Prologue
BUCKINGHAM PALACE
My Lord Marquess,
On behalf of the Crown, I write to extend my warmest congratulations on your selection to represent Great Britain at the Tokyo Olympic Games. Your dedication to the sport of eventing, your years of service to the national programme, and your partnership with your horse have been exemplary, and I have no doubt that you will bring immense pride to your country when you take to the course at Baji Koen.
The entire nation will be watching. I, personally, shall be among them.
I wish you every success, and trust that you will carry the best of British sportsmanship with you to Japan.
With my very best wishes,
James R
? ? ?
Right.Now that’s done and filed and the private secretary has his copy, here’s the actual letter.
Bash,
I have it on extremely good authority (and by “good authority” I mean Vidal, who heard it from someone who competed in Rio, who heard it from a South African water polo player with apparently no concept of an inside voice) that the Olympic Village is essentially a government-funded shag resort.
Apparently they distribute condoms by the crate. Not by the box. By thecrate. I believe the official IOC position is that they’re for “health and safety purposes,” which is a marvellous bit of institutional fiction, and I wish the Palace press office had half that talent for euphemism.
I am genuinely sorry I can’t be there. I would have given quite a lot to see your face when they hand you a bag of prophylactics at athlete registration as though it’s a complimentary breakfast pastry. You’ll go absolutely scarlet. You always do.
Now, listen. I know you, and I know your instinct will be to spend every evening in your room reviewing dressage tests and walking the cross-country course in your head on a loop until you’ve memorised every blade of grass between fences nine and fourteen. I am asking you, as your sovereign, since you never listen to me as your friend, to please, for the love of God, get fucked. Specifically, get fucked in a way that makes it difficult to sit on a horse the next day, which I acknowledge iscounterproductive to the medal objective but beneficial to you as a human being.
I have heard that the Russian gymnastics squad are, to use Vidal’s precise and considered phrasing, “built like Michelangelo’s David if David did steroids and had an OnlyFans.” I realise there are potential geopolitical complications involved in allowing a Russian national that close to one of Britain’s most senior hereditary peers, and yes, technically, it’s possible he’d be gathering kompromat on you. But honestly, Bash, think of what a man who can pull off a full Maltese cross on the rings could do with that kind of upper body strength, in a context that doesn’t require a leotard.
You deserve this. You’ve trained for years and years. You’ve put your body through hell, and you are about to compete on the greatest stage in the world. So win your event, stand on that podium, and then go and get comprehensively, enthusiastically, and (if at all possible) gymnastically shagged by someone who thinks you’re fit. Which you are. I know this because I have eyes.
(If any of this letter is ever made public, I want you to know that I will deny it under oath, dissolve Parliament as a distraction, and have you quietly exiled to one of the Channel Islands. Jersey, probably. You’d hate Jersey. You’ve always been strangely suspicious of cows.)
All my love, you ridiculous man. Bring home the gold.
JAMS
Chapter One
Thething about Louis Vuitton luggage is that it makes you look like a prick.
Particularly when you’d fully committed, as Lex had. He hadn’t realised this until he caught his reflection in the polished steel side of the baggage carousel at Narita. He had a matching tracksuit, matching bags, monogrammed everything. He looked like a bloody footballer’s wife. Like the kind of person his nan would have pointed at in the airport and said, loudly, within earshot,money can’t buy taste, Alexander.
She’d have been right. But he’d clawed his way out of Barking by bloodying his knuckles and having his face smashed in, so he was allowed to get a thrill out of owning something this expensive. Even if itdidmake him look like an absolute bellend.
He hauled both bags off the carousel and stacked them neatly on a trolley that had Japanese instructions he couldn’t read and a wonky left wheel. A volunteer in a blue polo and a lanyard was already trying to wave him along towards the athlete processing area, but Lex rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and tookhis time about it, because he’d been on a plane for fourteen hours and he’d had enough of being herded and packed in like livestock.
A sharp scraping pulled his attention three carousels over, where some bloke was being dragged sideways by his own luggage.
It was an actual fucking trunk. The kind of thing you saw in period dramas when someone was being shipped off to the colonies; massive, clearly ancient, and leather-strapped. It had come round the bend of the conveyor belt at an unfortunate angle. The blonde had got a grip on one handle,barely, and now the belt was carrying him sideways.
His feet were sliding on the polished floor. He was red in the face and still refused to let go, which meant whatever was in that trunk was worth more to him than his shoulder. He looked thirty seconds away from popping something vital, and nobody around him was doing a thing about it.
Lex left his trolley and crossed the hall in four strides. “Right,” he said, stepping in behind the blonde and getting both hands on the trunk. “Get your stick arms out of the fucking way before they snap.”
The blonde let go and whipped around, brows drawn tight. A flush burned high across his cheekbones. Lex put a hand on his shoulder, and moved him aside so he could haul the trunk off the belt in one clean motion. It was far heavier than it looked. He set it down with a thud that echoed.
