A tear slipped down her nose and she impatiently brushed it away. She’d shed enough tears. “I want you to be happy, too. So much.”
Jay nodded, just once. “I will be. You’ve found your path, and I’m—I’ve taken the first step toward finding mine.”
He gave her hand a little shake. “But De Vere is already drilling a hole through me with his eyes. If you keep sobbing with sympathy over all those blind dates I’m going to have to sit through before I either meet the person of my dreams or decide I’d rather be a single cat dad, I don’t fancy my chances of leaving this ballroom intact.”
Their smiles were shaky but genuine.
“Come on,” he said, gently steering her off the dance floor. “You can introduce me to the birthday girl. It would be nice to meet her in person before she provides us with the contract of the decade.”
Rosie and Johnny had been making their social circles of the room with very complicated body language, but they’d now reached Dominic at the bar, and had both noticeably relaxed in the company of someone who was on their side.
They all looked up as Sylvie and Jay joined them, Dominic’s eyes immediately searching Sylvie’s.
Whatever he saw there made something ease just fractionally in his expression.
As Johnny shook hands with Jay, Sylvie saw his personal protection officer come to stand a few feet away. The security appeared to be extremely heavy at this party, and she wondered if it was solely down to Johnny’s unwelcome admirer or if the royals were alert to other specific threats.
Not for the first time, she was so grateful that her own stint in the public eye was minuscule by comparison. The fact that Johnny was willing to step into all of this by choice spoke volumes about the reality and strength of his commitment to Rosie.
His PPO was eyeing Jay with sharp suspicion. Obviously, he was meant to be a visible deterrent, not a covert one, because he wasn’t exactly blending into the crowd. The guy was a walking tank, with hands the size of plates and a stare that could laser through titanium. His bone structure was brutally sharp, his features quite uneven, and she’d heard a snotty-looking woman with a probably real fur cape giggle under her breath about “the ugly brute at the bar.”
So many people right now who should be stepping on Lego every day of their lives.
Rosie had regained the composed face of a well-trained person under a lot of stress. She was probably dying to retreat to her private apartments, kick off her shoes, and curl up with a very large cup of coffee. And—Sylvie was crossing all fingers and toes—knock down that visible wall still between her and Johnny.
The princess looked past Dominic. “I’m glad to see your sister made it.”
Dominic immediately turned, and Sylvie released an audible sigh of relief when she saw Pet walking toward them. Oh, thank God.
Pet was wearing a long flapper-style dress with strings of beads that bounced with the hesitant tip-tap of her stiletto heels. Her hair was in its usual sleek bob, her red lipstick perfect as always, but as she came closer, Sylvie didn’t think she’d taken the care with her makeup that she would expect of Pet. The younger woman had been so excited about this ball, but she looked as if she’d just thrown on the nearest dress in her wardrobe and grabbed a taxi. Clearly, this had been a last-minute decision.
She still looked hopelessly pretty—and Sylvie wasn’t the only one who thought so.
Her eyes happened to be passing over the inscrutable, suspicious face of Johnny’s PPO, and she saw that laser gaze fasten on Pet. Naturally. Anyone barreling toward his charge was a potential threat, even pint-sized twenty-first-century flappers.
But when he saw her, he inhaled—and he didn’t immediately exhale.
And he blinked, three times in a row, very quickly.
Hmm . . .
Sylvie was dragged out of intrigued speculation as Pet reached them. She sent a fast, faltering smile at Sylvie and bobbed an awkward curtsy at Rosie and Johnny, but her eyes were fixed on Dominic. She ran her tongue over her carmine lips and spoke in a wobble. “I—”
Dominic immediately stepped toward her. “Pet—”
The royal couple were watching the scene with interest, probably relieved to focus on someone else’s tense situation for two seconds.
And in that moment of abstraction came the attack.
It happened so fast that Sylvie still found it hard to piece together all the fragments of memory later. The fire alarm went off first, a sudden piercing sound that first froze and then scattered the crowd.
It distracted the security team for mere seconds. That was long enough.
Sylvie saw, vaguely, the curly blonde hair in the moving crowd right next to them before the woman rushed at them.
But she didn’t see the knife in her hand.
Rosie and Johnny’s PPOs were just a beat too slow in intercepting Helena before she silently, expressionlessly, slashed at Johnny with the long, slender blade.
Instead, it was Pet who pushed Johnny out of the way, shoving him into Rosie’s arms.
And as the blade sliced into bare, vulnerable skin, Sylvie would never forget the sight of blood splattered across antique satin and beads.
Chapter Twenty-One
St. Agnes Accident & Emergency
Around Ten O’Clock
Seconds, minutes, and hours tend to blur together within these walls.
Sylvie carefully carried the cup of steaming hot tea back from the small kitchenette. She sat down next to Dominic, on chairs that made the backbreakers at Hartwell Studios seem like plush recliners, and put the cup into his hand before he could refuse it. “Just a little bit. Please.”
Dominic’s lips turned up very slightly, but it wasn’t a smile. “Good old England. When in doubt, when in crisis, when awake—a cup of tea.”
“Look, it’s a thing for a reason.” She leaned in to touch her lips to his cheek. Against his skin, she whispered, “She’s going to be fine. The paramedic said it was mostly her arm. The cut over her ribs wasn’t deep.”
He flinched slightly, his hand tightening around the cup and threatening to squeeze boiling-hot water over his hand. She put her fingers over his, stroking him.
“She’ll be okay. I promise you, she’ll be fine. I don’t think they come much stronger than your little sister.”
The silver in his hair and beard, the fine lines around his eyes, all seemed more pronounced under the harsh hospital lights. Her heart aching, all she could do was hold on to him.
“She’s been through a lot,” he said harshly. “More than I realized. Gerald spoiled Lorraine, treated her like a fucking princess. I thought he’d do the same for Pet. I let myself believe she would be okay there. I failed her.”
“You were a kid.” She took the tea and set it on the floor before it spilled. “Dom, you were just a kid. You couldn’t have done anything more. She’s okay.”
“She’s hurt. And I think I’ve been the last straw.”
“No, you’re going to be a part of the wonderful life she has coming for her now.” Sylvie held his darkened gaze squarely. “We all walked very different paths that have converged together in this hospital tonight, and we’ll all be there for one another going forward.”
She could just imagine what cynical rejoinder that statement might have prompted from him in the past. Now, he looked at her for a moment, before he reached out and cupped her head, pulling her forward to kiss her mouth.