Page 89 of American Royals
“When are you seeing Jefferson next?” Rebecca cut into her thoughts. “You should find a way to bring up this party.”
Daphne pretended to blow on her nails, her mind racing, but she couldn’t think of an easy way to lie. “I actually haven’t heard from him,” she admitted.
There it was: the reason Daphne felt this vague and caustic discontent. She had done everything in her power, had schemed and blackmailed and knocked out her competition, and still Jefferson hadn’t reached out. What was he waiting for?
Rebecca’s eyes drifted to her phone, where she was scrolling through several gossip blogs. Her eyes widened at something she saw.
“Perhaps this is why.” Her mother’s voice was dangerously quiet as she held out her phone. Daphne reached for it with trepidation.
It was a blurry cell-phone pic of Nina and Jefferson, taken last night at a college party.
“He went to a frat party with her?” Daphne forced herself to breathe, trying not to scream. “Well—after all these articles, no way will the palace let him date her.”
“He isn’t the heir to the throne. He has more leeway than Beatrice.” Her mother frowned. “Daphne, you’ve completely lost control of this situation.”
“I—y-you were just saying I did a good job—” Daphne stammered, but Rebecca’s fierce look quelled her protests.
“That was before I knew what an utter disaster it is.”
Panic flooded Daphne’s synapses. “I don’t know what else to do! I can’t just throw myself at him; I tried that at New Year’s and it didn’t work.”
Rebecca turned toward her daughter with an impassive glare. “There are two people in that relationship. If you aren’t getting anywhere with the prince, then it’s time to try another approach.”
When Daphne understood, she felt almost sick. She couldn’t imagine seeing Nina Gonzalez again. She despised her.
“Daphne, you can’t just sit around waiting for something to happen. Nothing ever gets accomplished that way,” her mother hissed. As if Daphne didn’t already know that.
Rebecca leaned back in her chair, running her hands along the edges of the magazines in her lap to arrange them in a perfect stack. “Haven’t you learned anything from me? Never attack a rival unless you can finish them off completely. Either finish the job, or don’t start it in the first place,” she said quietly.
Daphne nodded, but her thoughts had drifted to Himari, lying in a coma for almost eight months now. Either finish the job, or don’t start it in the first place.
What would happen if Himari ever woke up and told the world—told Jefferson—what Daphne had done?
BEATRICE
Beatrice couldn’t sleep.
In the week since she and Teddy announced their engagement, their schedule had moved at a breakneck pace, crammed with dinners and speeches and charitable visits. Just this morning their entire family had gone to a homeless shelter across town. Beatrice barely had time to get her hair and makeup done afterward, for her engagement photo shoot with Teddy: to take the pictures that would be reproduced on all their wedding merchandise. Pillows and paper dolls, coffee mugs and playing cards, and of course the limited-edition royal engagement stamps: all of it would be plastered with their faces. It felt a bit ridiculous, but Beatrice knew better than to refuse any of the licensing requests, not when the latest estimates projected that her wedding would boost the economy by over three hundred million dollars.
Honestly, she was grateful for the busy schedule. She felt like one of those sharks that needed to keep swimming in order to stay alive. As long as she was in a meeting with members of Congress, or discussing the wedding, or even just smiling at someone, she could momentarily forget that her dad was sick—that her time as queen was coming so much sooner than anyone would have imagined.
She could forget that the Guard trailing her movements wasn’t Connor, but Jake.
But the forgetting never lasted long enough. Because everything in the palace now reminded Beatrice of Connor: of the wicked edge to his humor, the quick, sure grace of his movements. The way his blue-gray eyes lit up every time he saw her.
Even though there were more people than ever at the palace these days, even though she now had a fiancé, Beatrice had never felt so alone.
She got out of bed and went to open her windows, to gaze at the net of lights that glittered over the capital. The streetlamps blazed in straight, clean lines around the rectangle of darkness that marked John Jay Park.
Her stomach growled resentfully. Teddy’s family had come over for dinner tonight, to discuss next week’s engagement party, and Beatrice hadn’t had much of an appetite. She’d forced herself to swallow a few bites of her swordfish, but it felt like shards of glass in her stomach. Luckily no one had noticed—just as no one seemed to look past her false smiles, to notice the shadow that lingered in her eyes.
With a heavy sigh, Beatrice pulled on a robe and headed downstairs to the kitchens. The stainless-steel appliances and sleek black cooktops gleamed invitingly. No one was here at this hour: the first sous-chefs and busboys wouldn’t arrive until six a.m.
She opened the refrigerator, about to grab one of the containers of leftovers that the cooks always kept here for just this situation, only to pause. She didn’t want the cold remnants of tonight’s dinner. For once in her life, Beatrice would cook something for herself.
After a few minutes of clattering around, she unearthed a massive saucepan. She poured water into it and set it on the stove to boil, fumbling with the knobs. What was that mesh thing Connor had used to drain the cooked pasta? And where in this vast kitchen was she supposed to find pasta, anyway?
That night in the cabin felt like it belonged to another lifetime, another Beatrice. How simple everything had been back then, before she knew about her father’s condition. Before she’d had to give up Connor.
