Acting Royal #Wattys2017

28

JENNY

"I... I...um, I...." Jenny stuttered stupidly, she couldn't help it. His words had taken her breath away and stolen her words. In fact, this man had completely stolen her heart.

"I think what you're trying to say," Zayn sat next to her and pulled her onto his lap, "Is that you love me too?" He had a playful smile on his face.

Jenny nodded. "Something like that." She got comfortable on his lap and put her head on his shoulder. He smelt good. There was something about his scene that was so familiar and comforting, and if she could have bottled the stuff and kept it, she would have.

Zayn wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a hug. They stayed there for ages, holding onto each other. She felt so comfortable sitting there on his lap, she'd all but forgotten she was half –naked.

Zayn finally ended the hug and pulled away slightly. He cradled her head between his hands, bringing her face all the way up to his. "What do you want out of life?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'll start with your career, if acting doesn't work, do you have a backup plan, is there anything else you want to do?"

Jenny shook her head, "I don't have a backup plan, which in retrospect is pretty stupid. But I was a naive farm girl thinking that if you had some talent and worked hard you could get somewhere. So maybe I'll just have to go back to the farm and continue sheering sheep." She said it with a smile, but truthfully it was the last thing she wanted to do.

Zayn looked at her strangely, as if he was formulating a question in his head, his look unnerved her. It made her feel both giddy with excitement, and nervous all at the same time.

"And other things...?" He sounded tentative.

"Like, what things?" She could feel that Zayn was trying to steer the conversation in a certain direction and it made her heart pound.

"You know, marriage, kids the house and the dog and the white fence?"

She felt the heat rise up in her cheeks at the mere though. What was he asking her? Jenny could barely look him in the eye now because he was looking at her with such an intensity and expectancy.

"I'd love kids one day." She said softly and shyly.

"How many?" Zayn smiled at her.

"How many hypothetical kids would I like?" She couldn't help the giddy smile that broke out across her face. And she couldn't stop her stupid mind from wandering either... suddenly it wasn't her sitting on Zayn's lap anymore, but a chubby, big cheeked, red-faced, curly haired toddler that he was bouncing up and down.

Oh crap! Jenny knew she had to stop thinking like that. Her brain was seriously jumping the gun now.

"And you?" Jenny asked, trying to deflect with a casual tone when absolutely nothing about this conversation was casual. In fact, nothing about this conversation was even vaguely within the parameters of casual, or normal. Taking about your hypothetical children to a Prince while half -naked, wearing lingerie and pretending to be his fiancé- was anything but normal.

"I always knew that I had to have kids one day." Zayn said matter of fatly. "I will have to produce heirs at some stage. But other than that, having children is not something I've spent much time thinking about."

"Have to? That sounds awful," Jenny reflected on his words. The idea that one had children because it was expected, not because it was wanted, was horrific to her.

"Mind you, I haven't exactly been thinking about anything other than myself for quite a few years."

"And now?" She asked him.

"And now I'm thinking about a lot of things other than myself." He leaned in and kissed her. He kissed her so slowly and softly that his lips barely touched hers. His hand left her back and went to her thigh, where he gently traced his fingertips over it while planting soft, barely-there kisses on her lips. And then he stopped kissing her and she felt him smile against her mouth, a small chuckle escaped his lips.

"What?" Jenny asked smiling back at him.

"I was just thinking, hypothetically thinking." He said and kissed her again.

"Thinking hypothetically what?" She asked in between the kisses.

"I was just thinking, hypothetically, what you would be like with kids."

Jenny stopped kissing him and froze. This conversation was too much, it was making her feel a little mad and was about to make her ovaries explode.

"And?" She asked, barely able to contain her excitement.

Zayn stopped kissing her and his eyes met hers. "Well, I can imagine you with girls, lots of them. Maybe three." He smiled at her and she melted. "And they are all a handful. A loud, bossy, messy, feisty, red-haired handful." Zayn smiled, as if he was imagining them.

Jenny bit her lip, in an attempt not to scream something stupid at him like, "Impregnate me now and let's have little princesses!"

"I bet you'd be a great mom." Zayn's statement sounded loaded and he looked at her, as if he was waiting for her to say something to him. Was she supposed to say that he would be a great dad too? He actually would be, now that he'd revealed his softer side, the side that she was in love with- he would be a great dad. But this conversation they were having... was this a strange hypothetical conversation of their hypothetical children. What was he trying to say to he here? That he wanted to have children with her?