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“What do you say we grab a drink tonight,” Will says, full lips stretching into a smile. “The hotel bar.”
“We don’t have a great track record with hotel bars.”
“Says who?” Will laughs again, standing up. “I’d argue we have great luck with them. Say, eight o’clock?”
Cad. I should say no. “Maybe.” I turn back to my notes, listening to the deep chuckle Will leaves me with. When I glance up from my notes, Prince Silas has disappeared from the room and journalists are streaming through the back door. Based on the official itinerary there are no more events today, so I’m free to write some words and take the evening for myself.
Taking a taxi to the hotel, I make it to my room and work for a couple of hours, listening to Silas’s speech a dozen times on my little voice recorder.
Will is right—train wreck is an appropriate description. The Prince made a few glancing remarks about trade, briefly touching on resources but not addressing any of the open discussions or negotiations currently ongoing between Nord and Canada. It was a speech full of improvised fluff. A few jokes about Canadian stereotypes, relying mostly on his natural charm to get through.
As I find recordings popping up online and read other articles about the speech, a frown tugs my brows together. I watch the videos over and over, especially the first part, before Prince Silas started talking. I watch the way he gulps, tugs at his collar, shuffles the papers in front of him. How he adjusts and re-adjusts the microphone and how white his knuckles are when he grips the sides of the podium.
He was nervous.
Then, the video shows him looking up, and I know it was the moment our eyes met. My stomach clenches every time I see that look on his face, knowing it was aimed at me. Knowing I can never act on it.
He feels it too. The connection.
This heat flowing in my veins, even just remembering what it feels like to be in the same room as him…it’s wrong. I should be adding my voice to the articles popping up online. I should be tearing him apart, talking about how he’s not fit to represent our country to the world. I should be using his speech as a sign that the monarchy is outdated, irresponsible, spoiled.
You know, doing my job. Being the voice for abolition.
But my fingers won’t move over my keyboard, and the words don’t come. When my phone dings, with Annie telling me to expect a phone call from our boss, I know he’s going to ask where my article is and why I haven’t sent it through. I know he’s going to tell me I need to be faster about getting stories up, that it’s embarrassing for all these other outlets to be publishing before us.
I just…can’t.
Knowing I’m going to hear about it later, I turn my phone off and toss it aside, choosing instead to get changed into something more casual, let my hair out of its tight bun, and head downstairs to the hotel bar. My head is a jumbled mess. The logical part of me knows I should be tearing Silas apart. I should be lifting his speech up for everyone to see. I should be calling it a disaster publicly and loudly.
Instead, I’m letting my feet carry me down to the hotel bar, where I know another man will be waiting.
Maybe I’m hoping Will Broderick will try to seduce me again. Maybe I want to let him do it, if only to rip Prince Silas from my mind. If I sleep with someone else, will it make me forget how it felt to have his hand on my lower back? Will it help me forget his scent, his touch? Will it help me get my edge back, and give me the courage to denounce him in my writing?
Will’s already sitting at the bar when I get there, flashing a smile at the pretty waitress delivering a plate of food to him. A charcuterie board, I notice when I get closer. Will sees me approach, his focus shifting from the waitress to me in an instant. Her face falls and she shuffles away.
I don’t know how I feel about that. You can have him, I want to tell her—but wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of being here to distract myself from the Prince?
I take a seat next to him, ordering a drink as he pushes the food closer to me. “Eat,” he says. “You look like you need it.”
“You sound like my mother.”
“I like a woman with a bit of meat on her bones.”
“I don’t see how that concerns me.” I arch a brow.
Will grins, combing his fingers through his thick blond hair. “I’ve always liked that sharp tongue of yours, Jazz.” His eyes darken, and I know this is the part where I’m supposed to flirt back, but…nothing. I feel nothing.
“Did you get an article back to your editors?” I ask, accepting the drink the bartender slides across the bar.
“I’d really rather not talk about work, Crawley. There are much more interesting things we could discuss.”
“And I’d rather not talk about your preferences in women, so I guess we’re in a bit of a deadlock.”
Will laughs—a rich, warm sound—and leans back in his chair. He takes a sip of his drink, then pops a piece of cheese in his mouth. “Fine. Yes, I wrote. Generic piece, toeing the line of critical. Nothing like what you’d have written, I’m sure.”
“Ah,” I answer, nibbling on a cracker.
We have a stilted conversation with Will trying to flirt and me rebuffing his efforts. It’s…awkward. I go to the restroom to compose myself, to convince myself I want this. I want to sleep with Will Broderick again. I want to push Prince Silas out of my mind, because I know nothing can ever happen there.
