Black Sheep

“You know we might need to do something before next week.” Harry mused one night in front of the TV.
“Well if it’s that thing you did last night then I have no issue with it.”
“I can do that anytime. No, we might have to let people know we’re together.”
“What do you mean? My mum and dad know, Will and Kate know, your parents and your grandmother know.”
“Other people. I just don’t want our first pictures together as an official couple to be grainy photos taken on your distant cousin’s phone.”
“Technically there’s photos of us already. But I know what you mean.”
“As much as I hate them, we need the papers to know we’re definitely together.”
“excuse me, I work for the papers!”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, what do you mean?”
“well, I’m quite untrusting of newspapers and the people that work in them.”
“So you’re untrusting of me?”
“Of course not, you’re different.”
“There are some good people in newspapers. We’re not all bad guys.”
“You understand though. Quite a few of them are bad.” I just nodded.
“Anyway, what’s the plan?”
“Well you need something to wear for the wedding next weekend, so why don’t we go out?”
“But you can’t guarantee that they’ll be there.”
“I can’t but you can.”

*****
We were sat in the car on the way back to Kensington. I had a new dress for the wedding, but no paparazzi had turned up. I had sent an anonymous message to Tony, saying that Prince Harry and his current girlfriend would be out in London all day.
“I guess your plan didn’t work then.” I sighed.
“You think.” He raised his eyebrows.
“Yeah there was nobody about all day.”
“Do you remember when I kissed you in that little café?” I nodded, “The man three tables down was taking photos behind his paper. And the car outside had paparazzi in.”
“You’re better than this at me.”
As we turned the corner to the drive I realised that Harry’s plan had worked. The entrance to the drive was full of paparazzi.
“What do you want me to do sir?” Archie, Harry’s driver, asked as we got nearer to the pack of photographers.”
“Try and drive through the gate normally, they’ll move out of the way.” He reached and held my hand. “I’m glad we can leave the house now.” I leaned in to whisper in his ear.
“Maybe I don’t want to leave the house.” I purred.
“What’s gotten into you lately?”
“Nothing. I just enjoy living with my sexy, handsome, incredible boyfriend.”
“More compliments like that missy and you might just get what you want.” We drove through the group of photographers, who definitely got a shot or two of us smiling and whispering to each other.

The next morning I walked into my office and made a big decision. I couldn’t deal with this anymore. It was like throwing a wounded tiger into the lion’s cage. Someone had to back down. I loved working for the newspaper, but the night before I weighed up all the pros and cons in my head. I had spent a fortune on going to uni and completing my degree, and I’d spent time and effort working up to my job at the paper. But Harry meant more to me than all of that. But on the other hand there was a huge possibility that he could leave me. Not only that, but things were becoming more serious and long-term with Harry, and I didn’t want to jeopardise that with my job. Also, at work, people were bound to know, which meant that they would be staring at me, but I suppose that was something I would have to get used to now. I had typed up notes on my ipad on the way to work and as soon as I was in the office I typed it up into an email to send to my boss. Quite a lot had happened over that two days, but it was for the better. As soon as the email was sent, I decided to pay an old friend a visit.

I walked into Tony’s office with a smile on my face. He looked up from his computer screen.
“Well if it isn’t the woman of the hour.” He mused, leaning back in his chair.
“You’re welcome.”
“What do you mean?”
“The email yesterday? It was me.”
“No it wasn’t”
“Well who else would send an anonymous internal email about my personal life?”
“Why would you do that though?”
“This ‘press’ thing can work both ways. You get what you want, I get what I want.”
“So you wanted to be found out?”
“Harry did. I just had the means to do it.”
“So did you want to?”
“Don’t interview me for god’s sake! Yes I did.” I turned to leave.
“We can work like this a lot you know. You let us know the latest news and we get the exclusive, obviously you’d get a percentage of the profit.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Because that would make me an undercover, sly, greedy rat like you.” And I left his office.

I sauntered into my office and bumped into Alison.
“I have something to tell you!” we both said in unison.
“You go first.” I smiled.
“Well, I’m pregnant. David and I have decided to have another little one. And we would like you to be its godmother.” I looked at her dumbfounded. “I know it’s early days, but I couldn’t think of anyone better.”
“Congratulations. Of course I would love to. How far along are you?” I said hugging her tightly.
“Just 14 weeks so we’ve just started telling everyone. But you have news too. Do tell.”
“I’m leaving.” Her face dropped
“What do you mean you’re leaving?”
“It’s just not the best place for me considering everything.”
“I totally understand. I know what people here are like.” She laughed as someone walked past, trying to listen in on our conversation.
“But we can still stay in touch and you can come round for a drink sometime.”
“Definitely. I’ll let you get on then. I bet you have a lot to do.” I nodded.

I sat down at my desk and looked through my contacts book, when I came upon the name of an old friend who works for ITN whom I met through mutual friends from university. Just on a whim I gave him a call.
“Mr Frediani’s office.”
“Hi I was wondering if you could help me. This is more of a personal call than anything else so I’m trying to get in touch with Mr Frediani himself.”
“OK I’ll try and get him to call you back at some point, but he’s rather busy right now, can I take a name and number?” His PA was being purposefully difficult.
“It’s Rebecca Broad.”
“Miss Broad of course.” Her entire demeanour changed. “I’ll put you straight through to his office.” And that was it from her. I’d spoken to plenty of difficult Pas who thought their boss was god’s gift to media.
“Rebecca.”
“Richard! How are you?”
“I am wonderful thank you. I saw the articles this morning things are going quite well for you then?”
“They are, but that’s not why I’m calling. This might be a long shot but I was wondering if there were any jobs that needed doing at your place.”
“So you’ve left the old rag. I’m proud of you.”
“Eventually, I have. It was long overdue.” We both laughed.
“Actually I’m looking for a new co-producer for the half-6 bulletin. How would you feel about grabbing a coffee sometime and having a chat.”
“I would love to Richard. That would be great.”
“You don’t need to bring a CV or anything, I know you too well for that.” We laughed. “Is Thursday lunchtime ok for you?”
“Thursday is great. Thanks Richard.”
“I’ve pencilled you in. I’ll see you on Thursday. I’ll see you then.”
“See you then, bye.” And I hung up.

I sighed as I sat on the sofa.
“Long day?” Harry asked as his arm extended around my shoulders, hugging me closer to him.
“You could say that.” I smiled, kissing his cheek. “How about you?”
“The usual, waved some flags, shook some hands, kissed some babies.”
“I quit.”
“What?”
“I quit my job.” He looked at me with disbelief. “I handed my resignation in today. I officially have one week left at Britain’s favourite broadsheet.”
“That’s the best news I could hope for!” he said bringing me closer and rubbing noses with me.
“And I have a chat with an old friend on Thursday at lunchtime about a new job in TV.”
“What?!” He moved further away from me, slightly angry.
“It’s fine. It’s all production work. I’ve always wanted to produce TV and I’ll be in the gallery all the time.” He sighed and we both moved closer to each other again. We sat in each other’s arms for a while.
“I’m proud of you.”
“What?”
“I’m proud. If something doesn’t make you happy you just drop it and move on.”
“I’ve always said I only ever care about three things: my job, my friends and my family.”
“What about me?” he feigned upset.
“Well you’re between friends and family.” I kissed his pet lip that was sticking out. He attacked my lips again before we settled again. We flicked trough the channels.
“Alison at work has asked me to be her baby’s godmother.”
“You’ll be a brilliant godmother.”
“I already am a brilliant godmother thank you very much.”
“when will I get to meet all these lovely children you keep telling me about.”
“When we go and visit my family next week.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“You shouldn’t; it’ll be 20 questions with most of my aunties.”
“I’ll battle through it. I still haven’t spoken to your father yet.” He suddenly stared at the TV in horror
“He’s not much of a talker really. Mum does all the talking for him. He’s not the type of person to give you a warning or anything. So don’t worry yourself buster.”
“I’m just scared he won’t like me.”
“It doesn’t matter if he likes you or not. Mum’ll make him like you either way. You should be scared of my cousin’s they’re likely to be pouring alcohol down your throat quicker than you can say ‘I can’t I’m driving’. But other than that you have nothing to worry about.”
“Fair enough. So tell me about all these lovely children.”
“Well there’s Poppy whose 6 and Emily who is only a few months old. Then there’s the twins, Callum and Matthew. Callum loves dinosaurs and Matthew is going to make a fine gentleman one day. Then there’s Alfie who is 9 and Millie who is 3.”
“So who do all these children belong to?”
“They’re my cousin’s children. When we were growing up we were all similar ages so we all got along as if we were best friends rather than cousins.”
“I know what you mean. We’re all quite close too.” I nodded again. “it sounded like there was a huge age gap.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well you and your brother are the only ones that don’t have children by the sounds of it. I just assumed it was because of age.”
“We were always doing different things. They were settling down and getting married while I was carving a career for myself. Don’t get me wrong I would love to settle down and stuff. At one point while I was in uni I genuinely thought ‘forget all this. I’ll find a nice man, settle down, have a load of kids with him and settle in the country somewhere.’ But then I wouldn’t be where I am now.”
“And where’s that then?”
“Sat here with you.” I kissed his cheek.
He lowered his face and looked, sincerely, into my eyes. “You can still have all that.”
“What do you mean.”
“With me. You can have the children and the country house and all that, with me.”
“I would love that.” I returned his sincere look and our lips got closer and closer together. We kissed. It was different to any other kiss. It was more of a promise than anything else. His hand travelled from around my shoulders, to wrap around my waist, bringing me a final few inches closer to him so our bodies were welded together.
“Sorry, am I interrupting something?” Will came in, sitting in the arm chair.
“Actually you were.” Harry said.
“Just get a room and you won’t be interrupted.”
“I had to put up with you and Kate all the time.”
“Speaking of Kate, she’s suggested we go out for dinner tonight.”
“Well you have fun with that.” Harry said, kissing my collarbone.
“No, all of us.” Will sighed.
“I suppose we could . I'm starving.” I smiled to Will
“Do we have to?” Harry hid his face in my neck.
“Yes now get off each other and get changed.” Will ordered.
“Alright, dad.”
“Hey I will be soon.” Will smiled to himself.