The Royal and the Rebel (Royally Pitched 2)

“Seems a bit inappropriate for a girl to be reading a book that encourages her to be wicked.”

She laughed, loud and boisterous. “Who would have thought the great Rowan Beckwith was a prude?”

“A prude? I’m not a prude,” he sputtered, offended. “Seems odd, is all.”

“I love to read,” she explained with a sweet smile. “Regency romance is my favorite, but I like most romance novels.”

“Just as long as you know, fairy tales aren’t real,” he grumbled.

She rolled her eyes. In that moment, she reminded him of Tristan, his best mate. She was impertinent and impervious to his attitude and moods. He didn’t want to like this girl, didn’t want to know her at all. Even though they’d never met, he’d known of her since the day she was born. She was part of the wedge dividing him from this life he’d shunned. But she was here, and he needed some answers.

“How long have I been here?”

“Since yesterday.”

“Shouldn’t have been moving me,” he muttered, his anger growing.

With a haughty lift of her shoulders and a sassy tilt of her head, she remarked, “The most renowned orthopedic surgeon in the world lives and practices here.”

Everything about the exchange pissed him off—her body language, her sarcastic tone, her stupid words. He turned away from her. Talking to her—hell, taking out his anger and disappointments on a fifteen-year-old—wasn’t fair to either of them. It certainly wasn’t her fault he was holed up here, in this seeming paradise, with all the comforts and technology money could buy.

As much as he could tell, she seemed like a decent kid. But what the fuck did he know about kids? Even when he had been her age, he wasn’t her age. He’d been old and bitter from birth. Finally, life doled out a legitimate reason for his practiced disdain and supposed injustices. He’d lost his career to an ordinary tackle. How much more injustice was needed to be justified?

Aside from his injury, nothing in Rowan’s history pointed toward tragedy. Sure, he’d grown up with a single mom on the island nation of Jamaica. It was a good childhood. Not exactly carefree, but family-filled, and if not happy, content. Or it should have been. But he’d always noticed the side-eyes cast in his direction. He ran with his cousins, but he was treated differently by his aunts and uncles. A distrustful deference he had been unable to name as a child but could certainly pinpoint as an adult.

He hadn’t found his place in the world until he moved here and was picked up by Hartesfield United Academy. He was one of those rare footballers who had come up through the ranks—from juniors through the first team. The pitch was his home, his church, his family. And now, he’d been exiled, banished from his country.

Jesus, he was melancholy. He shook his head on the cloud-like pillow, hoping to dispel the shitstorm brewing inside of him.

“When can I see this doctor?” he barked.

The kid jumped in her seat, and he experienced a little zing of satisfaction for catching her off guard. She’d unnerved him since he’d regained awareness. A little turnabout was fair play—even when his opponent was half his age and, well, size.

When she answered though, her voice showed no fear or nervousness. “He’ll be here soon. Along with a physical therapist and a strength trainer and a rehab coordinator.”

“A rehab coordinator?” The skepticism in his voice rang loud and clear.

She shifted in the chair, and Rowan studied her. She was embarrassed. “Someone to keep track of all of your appointments, get you where you need to go, monitor your progress.”

What the fuck?

So many things hit him at once. His rehab was so extensive that he needed someone to keep track of it. And someone was interested in monitoring his progress. Hartesfield or some entity he had no interest in. He didn’t remember much since his injury had occurred. There were numerous hazy images and indistinct notions—except for one. As the surgeon had recounted the twisted knee and the discovery of the injury to the popliteal artery, Rowan had drifted in and out. The doctor’s soft, reasonable voice pronounced the words of doom, so they came out loud and harsh, like a booming announcement bellowed through a speaker. It hadn’t been the tone or inflection or volume; it had been the message itself.

“Not impossible, but unlikely. Not our concern right now. Trying to save your leg.”Those were the phrases that had haunted his drug-induced sleep.

Rowan was dangerously close to losing his grip. All that waited on him was a vast space of self-pity and despair. He knew enough to grasp and claw, to dig his fingers into the slippery, shifting slope of his sanity.

He reached out and grabbed at her hand. “I don’t want some stranger telling me what to do and when to do it. You.”

Her perfectly curved eyebrows lifted. “Me?”

“You coordinate. You be my person.”

She shook her head. “You need a professional. Someone who can make sure…”

But Rowan was already shaking his head. Beads of sweat sprouted on his forehead and the movement caused stabbing pain everywhere. “I can’t trust anyone else.”

He needed control. And he needed it right fucking now.