What could I say? The locket had been a gift from Liam. Even though our relationship had been a ruse at that point, it still meant a lot—a testament to how tangled the situation had become.
If we’d really broken up, would I throw up a big fuss about ditching it?
“I don’t know. What if we get back together at some point? I’ll feel like an idiot.”
“He can buy you another one. Think how good it will feel to pound that thing into the ground.”
I had to act as though we were finished. If this woman was the blackmailer or connected in some way, she couldn’t suspect it wasn’t real. I reached behind my neck and unclasped the locket.
“Do it,” she said. “Pretend like that locket is Liam and show him how much you hate him.”
With a quick, wordless thought toward the building I’d just left, I apologized to Liam for what I was about to do.
I let the locket slip from my fingers and bounce on the ground. Instead of Liam, I imagined the blackmailer had taken up residence in the delicate piece of fine jewelry. With a deep breath, I stomped as hard as I could on the locket.
A piece of gold flew away, but it stayed relatively intact. I crushed it again and again until only a mangled mess remained.
“Doesn’t that feel better?” the woman asked. There was still a glint in her eye I couldn’t read.
I faked a smile, but I didn’t have to fake the heavy breathing from the effort it had taken to destroy the metal charm.
“It does. Now I can put that bastard behind me.”
“I’m glad I could help. We women have to stick together at times like these.”
She edged back a step, as though preparing to walk away.
I had to keep her talking. “Do you mind walking with me a little? After that monster broke up with me, I need someone who can sympathize.”
“Of course,” she said. “Here, let me help you with your bags. I feel bad for making you drop them.”
We resumed the walk to the hotel.
“How do you know Liam?” I asked her. “I’ve never seen you around.”
“Oh, we used to date. A long time ago. But he mistreated me, and his family abused me.”
That was out of character, not only for Liam, but his family as well.
“What happened?”
She walked even slower. “I don’t like talking about it.”
“Please? He just broke up with me, but he wasn’t terrible to me. If you tell me your story, it will make it easier for me to get over him.”
She looked over at me for a moment, then nodded. “All right. We dated six years ago. Not that serious—for him. But I was over the moon for him. You know how he is—it’s impossible to not want everything from him, at all times, every day.”
I didn’t have to feign my agreement.
“Well, I could sense I was boring him. Our conversations grew more stilted, and there were more silences. I had to keep him close. So I did something… desperate.”
“Desperate? What do you mean?”
She stopped walking entirely and turned to face me. “I went off birth control and poked holes in a few condoms. I got pregnant.”
“Pregnant!” I stared at her. This platinum blonde with too much makeup and pouty lips had a child with Liam? With my man?
I fought the urge to leap at her.
“That’s right.” If she knew the internal wars being waged inside my mind, she gave no sign. “Liam Windsor got me pregnant.”
18
~ Liam ~
I paced the room, holding the phone Addison had given me. It was supposedly encrypted beyond belief, capable of only talking to its partner, the one Addison carried. If it connected with any other number, the other person would only hear static.
That meant if someone had equipment to listen in on our calls, they wouldn’t be able to hear anything intelligible.
I called Addison’s phone, eager to hear her voice even though she’d left a mere hour before. The hotel was close enough, she should have walked there and called me already.
Nothing.
Again.
“Fuck!”
I tossed the phone on the couch and resumed my pacing. It hadn’t been long enough to justify running into the streets looking for her, and Addison wouldn’t forgive me if I screwed up the plan because I couldn’t wait for her call.
My phone chimed, and I dove for the couch.
“Hello? Addison?”
A dial tone answered my questions, and I stared at the phone.
It took a few moments for reality to sink in. The chime I’d heard had been from my regular phone, in my pocket. And it was the tone for an incoming email, not a call.
I stood from the couch and looked around the room as I straightened my clothes.
Am I ever lucky no one was around to see that.
I slid the phone out of my pocket and turned it on to see another email from the blackmailer. The characteristic garbled email address was the giveaway.
Another one? So soon?
I hadn’t even responded to the earlier email. That was to be the next part of the plan and executed that night.
The text was longer than any of the previous emails, and there were attachments.
Liam Windsor,
You have ended things with the American girl. Very good. Now that she is out of the way, we can get down to business. My demands are: two hundred million pounds. This money will be transferred to my holdings through a series of transactions. Details to follow once you have the amount liquidated and ready.
This is a very large sum, and I am certain you do not wish to forfeit it. As I have demonstrated, I have knowledge of your life that would prove very damaging to you and your family. It is knowledge you do not even possess.
Your mother, Denise Roquefort, was unfaithful to your father at the time of your conception. She met with a stranger several times. I have attached several dated photographs of your mother and this man eating a meal, getting into a car together, and entering a hotel together. You will notice that the date is exactly nine months before your birth. There are more photographs, correspondence, and other proof of this relationship which I will not reveal unless my demands are not met.
You, Liam Windsor, are not a Windsor at all. Your ties to the royal family are nonexistent, and you are unworthy of all advantages you’ve received throughout your life because of them.
If you do not ready and transmit the two hundred million pounds to my accounts as instructed, the proof of your illegitimacy will be sent to every paper in London and every major news organization in the world.
I stared at the words. I stared until they stopped making sense and became just letters on a screen.
“What the hell is this?”
It couldn’t be true. I refused to believe it. My mother was an honest and incredible woman, and she loved my father. Ever since they died, the memory of their love fueled every accomplishment I made.
This is bullshit. This is wrong.
The attachments were there, but it took a long time before I could bring myself to look at them.
There she is.
My mother had been a stunning woman. Seeing her in her prime was a blow, especially after reading such foul accusations.
It isn’t true, Mother. It can’t be true.
There were three pictures. In each of them, my mother looked as happy as I’d ever seen her, laughing and smiling as she looked at a man I’d never seen.
Is that my real father?
It was too much to process. I’d never even considered the possibility that such a fundamental aspect of my identity could be a lie.
The phone beside me on the sofa rang, and I grabbed it on autopilot.
“Hello?”
“Liam?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Addison. I’m sorry I’m late.”
“That’s okay.” The words were automatic. All the rehearsed words, the loving admonishments for worrying me—all forgotten as I stared at the
picture of my mother with another man.
“I can’t believe you never told me about her, Liam.”
Addison’s disappointed tone cut through my malaise.
“Addison? You’re safe? You made it to the hotel okay?”
“Liam, I can’t believe you got a girl pregnant.”
For the second time in almost as many minutes, my mind went blank. Thoughts struggled to form, but the shock prevented them from finishing the process.
“I—what?”
“There’s a woman who’s been telling me to stay away from you—first, the day I moved in, then at the Wimbledon after-party. She found me on the street after I left your place, and she told me why she has been acting that way. She said that you’d gotten her pregnant six years ago.”
“Six years…” I fought through the shell-shocked state of my brain to remember. “Carla? You found Carla?”
“So you know her. She wouldn’t tell me her name.”
I collapsed back into the couch. “I never got Carla pregnant.”
“That’s not the way she tells it. She went off birth control and poked holes in your condoms so she could have your baby.”
This was too much. Everything I thought I knew about the world had turned upside down in the space of a few minutes.
“She has a kid? My kid?”
“You really don’t know, do you?” Addison said. “I thought it was strange that you never mentioned it. She insisted you were in on everything.”
“In on what? Addison, please tell me everything she said. I’m struggling to understand what’s going on.”
The phone crackled. “Sorry, Liam. So the woman—Carla—said that she got pregnant with your child. After that, she says that men hired by you and your family—the royal side—intimidated and threatened her until she had it aborted. Then they froze her out of polite society. That’s the story she’s telling, anyway.”
I sputtered. “That’s ridiculous, Addison. I didn’t even know she was pregnant. Our relationship just sort of… faded away. She must be making it up for some reason.”
“I don’t know about that, Liam. She was genuinely mad. It sounded like she blames you for everything that went wrong in her life and everything she’s missed out on if you’d stayed with her and she kept the child.”
Could I have gotten Carla pregnant?
It was possible. If she’d decided to go off birth control and sabotaged the condoms, I may never have noticed. It made a certain kind of sick sense if she’d gotten used to the life she had access to while we dated and never wanted that to change.
Addison continued her thought. “Liam, what if Carla is the blackmailer? I haven’t come across a likelier suspect in my time in London. And they've made no demands yet, or revealed what information they had on you. Maybe this is it. Maybe it’s this forced abortion story. Even if it’s not true, it’s something that would cast a bad light on you and your family. Although I’m not sure how it would get your family to reject you, like the threats said.”
“Addison…” I faltered. I hadn’t even had time to fully consider the information the blackmailer had sent, but I had to let her know. “I received another email. This one had demands. And it revealed what the threat is.”
“She sent another one? What did it say? What are they asking for?”
“Two hundred million pounds.” Addison’s sharp intake of breath relayed what she thought of that figure.
“Two hundred million pounds?” I’d never heard her voice hit such a high note. “Are they insane? One million I could see. Five million even, for someone with your fortune. But two hundred million? Do they really think you’ll just send them that kind of money? There’s no way they could threaten you with anything worth nearly that amount.”
I took a deep breath. It was a struggle to force my mouth to make the shapes it needed to. “I’m not sure about that.”
“Liam? What is it?”
“This line is secure? There’s no chance that anyone in the world could tap into this call?”
“Yes. I promise, Liam.”
I already knew her answer, but I needed to stall the extra few seconds before I had to say it out loud.
“They sent me pictures. Pictures… of my mother.”
“Your mother? What does your mother have to do with this?”
I punched the arm of the sofa. “They claim that my mother was having an affair. And that my father isn’t actually my biological father.”
We sat in silence as Addison let what I said sink in.
“You mean… you aren’t actually a royal?”
I gritted my teeth. That was the logical first step, the same one that everyone in the world would make if the accusation ever saw the light of day. “That’s right. Not if they’re telling the truth. All they sent are pictures of my mother meeting a strange man, time-stamped to nine months before my birth.”
“But… that could be faked, Liam. Easily. There’s still no reason to jump into anything rash. All you need is a DNA test to prove your bloodline. And even if it is true, so what? You’re still the same person, and you inherited your company through your mother, anyway. Everything’s fine, everything will be fine. We don’t need to panic. It’ll all get figured out soon. We just need to—”
“Addison.” I cut her off.
“Yes?”
“You’re rambling. You’re rambling way too much.”
I could hear the deep, steadying breath she took. “I’m sorry. This is a shock. A big shock. And you just got this? How are you feeling?”
I laughed, but it sure as hell didn’t sound jolly.
“I read the email moments before you called. Between that and Carla’s accusations, I don’t know what to think. My mind is in overdrive, running in constant circles.”
“I’m so sorry, Liam. I had no idea I was just loading even more crap onto your shoulders. I wish I could have taken things more slowly.”
All I wanted was to hold Addison in my arms and not think about anything for a while. But thanks to the blackmailer, I couldn’t even do that.
“It could still be Carla,” Addison said. “Is there any way she could have gotten hold of those pictures? Figured things out?”
My gut instinct screamed no. She was just a silly girl. An airhead.
“I don’t know. She'd been fascinated by my family while we dated. She loved going through old pictures and journals, reading about what my grandparents did—on either side of the family. It’s possible she found this stuff. The email mentioned correspondence and other proof, as well.”
I could practically see Addison twirl her finger in her hair, the way she did when she chased an intense thought. “She does hate you, Liam. If she found something and sat on it all this time, and then realized she could use it against you, she would do it. I haven’t talked to her much, but she strikes me as a woman who would think two hundred million pounds for knowing the right information is only her due.”
Something still felt off, but Addison was right—it was the only lead we had. The only person that even began to fit the profile. Especially if she had gotten pregnant and been pressured to undergo an abortion by my family—all without my knowledge.
“We must make sure, somehow,” I said. “One hundred percent sure. And find out the rest of what she knows. Do you have any ideas on how to do that?”
“Oh, I’ve got just the thing,” Addison said. “I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to use it, and this is it. We need to meet up so we can talk.”
19
~ Addison ~
The small apartment Liam had set up for us to meet was in the middle of nowhere. At the end of a Tube line for me and a long, twisting drive to shake any potential tails for Liam, the one-bedroom set of rooms still cost a fortune in the fiery real estate market that was London.
I got there before Liam and spent the wait putting the finishing touches on the pair of devices I’d brought. By the time the car pulled up, they were complete.
The ca
r drove away after Liam got out—he sent Gerald for a spin to keep any potential followers guessing. The car wouldn’t sit outside, easy to spot.
“Liam!” A day apart had been too long. I went to him and felt the comfort of his arms wrap me up in their warmth.
“Addison.” He breathed the name into my hair like a prayer. “Did you get my message?”
I shook my head. “I don’t get signal here. It’s been driving me crazy being disconnected like this.”
“Odd. I wondered why you hadn’t messaged me back. I talked to several of my friends, making subtle inquiries about Carla. I’ve figured out where she lives in case I need to confront her.”
I looked up at him. “Promise me you won’t rush into anything without telling me first. I don’t want you thinking you’ll protect me by putting yourself in danger.”
“Now what gives you that idea?” He winked.
I shook my head at him. “The wink is not helping the impression, Liam. Come over here and check out what I’ve got.”
We took seats on the same side of the kitchen table so we could hold hands while I showed him the devices.
“I’ve been working on these for a little over a year, and the concept for three. They’re finally ready to go.”
He raised his eyebrows as he looked at the compact squares of hard, black plastic. “Three years? What did you do, come up with a new atom bomb?”
“Kind of. An atom bomb of hacking for the mobile world.” I grinned, proud of myself. “These things are incredible, and according to my testing, they work like a charm.”
“What do they do?” Liam picked one up and inspected it. It was only the size of a knuckle. “Doesn’t look like much.”
“That’s on purpose, in case someone tries to figure out what’s in your pockets. The magic is what’s inside these little boxes. There are a few tiny circuit boards, batteries, and antennas—the latest technology to cram as much power into a tiny space as possible.”
“For…”
“These,” I said, picking up the other box, “will use a series of exploits to automatically hack into every mobile device with Wi-Fi within a thirty-foot range. They’ll decrypt everything on the device and do whatever I tell them to from there.”
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