Thanks for your reviews, so pleased you are liking the story. Next chapter – its not plain sailing…
"Len open up," Eleanor wakes to hear Liam's voice as he raps on her door.
Eleanor glances at the alarm clock beside the bed. 7.47am. It feels a lot earlier.
"Go away," she groans, pulling the covers back over her head.
Liam keeps knocking on the door. "Get up. I have a surprise for you."
He's not giving up and she's going to have to let him in.
Beside her, a sleeping Jasper has an arm across her chest, imprisoning her where she is.
"Wake up," she hisses at him, shoving his shoulder.
She's going to have to hide the evidence of last night because she's not prepared to put up with Liam's surreptitious smirking for the rest of the day.
Jasper finally starts showing signs of life. She gives his arm another shove.
"Liam's outside," she whispers urgently. "You have to get up."
Jasper pulls himself onto his feet, while Eleanor throws back the covers and reluctantly launches into action.
"You have to go," she whirls around and grabs his suit and shoes and hustles Jasper towards the balcony. He is naked as the day he was born, but well, obviously a lot different to then.
"Just give me a minute to get decent," she yells back at Liam.
"Now stay there and try not to get photographed by any papps," she threatens, jabbing her finger towards Jasper. "And better still put some pants on," she adds as an afterthought.
She's had a lot of experience in this type of scenario before, and naked men outside her balcony or scaling out of her window are always a sure sign to photographers of where exactly her room is located.
She locks the balcony door and hastily draws the curtains over his face as he glares back at her with knotted eyebrows.
She grabs a wrap and pulls it around herself and then opens the door.
She looks at Liam, who is grinning back at her. Standing beside him is an all too familiar face.
"Hey Lenny," he greets her and leans forward to give her a hug.
"Beck, what are you doing here?" she replies breathlessly.
"I wanted to make sure you were alright. We were worried about you," he says back to her, smoothing her mussed up hair back from her face.
"I'm fine. Really," Eleanor replies, leaning into him. It's sweet how he cares about her.
She supposes she should have expected this but Robbie never breathed a word yesterday. There's no way her newly crowned brother could drop his engagements for several days with no notice to check on his baby sister who's being held hostage on the other side of the world. But he can delegate his best friend to fly over here, and Beck would be only too happy to comply.
As they stand, things with Beck are pretty complicated.
Since Robbie's been back Beck's been around at the Palace a lot. It feels innocent and sweet to have everyone back together again and it reminds her of better times when she and Beck and Robbie would hang out together, laughing and having fun together.
They're not officially together again, and she hasn't slept with him since they broke up last time, but he left his wife for her and its clear he still has feelings for her. She's just not ready to decide yet if she wants to get back together with him.
"You know I'm mad at you over that stunt you pulled last night," Liam interrupts their reunion, standing with his arms crossed. He's trying to look mad, but Eleanor can see he's pleased to see her back here and looking better than yesterday. And the truth is he's feeling a lot better after a good night's sleep and is pleased by the surprise appearance of one of his friend's from home.
Eleanor wraps an arm around her brother. "You know that living in an oppressive hospital regime with no entertainment, insipid food and nurses from the Hitler Youth training school can actually be a life threatening medical complication. You wouldn't want me to die Liam - you'd miss me too much bro."
"Yeah I'm not sure that's a fair assessment of what being in hospital was actually like," Liam replies, shaking his head.
"Anyway I have to go and get briefed on my schedule for today," he announces.
"Are you sure its safe to start official appearances again?" Eleanor asks, concern etching itself on her face.
"They've rescheduled some of my appointments from the past two days and cancelled the ones they think are too high risk. Apparently I'm being flanked by a dozen police everywhere I go today as well," Liam grimaces, thinking its going to be hard to even move amongst the Police presence. But at least he'll be able to actually get out and about which was supposed to be the reason for their visit in the first place.
"I've texted Jasper his instructions for today for him to read once he's up. Robbie and I are both in agreement that you, dear sister, are not to leave the building all day and Jasper can enforce the rules. You can stay in and recuperate. Tomorrow you'll be allowed out into the world again, with extra security. Beck can entertain you today," Liam finishes, turning on his heel towards the elevator.
"What?" Eleanor yells, hands on hips as she eyeballs Liam's retreating form.
"I'm sure you'll have fun," he yells back at her breezily, not bothering to turn around.
"Cheeky bugger," she mutters resentfully. She can't believe she just got out of one whitewashed prison in the form of hospital only to be confined to another one today.
Her thoughts are interrupted by a persistent tapping sound from her balcony window.
She rolls her eyes. Jasper. The scheming bastard, he wants to expose her in front of Beck and ruin any chance they have of being back together again. It would serve him right it she was to give him a firm push off the balcony and then she could watch him hurtling to a nasty death several floors below
"What's that noise?" Beck questions, turning round to look towards the balcony.
Eleanor has to think fast on her feet, "It's ah, hotel maintenance, they said they were going to do some work on the building's exterior. Why don't you just wait there for a minute and I'll throw on some clothes and we can go downstairs and get you something to eat," she says, giving him a push out into the corridor and promptly shutting the door in his face.
Jasper is sure to make trouble with Beck and drive her insane by enforcing her brother's ridiculous rule that she be locked up in the hotel all day like a princess in the tower.
So, she thinks with a self-satisfied smirk, he can stay exactly where he is for now and she will do as she pleases, thank you very much.
She pulls on a dress and sneakers and makes a quick exit from the room.
Downstairs, Beck and Eleanor have helped themselves to the breakfast buffet and are talking about Beck's eventful, last minute flight.
Not ten minutes have gone by since she left her room when she turns round to find Jasper has silently entered the room and is standing by the entrance to the dining room, his face as impassive as ever.
Eleanor gets up to refill her tea cup and detours via the door.
"How did you do that?" she hisses at Jasper, raising an eyebrow. The balcony door was very clearly locked when she left her room.
"I have my ways," he replies smugly.
Eleanor huffs and turns on her heel to return to her breakfast.
Clearly a leopard never changes his spots because this elusive, devious behavior is all too annoyingly familiar to her and she is going to have to put up with it, once again, for however long it takes the Palace to appoint her a new permanent security detail.
Twenty minutes later they emerge from breakfast and she and Beck are strolling along the hallway, talking when Jasper suddenly disappears.
Shortly after, he reappears outside the window a few feet down from where they are.
Eleanor catches a quick glimpse of Jasper place his hands around a dark haired man who falls to the ground. Jasper releases him quickly, grabs his bag and then steps away from his victim. Beck's busy admiring the picture on the other wall so he misses this entirely.
Eleanor moves to the glass door nearby, pushes it open and makes straight for Jasper.
"Did I just see you steal his bag?" Eleanor demands.
"Maybe. He's a papp and he was taking unsolicited photos," Jasper replies.
Eleanor turns around and regards the man sprawled on the ground, still and silent.
"What did you do to him? Did you kill him," she hisses angrily, hands on hips.
"Maybe," Jasper replies, smirking.
Actually he just closed off his windpipe for 30 seconds to black him out, and he should revive by himself in five to ten minutes. But he does like the idea of killing a man with his bare hands just for taking unsolicited photos. It gives off the right impression. Especially to that bastard Beck.
At that precise moment Beck pops his head around the door and strolls outside. "Woah, what happened here?"
Both Eleanor and Jasper ignore his question.
"You can't just go around doing that," Eleanor huffs at Jasper. "Sooner or later your propensity to dispose of Olympic swimmers and control room operators and unsuspecting paparazzi is going to cause a diplomatic incident," she lectures.
"Now I'll have to call an ambulance and pretend we know nothing about how this happened," she finishes, tight lipped, turning away to pick up her phone, as Beck bends over the man to check his pulse.