by Alyssa Cole
His expression was drawn, like he could barely bring himself to remember it.
She glanced at the paper again and caught the subhead of the article.
DUKE’S GOOD TIME GIRL FRIDAY MAKES THE ROUNDS OF THE PEERAGE, AND SETS HER SIGHTS ON A PRINCE
She skimmed the text, words like sordid past and promiscuous and bully-brained socialite stood out. There were photos of her that painted a terrible picture. One in which she leaned suggestively toward David, her body pressed against his as he sported a shocked expression. One of her and Johan with locked eyes as they danced. And of course, one of Tavish holding her in the gardens.
“That was when I kicked David in the balls, that’s when Johan was telling me an intense story about an overflowing toilet in the royal pool house, and that’s . . .” She looked up at Tavish. He knew when that was. It was when he’d asked her to stay. Not to be his apprentice or squire or any combination of the two—he’d asked her to stay for her. For them.
But the warmth that had been in his eyes the night before had banked, like a forge gone cold.
The next picture showed him carrying her over his shoulder toward their carriage and Johan elbowing a paparazzo out of the way.
Tavish’s debut. His entry into society. She’d ruined everything.
You knew you would.
She flipped the page and sank down, either chance or reflexes landing her ass in one of the wooden chairs. There, in bullet point format, was an accounting of her scandalous past. Former hookups gleefully discussing their brief times together, happy to cash in on fifteen seconds of fame. Pictures stolen from her social media—or more likely offered up by acquaintances.
“This doesn’t make sense,” she said.
“We all know the Looking Glass is full of lies,” Cheryl said comfortingly as she chopped, but her smile was tight. “No one believes this tripe and if they do they’ll forget soon enough, aye?”
Portia shook her head and winced at the brief flash of pain. “Some of it is true-ish. Sensationalized, but true. But the stuff about last night—no. I wasn’t flirting with anyone! Well, Tavish, maybe, but I’m not some scheming social climber. I’m rich, why would I need to aim for some dusty old Scottish aristocrat with nothing to his name but a crumbling property? They would be coming after me!”
“Portia.” Tav’s voice was low and there was an undertone to it that she didn’t like.
“Tav—”
“I think we should move up the end date for your apprenticeship,” he said.
The kitchen spun and she didn’t think it was the hangover. She gripped the edge of the table.
“But—”
“Look, you said yourself that this situation was too much for you, and I think last night showed it. Your face is splashed everywhere, everyone is crawling through your past looking for garbage. Because you’re here, associated with me.”
His nostrils flared.
“Maybe it would be better for you to go back to New York,” he said with a firmness that left no room to imagine the maybe was anything other than a nicety.
“Come on, Tav,” Cheryl said. “Take a minute to think about this.”
“To think about what? The fact that the tabloids will leap on everything and everyone related to me and drag them through the mud? I have a responsibility to my family, and to the armory, and . . . and to this title. So I think it’s best you go like you planned, get back to your regular life and friends and family.”
Portia said the first thing that came to mind. “But who’s going to help you?”
Tavish ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “You need to worry about helping yourself right now, Portia. People around the world are reading about your sexual exploits. Have you checked your phone? There are already stories circulating that Johan and I are sharing you, which would be fine if any of us were into that, but that’s not the healthy setup being spread around. Aren’t you always thinking about optics? What are the optics of constant headlines about you being some kind of—”
He stopped short, but Portia knew what he was going to say. What he had thought. About her.
“I’ll book my flight. You already have access to all of the social media accounts and emails on the phone I got you. I’ll send you the link to all the important info and files online,” she said calmly. She tried to keep her breathing controlled because all it would take was one deep breath to lead to a gasp, to lead to a sob, to lead to showing everyone how Tavish had just ripped her heart out.
“Cheryl, I have all the ideas for the restaurant promotions and menu mock-ups, and Jamie, the expansion plans for your classes at other gyms. I’ll email them.”
With that she turned and walked out, as quickly as her hangover allowed.
PORTIA DIDN’T CHARGE her phone as she gathered her belongings. She knew what awaited her: hot takes on social media, a plethora of dudes who had or would lie about being past lovers. Conjecture about her and Tav, hate from Johan’s obsessive fans, disappointment from her parents. She didn’t want to know what Reggie would think. Reggie who had let Portia become part of her site and would now have to deal with the blowback.
She packed haphazardly, expecting Tavish to come through the door any minute, to tell her there had been some misunderstanding. That he hadn’t really sent her away. Even a mere apprentice would have gotten some fanfare about her departure, or a pat on the back. But when the knock at the door came, it was Cheryl and Jamie, both wearing pinched expressions.
“Are you okay, love?” Jamie asked. His curls were sticking every which way, as if he’d tugged at them in frustration.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m just packing. I’m going to catch the tram and go find a hotel.”
“Wait, you’re leaving today?” Cheryl asked. She and Jamie looked at each other. “I don’t think he wanted you to leave today.”
“Well, if he wants me to leave, that’s all there is to it. Why put off the inevitable?”
“Portia, I think maybe both of you should take some time and talk this through,” Cheryl said. “The past few weeks have been a whirlwind—maybe wait for the dust to settle a bit before making any rash decisions.”
Agitation tightened the back of her neck. Moving halfway around the world to learn how to make a sword had been rash. Falling for her bawbag of a boss, that had been rash. Offering to guide Tavish into the aristocracy when she didn’t even know what she was doing with her own life? Rash. Going back to New York would be the first rational thing she had done since applying to the apprenticeship.
“If he wanted to talk this through, he’d be here instead of you. This is for the best anyway. He has Leslie, Johan, and any number of other people willing to help him now. What he doesn’t need is a scandal.”
“Tav doesn’t care about that stuff,” Jamie said.
Portia remembered his expression of disgust. “Tavish doesn’t, but apparently Your Grace does. I guess I did my job too well.”
She packed in silence, with a tearful Cheryl and a somber Jamie hovering and trying to help but mostly getting in the way. She thought about maaaybe connecting her phone to the charger just to peek, but decided not to. Reality was a safe haven because whatever awaited her once she opened the virtual floodgates would be too real.
“Can one of you call Kevyn? I’ll need a ride.”
Jamie went to make the call while Cheryl helped her carry her bags downstairs. When they were done, Portia waited outside. Both desperate to see Tav one last time and dreading the same.
He was nowhere to be seen.
“Portia,” Jamie said. “You know, I’ve never seen Tav like this before. About a woman. I know he’s a wanker, but he’s a wanker who cares about you.”
“Well the damned honey badger needs to tell her that then,” Cheryl said with agitation. She brushed a strand of pink from her face. “He’s stone, not the sword in this situation.”
Jamie nodded gravely, though Portia was too busy holding herself together to work that one out.
“Why aren’t you answering my texts? Or calls? Or social media messages?” Ledi asked angrily as she rushed up the steps and pulled Portia into a hug.
Portia was shocked for a moment and then shook herself out of it and hugged Ledi back. All of the emotion she’d been burying to get through the packing and leaving rushed to the surface and tears spilled down her cheeks, chased by four heaving sobs that she wrangled into submission. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Thesolo.”
“What is the point of being a princess if you can’t book an emergency flight around the world? And we weren’t in Thesolo, we’d made a stop in Spain for legitimate, totally non-churro-related reasons.” Ledi looked around. “Where is Tavish?”
More tears spilled from Portia’s eyes, and Ledi’s expression went hard. “Okay. Your bags are packed and Tavish is nowhere to be found and I might have to call in Thesoloian special forces to take care of him after all.”
“Let’s just go,” she said. “Please.”
Ledi released her hold on Portia and motioned to the driver, who came over to help with the bags. Of course, Ledi refused to let the woman take the bigger bag because being a princess hadn’t changed the fact that she preferred her own hard work and was stubborn as hell.
Portia hugged Jamie and Cheryl. “This isn’t goodbye,” Jamie said. “Hasta luego, more like.”
Portia didn’t feel like lying so she simply kissed his cheek, and then Cheryl’s.
“I hope Jamie is right,” Cheryl said. “I mean this is totally a Hermione and Ron situation and we all know how that worked out.”
Portia had no idea, but she smiled and nodded anyway. It was the polite thing to do.
Chapter 28
Nya wants to know if you’re feeling okay,” Ledi said, looking up from her phone, the same concern in her eyes that Portia had seen a million times over the years, made slightly more comical by the facial sheet mask Ledi wore. The concern bothered her, though; Ledi had swooped in to make things right for Portia so many times. With Project: New Portia, she thought all of that had changed, but here she was, pampering herself to distract from the fact that not only was she a fuck-up, but the whole world knew about her questionable choices in hookup partners and thought she had a thing for old Scottish men.
She’d snapped an “I’m cool guys” photo to post on social media, and taken a hiatus. From the internet, from her phone, from the reality that she’d allowed herself to think that someone would ask her to stay and mean it. Not checking calls meant avoiding who had called—and who hadn’t.
“Tell her I’m okay,” she said, trying to smile.
“She’s not okay,” Ledi spoke aloud as she typed. “But she will be.”
Naledi Moshoeshoe nee Smith, actually nee Ajoua, was suddenly an optimist, it seemed. Portia almost laughed, but she felt a painful pulse of envy radiate through her, because she knew what caused that optimism.
“I’m jealous,” Portia admitted. One thing she wouldn’t fuck up about Project: New Portia was the tenet “Thou shalt not lie to thine bestie.”
“Of . . . ?” Ledi looked confused and Portia did laugh this time. Ledi was finishing her master’s in a field that was actually useful to the world, had found the man of her dreams, and was a goddamned princess. Of course she would be confused as to what exactly was causing Portia’s jealousy.
“Of your surety. That you know someone loves you, and that changed you. You were so scared before . . .” Portia trailed off. “I used to think I was protecting you from being hurt when I chased away fuckboys, but I can’t even protect myself.”
Ledi put down the phone. “You think I’m sure? Of anything? You’re lucky I love you or I would be mad that I fooled even you.”
A timer pinged on her phone and they both peeled off their masks in unison. Now that the smiling sloth printed on Ledi’s mask was gone, Portia could see that her friend was frowning.
“I’m not sure of anything. I wake up every day wondering if this will be the day Thabiso decides he made the wrong decision, the day my in-laws decide they were right about their first impression, or the day my people decide I am not worthy to guide them. Thabiso’s love didn’t make me sure of anything. I’m scared shitless every day. It was so much easier living behind the barriers I’d put up.”
“Then why did you tear them down?” Portia asked.
“Because I’m brave,” Ledi said without a hint of self-consciousness. “And I think you were letting yourself be brave too, and that’s why this hurts so much.”
“I wasn’t brave. I was foolish. I let Tav storm my castle.”
Ledi shook her head. “Don’t you see? That is the brave part. Seeing an enemy at the gate, an enemy who could rip you to shreds, and then taking that deep breath, lowering the drawbridge, and inviting them in. You’d been defending your castle for years. Lowering the bridge must have been so hard.”
Portia sniffled, felt the heat of tears in her eyes. “No. It was easy. So damned easy.”
Ledi came and wrapped an arm around her and let her cry, and then Portia heard her friend sniffling, too.
“Why are you crying?” Portia asked.
“Because I’m proud of you,” she said. “Because letting down your drawbridge means that somewhere in this thick skull of yours, you’ve absorbed what I’ve been trying to tell you all these years.”
“Stop drinking so much?”
“Well, no, given what happened. That you are worth so much more than you were giving yourself credit for. Even if Tav isn’t the one, even if you decide you don’t want to be with anyone long-term ever, it’s not because you’re unworthy.”
Portia didn’t ask any more questions. She just hugged her friend and allowed herself to bask in the honest truth, to let itself be engraved on her heart: even if things didn’t work out with Tavish, someone had always thought she was worth it, had always stuck by her side, and seemingly always would.
“You’re pretty great,” Portia said, finally reaching for a box of tissues from the hotel bedside table. “Except now I’m going to have puffy eyes, negating the anti-inflammatory sheet mask.”
“Oh, I brought this cream from Thesolo that works wonders—”
The phone ringing in the room abruptly silenced Ledi. Their eyes met and Portia knew what both of them were thinking. This is the part where Prince Charming arrives with the glass slipper. This is where the dragon gets slain. Or this is where the hotel double-checks the wakeup call for her flight the next day.
She grabbed the phone off of the receiver. “Hello?”
“Why haven’t you answered my fucking texts?” Reggie’s slow cadence didn’t mask her anger. “You know I hate the phone. Mom and Dad and I were worried sick.”
“I’m sorry,” Portia said automatically. “I haven’t turned it on for a couple of days.”
“Well, I get that, but the internet has been going wild.”
“Umm, that’s what I was avoiding.”
“Typical. Stick your head in the sand and everything will just take care of itself, right?”
Portia was instantly submerged in a sea of guilt, and the desire to hang up, to ignore Reggie’s reminder of her ultimate fuck-up: pulling away from her twin sister. But this time she didn’t. She stood with the portable phone and carried it with her into the bathroom of the suite.
“About that. There’s something I have to talk to you about.”
“Are you pregnant?” Reggie asked, a little less angry. “Because oh. Em. Gee. Everyone is so invested in this, that would blow their minds.”
“No!” Portia said, confused.
“Well, good. I’m too young to be an aunt.”
“Reggie! Look. Do you remember when you got sick?”
“Kind of hard. My brain was swelling and pressing against my
skull. Not optimal for remembering things.” She said it so blandly that Portia might have thought she didn’t care.
“Well, I do remember. I’m sorry I didn’t come see you enough. I was selfish and cowardly and I ruined everything. I was a terrible sister, and everyone knew it, especially Mom and Dad.”
“What are you talking about? You were there all the time. Even when I couldn’t talk or move much, I’d open my eyes, and you’d be there.”
“I . . .” Portia’s throat closed up. She’d thought she was cried out, but some previously unknown well of tears had been tapped.
She remembered the Hot Mess Helper video about being too hard on yourself. If there’s one thing we’re good at, it’s feeling bad. Hell, sometimes we’ll take a tiny inconsequential thing and turn it into DRAMA for no damn reason. We’re so used to being wrong that we invent shit to be wrong about! ADHD is a trip.
“I don’t remember things that way,” she said.
“Yeah.” Reggie was silent for a bit. “Honestly, it was after I started my recovery that you stopped showing up. That really sucked, if you want to apologize.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Wait, why were you telling me this like it was a confession . . . ooooh fuck. Are you kidding me? Is that what all of this has been about? Guilt?” Reggie was incensed now. “You dumb motherfucker.”
“I thought you didn’t want me around,” Portia said.
“Well, I thought you were ashamed of me!”
Portia had never heard her sister cry—not during the physical therapy. Not when the temporary wheelchair became permanent. She’d always been cool, collected, and ready for all challenges. But she was gasping through a sob on the other end of the line now.
“Reggie, how could I be ashamed of you?” Portia asked. “You’ve always been this perfect golden child. You always go after what you want and get it no matter what. Everyone knows you’re amazing.”
“Why would I think that? Hm, maybe never wanting to spend time with me after I started using a wheelchair? Does that ring a bell?”