she doesn’t know how you feel yet,’ the King interrupted and Roman couldn’t help narrowing his eyes at the dick. Hattie’s nickname for the man was so apt, it was sheer perfection.
‘She’ll know for certain today,’ he told the man with steely determination. She would know today. Everything about today was for her. No man would go through so much, would arrange everything he had, if he wasn’t desperately in love.
‘We’ll see,’ Dick said with a sniff, before waving him off. Roman shook his head before offering a cursory bow.
‘I need some air,’ he told Cormac, brushing past him.
He took a deep breath of the sea air as he stepped outside the chapel’s doors and pretty much straight onto the beach. A tiny garden surrounded by a dry-stone wall was all that separated the two. He could well understand why Hattie loved it so much and he hoped his second surprise later that evening made her as happy as he was.
‘He’s an arse.’ Alistair’s voice surprised Roman from his thoughts, but he wouldn’t allow the Prince to see it. He glanced towards the tall, blond before turning back to the view of the ocean. ‘He was raised different than the rest of us—’
‘He was raised by the Crown,’ Roman corrected him. ‘He knows nothing of real human interaction. His life was planned for him, and he’s lived that life. The ironic thing is, if I hadn’t met Henrietta all those years ago, I would have followed the exact same path.’ He shook his head at the thought. ‘My brother was wilful from the start. He was born headstrong, I think.’ He breathed a laugh at the memories of his brother at five years old trying to lead Roman away from being a good boy. He always said the words good boy as if it was something he should be ashamed of.
‘I’m not as strong as I make out to be,’ he confessed. ‘If I was, I’d have told Henrietta I loved her as soon as I returned to university in our fourth year. I’d have asked her to marry me at graduation like I’d planned, and we’d have run off together and eloped if we couldn’t wed when we wanted to due to Lady Victoria not being so fortunate.’ He paused, momentarily picturing the life they might have had before shaking it off. He couldn’t live in what-ifs and might-have-beens. He needed to live in the moment, take control of it, actually be the man he always pretended he was.
‘But that didn’t happen, and I robbed us of what, fifteen years? We’d have had teenagers, ourselves, by now.’ He rubbed his hand over his mouth at the thought. What would their children have looked like?
‘But you have the rest of your lives together.’ Alistair pointed out. ‘And a baby on the way. No matter what anyone else might say in our family, that baby is yours—’
‘It is.’ His tone brooked no room for argument.
‘—and whatever the family says will stay within the family. We’re complete bastards to one another, but we understand that without keeping each other’s secrets the monarchy would crumble.’
‘You might want to tell your Guardsmen to value the same,’ he said, thinking back to Marcus’ comments almost a month ago, about how his men had overhead Hattie and Jensen. The thought made him sick, in more ways than one.
‘What do you mean?’
Cormac appeared at the doorway. ‘Victoria says they’re less than fifteen minutes away. Also, your folks just called and said they’re just around the corner. Everyone’s present and accounted for.’
‘Ask Captain Walker,’ he told Alistair. He paused in his step as he headed back inside. ‘And whatever you do, don’t do what Dick and your father have clearly done. Marry someone you love so much you can’t spend a single day without them. That being apart from them for too long makes you antsy, that you think about nothing else but them when you’re alone and quiet. Settle for nothing less and you’ll want for nothing in life.’
The Prince said nothing, merely took up Roman’s stance of staring at the waves crashing against the shore. Roman sighed quietly with a shake of his head before heading back inside.
He was only going to look forward from now. No more looking back at his past mistakes, no more regrets of what might have happened. He had to live in the here and now. He was going to ensure he kept his promise that his Henrietta would have everything she wanted in life.
That included getting her away from this family of hers as soon as he could.
‘I’m sorry you didn’t get a bit of a wilder hen party,’ Julia said as they rode up the Continental Highway. ‘But I was told we had to be more low-key.’
‘Ugh, don’t.’ Hattie waved her hand to bat off her friend’s apology. The relaxing spa day had been just what she’d needed. ‘I didn’t want anything wilder than it was. It was great, thank you.’
‘Mind you, compared to everything we did with Jensen’—she chuckled—‘anything I’d planned was always going to be far tamer than what he’d have come up with. Do you remember the circus?’
‘Oh, my God,’ Hattie breathed as she recalled with perfect clarity exactly what Julia was referring to.
‘We all were certain you were going to die that night.’ There was still a tremor of fear in Julia’s voice at just the thought of the incident. ‘When you fell from the high wire— Oh God, Hattie, it still makes me feel sick just thinking of it.’
Hattie remembered it so clearly. Jensen had somehow managed to get them exclusive access to the big top after the circus had been done with its show. No employees to watch them and they’d been free to do anything they’d wanted. No one had gone near the tightrope, but they’d lowered the trapezes and swung about on them, pretending they were far higher than they really were.
Clearly the idea of crashing a circus had been bigger in Jensen’s head, but the truth was, without the animals and the performers, the Big Top after hours was a bit boring. There wasn’t really anything to do, which was probably why they’d been allowed in. Despite the rest of them goofing around on the trapeze and the net beneath them, Jensen had grown bored and restless, and threw down the challenge for any of them to walk the wire.
Anyone who makes it across, I’ll give you my fortune! he’d declared. They’d all told him where to shove his fortune. And then he’d come to her, little Hattie, and whispered in her ear how she could do it. Little Hattie, the one everyone else thought was too young to do anything, the one who had to be protected, the one who would never, ever do something so daring and—
And she’d been halfway up the ladder before any of the others had realised what she was doing. They’d all screamed for her to come down, that it was too dangerous, which had only reiterated Jensen’s point.
She’d made it about ten steps—which had impressed even herself—when she’d wobbled and fallen straight into the net below. She’d had several bruises on her back the next morning, but she’d been perfectly safe and had healed up without issue.
‘Definitely the craziest thing I’ve ever done,’ Hattie said with a wide smile.
‘Stupidest thing,’ Julia said. ‘Marrying Roman like this is crazy!’ She paused for a moment, fiddling with the detail of her dress, her yellow nails quite a contrast on her dark skin. ‘Did you love Jensen?’ she finally asked and while Hattie knew something had been on her mind, she was completely thrown by the question.
‘What?’
‘Well, the two of you were always so close on those group things. And he was at your house the night before it was destroyed.’ Hattie watched as Julia’s eyes dropped to Hattie’s stomach. ‘Is it Jensen’s?’ Julia whispered.
The guilt Hattie carried blew up inside her, searing her chest and causing the breath to be knocked from her for just a moment. She shook her head while she tried to breath in and regain control of her voice.
‘Roman’s the dad,’ she said firmly. And it was the truth, that was how she rationalised it in her mind whenever she said such a thing. Roman was the baby’s dad; he just wasn’t the father. If she referred to Roman as simply the dad, then she wasn’t lying.
‘I see. Well, that makes me feel better then.’ Julia settled back in her seat. ‘But you didn’t answer my question; did you love him?’
‘Well, of course I loved Jensen. I love all you guys,’ she answered honestly, but Julia shook her head.
‘No, you’re not understanding. Where you in love with him?’
Hattie blinked, but she didn’t hesitate to answer the question with complete honestly. ‘No. Never even crossed my mind.’ And Hattie knew, that even if Jensen had survived, if he’d come back to her that day as he had promised, and laid all his cards on the table, she’d never be in love with him. He’d never have consumed her heart, her soul, her very being the way that Roman did. She was entwined with Roman in a way she never understood. Maybe it was because he was so close to her as she developed her sense of who she was. Maybe their closeness as they grew together had somehow made him imprint on her. Whatever it was, she now knew that she’d never been truly happy with anyone else and never would be.
‘Good. Because I couldn’t stand the way Jensen played you.’
Julia had Hattie’s full attention now. ‘What the bloody hell does that mean? Jensen never played me.’
‘He did!’ Julia gave her a look that screamed Are you kidding me? Were you that blind? ‘Hattie, he was always giving you compliments, touching you, finding ways of hugging you. He was constantly dressing up like Roman, hoping you’d fall into bed with him instead. When you rebuked him, or batted away one of those stupid proposals he made to you—’
‘He made them to everyone.’
‘He always made them to you first!’ she pointed out. ‘But regardless, after you’d laugh it off, he’d then set you up for something stupid. I always thought he was trying to punish you. Like the high wire thing. Think about it. Think about it real hard.’
Hattie tried to recall the night—gosh it was over ten years ago now while she’d been on summer break from Cambridge. He had done one of his silly proposals and she’d laughed and said no, but that she was sure Heidi would marry him. Then she’d taken both their hands and put them together before walking away, chuckling. A few minutes later, he’d dared her to go for it…
Then the time in London, he’d again proposed and when she’d gaily pushed him away, he’d challenged her to enter the drinking contest in that pub and the rest of the night was blurry until she woke up the next morning, penniless and in just her underwear.
Oh, God; Julia was right.
What the hell, Jensen?
‘You know I went to see Roman the day after the circus.’
Hattie turned to Julia. ‘You did what?’
‘I was so angry with Jensen, and I told him so, but he just brushed me off. Said he’d always challenge you, would keep challenging you beyond your limits, until you one day broke free of them and recognised what was right in front of you.’ Julia’s face was filled with confusion as she spoke, and Hattie had to admit it didn’t really make sense. ‘He was like a man possessed, it was why—' She bit her lip, wincing slightly. ‘Why I got in touch more, why we became friends like we did when you came back from England. I didn’t want him getting his claws in you.’
‘Oh,’ Hattie breathed. What the hell did she say to such a thing? Were they only friends because of Julia’s dislike of Jensen? This was a lot to process. ‘I… I don’t know— I thought you all loved Jensen?’
Julia scoffed. ‘Heidi did! He used her so poorly. Shagged her whenever he was single, then as soon as someone else came along, he waved goodbye until he grew bored with them and then it was back to good old Heidi as soon as he was horny again.’
‘What? He was sleeping with Heidi?’ Julia nodded Hattie recoiled at the thought. He’d been fucking her friend all this time? Bloody hell, no wonder she’d been inconsolable at the funeral. He’d been leading her on all along! Heidi was not a girl who could date a guy on and off. She’d have thought him in love with her every time he asked her to spread her legs…
‘Constance just goes with the flow. I think she just has so much going on at work that she doesn’t care and just wants to blow off steam. Jensen was good for that. And the boys… Well, the boys are just the boys, right? They don’t see things the way we do.
‘But, yeah, Jensen came up with all this bullshit when I confronted him that I just thought, fuck you, and went to see Roman. I told him to get his brother under control or he was going to end up killing you one day.’
Hattie’s breathing became incredibly quiet and shallow; it was almost like her body was afraid to breathe. She was certainly terrified of what she might hear next.
‘What did Roman say?’ she whispered.
‘He thanked me for my concern, but he wasn’t his brother’s keeper and he had no claim on you either, and sent me on my way.’
Hattie snorted, the tension completely leaving her body. Of course. Of fucking course Roman would have said something just like that.
‘Except he went and saw Jensen.’
Hattie’s eyes widened. ‘He did?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Julia nodded, crossing her arms and sitting back in her seat. ‘They nearly killed each other. Apparently.’
‘What?’
‘Yup. You know Yvonne, my sister, works as a chef in a fancy restaurant?’ Hattie nodded. ‘Well, she used to also do private events, like people would book her to cook for their dinner party and things. Bit of money on the side when she could. Avon is so damn expensive. Anyway, she’s called to this massive penthouse and turns out its Jensen’s.’
‘And?’
‘Well, the way she tells it, she’s cooking up a storm ready for the guests to arrive when Roman turns up and grabs Jensen by the throat. Tells him to leave you alone. They really went for it. She called the police; she was that terrified. It was why she stopped doing private things and went back to a kitchen full time. Scared the shit out of her.’
