CHAPTER 1: HOUSE OF HIS PRINCE AND BEING THE BOSS

MONDAY MID-MORNING OUTSIDE BRITIN

MICHAEL

When they cancelled the wedding, I was secretly pleased. I knew he didn’t want to get married and this was Boy Wonder’s stupid idea! But when he told us about the house they are going to move into instead, I had to see it. Now that I’m standing outside staring at it, I’m incredulous!  This is what he bought him! Him... of all fucking people!  I look at the size of the place.

“Brian, you can fit all of us in this place!”  I tell him through gritted teeth.

“Yes, it’s absolutely gorgeous!”  Lindsay looks around. “Are you refurbishing it?  Do you need some help? I would really like to make some suggestions, especially with Gus’s room.”

“And I want a say in the room that’s JR’s.”  I add.

“Huh? Oh yeah we’re refurbishing it. Justin is decorating the rooms.” Brian replies, reading some papers.

“He is?” Lindsay asks. “What about going to New York? Didn’t he read the review?”

“Yeah, but it’s up to him what he wants to do. Where the hell is the car?”  He frowns.

“Car?” I ask.

“Yeah. We’ve got a new service with Kinnetic and they’re running…” There’s a beeping outside.  “Finally!”  He growls as he stalks to the door, holding it open for Lindsay and me.

“Oh my God Brian!” Lindsay sighs. “What a beautiful car!”

BRIAN

I just stop and stare. Sitting in our drive is a Daimler V8-250 in dark grey and standing waiting is a chauffeur.

“As lovely as this car is, you’re late.” I tell him gruffly.

“No, I’m not.” I’m taken aback by two things: one, that the person answered me back and secondly, that the he is a she.

“Pardon?” Lindsay gets in before I do.

“One moment.”  She takes out her phone.  “Hey it’s me, I’m at the Kinney residence. Can you confirm the pick-up time by resending the email to the client? Thanks.” She leans back against the car and waits. Her phone beeps and she looks at her phone but doesn’t look at me. I frown, finding that rude. “Mr Kinney, can you check your email please?”

I open my email and she’s 20 minutes early. “My apologies. I have a temporary assistant and she never sent me the last email.”

“Fine.” Her tone is gruff but I don’t think it’s directed at me. I think she’s a bit pissed off with the way that Michael is running his nail along the trim. “Don’t do that!”  She orders.  “Unless of course, you can afford to respray the car.”

He looks up to see if she’s serious…even Stevie Wonder could see that she is!

“So Mr Kinney, shall we go?”  She asks and I nod and once again, I frown. She opens the car door for me and the moment I get in she closes the car door and gets in. Lindsay then taps sharply on the window immediately, she tenses up and winds it down quickly.  “Yes, can I help you?”

“We are coming with him!” She snaps.

“I wasn’t aware of that.” She replies coldly. “My schedule says for one person. And that is Mr Kinney. If that has changed, then I need authorisation from Mr Kinney to allow you in the car.”

“We don’t need his permission to get in the car!”  Michael declares heatedly.

“You do when I’m driving it.”  She retorts.

“They have my permission.” I reply and she unlocks the doors but still they stand there.  “Just get in!” I demand, the chauffeur and my eyes lock and I frown again.  “Get in for fuck sake!”

“Where am I dropping them off, Mr Kinney? Your first appointment is way across town and we need to drop them off first?”

“Liberty Avenue.” I tell her and she starts the engine and puts up the partition but again our eyes lock and she smirks. The Daimler just glides down the drive. I look around the car. It is gorgeous with dark blue leather interior; it smells new.

“She was really rude!” Lindsay complains to me but I just shrug as I don’t think she was. She was most probably just following the protocol that the company set out.

“Michael, take your feet off the seats.” I ask.

“Don’t you think she was rude?”  Lindsay repeats.

“To who?  I was wrong about the timing and…”

“To me, she was rude to me! And threatening to Michael.”

“Again Michael, feet!”  I order and he reluctantly lowers them to the floor.

“This is very nice though.”  Lindsay virtually purrs, stroking the seats.

“Liberty Avenue.” Her voice comes over the intercom and for about a minute or two they stay in the car.

“You’re going to make me late.” I point out and finally they clamber out with Michael slamming the door really hard.

Immediately, she kills the engine and gets out.

Seriously what the fuck?!

“Hey!” She yells at Michael’s retreating back and he stops walking. “If you’ve fucked up the lock or done anything with the paint, I’m pretty sure Mr Kinney won’t like the bill!”

He looks incredulously at her before shrugging and walking away. She opens the door and checks the lock then looks at the trim Michael was playing with.  After a couple of minutes, she gets back in and clears her throat.

“Right, here we go.”  She starts the engine again.

“Actually, can we stop for a minute and get out?”  I ask.

She gets out and opens the door for me. I step out and we both look at each other for a couple of minutes. Then I take off her hat and tilt up her chin and kiss her softly on the lips.

“It had better be you.” I whisper.

“It’s me.”  She whispers back and I pull her into my arms.

“Christ!” I can feel my throat start to close up. “Okay, explain on the way Miss Ruthie!”

“Okay Aiden!” She grins.

“Truce!” I put my hands up and get in the car.

RUTH, THE CHAUFFEUR

I still can’t believe I did it! I have Brian Kinney in my car!

I haven’t seen him since he went to college. We used to hang around the neighbourhood we grew up in. We became fast but secret friends because his mom and my mom clashed immediately. Being a child of a single mother was just sacrilege back then. Not only that, but I had the temerity to be smart too! Like Brian, I went to college and studied business management but while he went to Carnegie, I got a place at New York Business School, while we never saw each other we stayed in touch by email, at least once a year.

Although I run AngelCars with my business partner, I don’t have much input because I have the bed and breakfasts to run. When he told me that we got the contract for Kinnetic, I persuaded my partner to let me pick him up.

When I got to Britin, I just loved it... well from the outside. When he came out, I kept my head down but then I was soon distracted by the two rude people he was with.

“So how the long have you been back in the Pitts?”

“About 10 years. Took some time setting up the B&B and running that and the one in New York. AngelCars was doing okay but I took my eye off the ball. When I saw the cars that he was using, I thought fuck that and changed all the cars so here we are.”

“I can’t believe you’re back. I’m so happy to…”  I look in the mirror and immediately pull over and get in the back with him. “Wait a second, I need to call the office.”  Ten minutes later, we’re on our way back to Britin.

BRITIN – 40 MINUTES LATER

KITCHEN

BRIAN

I still can’t believe Ruth is back in Pittsburgh. I tell her everything that has happened with Justin and me.

“I would’ve been there in a heartbeat if you had told me!” She shouts and smacks me upside the head as only Ruth can, when I tell her about the prom.

“Ouch!  Do you want to know the rest or not?”

“Shushing, see I’m shushing!” I grin and continue. For a couple of minutes, she’s silent. “I just don’t get why you didn’t get married though?!” She looks exasperated and I can’t help but laugh at her expression. “What?” She glares at me.

“It’s the same expression you had when my mom told your mom that we couldn’t be friends!”

“And look how that worked out?!”  She grins.

“You called her silly and I remember the baubles on your braids clacking as you stomped off in annoyance.”  I sigh. “What am I going to do?”

“We. Shouldn’t it be what are we going to do?”  She corrects.

“Every time I try and talk about it, Justin shuts down and we end up arguing instead and…”

“Not Justin, doofus! You and me!” She grins mischievously.  “Does Justin know about me?”

“He knows I have a good friend in New York but apart from that no.”

“I’m hurt.” She sprawls dramatically on the table before lifting her head. “So why don’t I find out how he really feels? The B&B is going great it runs by itself; Paul is a genius.”  I frown at her.  “Consider me your Cyrano de Bergerac in chauffeur form.”

“What?”

“People get remarkably chatty when they think you aren’t important. Look at the way your haughty friend behaved this morning. She was so rude and when I told the guy about the way he treated the car, he just looked at me as if I was something he stepped in.  So let me handle this.”

“If this is to work, you might have to deal with them a bit more as she’s the mother of my child and he’s my best friend. And there’s the rest of the family. They like to have a lot of input.”

“Great, just great.” She sighs. “I can see a lot of tongue biting while they’re in the car in my future!”

“You might need to consider a mouth guard.”  I smile and feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

“Oh fuck!”