Killer Queens (4 page)

‘Can’t wait to get you back to mine,’ he muttered against her lips, sliding his hand up her body to stroke one breast, making her moan. ‘I’ve got a lovely bunch of bananas in the fridge, just waiting for us . . .’

Hugo might not be as wild as many of the Sloanes in his set, not cut out for group sex on billiards tables or filming Minty shagging a polo player on his horse, but he had one very specific sexual preference, involving bananas, that, very luckily, Chloe enjoyed too. And it meant that Hugo wasn’t
completely
vanilla, always a good quality when you were planning to have sex with only one man for the rest of your life . . .

‘I can’t wait either,’ she whispered. Some things were too private even for the highly discreet security officers. ‘Will they be nice and cold by now?’

The hand on her breast slid higher, caressed her neck, reached her lips: he slid his thumb into her mouth, and she sucked on it eagerly.

‘As cold as you’re all lovely and wet and hot,’ he sighed into her ear. ‘Jesus, Chlo, I can’t wait, I’ve got the most massive stiffie—’

‘Mmn,’ she observed enthusiastically, reaching down to stroke it. ‘It really
is
massive—’

The car turned onto Palace Green, slowing down, and came to a halt outside Kensington Palace, where Hugo had his London quarters. From Piccadilly, around Hyde Park Corner down South Carriage Drive, along Hyde Park Gate took a bare ten minutes. The driver tapped on the partition, and Chloe slid her legs off Hugo’s lap, taking her time, giving him a few moments to calm his breathing and settle down the royal erection before she reached for the door handle. This was the protocol that had evolved for this kind of situation. Chloe didn’t actually open the door herself, but the movement of the handle was the signal that the security officer waiting outside could open the car door without exposing the Prince and his girlfriend
in flagrante delicto.

Kensington Palace, despite its name, was actually a series of large, interconnected houses arranged around several wide courtyards; Hugo, as a bachelor, occupied a suite of rooms that did not, unfortunately, have its own front door, as many of the houses did. Usually, Chloe secretly lamented this arrangement, which meant that she and Hugo could never have a makeout session coming home, work themselves up to a happy heated state, then tumble out, unlock a front door, shut it behind them and fall to the hallway carpet to fuck each other’s brains out.

Instead, they had to bid goodnight to the security team, greet the waiting footman, exchange a polite few words, walk down miles of corridor and up two flights of stairs to Hugo’s suite of rooms, greet the second footman waiting there for them, go through the same routine . . . it might have been specifically designed as a very effective passion-killer. Hugo’s erection, she could tell at a glance at his crotch, was long gone.

It wouldn’t take long to get it back. Not at all. But that wasn’t actually what Chloe wanted, not quite yet . . .

‘Toby’s such a sweetheart,’ she observed as the footman left. She sank down onto one of the two chintz sofas that faced each other, very conventionally, in the living room. You would never know that a young man lived here. The apartment was decorated in classic Sloane style, from the yellow walls hung with gilt-framed oil paintings to the Chinoiserie vases on the mantelpiece and the unavoidable Colefax and Fowler fabric prints of oversized red and pink flowers called plumbagos exploding all over the cream background of every sofa, armchair, cushion and window treatment.

It was about as manly as a bikini wax, and Chloe had been taken aback by the décor on her first visit, imagining that Hugo must feel suffocated by it. All her male friends wanted stripped-down lines, modular sofas, dark wood, stripy sheets. But then, her male friends had to buy their own furniture. Aristocrats inherited, they didn’t buy. And Hugo was perfectly comfy and cosy in this chintzy nest, because it signified something much more important than masculinity: it said that People Like Us lived here.

‘I do love him madly,’ Chloe added, watching Hugo’s reaction as she praised Toby.

As she had learned, this was standard upper-class terminology for ‘I like him a lot’, but it was enough to get Hugo – who had always been a little jealous of his more handsome, more charming cousin – on edge.

‘Ginger pubes, remember?’ he said sharply, perching on the arm of the sofa. ‘They match his freckles
exactly
. He looks bloody ridiculous naked.’

Chloe giggled, just as she was supposed to.

‘That
does
sound awful!’ she said, smiling at him sweetly. Actually, she thought Toby’s Titian hair was very attractive, a fire burning warm and lively, a perfect reflection of his personality. But Hugo was the one she loved, the one she wanted to be with for the rest of her life, and if she had to tell a few white lies to make him feel secure – well, she’d want him to do exactly the same for her.

‘So—’ Hugo bent to kiss her. ‘Shall I go and get the bananas? I’m feeling
very
randy.’

‘Yes . . .’ Chloe said, with just the right touch of hesitation in her voice. ‘Yes, that’d be lovely.’

Hugo frowned. He was clearly torn: she had given him the go-ahead with her words, but not with her tone, and Hugo was not only a well-brought-up young man, but genuinely sweet-natured. With obvious reluctance, he said: ‘Darling, is something wrong?’

‘Oh, not really . . .’ Chloe sighed. ‘It’s those horrible paps, I suppose. They do really get me down. It wasn’t just tonight – they were outside my work again at lunchtime, yelling things. You know what they shout. The name they call me.’

‘They’re just trying to get a reaction,’ Hugo said uncomfortably, his erection, which had shot up as soon as he mentioned the word ‘bananas’, diminishing for the second time this evening.

‘I couldn’t go and get a coffee, even,’ she said sadly. ‘Lauren had to get one for me. It’s like being under house arrest. I’m in that office all day and I can’t even pop out for some fresh air at lunchtime.’

‘I don’t know how you do it, working in an office all day,’ Hugo said sympathetically, still hoping that he could soothe her quickly and get on with the business in hand. He stroked her hair, his hand slipping down to caress her neck in a way he knew she loved. ‘Those horrible light strips overhead! I’m damn lucky to be out on a destroyer, you know. Most of the time it’s so much fun it doesn’t even feel like work.’

Chloe bit her lip; she was going to have to push harder. But after Toby’s supportive words, coupled with Sophie’s ‘Dog Rose’ comment, she was determined not to be distracted by Hugo’s attempts to move matters from the conversational to the physical.

You’ve got to get on with it
, she told herself firmly.
Just tell him how you feel. It’s decision time. Lauren says that you should tell him if he doesn’t propose in six months, you’ll leave him.

Lauren, Chloe’s best friend and work colleague, was tough as nails, and pretty much always right.
Don’t think of it as becoming a princess – that’s always what messes with your head
, Lauren had advised.
Just think of it as getting your man.

And she thought, too, of her last visit home, and what her mother had said to her when her father was out in the garden: ‘Men all need a push, love, princes or not. I needed to give your dad a big old nudge to get him to go down on one knee, believe you me.’

Mum and Lauren together have to be right
. Chloe took a deep breath and said as winsomely as she could manage:

‘You know the weird thing? It’s not even being able to pop out to the
coffee shop
that really upsets me. Every time I go in there it makes me smile, because it reminds me of how we met.’

This made Hugo sentimental, just as she had known it would. It was one of his favourite memories, because it proved to him all over again how genuine Chloe’s feelings for him were. Even someone with as open and friendly a personality as Hugo couldn’t have helped but be aware, when he was single, how much his title might influence a young woman’s view of his other attractions. So it was always hugely reassuring to him that Chloe hadn’t had the faintest idea of the identity of the young man in jeans and stripy rugby shirt and sunglasses who had been ahead of her in Freedom of Espresso, fumbling in his pocket for enough change for his coffee, five years ago . . .

‘God, I’m so sorry!’ Hugo had said to Carmen, the Romanian girl behind the counter, his cheeks flushing pink with embarrassment. ‘I’m just back from, um, overseas, and I don’t quite seem to have enough dosh – can I cancel the order?’

‘No, I already make the cappuccino!’ Carmen had said firmly, plonking it down in front of him. ‘You need to pay.’

‘How much are you short?’ Chloe said quickly to the young man. ‘I’ve got tons of change.’

‘Two quid,’ he said, turning to look at her. ‘But I really can’t—’

‘No, it’s fine,’ Chloe said, reaching in her bag for her purse. ‘Carmen’s made your coffee now, you might as well have it. And my purse is stuffed, honestly. I’ll be glad to lighten it.’

‘Thanks, Chloe,’ Carmen said gratefully as Chloe handed her the coins.

‘This is awfully nice of you,’ Hugo said, taking his cup.

Chloe smiled up at him under her lashes; she hadn’t seen his face initially, so she hadn’t realized how good-looking he was, even with the sunglasses on. Just her type – tall, fair and, if not exactly handsome, then with nice solid features and that posh-boy blush, which suffused not only his cheeks, but went right up to the tips of his ears. She had always fancied the Sloane boys, with their butter-blond silky hair and pinky-white skin; this one had Cupid’s bow lips that were the colour of dark red roses. Very kissable.

‘No problem,’ she said. ‘It’s easy to get caught short.’

He started to say something, cut himself off, and then, grinning at her a little inanely, turned away from the counter. Chloe hoped he would wait for her, ask for her number; he had the perfect excuse, because he could offer to pay her back. But to her disappointment, she heard the doorbell clang as he left the shop.

‘He likes you, I think,’ Carmen said, making Chloe’s skinny cappuccino with chocolate topping without needing to be told what she wanted.

Chloe pulled a face:
well, why didn’t he ask me out, then
? She sighed; she’d definitely felt chemistry between them.
He must have a girlfriend
, she told herself to avoid feeling rejected. He was exactly what she’d hoped she’d meet when she was hired for Rescue Children, whose head office was in Fulham; the area was packed with just the kind of young men she liked. But so far, very disappointingly, they seemed to travel in packs with girls of their own class.

She paid Carmen and went out into the street, holding the hot coffee carefully.

‘Um, hi!’ said a voice behind her, and she jumped and nearly dropped the cup.

‘Sorry!’ he said as she turned round; he had gone pink all over again. ‘I sort of guessed which way you’d go, and I got it wrong.’

‘My office is down there,’ she said, nodding to the unpromising modern block at the end of the short street.

‘Oh, right! Well, I mustn’t keep you,’ he said. ‘It’s just – it was very nice of you, but I can’t possibly take money from a girl . . .’

‘That sounds a bit sexist,’ Chloe said, her flirtatious smile making it clear that she was teasing him.

‘Oh! Gosh! I didn’t mean – Oh, I see!’ He grinned at her. ‘Nice one. So, um, I was wondering if I could maybe buy you a drink later on? To say thank you? Obviously,’ he added hurriedly, ‘I’d have some money by then.’

They stood there on the pavement, smiling at each other, for a long, happy moment; a nanny tried to push a Bugaboo past them, and Hugo jumped aside politely to give her room.

‘So you’ll come for a drink?’ he said hopefully. ‘Are you around later?’

Chloe debated whether she should play it cool, make him ring her for a date, and then decided that she’d been reading too many magazine articles about playing hard to get.

‘I
am
, actually,’ she said, though she did try to infuse a note of surprise into her voice that this was the case.

‘Oh, wonderful!’ he said enthusiastically. ‘What a piece of luck! Look, shall I meet you when you finish work? What time is that?’

‘Six, usually,’ she said.

‘Six it is. Um, just one thing.’ He rubbed the back of his head. ‘I won’t actually be alone. Completely.’

Chloe frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

She didn’t like this, either. He had seemed so nice and normal; now things had taken a weird turn. She was bracing herself for him telling her that his girlfriend would be joining them; he looked awkward enough, suddenly, for something that outlandish. And his blush had by now spread to his neck. She took a little step back.

‘Oh look, it’s nothing
freaky
!’ he blurted out, seeing her back away. ‘You really don’t understand, do you?’

She shook her head.

‘I might just go,’ she said. ‘It was nice talking to you.’

‘Please don’t!’ He flapped his arms like an agitated swan. ‘Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not that! Look—’ He pointed down to the far corner of the street, to where a man was standing with his back to a shop front, dressed in jeans and a sweater, lean and fit, his eyes on Hugo and Chloe. ‘I know it sounds silly, but that’s my bodyguard. There’s another one, too. They sort of have to be around. But at a distance! They won’t hear anything we say.’

Chloe’s frown deepened as she wondered for a second if this young man were an escaped mental patient. But they
were
in Fulham, an area of London inhabited by some of the richest people in the world . . . people who might well need a bodyguard or two . . .

‘You don’t
sound
like an oligarch,’ she said frankly. ‘Or a footballer.’

He laughed, looking ridiculously happy: it was only later that Chloe realized why, that this was a further demonstration that she really did have no idea who he was. And she didn’t. Maybe in a different context, she might have had an inkling, but here in Fulham there were so many Sloaney young men that looked like him . . . and he still had the sunglasses on . . .