Page 82 of Solstice

“She’s fucked-up about it.” I sighed. “She and Miri were soul mates. Now, Miri won’t even talk to her.”

Jon’s eyes widened. “Why not?”

“The royal family is trying to do damage control. You see what they write about her in the press.” Miri had taken the publicity hit over there. They’d dug up old photos of her from her wild teenage years, calling her a disgrace to her lineage. This time, her gran had taken it seriously.

“They write a lot of garbage in the press.” Jon scratched the back of his head. He’d also been the subject ofThe Puck’srumor mill in his youth.

“Yeah, but not everyone believes it. The world’s eating this shit up, no matter how hard we try to force feed them Ivy and me.”

I still didn’t understand why the focus had been on Ivy and Miri; it just didn’t make any sense, and the more I spun it, the more pissed off I became. Certainly, the Washingtons had an enemy list a mile long. But who would have access to our house…without using the door?Only one person that I could think of, one person who would know we’d taken photographs at Solstice and where I’d hid them.

No. She’d made me a promise. She’d sworn an oath of loyalty, and even if she’d been raised around the fucking fairies, I had to believe she loved Carter and Ivy enough not to fuck us over. Our relationship had gotten stronger in the weeks since I’d been training with her, and I didn’t think she’d be capable of something so sinister.

But…what if she had done thisbeforewe came to terms?

“It’ll blow over.” Jon patted my shoulder, giving it a fraternal squeeze. “It always does.” He took a step back and assessed his jacket one more time. “Remember when my father got caught in the Oval Office with his pants down and an intern on her knees in front of him?”

I snorted and then sighed. “It’s not sex if it’s not in the vagina.” That had been George’s excuse, but everyone knew, even Evelyn. They were too big and too rich to divorce, so they suffered through the agony of marital counseling and public evisceration.

“In six months, it’ll be some other idiot with his dick shoved somewhere it shouldn’t be, and they’ll forget about my sister.”

Yeah, but it would never go away, not really. Anytime Ivy and Miri were in the same room together, people would speculate. Every time I was with Miri, people would gossip. It would be passed around on hushed whispers in dark corners of any event we attended, the sycophants thriving on draining the life out of us.

We should just tell everyone. That way, they couldn’t use it against us.

I sighed, knowing we’d never be able to do that.

Jon nodded. “What about Finn and Siobhan? Any word from them?”

“Sadly, no,” I said, my anxiety causing a storm in my chest. We were running out of time, and without them, I had no plan to defeat the king. Poppy had gone mysteriously silent, too. “Just be prepared for anything on the day, all right? Whatever happens, I’m thankful we’re in it together.”

“Yeah, you got it.” Jon smiled and turned back to the mirror to readjust his tux.

23

Miri

Istared at my cellphone while it buzzed and flashed Lex’s name across the top for the fiftieth time, inhaling my cigarette when it went to voicemail. A few seconds later, a notification popped up that he’d left a message, but I ignored that, too. If I answered, Gran would see it. She’d know I was in contact with my former lovers and she’d be…displeased.

Perhaps I should have left the glitz and glamour behind, taken Ivy up on her offer to come to the States. Even if I didn’t marry Carter, I could live on my own and build a new life. Who was I if not Princess Miriam Stuart? Perhaps I could have found out.

It was the look in Gran’s eyes when she reprimanded me that forced me to go along with her despicable plan—marry the prince and dismiss my spouses and pray it all blew over. She saw right through me, down to all the dirty, filthy parts, and she’d gotten tired of them.

When she threatened my title and wealth, a part of me didn’t care. My spouses would take care of me the way I’d always taken care of them. But despite it all, selfish me still wanted my birthright. It had been mine since I was born and I owed it to my father to get it.

As it was, I thought about what my parents would want or what they’d do in the same situation. Theirs hadn’t been a love match, but they did eventually find partnership while they were together. It was a different time for royalty in the eighties, and the same advantages afforded to my father wouldn’t be given to me.

Inhaling deep on the cigarette, I let it out on a sigh and clicked my phone off just as another notification from the local news station came through, this one about my lack of chastity and morals befitting a princess of England. Had they found another former lover to give a tell-all interview? It wouldn’t matter either way.

I stared in the mirror, forcing myself to admit I looked like rubbish. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. The distance from my lovers hurt, yes, but my body knew something that my brain hadn’t caught up to—or perhaps my brain had permanently shut out.

It was that same gnawing ache that hadn’t gone away since my trip to Monaco in January. Every time I thought about stepping foot inside that place again, my muscles tensed and a wave of nausea hit me so hard, I thought I’d fall over.

I’m not safe there.

I knew it down to my bones, but I just didn’t know why.

“Miriam, darling,” Gran said, walking into my bedroom without knocking. After mygreat matter, she’d taken more liberties than she ever had, telling me I was lucky she still claimed me. I didn’t see what luck had to do with it. Her continued public acceptance of me had to do with optics. If she claimed the photos of me with Ivy were fake and then threw me out, no one would believe our royal bullshit. “Time to get dressed. You have a visitor.”

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