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“Jazz…” She glances at her phone, then back at me.
My heart starts to thump, panic burning hotter. A bright, white halo starts to appear at the edges of my vision, and I don’t know if I’m about to pass out, get a migraine, or transcend into some other plane of existence.
Preferably one where I’m not pregnant with the Prince’s baby.
The thought pops up in my head uninvited, and I frown in response. That’s not how I feel. Not truly. It’s more of an automatic response, a knee-jerk reaction to being so close to the monarchy. I don’t know if I want to be pregnant or not. I don’t know how I feel at all. Everything feels odd, like I’m watching things happen from a distance.
Rhea hands her phone to me, biting her bottom lip. “I just got a notification from my news app.” Her face tells me my pregnancy is the least of my problems.
As I read the headline proclaiming my relationship with Silas, followed by a picture of me he must have taken of me that morning in bed, I feel an odd sort of disassociation with reality. There are too many things punching through my brain right now. Too much to process. My mind is just…shutting down. Bit by bit, neuron by neuron, things are malfunctioning inside me.
When I read the article, I’m not reading about myself. It’s some other woman. Some other journalist being called a hypocrite. Some other kingdom on some other planet. It’s fiction. A joke.
It’s not me.
It’s not my face, sleepy and post-orgasmic, hair mussed, looking like I’m in love with whoever’s on the other side of the lens. It’s not Prince Silas’s name next to mine. It’s not my career being flushed down the toilet.
And you know what else?
I’m not pregnant. Nope. That grenade hasn’t just exploded in my life, either. None of this is happening. I’m probably going to wake up in some awkward position on the couch with reruns of Grey’s Anatomy playing on the television, stale potato chips littered all down my front.
Please, let me wake up in a mess of salt ’n’ vinegar crumbs right now.
I hand Rhea her phone and take a seat on the couch, still holding the pregnancy test in my hand.
She takes it gently, then swears under her breath. I hardly hear it. The couch depresses slightly when she sits next to me. “The article says sources on the Prince’s team leaked the photos. Do you think Prince Silas…?”
“I don’t know.” Is that my voice? It doesn’t sound like it.
“So who could have gotten those photos?”
“If he had them on his phone or his computer, anyone could have. People were talking about me taking the private jet, so I can only assume someone’s been leaking information about us.” I sound calm. In control. Steady. Inside, though? Under the layer of shock and ice?
Pure, blind panic blares in my mind.
I take out my own phone and look up the news myself, reading three articles that basically say the same thing. Lazy reporters regurgitating each other’s articles. At least have the decency to write your own words if you’re going to blow my career to pieces.
Reading the third article, which seems to be the publication that broke the story first, I scroll farther down—as if reading more will make me feel better instead of driving another stake through my heart. There’s a picture of Silas and Liam together, with the caption naming some bar in Farcliff. The date is the day after I left for Nord. A few short days before he came to find me.
Before we slept together.
Thoughts crawl through my sluggish mind. I stare at the photo of the two of them sharing a drink together, Liam’s arm clapped around Silas, and I wonder if they talked about me. If the reason Silas came to Nord wasn’t to make sure I was okay, but to prove to Liam…what? That he could have me, too? To get a high-five from the first guy I ever slept with?
It’s not until my phone rings and I see Silas’s name on the screen that I snap out of my stupor. My hands start to shake. The phone rings, and rings, and rings.
“Jazz?” Rhea’s voice sounds far away.
Front and center in my mind is the thumping of my heart, and the deep, vicious well of anger starting to erupt. He took those photos of me. He put me in this position. He impregnated me—and you know what else? He’ll win. He has the Crown behind him, and I know that any controversy will end up with me being dragged through the mud. There will be no Jacinthe Crawley after this, and it’s Silas’s fault. All of it.
My phone goes silent, then starts to ring again.
I slide my finger over the screen and bring the phone up to my ear. “Silas.”
“Jazz, I just saw the news. I had no idea. Liam Birchal came here and he must have accessed my computer when I was out of the room, and—”
“Why was Liam in your room?” My voice is so cold it cracks at the edges. Ice forms in my veins, freezing my body in place.
“To steal those photos, I guess! I didn’t know why he was here, but I was called out of the room and when I came back, he was acting shady and my computer was still on. Jazz, you have to believe me, I never wanted this to happen.”
