American Royals (37 page)

“Samantha. I meant what happens next for
us.
”

Sam swallowed. She felt suddenly like she’d melted, like she was nothing but lightning encased in skin.

“Last time we were here, you said that you refused to take orders from me.”

“That depends on the order.”

“Well, I was
hoping
that you would kiss me, but since I can’t command you, I guess I’ll have to—”

Her next words were silenced as Teddy lowered his mouth to hers.

It no longer seemed to matter that Sam couldn’t see him—that he was darkness, and she was darkness, and darkness swirled all around them. Because everything in the world had narrowed to that single point of contact. To the searing feeling of Teddy’s mouth on hers.

She hooked her arms around his shoulders and yanked him closer. Teddy reached under her curls to cradle the base of her neck, his other hand slipping around her waist. Sam’s breath caught in her throat. They stumbled back onto the furs, and Teddy knocked his head against a shelf, but not even that broke apart their kiss.

“We should get back,” Teddy whispered at last, his breath warm in her ear.

Sam nipped one last time at his lower lip, just because she could. She felt rather than saw him smile against her skin.

“If we
must,
” she said dramatically, and forced herself to step back. She was dangerously close to dragging Teddy up to her bedroom, no matter the consequences.

“Sam.” Teddy ran a hand through his hair, a shadow against the dark. “I’m sorry for the way this all happened. It hasn’t been especially fair to you.”

“It hasn’t been fair to any of us.” Sam thought of Beatrice, cornered by their dad into proposing when she didn’t really mean it.

“I
like
you,” Teddy said baldly. “In Telluride, I kept wishing that I could hit pause—keep spending time with you, learning more about you. What I’m trying to say is, you deserve better than this. Than hiding with me in a coatroom.”

His words warmed her. “I do wish it was a bit more spacious,” she teased, but he didn’t take the bait.

“I just … I would hate to cause problems for you, with your family.”

Whatever happened, Sam knew that she and Beatrice would be in it together. “What about you and
your
family?” she asked, deflecting.

Teddy heaved a quiet breath. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I hope we can figure something out. If we don’t, I guess I’ll learn what it’s like to lose everything.”

“Not everything. You’ll still have me.”

Sam felt for his hand, and Teddy gripped it hard.

“We’re going to have to give people time, you know,” he said. “Neither of us comes out looking very good here. I’ll be the guy dating his ex-fiancée’s sister, and you’re the maid of honor dating the former groom.”

“They’ll get over it eventually. Stranger things have happened when it comes to royal weddings,” Sam declared, with more confidence than she felt.

“Such as?”

“Louis XIV had an affair with his brother’s wife. Henry VIII married
his
brother’s wife.” Sam laughed. “You’ve also got the medieval king Hardecanute—that means ‘Tough Knot’—who died of drunkenness at a wedding feast. I’m serious,” she insisted, at Teddy’s skeptical look. “He literally drank himself to death!”

“I believe you.” Teddy was clearly fighting back his amusement.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“Never,” he said quickly. “I’m just thinking about how difficult it’s going to be, being with you. Difficult and unpredictable and never,
ever
boring.”

She flushed in pleased self-consciousness.

“Okay—why don’t I go out first, and then you wait a couple of minutes, just in case. Meet me near the bar?” Teddy suggested.

Sam nodded as he slipped out the door. Only a few seconds had passed before she darted out into the hallway, the hem of her dress dragging on the floor as she caught up.

“Oh—Teddy!” she cried out, with studied nonchalance. “I’m so glad I ran into you!”

“I thought we agreed that you were waiting a couple of minutes,” he whispered, though he was grinning.

“Let me have my way, just this once.”

“I have a feeling it’s never going to be
just this once
with you,” Teddy answered. “Though I have to say, I’m okay with it.”

Daphne was chatting with the Countess of Cincinnati when Nina ducked past the doors to the ballroom. She looked pale and slightly shaken, though she wasn’t crying. Daphne felt grudgingly impressed by that.

She watched Nina cast one last lingering glance over the party, as if committing it all to memory, then leave in a swish of gray glass beads.

Daphne looked over at her mother, flush with victory. Rebecca had been right after all: the way to break them up had always been through Nina, rather than Jefferson. Rebecca met Daphne’s gaze and cut her eyes meaningfully toward the prince.

But Daphne wasn’t about to rush. The last thing she wanted was for Jefferson to feel
pursued.

It wasn’t until the night was winding toward a close—the crowds at the bar thinning, the dance floor slowing down—that she went to find him.

Jefferson was, predictably, in the Reynolds Room: a small chamber down the hall from the ballroom. Its windows were lined with persimmon drapes, a massive couch curled up before them like some great sleeping animal. In the corner stood a built-in bar. It was rarely staffed, though on one occasion Daphne had seen the king himself back there, mixing martinis.

The prince sat on a gleaming barstool, his body slumped forward, his elbows propped on the bar. An expensive bottle of scotch lay before him. There were shelves of crystal tumblers along the wall, but tonight it seemed like the prince had dispensed with the niceties and was drinking straight from the bottle.

Daphne pulled the door shut behind her, and the sounds of the party were rapidly cut off.

Jefferson barely glanced up at her arrival. “Oh, hey.”

“Rough night?” she asked sympathetically, undeterred by his tone. She’d always been able to charm Jefferson out of a maudlin drunk mood. “Looks like you could use a friend.”

“What I could really use is a drinking buddy.”

Daphne pulled herself onto the barstool next to him. “Where’s Samantha? She was a fantastic drinking buddy in Telluride.”

She saw Jefferson’s flicker of recognition. “That’s right. Weren’t you two taking shots?”

It was nice to know that he still couldn’t look away from her, even if he wanted to. “Who, me?” Daphne asked, with false innocence. She kicked off her rhinestone-studded heels and hooked her feet over the lower rung of the barstool. “What are we drinking?”

He slid the scotch toward her, something challenging in his attitude, as if he didn’t really expect her to join in.

“Cheers,” Daphne said lightly. The bottle felt heavy in her hand. She took a long sip, then set it on the bar, slowly and with some style.

Now she had the prince’s attention.

“Everything okay?” Her gauzy champagne-colored dress cascaded around her as she leaned forward. In that moment, Daphne knew, everything about her seemed soft and angelic, from the pale curve of her neck to her rose-colored lips to her fingernails, painted a translucent pink.

Jefferson heaved a sigh. “You’ve probably heard, but Nina broke up with me tonight.”

“No,” Daphne breathed. “I hadn’t heard.”

He shot her a curious glance. “She said some pretty weird things about you, actually. She accused you of sending the paparazzi to her dorm, to break the story about us.”

Daphne let her mouth fall open in a perfect O of shock. “I had no idea that you guys were dating. Let alone what dorm she lives in,” she said, with a confused laugh. “Besides, I would never do something like that. You know how much I hate the press.”

“That’s what I told her. But … where would Nina get an idea like that?”

Daphne sensed his uncertainty. And she had known this was coming—that Nina would fling accusations about her to the prince. Which was why she’d come prepared.

Nina was no longer here, and as King George I once said, history is written by the victors.

“I’m sorry. This is all my fault. All this confusion, I mean,” Daphne explained, in answer to Jefferson’s puzzled look. “I told Nina earlier tonight that I blamed myself. I guess she misunderstood.”

“Blamed yourself? For what?”

“She clearly felt out of her depth.” Daphne said it gently, so that it somehow didn’t come out like an insult at all, but more like a quiet observation. “She wasn’t equipped to handle all the attention she was getting. I tried to give her some advice when we went shopping—”

“You went shopping with Nina?”

“We ran into each other at Halo, and I helped her pick out a dress.” Daphne sighed. “I probably shouldn’t have made an effort. She clearly thought I was interfering. I just wanted her to learn from my mistakes.”

Jefferson nodded, silent. He glanced at the fireplace, above which hung a famously unfinished portrait of his grandparents King Edward III and Queen Wilhelmina. The top half was complete, but the bottom dissolved into charcoal sketch lines, the Queen Mother’s dress transitioning from flame-colored paint to wisps of pencil. After her husband died, she refused to let the artist finish the painting; and so it would remain like this, forever incomplete.

“Nina doesn’t like you,” Jefferson said abruptly. He still wasn’t convinced by Daphne’s explanation.

Of course she doesn’t.
Daphne gave a serene nod. “I don’t blame her. She knew what I was thinking tonight.”

“What were you thinking?”

Daphne lifted her eyes to meet his, then swept her thick black lashes down over her cheeks.

“How I still feel about you. I won’t say that I’m sorry you and Nina broke up. Because I’m not.”

She let the words fall between them like dice, tossed in some cosmic game of chance, except that Daphne left nothing to chance. Jefferson wasn’t going to kiss her; she knew that much. It was too soon. She just needed to say the words and let them percolate in his mind.

He shifted awkwardly, as if he wasn’t quite certain how to behave around her after what she’d said. Still, Daphne waited a moment. Too many people were unnerved by silence, but not her. She knew what could be accomplished in a beat of silence, if you were willing to let it unfold.

“Thanks for sharing this,” she said at last, and reached across him for the bottle of scotch, to take another long sip before passing it back to Jefferson.

He cleared his throat. “Remember when we came in here and played Apples to Apples?”

“You and Ethan kept trying to make it a drinking game!” Daphne recalled. “It was so long ago, I can’t remember who won ….”

Jefferson gave a sardonic smile. “Not me, if my hangover the next morning was any indication.”

“Wasn’t that a school day?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m pretty sure I begged you to bring a breakfast sandwich to the alley for me.” The students of St. Ursula’s and Forsythe weren’t supposed to visit each other’s campuses, but there was a narrow strip of grass between the two—uninventively called “the alley”—where you could meet between periods for a quick kiss. Or, in Daphne’s case, to deliver Gatorade and a breakfast sandwich to your boyfriend.

“I miss those days.” Daphne’s smile was tinged with nostalgia. “Everything else aside, I miss being friends with you. So many times I’ve caught myself reaching for my phone, because there was something I wanted to tell you, and then …”

Jefferson’s hand was right there on the bar between them. Daphne knew how easy it would be to lace her fingers in his, but she didn’t want to spook him.

Instead she sighed and looked down, the diamonds in her ears swinging and catching the light. “I wish we could be friends again.”

The prince nodded, slowly. “I don’t see why we can’t be.”

Later that night, Daphne started toward the main double doors of the palace. She had just said goodbye to Jefferson—well,
goodbye
might be overstating it; she had poured him into the helpful arms of one of his security officers. She had briefly considered going upstairs with him, but decided against it. She didn’t want him to think of her as the rebound from Nina, when Nina had always been the rebound from
her.

And anyway, they’d gotten too drunk, sliding that fifth of scotch back and forth as they reminisced and laughed over old memories. Daphne decided that it was better to end now, on a high note. She had rekindled the spark, and that was enough for tonight.

Daphne didn’t bother heading back into the party; there was no one else she needed to see, and her parents were long since home. She paused at the front hallway to collect her coat from a footman. Even though she’d taken much smaller sips than Jefferson, she felt the scotch pulsing languidly through her veins. She was quite drunk.

And exhausted. That was the thing about success; it could be even more draining than failure. It had felt like a marathon: all these days and nights of scheming and plotting, breaking apart a relationship and holding herself ready in the wings. She’d been running on fumes and raw determination, and now there was nothing left to hold her upright.

The palace’s circle drive was always chaotic after a big party. A long queue of people twisted around the front porch, each of them waiting for one of the courtesy cars, which the palace provided free of charge after a night like this. Daphne allowed herself a sigh and started toward the back.

“Daphne? Can I give you a ride?”

She was somehow unsurprised to see Ethan at the front of the line, holding open the door of a town car.

Daphne paused in the moonlight, her coat dropping from her shoulders. There was something new and sharp in the air, something she should ignore. But she didn’t.

“That would be great. Thank you,” she murmured, and slid after him into the backseat. Ethan leaned forward to give the driver her address.

“We can drop you first. This
was
your car.”

“It’s okay,” Ethan said quickly, and smiled. “Chivalry, and all that.”

Daphne realized that she didn’t actually know where Ethan lived, had never been to his house, had never even met his mom. She wondered, fleetingly, why he’d never invited any of their friends over—if his mom didn’t approve of them, or if Ethan had reasons of his own.

“So? How did it go?” Ethan demanded. Through the tinted windows, the city was a gold-flecked blur. The skyscrapers of the financial district huddled against the horizon, honeycombed by scattered office windows that were still illuminated.

“Nina broke up with Jefferson.”

“Congratulations.” He gave a slow, quiet clap. “Though I have to say … I’m surprised you’re not still with Jeff, after a victory like that.”

She could have told Ethan that Jefferson was too drunk, that she’d done more than enough for one night. Instead all Daphne said was, “Well, I’m not.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “I’m curious. How did you manage it?”

It suddenly felt like such a relief, sitting here with Ethan, not hiding anything. Throughout the conversation with Jefferson, Daphne had been on high alert, monitoring her every word and gesture. But with Ethan she could just be herself.

She told him everything she’d done to Nina, from the beginning.

The car took a sharp turn, and since neither of them was wearing a seat belt, the weight of Ethan’s body lurched against hers.

He quickly moved away, though with less distance between them than there had been.

“I’m impressed,” he declared, when Daphne had finished her story. “Sabotage
and
intimidation—you’ve outdone yourself. You really decimated that girl.”

Something about his phrasing needled her. “Did you ever doubt me?” she asked testily.

“Never.” Ethan paused, as if uncertain whether to say his next words, then went ahead and said them anyway. “It’s too bad that Jeff doesn’t appreciate the half of what you’re capable of.”

“That’s not true—”

He barked out a laugh. “Jeff doesn’t know you like I do. All he sees is what you look like, which is a damn shame, because your mind is the best thing about you. Your brilliant, stubborn, unscrupulous mind, and the sheer force of your willpower.”

Daphne wanted to protest, but Ethan was looking at her with an expression she had never seen before.

It was the look of someone who knows you, knows the best and worst parts of you, knows what you have done and what you are capable of doing, and who chooses you in spite of it all. It was a look Daphne had never seen from Jefferson in all the years they had been dating.