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I’m silent for a beat. Long enough for Silas to speak again. “Jazz?”
“I don’t think we should see each other anymore.” Those words are easier to say than I expected. They slide out of my mouth without resistance, but it’s like I’m hearing someone else talk. I’m letting some other part of my consciousness take control, because I can’t face the reality.
My career is over. My credibility is ruined. I’m entangled with a man who would let this happen, who wouldn’t even try to protect me from the one man who hurt me worst.
And I’m pregnant.
No—it’s too much. I bury all those truths under a blanket of darkness.
Rhea sits down across from me, dropping her head in her hands as she listens.
I stare at her, then at my pregnancy test, then at a spot on the table. I see nothing.
“Jazz, that’s not… You have to believe me. I never meant for this to happen. I’ll come back. I need to see you.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I’m not friends with Liam. I’ll never speak to him again.”
“I believe you.” My voice is flat, but my anger gives me clarity. I see my choices so clearly, it’s hard to explain how easy it is to say these things. On the one hand is Silas. My emotions for him. My love—because isn’t that what this was all along? A sorry excuse for love?
On the other hand, my past. My career. My future. I slide a hand over my stomach, knowing what’s important here.
Not my reputation. Not Silas’s. Not who he decides to drink with before he sleeps with me. Not whether he’s there to protect me when the press comes for me, vicious and bloodthirsty. The only thing that matters is my baby—and how can I give my baby a good life when I have to hand it over to the royal family? I won’t let it be swallowed up in that media machine. I won’t have my child be fodder for the cameras. I won’t have scandal after scandal printed about my life. Won’t let myself be dragged under by the institution I’ve made a career out of denouncing.
I will not let my child be part of the royal family, so I can’t be with Silas. These gossip columns—they’ll pass. For me they will. I’ll be forgotten. A footnote in the royal family’s history.
But Silas?
This is his life. His whole existence is on the front page of a tabloid. It was so incredibly stupid of me to think I could change that. To think I could have a future with him. To think things would work out between us.
They won’t.
It’s so simple. So easy.
But everything feels cold.
“Jazz, you mean so much to me. I’ll be in Nord for the holidays. I have three days there and I want to see you. I can’t let you walk away—”
“You have no control over what I do, Silas. Look, it was fun, it blew up in our faces, and now I need to face the consequences. You’ll be fine, won’t you? You’re untouchable. But I have to gather up the tatters of my reputation and try to rebuild my career. The only way to do that is to cut you out of my life. Don’t come and see me.”
He makes a noise that sounds a lot like a sob, then whispers my name once more. In the depths of my broken, dark heart, an echo of pain pulses through me. I do my best to ignore it.
“Thanks for the chain. It’ll remind me of you.” I hang up the phone, then lift my gaze to meet Rhea’s.
Her brows are drawn together, eyes red-rimmed. She licks her bottom lip then takes a deep breath. “Are you sure about that, Jazz? The baby…”
“I have no choice. I won’t raise my baby in front of the cameras, and I won’t let it grow up as part of the institution I despise most. If this is the end of my career, so be it. It won’t be the end of my life. Not when I have a child growing inside of me.”
She stands up and come to sit next to me, taking a deep breath. “You’re in shock.”
“Things are so clear to me, Rhea. I can’t explain it. It’s like these past two months I’ve been stumbling through thick fog, and now it’s lifted. I can’t be with him. There’s no sense in continuing the relationship. I need to take care of myself…and my baby.”
Why does my voice sound so cold? So far away? I don’t feel like myself. Don’t feel like my body belongs to me. Everything is…off. I can think clearly, but it feels like a part of me is locked somewhere deep, banging and screaming at me to listen.
Listen to what, though? What choice do I have?
There’s an ocean of emotion inside me, capped by anger. By necessity. By the clear, shimmering strength of what needs to be done to survive. Emotion rages and roils inside me somewhere deep and inaccessible.
