by Karen Ferry
“Don’t mention it. I’d rather it hadn’t happened, but fuck…” He trembles violently. “When I saw him holding you down, I saw red. I’m glad I came at the right time.”
The knuckles on his right hand are banged up with scrapes, and I lift it gently to my lips and kiss them carefully.
“I need to tell you something,” I start. “Please don’t interrupt me, okay? I need to get it out.”
I raise my head and meet his questioning eyes.
“Surely it can wait…”
I shake my head.
“I’ve already put it off for far too long, mon cœur. I can’t keep doing that.”
He frowns, his jaw grows hard for a few beats, but then he relaxes his head against the headboard and nods.
“Okay. I promise to try and stay silent, sweetheart.”
My lips quirk up at his small attempt at lightening the mood.
“Remember that old article in the French paper?”
He nods again.
“I’ve read it so many times, I practically know it by heart.” I take a deep breath and push through my nerves. “I don’t know if you managed to translate it, but it mentions briefly that my parents – my adopted parents, that is – are close to the British royal family.”
His arms jerk once around me, but I keep going.
“Well, Maman went to boarding school with a distant relative to one of the princesses, and they stayed close years after. But then she – the princess, I mean, she…” I fumble, now knowing the right words, yet I must. “She became pregnant, but not with her husband…” I stop talking for a moment, my heart beating like a staccato against my rubs. “Through their mutual friend, the princess knew that my parents couldn’t have children of their own, and she couldn’t keep the child as it would’ve brought a huge scandal down on not only herself but her husband as well. The tabloids would catch wind of it and it would ruin her if that happened.”
Once more, I raise my head to look at him.
“I…I can’t tell you her name. It’s not only my secret, it’s hers as well. Please don’t ask me to do that.”
“What are you telling me, sweetheart?”
I breathe deeply through my nose.
“The child was born at a private hospital in France – a hospital with staff hired who knew not to ask questions or the handsome sum they got paid would vanish. Soon after, my parents travelled to Avignon, and I came with them. I am that child, Fin.”
Understanding lights up his eyes, and I watch him closely, my tummy swarming with butterflies.
“So,” he murmurs softly, “why now, after all this time, does your parents want you to come out of hiding, so to speak? Why risk the exposure with this entertainment piece?”
I relax against him and stare into the room.
“I suppose they feel I’m holding myself back…Daddy even told me that I’m denying the possibility of a future by keeping somebody else’s secret, and that isn’t fair to me.”
His chest rises and falls steadily underneath my ear as the silence stretches between us once more. More than once, I open my moth, only to shut it tightly, because the truth is I have no idea what to say now that all’s out in the open.
I know I’m putting all my trust in him, but it feels right…despite the fact he’s a journalist and the scoop of the century has been handed to him on a platter, there’s not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that he’ll betray my trust.
He loves me.
It’s as simple as that.
“Thank you for telling me. Am I going to have to call you Your Royal Highness from now on?”
I gasp at his teasing and punch him lightly on his chest.
“You buffoon, you…”
My words die on my lips as they are captured by his, and I open my mouth on a sigh at the gentle way his tongue laps at mine. I bury my fingers in his thick hair and let him lead me, and as our tongues tangle together in a slow dance that makes me lightheaded, I marvel at the strong bond we have.
We don’t talk much after that, as if we both need to absorb and think about all that’s happened today, but truth be told, I don’t need words.
I only need him.
Him and his love.
The rest are merely details.
12
Finlay
Rage the likes of which I’ve never felt before consumes me as I storm through the newsroom ignoring the murmurings of my co-workers the further I get to my editor’s office. My steps eat up the distance and I crumble the paper in my fist, tossing it on his desk before I slam his door shut.
“Well, well, well.” He sits back in his chair and steeples his fingers. “Look what the cat dragged in. How kind of you to cease ignoring me.”
The sarcasm isn’t lost on me, but I’m too enraged to care, instead pointing down on the offending paper.
“What the fuck is that?” I seethe.
“Why, it’s your story about Amelie Winters, the most talented dancer in the world. And,” he chuckles darkly, “apparently also your girlfriend.”
“You’re not printing that.”
He blinks innocently at me.
“I already did. I think it’s your best work yet, Jensen. The passion with which you describe her is astounding, I have to say. You should be proud.” He chuckles as he winks lewdly at me. “Not to mention her background…oh, this is the scoop of the millennia, lad.”
I rest my palms on the desk as I tower over him. For the first time, panic rises in my chest, but I harden my gaze.
“Everything I wrote was fucking private, Erik, and you know it.”
He shrugs and stands up. My fingers itch to wipe that fucking smirk off his face and I have to physically force myself not to punch him in the nose.
“Nothing is private when you use the paper’s resources, and you forget, dear boy, that your laptop is our property. And then there’s the matter that your word program is linked to our software. Every day you wrote something, it was like I was there, reading over your shoulder. I’m very surprised you forgot about that. Miss Winters must be very…alluring.”
His laughter grates on my nerves and I ball my fists tightly.
“I had to cull out all the fluff,” he goes on to wipe his hand in the air. “I wouldn’t be the editor I am if I didn’t, however the main story is still yours.”
“You forget about the contract, Erik. Her solicitors will crucify you. They’ll shut down the paper.”
He tuts as she leans back on his desk and crosses his arms.
“I doubt it. Our legal department will hash it out between them, but if the worst happens and we end up having to retract it, the damage is still done, and our readers will wonder if Amelie Winters is indeed the love child between a member of the royal family and some, as yet, unidentified man.”
That’s done it. I take two steps closer and only stop when we’re nose to nose.
“You’re a bastard, Erik.”
His triumphant smile disappears at once, his nostrils flaring.
“Careful, Jensen. I’m still your boss.”
I shake my head, ignoring the ache around my heart.
This is going to shatter Amelie.
It will destroy her and us.
“I quit.”
Surprise glints his eyes, and his jaw grows slack.
“You can’t do that, Jensen. You’re a journalist, for God’s sake. This is what we do: we tell the stories, no matter the costs!”
I turn around and walk back the way I came.
“This is not me,” I growl, not caring if I look like a madman as I stalk out.
I don’t wait for the lift to take me down but instead rush down the four flights of stairs, needing to get to Amelie before somebody else does.
I tear out of the taxi, barely waiting for it to come to a stop at the curb, and I push my way through the throng of journalists and photographers that have already set up camp at her gate.
“Move, damn it!” I shoulder my way past them, ignoring their eager, be
ady eyes as questions rain down on me. They’re on the hunt for blood, scenting my impending doom, but all I can think about is getting inside the front door.
Quickly, I bring the key Amelie gave me to the keyhole, but even though I hear it unlock, I can’t turn the handle. She changed the locks. I start pounding on the door, the pain lancing up my fist ignored the longer I slam it against the solid wood.
“Amelie! Let me in!”
Panicked, I keep banging on it until, finally, the handle moves, and I squeeze my inside. I turn my head, desperate to see her, but Amelie avoids my gaze and stays hidden behind the door and shuts it behind us. Once we’re safe from any prying eyes, I move to wrap my arms around her, but she wards me off, her hand raised between us, but I need her to listen to me. To hear me out.
“I’m sorry. Please believe me.”
“You shouldn’t have come, Finlay.”
She leans her back against the door, refusing to meet my gaze.
I don’t know what to do. I’ve fucked up royally, I know that, but I can’t lose her.
“Let me explain…”
“What is there to say? You betrayed me.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
Disbelief is written all over her face when she finally raises her head, her anger palpable.
“Didn’t you? Right, then…” She wets her lips, her cheeks flushed, and tear-stricken face makes my lungs burn. “Explain to me how your article about me magically wrote itself?”
I rake a hand through my hair.
“They were my notes, I admit that, but I didn’t write the article. My editor did. I never planned for it to be printed.”
“Why write all those things down – everything we shared, including, I might add, the intimacy, if you didn’t mean to publish it?”
Groaning, I shake my head. There is no answer I can give her that will make it better, and she knows it, too.
“How could you, Fin?” She tears her arm across her nose, but her sniffles don’t fade. “How could you write about our sex life like that? You cheapened us…yo-you made it sound as if I was some needy virgin when we first met! As if I begged you to fuck me!”
I flinch, her words beating me down bit by bit.
“I don’t know. I just…I didn’t want to forget a single thing you ever told me about yourself. I wanted to remember how I feel when I’m with you…to put into words how much you mean to me.” I grimace. “And instead, he twisted my own words into a sordid affair.”
A sound between a sob and groan fills the silent house.
“I don’t believe you.”
I can’t stand the distance between us any longer, and moving fast, I close the distance in a couple of strides. I lower my head to keep my eyes locked with hers.
“Please…I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t think.”
She shuts her eyes tightly as silent tears flow down her splotchy skin.
“I want you to leave.”
Fuck, it hurts…the whispered words shred me, piece by piece. I’m grabbling at straws, desperate and hurting, and take a tight hold on her waist to pull her flush against me.
“Don’t, sweetheart,” I rasp. “Don’t do this. I can fix it. Let me try”
She shakes her head, her back ramrod straight despite the violent trembling I can feel emanating from her body.
Or is it me? Are those violent shudders coming from my limbs?
“Go. Away.”
I pinch my eyes closed, the distaste in her voice evident, but I can’t leave her like this.
I rest my forehead against hers, squeezing my eyes shut.
The taste of defeat is acidic…hideous and poisonous, and yet, i deserve it.
I deserve to be tormented for breaking her heart.
Still, I don’t want her to be alone.
“Is there anyone you can stay with for the next few days? Someone you trust?”
She doesn’t answer me for the longest time, but at least, she nods.
“My parents are flying in from Paris this afternoon. I won’t be on my own.”
Still aching, I sigh before I place a lingering kiss on her head.
“You were meant to be mine, Amelie Winters,” I let out on a whisper. “I love you.”
She jerks once in my arms, and, heart in my throat, I release her. I can’t bear to look at her, to see the anguish on her every feature, and while my instincts scream at me to stop, to cling to her, I do as she asks.
I leave. The low click of the door as I shut it behind me makes me flinch, but the yelling photographers bring me out of my stupor, and I run away.
I need to make things right. I have to.
I won’t give up on us.
I can’t…she is my perfect match, and I refuse to live the rest of my life without her in it.
I have to win back her trust, and to do that, I’ll have to lay my heart and soul bare for everyone else to see.
She may still hate me afterwards, but I’m going all in.
I write all afternoon and well into the evening, only stopping once in a while to get another cup of coffee. I’m a man possessed, longing and lovesick in equal measure, but I do what I set out to do.
I stop at midnight and scramble to my feet, the aches and pains prickling in my body. But I ignore the physical pain as the emotional one is at the forefront at my mind. I close my eyes for a beat as a wave of nausea hits me, but that, too, is ignored as I frantically search for my phone on my desk. The harsh glare from the lamp hurts my itching eyes, giving way to a massive wave of relief as I find it. In a hurry, I find the person I’m after and swipe the screen.
Harry, the copy editor, picks up on the third ring.
“Jensen? Bloody hell, man, what’s going on? The whole building is in an uproar. Is it true? Did you quit your job?”
I drum my fingers on the table, my body strung so tight I might explode any second.
“I bloody told him he was crazy for printing it,” Harry grouses, “but he wouldn’t listen. He never bloody listens to me.”
“Harry, I can’t talk about that right now,” I interrupt. “I need your help, and before tomorrow’s edition goes to print.”
I’m fully prepared to spend the next half an hour begging, but so be it.
But Harry, despite his tendencies to gossip, is a solid and honest man, who believes in the written word and the need to uphold a high standard.
“What do you need?”
I close my eyes in gratitude.
“I’m going to email you in a bit, and I need you to make sure it gets printed. All of it. Will you do that for me?”
“Is it going to make Erik scream down the house, scenting for my blood?”
I shrug even though he can’t see me.
“It might.”
He chuckles low in my ear.
“Brilliant. Send it through.”
It seems there are other people besides me who hate what Erik’s done and are as eager to make things right. For the first time since I woke up this morning, I crack a smile. My lips chafe, and hunger pains rip through my stomach, but I can’t stop to eat. Instead, I look down at my private laptop and hit send.
“You’ve got mail.”
“Right, leave me to work. I’ll ring you back later, lad.”
Exhausted in both body and mind, I rub my tired eyes. I hope to God I’m doing the right thing, but only Amelie can be the judge of that. All I can do now is wait.
Wait and hope I haven’t lost her entirely.
13
Amelie
I can’t believe the sight before me.
It has to be a mistake.
“Daddy?”
He runs a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair and glowers at the enormous gift basket on the dining room table. Not only is it filled to the brim with my favourite cheeses and cracker, but there’s also a glitzy collar for Monty, some catnip and toys, but that’s not even why I keep my distance, my faithful cat purring in my arms. No, in the very centre of the basket, a newspaper rests ne
atly folded, its glaring black-and-white letters both tempting and taunting me. Daring me to read it. A yellow post-it note with the words Read me is attached to the front page.
My heart firmly lodged in my throat, I bite down on my lip, because while I ache for him, I’m still undecided. It doesn’t take a scientist to work out who sent it, I’m not sure I’m ready to face whatever it is he’s written.
Mon dieu, how I miss him.
“I think you need to read it, sweets,” Maman’s gentle voice breaks me out of my stupor, and I glance behind me at the touch of her hand pressing down on my shoulder.
“Bloody hell, woman, really?” I look back at my dad as he paces back and forth between us and the table. “After everything that, that…snake has put her through, you want her to bleed even more?”
“Shush, Graham,” Maman snaps. “It’s up to Amelie if she wants to read it or not. But as her mother, I’m allowed to give her my opinion as well as my advice.”
I’ve heard that tone of voice from her many times – the one that brooks no arguments – though never aimed at my dad, but as I give him another cursory glance, I can’t help but crack a small smile at the exasperation written on his every feature.
“I don’t want her to get hurt, my love…”
“I’m already hurting, Daddy.” I take a step towards the table and hand Monty to my dad. “It can’t get any worse.”
His frown deepens but I know best how to handle this situation. As I raise my head and keep his gaze, he can have no doubt about how strong I actually am, because the worry that shines back at me lessens, and he nods.
“Right. Do you want your mother and me to leave you alone while you read it?”
I shake my head.
“Please stay.”
“I’ll go make some tea. It’s the British way to deal with a crisis, after all.”
I smile back at her, grateful at her attempt to make me feel better, but it isn’t really working. The truth is I feel numb one minute and filled with sorrow and anger the next. I don’t know what’s up or down anymore – I ache in both body and mind, as if I’ve been struck down with the flu, and I hate the amount of weakness that’s overtaken me in a matter of twenty-four hours.
