by Teagan Kade
“You’ve got other friends.”
She shakes her head.
I sit beside her, pull her close to my chest. “Oh, Zoe.”
She pushes me back and takes a deep breath, eyes shimmering. “I can’t do it any more, Grace. I can’t live with it.”
I smile. “With what?”
“It was me, Grace.”
I don’t know what she’s getting at. “What are you talking about?”
“It was me. Johnathan was cheating on you with me.”
She looks out the window again, the tears stopping momentarily but fresh sobs continuing to wrack her.
I let go of her hand. “What?”
She looks back to me. “You deserve to know.”
I can’t work out what emotion I should be feeling. It makes sense now, but what? Do I just up and forgive her?”
She sniffs. “I had to get it off my chest, Grace. It was killing me keeping it from you.”
The anger wins out. “Killing you? I loved him, before he went and fucked his life up with that shit just like Dad. You mean to tell me it was you, sleeping with my fucking fiancé while we were still at Harvard, right there behind my back?”
She nods, looking down. If she didn’t look so weak I’d slap her in the face.
“I’m sorry, Grace,” she says, her hand out, searching. “Surely you knew it wouldn’t work. No one gets married that young. I never meant to hurt you. I’d take it back if I could, I promise. It was just sex, and I know how that sounds, but it’s the truth. It meant nothing.”
I close on her, pointing my finger in accusation. “It meant something to me. I don’t care what your motives were, that you’re only confessing now to make yourself feel better, because you’re fucked up now and I’m sympathetic.” I can’t tell whether I’m mad at her or Spencer, at fucking everything, but I need to take it out on someone. Zoe just happens to be in the line of fire.
“Grace!” she screams, lifting from the bed, one of her lines pinging away, an alarm going off on the monitor. “Please!”
I stab my finger at her. “No. You want my forgiveness? Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” she pleads, inconsolable.
I straighten up, wipe my own eyes. “You can’t fucking have it.”
A nurse rushes in, sees the two of us in hysterics. “What’s going on?”
I take one final look at Zoe. “I was just leaving.”
I get out of there as fast as I can.
The tears on my face cool in the air outside, an ambulance driving past with its lights strobing.
My phone rings. It’s Spencer.
I go to put it away, but no, fuck him too.
“What,” I answer.
“Grace.”
“What do you fucking want, Spencer?
He hears the way my voice wavers. “Are you okay?”
“My best friend just told me she was the one who cheated on me with my fiancé.”
“That wanker at Notting Hill?”
“The one and only.”
“Are you still together?”
“Of course not. He’s been stalking me ever since I bumped into him here.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because he’s nothing to me now, a memory, but what about you? You sleep with me, gain my trust, only to close down and shut up shop when the going gets tough? What the fuck? That’s not how this works.”
“I know.”
It’s not the answer I was expecting. I want a fight, but Spencer’s not about to give it to me.
“Look,” he continues. “I have to go, but meet me down here at the station, 99-101 Ladbroke Rd. I’ll tell you what the Club’s got on me, I promise.”
“You want me to come to where? The police station?”
“Yes.”
I toss it up. Haven’t I given him enough chances?
“I’ll think about it.” And I hang up, walking to the cab rank.
*
It feels strange being inside a police station again. I haven’t done anything wrong, but I’m still nervous as I enquire at the counter.
“You’re a friend of the Prince?” the cop behind the desk laughs. “And my mother’s the Queen of England. Get out of here, love.”
“She’s with me, actually.”
Alexander approaches from the adjoining room, looking somehow casual and yet regal at the same time.
The cop behind the desk soon shuts up. “Yes, Your Highness, sorry.”
I want to poke my tongue out but decide this isn’t exactly the place to do it. “Where’s Spencer?”
“They’re bringing him out now. Through here.”
Alexander leads me into another room where a female officer is undoing his cuffs.
Spencer doesn’t seem especially pleased to see Alexander. I can’t blame him given what I know now. He steps out into the waiting room rubbing his wrists, shirt bloody.
“Little brother,” says Alex, “once again you’ve brought me to one of these fine establishments in the middle of the night.”
Spencer smirks. “My deepest apologies.”
Alexander rocks back on his heels, smug. He seems different here, far from the family man I met earlier. “Wasn’t easy to get you off, find those photos. You owe me twenty grand, by the way.”
Spencer steps up to him. “I don’t owe you anything. I didn’t ask you to come down here.”
“And yet here I am. Another hour and pictures of you in another public punch-up would have been lighting up the web.”
“Because you never use your fists, do you, brother?”
The two eye size each other up.
“That’s it?” Alex continues. “No explanation? No excuses?”
Spencer ignores him and takes my arm. “Let’s get the fuck out of here, Grace.”
“Spencer!” shouts Alex, but he’s ignored again as Spencer leads us into a night so sharp and cold I expect to see razor blades falling from the sky.
Mercifully, the paparazzi haven’t caught wind of Spencer’s little run-in. Looks like Alexander saw to that. Still, Spencer pulls me close to him as we cross to the limo, and it feels good to be against him, his warmth and protection.
I follow him into the back of the limo, the door closing and with it the meteorological attack.
He takes my hands straight away. “I’m sorry, Grace. I had no idea.”
I look down, my fingers so fragile and delicate in his hands. “I should have told you.”
“It doesn’t matter now, and you were right. You should know everything about me, the good, the ugly—everything.”
He lifts my chin up. “Promise me you won’t freak out.”
I nod. “I promise.”
The limo begins to drive away.
He takes a moment, breathing out. Whatever it is, it’s hard for him to admit. He locks my eyes. “I have a drug problem, Grace.”
A second or two pass where I cannot do anything but watch him. “Drugs?” I finally respond, my voice breaking.
“Cocaine, specifically.”
I can’t believe it. I mean, I can, but this isn’t a good sign. I should run right now. I can’t take another addict. It would kill me.
He sees my vacant look. “Grace? Say something?”
“My father,” I begin, “died of a drug overdose when I was thirteen. Johnathan, that fucker, got into it as well, ruined everything.”
Spencer shakes his head. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
“I know how it starts, Spencer. I know what that shit does, the lives it ruins, because I have experienced it first-hand. I never even knew he was using, my dad. I had no idea at that age. He had mood swings, yes, was strange, but I never pieced it together. We weren’t poor. He never seemed unhappy, at least not to the outside world, but once that stuff took hold…”
Spencer lets go of my hands, leaning back and looking to the roof. “Fuck.” He looks back to me. “Is it over for us?”
“Because of this?” I’m a little annoyed he thinks I�
�d be so weak, so shallow.
“Do you use every day?”
He shakes his head. “Once or twice a week.”
“William knows?”
“He’s my dealer.”
I rock forward. “Fuck, Spencer. This is bad.”
He puts his head between his knees, thumping the seat with his fist. “I know. I know. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”
“Calm down.”
He turns, angry. “Calm down? It’s only a matter of time before it comes out, and then what? I’m fucked, Grace. Completely fucked. The Club can make it public,” he snaps his fingers, “like that.”
I’m starting to cry, and I have no fucking idea why. I don’t do this. I’m not the sappy, emo girl who turns into an ocean at the slightest sign of trouble. I’m stronger than this, a fucking rock. “Do you really think I’m that person, the one who flees at the first sign of trouble?”
“I never said that.”
“I’m stronger than you think. You are stronger than you think.”
We turn a particularly tight corner, thrown together momentarily. I want to forget everything and pull him tight to me, take him in my arms, but I know it’s not that simple.
“Am I, Grace?”
“Can you stop?”
He looks around, head moving from side to side. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”
Spencer’s the one confessing, but I can’t stop the words ejecting from my mouth. “I wasn’t such an angel either, once upon a time. When Dad died I became the World’s Worst Teenager. I drank, I stole, I picked fights. Half of my adolescence was spent with a bottle in my hand, a Slim Jim in the other. They were going to put me in juvie, but Mom worked it out, had the records sealed and moved us to a tiny town called Rosie. With Mom’s help I got my shit together. It was not fucking easy.”
Spencer looks skeptical. “You’re telling me you used to be a criminal?”
“I am, and nobody knows. Harvard sure as hell doesn’t.”
“And you never used?”
“Nope. Never touched that shit after Dad. For him, it was meth, heroin for Johnathan. I’m amazed he’s still a functioning member of society. That’s why I can’t take another junkie. That’s why you have to give it up. Will you, for me?”
“Of course, but do you even know what you’re getting yourself into? It’s been a week. Think about it, Grace. Think about it carefully.”
I do, and it scares me, but if anything this revelation has only made my hunger for him stronger, that innate need welling up to fix him, make him better.
You can’t.
Fuck off, Reason.
I take his hands again as the limo pulls into the service entrance of the Savoy. Whatever Marcus did, it has worked wonders. There’s not a single pap in sight. “Just promise me you’ll throw it all away.”
“I will.”
The walls that have held for so long break down, crumble away. I fall to his chest and let everything out, spew up all the rancid emotion and bile that’s blocking my path to happiness.
He strokes my hair, sits with me there until the car stops idling. We don’t speak. There is nothing to be said.
I look into his eyes. “Come up with me. Let’s pretend none of it matters, just for tonight.”
He nods. “Okay.”
Upstairs, the embrace becomes more. We don’t even bother to remove our clothes, clutching and clawing against the wall, the tears not even dry on my face as he enters me.
It’s exactly what I need, perhaps what I’ve needed all along. I cry again, joy and sadness and fucking, everything balled up together as I come, fingernails digging into his back, his release a welcome warmth inside me.
*
It’s six in the morning when I hear my phone ringing. I look over to Spencer, but he’s sound asleep. I swear he’s smiling.
I’ve woken up to a whole new world. The air feels clearer. There is finally a defined road I can see. There are twists and turns, but we can make it—together.
I pick up. It’s Amanda.
“Grace, honey, I hope it isn’t too early.”
I’d forgotten completely about the article. I slide out of bed and step into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. “Ah, no. It’s fine.”
“How are things?”
I look at myself naked in the mirror, scratch marks down my side, a glorious hickey on the side of my neck, my pussy plump and satisfied.”
“Well, things have… improved.”
“I’m very pleased to hear that. You’ve resolved your differences with the Prince?”
His hands on my thighs, head between them. “You might say that.”
“Excellent, excellent, but just remember why you’re there. You have dug up some dirt, haven’t you?”
Last night hits me—Spencer’s confession dredging up the past, and I don’t want to be the one to break it to the wider world. This whole thing has made me uncomfortable from the start, working under the pretense I am here to help, to promote a better public image of the Prince when really my assignment’s to bring him down in the fieriest way possible, a royal Hindenburg. The Palace will never forgive us, of course, but it will sell, so sayeth Amanda.
“Yes,” I reply simply, “he has made some… confessions.”
“Pillow-talk, I presume.”
“I’m not—”
“Don’t worry, Grace. We’ve all done it—done what we needed to for the story. I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist you. These entitled types, they love a girl who bites back.”
My world comes crashing down. I’m not here because of my journalistic skill at all. “Is that why you sent me here, for my looks?”
“Grace, please, surely you knew—a second-year junior being sent on a major job like this… Whether or not you know it, you’re attractive in that American girl-next-door kind of way. Guys lap it up. You have real power. What good is it if you don’t use it?”
I cannot believe we are having this conversation, that I’m being cut down to nothing more than a cute ass.
You’re still holding the pen. You still have ground to stand on. Yes, but Amanda has final say. She’ll demand scandal. If I don’t give it to her, she’ll have my head. I’ll never work in journalism again—anywhere.
“Grace, are you there?”
“Yes.”
“What do you have?”
Drug addition, secret clubs, royal infidelity, high-level corruption. The only thing missing is a terrorist and a UFO conspiracy. “Enough,” I reply, curt.
“You sound hesitant.”
“This will destroy lives. I will be destroying lives.”
“Grace, Grace, Grace. If that’s true, why on God’s green are you a journalist?”
“This isn’t journalism. This is wrong.”
“Let the readers decide. You can deal with your own ethical crises later.”
“I can’t do it.”
A sigh. “I didn’t want to play this card, but let me make it real simple, kiddo. You do it or you’re out on your ass. I’ve got to go.”
Fuck you.
“Oh, and Grace? Have some fun with it, will you?”
She hangs up, but I keep the phone against my ear, the heat of the screen strangely comforting. Everyone in the office knows—knows precisely why I am here.
Fuck them. Fuck them all.
They’ll get their story all right.
“Fuck.” I throw the phone down, but even that’s done half-heartedly, the damn thing simply bouncing off the vanity to the tiles below, the black void of the screen a pitiless ‘fuck you’ right back.
“Everything okay?”
I jump at the sight of Spencer at the door, morning glory and all.
He looks at my phone on the tiles. “I really don’t hope I come back reincarnated as your phone.”
“Work issues. Did you hear…?”
He shakes his head, stepping up behind me, cock sliding between the cheeks of my ass. “No, but you don’t seem so pleased about it. Anything I can d
o to help?”
In the mirror we’re a perfect fit, Spencer’s head above mine, his hands around my waist and heading down-under. I turn and sit up on the vanity. He positions himself in front of me, the body of his shaft against my pelvis.
“Actually, there is something you can do to make me feel better.” I reach down and take hold it of it, shift it against my sex.
He smiles and the Spencer I have fallen for is back, just like that. His lips press against mine as I draw him in, Amanda, the paper… everything evaporating as he takes me.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SPENCER
I stare down at the mirror, at the white powder that has become my master. So this is what it has come to. The more I try to stop, the more I crave it. I shouldn’t need it, not when I have her, but they are the same, give me the high I so desperately need.
“Fuck you!” I bring my fist down hard into the mirror. It breaks into shards under my hand. I bring my fingers up, a sliver protruding from the side of my thumb. I pluck it out, watch the blood drip onto the table.
You’re better than this. Get rid of it, but I can’t. The world is against me. Just one hit.
Even as I tell myself this lie, I know it’s only going to last an hour, maybe less. That’s the problem. That’s why William’s rolling around in cash when his father—the police commissioner, for crying out loud—is belly-up broke, his fortune squandered away on cards and hookers.
I almost can’t believe it, that I made up some bullshit excuse to come back here to the Palace and coke up. It’s fucking disgraceful.
There’s a knock at the door. I shove everything back into the drawer, wiping residue away from my upper lip and forcing myself not to rub it into my gums instead. “Yes?”
The door unlocks and Marcus pokes his head in. “You have an appointment at the Russian Baths, sir.”
Shit. I’d forgotten all about it, but I could use a break, an excuse to clear my head and figure this all out. “Let me grab my things.”
*
I open the door to the sauna, feel the heat inside, the steam and warmth, that sweet scent of pine that so invokes everything alpine even though we’re in the concrete heart of London. Marcus made sure the place was emptied out. I breathe deeply, step in and close the door.