“Uncle—”
“I said no, Spencer. This is an adult problem. I will not send my niece to handle my problems. How would that look?”
“We’re past that. Believe me. I don’t want to go. But…” I took a deep breath. “It’s the only way. This is exactly what he wants.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just trust me.”
“Trust you?” he sputtered. “You are a child!”
Funny, he was always nagging Landen, saying, “You’re not a child anymore. Start acting like it.” But me, I was still a little girl.
“You are young and naïve. You do not understand what that man wants. He is a snake. He will try to take advantage.”
“I’m not naive, Uncle Fredrick.” I stepped up to him, tilting my neck to look up at him. Confident. Controlled. “I know exactly what he wants. I’m not unaware of Lord William’s reputation. Nor am I a fool. I won’t let him touch me. But I’m probably the only one that can possibly get us out of this.”
He stared down at me as if he had never really seen me before.
“I’m not asking. I’m telling you,” I said, holding his befuddled gaze. “Go home. Figure out what we can sell or do to keep us afloat. But I will handle Lord William.”
He blinked several times at me. It was a full minute before he nodded, silently backing away.
“Be safe. He is a conniving man.” He gave me a look over his shoulder, a thread of awe in it, before he dipped his head and strolled out of the garden.
Not wanting to reconsider, I pulled my mobile out of my pocket, finding Lord William’s contact info online and pushing the call button.
“My dear Ms. Sutton, I had a feeling you might call me today.” His voice purred into the line, condescending, causing chills to hack at my skin. “You ready to repent on your knees? Embarrassingly refute something you said you would never do?”
I bit back all the cross words I wanted to tell him, my mouth pinching together to keep them in.
He only laughed at my silence. “Without even a word, I can feel that fire in you simmering.”
“This is purely business,” I stated.
He laughed, full and loud. “Sure, my dear. Business. Whatever you want to call it. Tomorrow. My office. Noon.”
“But—”
“Find a way,” he spoke over me, his tone twisting with cruelty. “Whatever you have to do, Spencer. Because if you don’t make it, try and go around me, or tell your fiancé, I will not only tell the press about your family woes, and let me say not all your family’s actions were legal, but also about your affair with your bodyguard.”
“There is no affair!”
“Maybe. It doesn’t matter. The claim is enough for the press to twist the most insignificant touch into a seedy love,” he responded with sureness. He was right. The media craved sordid stories, even if they had to make nothing into something because the public loved drama. “Even Theo won’t be able to brush it aside because this video I have of your bodyguard going into your bedroom that night after he attacked me? Mmmm… definitely suggests something else. So much heat between you two, no one really watching you two could deny it.”
Bloody hell. Lord William followed us? Took video?
“You are despicable.”
“Thank you.” It was like I could feel his grin over the phone. “See you soon, my dear. If you are on your best behavior, I might suddenly have great sympathy for your family’s predicament. I can be very kind and forgiving to those who prove themselves to me.”
He hung up.
The mobile slipped from my ear, my chest heaving with fear and disgust. I watched the fog curl around my ankles, a few drops of rain tapping at my cheek. But I felt no cold over my skin.
It was all on the inside. The implications of this meeting, the trouble my family was in, froze my soul into ice bricks of terror, sorrow, revulsion, and despair.
What the hell had I just done?
Chapter 25
“Landen… pick up. Pick up,” I hissed into the mobile, my feet moving back and forth, indenting the same ten meters as I paced over the wet grass, my brain rolling over and over what just happened. I needed to hear his voice. His advice.
His cell continued to ring, going to voicemail. Since I knew he never listened to messages, I hung up, texting him to call me. My uncle might want to keep this a secret, but Landen and I shared everything. We always had each other’s backs. He and I had a promise since we were kids. Above our parents, our loyalty to each other came first.
At least it used to.
Guilt coated my throat, sliding down into my stomach. Since moving here, my relationship with both him and Mina had ebbed. Life here had taken over everything. I had yet to get my feet steady on the ground. The flat I wanted to get, the clothes more in my style? Somewhere I stopped asking and just wore what they told me, staying where they told me.
Dialing another number, I waited.
“Hello?” my friend clipped out over the line, sounding slightly out of breath.
“Mina…” My hand went to my chest, emotion flooding the back of my eyes at hearing her voice.
“Spencer?” Her voice went soft for a beat before she cleared her throat. “Wow. Wasn’t expecting to get a call from you. It must be my lucky day.” Every syllable dripped with resentment. “What do I owe the honor of our future princess?”
“Excuse me?” My brows furrowed. I had witnessed her attitude turned on others, but never me. She and I were always on the same page. Snarky to the rest of the world.
“Sorry, but kind of in a hurry right now.” The sound of a deep clock bell tolled from somewhere behind her.
“Well, sorry I bothered you.” My defense slammed back. “I’ll call back when things aren’t so busy for you.”
“Oh, that’s ironic.” She laughed dryly. “Spencer.” She exhaled, tiny edges smoothing out. “I’m sorry. But honestly, I had kind of given up hearing from you. Your life is not even remotely in the same realm mine is.”
“What does that mean? We can’t be friends because I’m with Theo?”
“You’re not just with Theo, the casual guy in school. You are with the Prince of Great Victoria. The future king. I get it. Your world has changed. But… I used to be your best friend, your first call. Now I know more about you from social media than I actually know from you.” The sounds of people bustling around her muted her slightly. “Or you know about me. You know the world doesn’t revolve around the royals.”
“I know that,” I snapped.
“Do you? I know everything there must seem far more important than us commoners.”
“You are hardly common. You’re father’s an earl.”
Mina went silent for a moment. “When was the last time you rang me? We saw each other?” Crap. I couldn’t recall the last time I actually spoke with her on the phone. I thought about it all the time, but something always pushed it down on the list. Event. PR. Interview. Something always came up. “Did you even know that I got into the University of Victoria?”
“What?” I gasped. That was the school she always dreamed about going to but didn’t think she had the grades to get in. “Mina, that’s amazing.”