Page 12 of Endurance
“Obviously not. Who the fuck are they? The Royal Family?”
“Bloody close,” Camden answers. “Her dad’s a Lord and a High Court judge, Tan. He’s due to take a seat on the Supreme Court. Her family is a big fucking deal and this isn’t the kind of scandal they’ll be willing to tolerate.”
I stand up and my morning stiffy is practically inverted right now. “Fuck.”
“Fuck is right.”
“So what’s the paper say? Did they see everything?”
“No, it doesn’t look like anybody got a shot of you completely naked. You’re damn lucky Belle got there when she did. It looks like you might just be shirtless in her car. It still looks bad, though. The paper included shots of all the other women you’ve been seen with recently, and they are putting Belle into the mix of being just another one of manycasual conquests, I think they called her.”
“Christ,” I groan. This isn’t fair to her, and with who her father is, I don’t know what this will mean. “Does Dad know?”
A long pause.
“Camden, just tell me.”
“Yes. Dad knows.”
The way he says it so flatly, I know there’s something he’s not saying. “I’m suspended, aren’t I?”
“Tan—”
“Fuck!” I shout and turn to kick the sofa as hard as I can, jamming my big toe in the process. “This is all fucked.”
“Tanner, I know, but just calm down. We’ll figure this out. You’re not the only one to worry about right now. Belle’s family is going to go mental. We have to figure out a way to make this better. To make this right. We’ll just…”
He continues talking, but I don’t hear a word from him anymore when I catch sight of Belle sitting at the bottom of the stairs, mobile clutched firmly in her hand. She’s staring out the windows like a mannequin, completely immobile. Suddenly, everything I was worried about for myself has evaporated.
“Cam, I’ll call you back,” I state and hang up without another word.
I walk over to her. “Ryan, look, I’m so sorr—”
“No, no. Don’t speak,” she says quickly, her speech on some sort of weird hyper speed as she shakes her head back and forth like she has Tourette’s.
I crouch down in front of her. Her dark eyes are glossy with unshed tears. Her hair is sleep tousled and in a messy bun on the side of her head. She’s still in her silky pyjamas. The ones that I was thinking about when Indie woke me up this morning. I don’t know what that was in her kitchen last night, flirting or something more, but I know it felt fucking fantastic to be pressed up against her. I liked her like that. She was quiet and soft, completely disarmed in the dark. She didn’t have the hard shell of contempt that she usually does for me.
I try again. “No really, Ryan, I’ll make this right. I have to—”
“Not another word,” she snaps and stands up so we’re eye-to-eye. “It’s not bad enough you have to fuck up your own life, but now you’re fucking up mine, too.”
“Look, I can fix this. We’ll find a way.”
“You can’t fix anything!” she shrieks. “This is out there already. I’m a ‘Tanner Harris Casual Conquest.’ It’s unfixable. Unless you have a time machine, there’s nothing you can do.”
“Let me talk to my dad,” I say. “We will figure something out.”
“I don’t need your help,” she bites. “You said it yourself last night, Tanner. I did this to myself. I could have sent Indie. I could have called you a cab. I drove over there to get you and now I’ve exposed myself to the city of London. This is my mess and I’ll figure out what to do from here.”
“Exposed yourself?” I ask, thinking that’s a strange choice of words considering I was the naked one. But I’m silenced again as she turns her mobile screen toward me.
It’s a shot of us in her car. She’s in a thin tank top, one strap slipped off her shoulder. My hand is on the back of her seat, and the way we’re leaning into each other looks like we’re about ready to fuck like animals.
She turns and makes her way back up the stairs.
“Belle, please,” I beg.
She stops at the top and laughs. “Now you call me Belle. That’s so ironic.”
