For a fraction of a second, Jefferson’s face flooded with unmistakable relief, but then it was gone. He grabbed Daphne’s hand and laced his fingers in hers. “Are you saying that Daphne had a…”
“It’s possible the pregnancy ended in miscarriage, yes.” Dr. Carlisle was choosing her words very carefully. “But given how thin your uterine lining is, Miss Deighton, it’s more likely that you were just mistaken. Your BMI is so low that you might have stopped getting your period because you’re underweight.” She kept talking, saying something about the benefits of healthy fats: avocados, almonds, the occasional piece of dark chocolate.
As if Daphne could afford to eat chocolate. Didn’t anyone understand that she had throngs of paparazzi chasing her these days? People who made it their mission to get a photo of her looking sweaty, or disheveled, or, best of all, pudgy.
Dr. Carlisle seemed to realize that no one was listening, because she trailed off and swallowed awkwardly. “I’ll give you two a moment alone,” she added, gesturing her fellow doctors out into the hallway.
Once the door closed behind them, Daphne looked uncertainly at Jefferson. He still stood there, holding on to her hand, leaning his weight against the examination table.
“I’m sorry,” she said, breaking the silence. “I didn’t—I mean, I really thought—”
“Daphne, stop. You have nothing to be sorry for.”
She waited for him to say something else, about how there was no need to rush the wedding now that there was no baby on the way, or, worse, that they should call off the engagement altogether. Instead his eyes met hers.
“How are you feeling?” The question was clunky and surprisingly vulnerable. “I mean—are you okay?”
Daphne should have been immune to regret by now, yet a sudden pang of it shot through her.
She stared at Jefferson’s handsome features, his jaw clean-shaven from this morning’s interview, his dark hair haloed by the fluorescent lighting of the exam room. “I’m okay,” she replied, but it came out a whisper.
Jefferson stepped closer and folded her into his arms, causing the medical paper to crinkle awkwardly between them. Daphne was surprised to realize that he was shaking with emotion. The tidal wave of it all suddenly crashed over her, and she felt it too, a sense of loss—not for the baby that had never existed, but for some key part of herself. Some last piece of integrity in her relationship with Jefferson that she had quietly, remorselessly, traded away for…
For her future, she reminded herself. For their future.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, a single tear trailing morosely down her cheek.
Jefferson nodded, his expression unreadable.
“Should we get going? I’ll tell Anju to call the car.”
She had been prepared for worse—for accusations that she had been careless, that she should have done bloodwork or seen a doctor earlier. She’d been so afraid that the wedding might not happen anymore. Jefferson was a college-age boy, after all; they could be engaged for several years if they wanted, take the next step when things were more settled.
Except that Jefferson wasn’t a boy anymore, was he? At some point over the past year, he had grown up. He was the type of man, now, who held himself to his promises. He had just gone on live TV before the whole world and said he would marry Daphne, and he would do it, even if the whole reason that he’d made that decision was gone.
She got dressed and pulled open the door, only to pause when she saw that her phone was flashing with a new email. Daphne flicked over to read it—and her stomach twisted.
From: UNKNOWN SENDER <[email protected]>
Subject: (NO SUBJECT)
Come on, Daphne. Why are you getting engaged to Jeff when we both know you don’t love him? Break off the engagement or I’ll tell everyone what you did.
“You okay?”
Jefferson was waiting near the exit, watching her with a concerned frown.
“Of course.” Daphne tried to slip her phone back into her purse, but her hands shook, and she dropped it. The phone shattered on the floor, its screen fragmenting with a thousand small cracks.
“Oops! Clumsy me.” She hurried to grab the phone before Jefferson could read the incriminating email.
I’ll tell everyone what you did. Which secret was this person talking about? Daphne had so many of them: sleeping with Ethan, hurting her friend Himari, selling photos of herself to the paparazzi, sabotaging Nina and Jefferson, threatening Gabriella. Faking a pregnancy, in a last-ditch effort to keep her hold on Jefferson.
Everything felt slow and sticky, as if Daphne had fallen into a nightmare and couldn’t move. She was being blackmailed by an anonymous stranger. How ludicrous, how awful, how utterly fitting.
It was possible that this email was nothing, just a scare tactic from a rogue reporter who wanted to spook her into action. But something about the tone made her think otherwise. We both know you don’t love him. That sounded like someone who knew Daphne, personally.
Someone like Gabriella.
Whatever secret this person was talking about, Daphne couldn’t let it be revealed. She was skating on thin ice as it was. If the media got wind of any more reasons to scorn her—if Jefferson ever found out a fraction of what she’d done—she could lose everything.
There was something comfortingly familiar about having her makeup done before a palace press briefing, as if things were almost normal again.
Beatrice snuck a glance at the mirror. Her tailored red dress hung looser than it used to; she’d apparently lost weight while she was unconscious. The makeup artist had hidden her pallor beneath a layer of bronzer and was now dusting color onto her cheekbones. Tissues had been stuffed into the neck of Beatrice’s dress to protect the fabric, making it look like she was wearing a ruffled Victorian collar.
If only the room were less crowded. Anju sat nearby, glancing nervously from her tablet to Beatrice and back again, and Teddy stood resolutely to Beatrice’s right. She was still baffled by his presence. According to Anju, he’d been at the palace ever since they came back from their non-honeymoon, though to her relief he was staying in a room several hallways down from hers. She knew she’d have to face him eventually, but so far Beatrice had managed to avoid seeing him alone.
Jeff was here, too, as well as Beatrice’s mom. Apparently Samantha had been MIA for a month, and now that she was back, she’d ignored their family’s requests to stay at Loughlin House and was living at King’s College with Nina. How typically Sam.
Beatrice tried not to think about the aching space where her father should have been. The shock of his loss kept hitting her over and over. She would be fine one minute and then something would spark a memory, and the grief would hurtle toward her, as fast and unrelenting as an oncoming train.