Page 91 of Wicked Queen

“You might as well practice. Georgia is almost as scary as Alexander is,” Belle said, crossing her arms as she leaned against a sink.

“I promise you that I am much scarier.”

“Not helping,” I told her. I pretended to study myself in the mirror, but since we’d been at the party for all of an hour, there was nothing to fix.

“You can’t keep it from him. The doctor’s going to be doing house calls soon and he’s going to say something,” Belle argued.

“He can’t,” I reminded her. “If I tell him not to.”

Belle’s lips tugged down at the edges. The look of disappointment made me feel worse.

“What’s going on?” Georgia asked in a low voice.

I’d nearly forgotten she was here, but when our eyes met I realized I wasn’t walking out of this room without coming clean.

“What’s going on?” she repeated, edging closer to me, until she’d backed me against the wall. “You’re keeping something from Alexander that has to do with a doctor—are you sick?”

It took me a moment to process her sudden anger. She had me against a wall—literally. “I actually believed you when you said we were friends.”

“We are,” she informed me. “She’s the one who takes you shopping and helps you match your purse with your shoes. I’m the one who loses sleep when you’re on the outs with Alexander and walks behind you to watch your back.”

Belle’s eyes had rounded to full moons, and she took a small step towards us. “You should tell her. It’s not going away.”

And that was the problem. It wasn’t going away. I couldn’t cover it up or ignore it. I would have to face this—all of us would—and the moment of reckoning was nearly here.

“Pretend that she’s Alexander,” Belle suggested. “It will be practice.”

Georgia looked as though she hated this idea, but she didn’t contradict her.

“Tell me,” her voice softened but the command was still implicit.

“There’s a problem.” I sniffled, trying to keep myself from crying. If I was going to break down telling Georgia how would I ever get through telling Alexander? I set my shoulders and willed myself to be calm, reminding myself that everything would turn out well. “The baby’s heart isn’t right. He’s going to need surgery when he’s born.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Georgia shook her head, her mouth open. “How could you keep this a secret?”

“We weren’t sure. I had to see a specialist.”

“When did you find out there might be a problem?” She asked.

“A couple of—”

“I really hope you’re about to say minutes,” she hissed. “You’ve known for days?”

“Weeks,” I said weakly.

“What were you thinking?” she demanded.

“You do a really good impression of Alexander,” Belle said, “but I think she needs our support not our—”

“That’s how you do friendship.” Georgia spun to face her. “My version has slightly more accountability.”

“I know I should have told him.” Her reaction had shocked the tears from me. Now I was starting to feel angry.

“Even if you couldn’t tell him, I needed to know. Your team needed to know.”

“You answer to Alexander—” I began.

“And you,” she added. “We keep secrets for a living and if the Queen has a secret, we will keep it. Do you understand? When you wanted to go to Windsor, I didn’t call him. I don’t repeat our conversations. But I needed to know this. How can I protect you if I don’t know that there’s a serious health concern with the baby? What if there was an accident and no one knew?”