Page 84 of The Thing About My Prince
“Yup, right out of the gate. When I was looking for my first job, I got down to the last two for a big city newspaper. It would have been an amazing place to start. But it went to a guy who hadn’t even worked on his college paper.”
“I’m guessing you did.”
“Of course.” She beams. “I’d been working on mine from day one and had a portfolio as long as my arm. A couple of my stories were even picked up by the local press.”
“And this guy got the job over you?”
“Yup. The only byline he had was one article on a footballgame. It wasn’t even a significant game. And it wasn’t a sports reporter’s job we were going for. It was like he just wrote the easiest thing he could so he had something to submit with his application. Of course, there’s a chance I’m wrong and maybe he’d found a revolutionary new angle and it was a work of total genius.”
“But you’re going to tell me he was related to someone significant, right?”
She nods. “Turned out his grandfather had been a really respected reporter at that newspaper back in the day and I never had a chance against someone from a family with a legacy like that.”
“And you think that life’s been like that for me?”
She rests her forehead on her knees, then rolls her head to look at me. “I think your life is anextremeversion of that.” She smiles, but it’s a sad smile.
“Extreme is one word for it.”
“I don’t mean it in a bad way. I mean, it’s worse for you.”
She straightens and reaches out toward me over the food, like she wants to touch my arm to validate her compassion for my situation, but can’t quite reach. “Those people I’m talking about didn’t have to live their lives under the scrutiny of the media. They weren’t recognized around the world wherever they went. They didn’t have everyone they dated put through the wringer by their family’s staff and the media. They could do whatever the hell they wanted and just coast through life. You can’t. And don’t. And I don’t think for a second that you would if you could.”
The fact she doesn’t think I’d take the easy route off the back of a royal title is gratifying.
But everything she just said shows she’s keenly aware of the impact that a real relationship with me would have on her life. She knows that she and her work would be subjected to that same intense scrutiny. Knowing she’s too smart to ever subject herself to that brings a brutal twist to my stomach.
My phone rings again. “Christ, if this is Dane, he can get… Urgh, shit. It’s my mother.”
I put her on speaker, but before I can even say hello, she starts.
“The tailor’s here to make the final touches to the wedding outfits and we need to check your Prince Charlie still fits. Where are you?”
“Out for a bit. With Lexi. Showing her around. Can he come back later? Or tomorrow?”
“No, he’s tied up with the Duke and Duchess of Inverness’s christening as well. A very busy man. You need to get back now. You can’t go wandering off—” She sighs. “I can’t keep saying the same things I’ve been saying to you since you were a kid. Just come back and get the measurements checked. Now.”
Then she hangs up.
I look up to find Lexi with her hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking, eyes crinkled with laughter.
“Suddenly my mother being fucked off with me is funny?”
Lexi shakes her head and splutters, “You have to get yourPrince Charliemeasured?”
Her inability to not laugh at the schoolyard innuendo is infectious and brings the smile that talking to my mother had erased back to my face.
“It’s a bloody jacket. Not a euphemism for anything.” I throw a crisp at her, which she catches and pops into her mouth.
“But, if it had been”—I wiggle my eyebrows at her—“I’d kind of hoped you might have wanted to size it up while we’re out here on our own. Maybe up against that tree over there. Or under the waterfall with it crashing around us. But now we can’t, because we have to go back.”
She picks up the plastic wrap and starts resealing the sandwich plates. “On the way back to the car, you need to tellme more about what it was like when your bartender girlfriend ended things because of the press coverage.”
Again, I ask, “For the book, or for you?”
She concentrates excessively on folding down the top of the open crisp packet to keep the contents fresh. “Both.”
Huh.
