His Royal Favorite (13 page)

“Not like tonight,” Ben said. “Tonight you could talk to them all you liked.”

James realized how he sounded, a little too late. “Ben. No. I wasn’t—I didn’t flirt.”

Ben shrugged. “Sounds as if you did.”

“I didn’t!” Two emotions mingled within James: fear that he’d wounded Ben, and . . . yes, anger. He’d finally been let out of the cage that had imprisoned him his whole life, and all Ben wanted to do was put the bars back. “Am I never going to be allowed to so much as speak to another gay man again?”

“I’m not in the business of policing who you talk to,” Ben snapped. “But where are you going to draw the line? You can do whatever you want, now. So do you flirt? Do you kiss them in back rooms like the one you took me to? Are you going to tell yourself it’s okay to let them blow you as long as you don’t return the favor? I’m sure you could find some takers for that.”

James knew he could. Enough women had offered, over the years. “Do you honestly think I’d be unfaithful to you the first chance I got?”

“I don’t think you have any idea what you’d do.”

That came uncomfortably close to being true, echoing in the delight James had felt—
still
felt—at finally receiving romantic attention that didn’t feel like a joke. It upset him enough that he said something he knew he shouldn’t have: “Don’t worry. I’m not going to start cruising gay clubs and dancing with other men. Or do you want me to give you the same promise you gave me? It’s okay to sleep with someone else, as long as I make sure to tell you all about it?”

They stared at each other for a few long seconds. Ben jerked his head back, as though he’d only now heard James, and he went for the door of his room. “I think we’re done for the evening.”

“Ben, don’t go.” Already James regretted every word he’d spoken.

But Ben didn’t stop. “We have separate rooms for a reason,” he said, just before slamming the door behind him.

James sat down heavily on his bed. Only now did he realize that the same cage he’d escaped from was the one that had just closed around Ben.

***

Sleeping in Clarence House without James turned out to be miserable.

The palace was cold and drafty, which Ben had recognized before but appreciated anew after a long night tossing and turning beneath coverlets that weren’t quite warm enough without another body by his side. No doubt there were other blankets to be had, thick and luxurious, but Ben didn’t search for them. Instead he lay there, chilly and wretched.

Listening to James go on and on about all the other attractive men available to him now—that had been torture. Not because Ben seriously doubted James: He didn’t. Anyone harboring thoughts of cheating wouldn’t burble on the way James had. Yet the idea of other men even making James laugh filled Ben with futile rage.

He’d always had a possessive streak. It was one of the things Ben loathed about himself, knowing that trait had no place in a life he’d intended to be free of commitments. So, ever since Warner, he’d been ruthless. As soon as Ben found himself becoming jealous about other men in a boyfriend’s orbit, he’d dump the boyfriend and become single once again. Maybe it was a cold way to live, but it had worked for him, until now.

James was the one person Ben couldn’t leave behind. But—whether James realized it yet or not—he could leave him.

Why shouldn’t he? These other men would be British. Aristocrats, used to wealth and this strange life that Ben still found so bizarre. They could adapt their schedules to James’s needs instead of hurrying off to get to the copy desk on time. They wouldn’t be angry, bitter men who were still hanging on to their ex-boyfriend’s phone number.

Sooner or later, one of them would fit Kimberley’s description of the “ideal man” to be a Prince Regent’s consort, right down to the Plantagenet blood.

And what James had said was true. Ben
had
lorded his freedom over James, not out of cruelty but out of a desire to prove to himself that he wasn’t really in love, that he could do whatever, or whomever, he wanted. Ben had known his words hurt James, and yet he’d spoken anyway. As upsetting as tonight had been, deep down, Ben knew he deserved it.

With a sigh, Ben put his hands over his eyes and prayed for sleep, in vain.

He rose the next morning feeling sheepish, and he prepared himself for a well-earned cold shoulder as he walked toward the kitchen. Instead he found James waiting for him with a cup of coffee. His smile was so tentative it bruised Ben’s heart. “Good morning,” James said softly, holding out the coffee like an offering.

Ben took the coffee, then leaned in and kissed James. “I’m sorry about last night.”

“Me too.” The relief on James’s face was obvious. “Going on the way I did was insensitive.”

“I overreacted.”

James slid his arms around Ben’s waist. “You’re the only man I want. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.” Ben didn’t doubt that was true, at least for now.

They kissed and made up, eating breakfast side by side at the cozy kitchen table and saying no more about the spat. Ben walked out to the waiting car reassured of James’s fidelity, but nonetheless feeling somewhat shabbier than before.

By now Kimberley Tseng only briefed Ben on tabloid headlines if they were especially odious. His skin had thickened, these past three weeks. Today he got out of the car without more than a flicker of interest in the headline BENJI THE FREELOADER.

“I put the facts in my story that first day,” Roberto said a half hour later, angry on Ben’s behalf. “I said you still keep your apartment. You pay your rent.”

“I do.” Ben found himself thinking wistfully of his flat. He’d thought he’d be staying there again by now. What a fool he’d been. “But they’ve figured out I’m more or less living with James, and they don’t like it. Therefore I must be Eurotrash fleecing the prince for his riches.”

Roberto scowled. “You are neither trash nor Euro.”

“German passport,” Ben said. “Guess that makes me Euro enough.”

However, while Ben felt no guilt about staying at Clarence House, other expenses had begun to trouble him. He paid for his lunches at work, but otherwise the food appeared in their kitchen as if by magic. Being driven to his office by a liveried chauffeur every day did not yet feel natural; if anything, Ben found it more awkward as time went on. James had spoken of taking a ski trip sometime soon, probably with Lady Cassandra and Spencer Kennedy. Not only would that be an ordeal in its own right, but it also would be given to Ben as yet another sumptuous gift.

It would help if he at least felt like he were really working for what little money he had, so Ben went in and spoke to Fiona.

“I actually had an idea about taking you off the copy desk,” she said, surprising him.

Thank God.
“You really think my sources won’t overreact?”

“Business sources would. But what if we switched your beat?”

“I cover business and economics.” Ben had pursued a tighter focus than many journalists, but it had always worked for him.

“Just hear me out.” Fiona got a very strange look on her face, a mixture of hope and trepidation. “What if we moved you into pop culture?”

“Pop culture?” Did she want him to start reviewing movies or something?

Fiona rose from behind her desk, the jade beads around her neck picking up on the green in her vibrantly patterned dress. “There are people who normally don’t talk much to the press who would talk to you. Actors, singers, directors, great authors . . .”

“You want me to start doing puff pieces?” Ben couldn’t believe he was hearing this. “Fiona, be serious!”

“I am serious,” she said, suddenly firm. “You want to pull your weight around here, right? Well, this is weight you can pull.”

Slumping back in his chair, Ben tried to envision it, but he couldn’t. “I’d be awful at it.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You turned in that great story about the Prince Regent way back when, though you didn’t report on royalty, either.”

“By now I’d think it would be obvious that I was unusually interested in James’s situation.”

“So get interested in movies. Come on, Ben, at least try. You’re writing all these people off as vapid and shallow—admit it, you are. Isn’t that what the rest of the world is doing to you? At least these people would understand that much, and not judge you for it.”

Ben had to admit that sounded possible. Besides, working the copy desk was a job for kids just out of J-school. Making something substantive out of fluff: That would be a challenge, but he’d never run from challenges.

And he didn’t know what else to do.

“Fine,” he said. “We can try it.”

Fiona beamed, but only for a moment. “You’re sure you’re all right? You’ve seemed a little down in the dumps lately.”

“It’s a lot to handle. That’s all.”

But Fiona de Winter must not have been the only one to glimpse Ben’s increasing depression. The next day the headline of the
Express
blared TROUBLE IN PARADISE? and featured a photo of Ben looking grim. Of course the photo could have been from any morning, and probably his bad mood had more to do with the paparazzi in his face. But it illustrated the made-up story very well, with all its insinuations that Ben had become demanding, and that James would no doubt soon look to others for affection.

Ben knew these stories were invented, mere tabloid creations meant to fill the vacuum of real news. But that didn’t make it easier to come home that night to empty rooms and know that James was out at a dinner for the Norwegian ambassador. To know that if there was even one single, attractive gay man at that dinner, that guy was doing his best to get to know James right now.

“I’m being paranoid,” Ben announced to Happy and Glorious. On nights when James wasn’t home, Ben had taken on the task of feeding the corgis, and his stock with them had risen accordingly. They wagged their tails and looked up adoringly as he spoke. “I’m making up problems, as if I didn’t have enough real ones already.”

Also, I am talking to dogs.

But it was strange being at Clarence House without James. Ben had never spent even a minute there by himself until they’d made the decision to come out together; now he often spent several hours alone in the evening. This was the unavoidable consequence of James’s schedule, for which charitable evening events and diplomatic dinners were simply part of the workday. However, knowing that didn’t make Ben feel any less isolated in this enormous, quiet, drafty space. Once or twice he put on the Slanket to stay warm and remember James’s face when he’d unwrapped it. That was how bad it got.

The next day some footballer was caught cheating on his wife, buying Ben a day’s relief from the headlines. But that wasn’t the same as a day’s relief from the small degradations of being the Prince Regent’s lover.

“Hello there!” said his editor from the publishing house. “Good news—they’ve moved up the release of
The Corporation: A Biography
. We’re pushing it through copyedits to make sure it comes out in late October. Autumn is prime book-buying season.”

His old publishing date had been the following February. Ben knew perfectly well why the date had been changed. “I wouldn’t want the copyediting process to be rushed. It’s important.”

“Of course, of course. We’ve just got more people on it to make sure the job is done thoroughly but faster.”

Ben decided to just say it. “I don’t want to capitalize on my, ah, news coverage.”

“Nobody wants to be
exploitative
. Still, we have to be realistic. Every reviewer in the world is going to cover this book now, regardless of how we react. We might as well maximize the benefits, right?”

“I suppose.”

“Besides, now we can book you on every talk show, every radio program. We can reasonably expect to tour you worldwide.”

“Wait.” Everything seemed to be rushing away from Ben, faster than he could run after it. “I’m not going to go on all these shows and talk about my private life.”

“Of course not.” The editor sounded triumphant. “They’ll all agree to that, and then they’ll all ask about it regardless, and you’ll politely shut them down and go on to talk about your book.”

That was . . . exactly how it would go. Ben leaned his elbows on his desk and clung to the brightest part of this he could think of. “Everything’s still on for book two, right?”

“You’d better believe it! The sooner you can get that done, the better. We could feature an advance chapter in the back of
Corporation
.”

Ben reminded himself to call his literary agent to review all this, but that was unlikely to be much more soothing. Already his agent had already tried to get him to start blogging about “daily life.”

That night James was home, and Ben felt as though he could vent about that part of it, at least, without bringing James down. After holding so much back for James’s sake, it felt good to just talk. “Blogging!” Ben fumed as they ate their dinner, a complicated and delicious seafood stew apparently brought up by the kitchen staff just before Ben had returned to the palace. “About our sex life, I guess. Or cutesy photos of the dogs.”

“You’re the last person in the world who would ever blog about his personal life.” James looked gently amused. “You never spoke much about the second book. I didn’t realize it would be due so soon.”

“I tried not to think about the second one until I’d finished the first, though. But yes, you’re usually expected to follow up with the second in a two-book deal within the next couple of years.”

“What’s the second one going to be called?”

“
Bubbles
.”

Ben deliberately didn’t explain, the better to watch confusion muddle James’s expression. “Did you say
Bubbles
?”

“Yes. It’s about the various speculation bubbles that have wrecked economies over the years, all the way back to Dutch tulips.”

James grinned. “And Beanie Babies?”

“I don’t think those wrecked the world economy,” Ben said. “But they might get a mention as one of the more half-baked ‘investments’ people have ever gone mad for.”

Swiftly James lifted Ben’s hand to his mouth and kissed it. “Your face lights up when you talk about your writing.”