Page 74 of The Heir Apparent
“Look, do what you want,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m just saying that you’re taking a lot of risks. You’re skiing down volcanoes and hooking up with guys you don’t know that well. It just seems like you either have a death wish or you want to get caught.”
We were silent for the rest of the drive to the airport, which didn’t take long since I was doing ninety in a sixty zone. He was making this flight and getting off this island if it killed me. I couldn’t contemplate the possibility of him missing his plane and having to mope around the vineyard for another day. When I pulled into the drop-off zone, he got out of the car and retrieved his bag from the boot.
The four-wheel drive pulled up behind us, and Rory, a long-time officer on Louis’s detail, got out and approached us.
“Sir, we should get you inside immediately,” he said. “There’spress arriving, but we’ve called ahead and the airport staff will let you wait for your flight in a private area.”
“Thanks, Rory,” I heard Louis say. “Just give me a moment.”
The boot slammed and my brother came around to lean through the open passenger window.
“Look, you don’t get to tell me what to do,” he said in a low voice. “You left. You left me to carry this whole thing on my shoulders. You want me to come out and tell everyone the truth. But even if I wanted to do that, I couldn’t. And you know why? Because youleft me.”
I stared through the windshield as a flush of adrenaline made my heart race. “You stole her ring.”
“Huh?”
“Mum’s ring,” I said, louder. I looked over at him. “She left that to me. You and Papa stole it.”
He rested his head on his forearms and sighed. When he looked back up, I could tell he was through with me. “And what are you going to do with it, Lexi? Pawn it so you don’t have to rely on James for money anymore? Grow up.”
All around us, travellers were getting out of cars. Their loved ones got out too, helping them with their bags, hugging them tight and wishing them a safe journey. Meanwhile, I stayed where I was.
“The photographer’s back there,” I said quietly. He had pulled up to the kerb opposite us and cracked a window open just enough to reveal the glinting shark eye of a camera lens. “You should go.”
Louis smiled at me, but the smile was for the camera.
“See you at the wedding,” he said.
That was the last time Louis and I were alone together. The next time I saw him, ten days later, I would be invited to as many prenuptial celebrations as a problematic distant cousin. I stood at the altar behind Amira in a gown made according to measurements I had sent to her designer’s atelier via email. It was baggy around the waist, but there was no one to ask abouta seamstress who could help me, so I’d pinned the inside with safety pins instead. Kris stood solemnly behind Louis, his best man and the love of his life. All three of them avoided my eyes for the thirty-six hours I was in London.
After the wedding pictures were taken, Stewart took me aside and slipped me a manila envelope. It was a non-disclosure agreement, demanding that I acknowledge the intimate relationship between Louis, Papa and myself and vow never to disclose confidential information to outsiders. If I spoke about my father or my brother, I would open myself to legal action. It was a unilateral contract: while I was silenced, they were free to talk about me.
We had always kept each other’s secrets. But now theirs would be protected by law and mine could be wielded like a weapon.
“Have your lawyer look it over,” Stewart said.
“I can’t afford a lawyer.”
He bowed his head and said nothing. I knew that he had delivered the same papers to Mum when the divorce became final. That was the moment she knew she’d been cast out of the family. When he handed me a fountain pen, I scrawled my signature on the lines marked with cartoonish yellow arrows and handed the papers back to him.
“Goodbye, Stewart,” I said and went back to the room in the palace where I was staying, removed my ill-fitting dress, packed my things and took a train to the airport. When I got home, I lay on the couch in the cottage for three days and stared at the television while Jack silently fretted and brought me buttered toast and tea.
But back then, as I idled at the kerb while Louis swung his bag over his shoulder and walked away from me, we didn’t know that was it.
If I had known what was coming—a terse text exchange every year on our birthday, a wall of snow that would obliterate him—I would have climbed out of the car and thrown my arms around him.
CHAPTER TWENTY
5 August 2023
“Your Highness, Mr. Jennings and Dr. Vanderville have just passed the gates,” a house porter said from the doorway.
My heart lurched, but I put down my teacup and smiled. “Thank you, Barney.”
Amira smirked at me from her tartan armchair and then looked back down to the book in her lap.
“I’ll go meet them,” I said, rising from my spot in the bay window, then hesitated. “Are you coming?” I asked Amira.
