“I know it wasn’t always easy, dating me,” Jefferson said ruefully. “For the record, you would have been a fantastic princess.”
“Of course I would.” Daphne gave a wistful half smile. “Jefferson, dating you—becoming a princess—is a job, no matter how much you probably wish otherwise. But the fact that I’m a great candidate for the job was never a good reason for us to get married.”
She thought of Nina, who probably still loved Jefferson on some level, but hated the demands that came with dating him. “You deserve someone who can handle the princess side of things and who belongs with you. You deserve to love someone so much that you propose for real—someplace romantic and quiet, just the two of you, instead of being pressured into it. I’m sorry about that,” she added, knowing her apology was wholly inadequate.
It felt like Daphne had been swept along on an invisible wave since that night she saw Nina and Jefferson kissing in the gardens—a wave of ambition, or vindictiveness, or rage—and now the wave had crashed over her, leaving her gasping and drenched in regret.
Jefferson set aside the cake. “Can I ask you something?”
If he asked her about the pregnancy, Daphne resolved to tell him the truth.
“Was I a bad boyfriend?”
Relief coursed through her. Of course Jefferson hadn’t considered whether the pregnancy was faked; his mind was too honest to even imagine such a thing.
She wondered why he thought he was a bad boyfriend. Perhaps Nina had said something last night? Maybe Jefferson had made a play for Nina, and Nina had rejected him, and whatever words she’d used had landed in his heart like arrows. Daphne doubted Nina had even meant to cause such harm; it wasn’t in her to use words cruelly, like weapons. The way Daphne did.
But when the people you loved told you hard truths, it could hurt worse than insults ever could.
She reached for Jefferson’s hand. “Listen to me. You are a good person. You put people at ease; you are earnest and thoughtful and kindhearted. If there’s anything wrong with you, it’s that you love too much.”
Really, his flaw was that he loved too easily—that he’d fallen for her and Nina and hadn’t been able to choose between them. But Daphne couldn’t exactly throw stones in that regard, given how long she’d walked a tightrope between Jefferson and Ethan.
“Thank you for saying that.” He gave her hand a squeeze, then released it.
They were both silent for a moment. Then Daphne said, “What now?”
What she really meant was, what would she do now? Jefferson would survive this scandal unscathed, but not Daphne.
She’d spent the last four years living in the fishbowl of tabloid attention, and knew how readily it could turn into a shark pond. At a scandal like this, the media would sharpen their teeth, out for blood.
Oh, how they would punish her for this canceled wedding. When Beatrice had broken off her engagement, a bill had cropped up in Congress attempting to remove her from the throne. And she was a royal by birth!
It would be much, much worse for Daphne. She couldn’t hide behind a title and wait out the scandal, because she had no position to hide behind anymore.
“It’s going to be ugly, especially for me,” she admitted. “I’ll need to lie low for a while. Leave the country, maybe.”
Ethan would run away with her in a heartbeat. Daphne thought fleetingly of escaping with him to Malaysia—hiding together in a small beach town, riding his motorbike and soaking up sunshine and living a drowsy, carefree existence. Far away from court, from the epic mess she’d made thanks to her own loveless, limitless ambition.
But Daphne knew she couldn’t just trade Jefferson’s arms for Ethan’s. She was stronger than that.
If—and it was still an if—she and Ethan were going to have any kind of shot, then he couldn’t be her safety net. She would need to find her own way out of this.
* * *
They headed back to the palace in search of Beatrice, who was in the ballroom, talking in a low, earnest voice with Princess Louise.
Part of Daphne’s heart broke, seeing the room ready for her wedding reception—vases spilling with flowers, the stage set for a full eighteen-piece band, the glow of the champagne arranged behind the white-tableclothed bar.
It was all so beautiful, and all for nothing.
“Bee? Can we talk?” Jefferson reached for Daphne’s hand in a show of solidarity, and Daphne gave him a grateful squeeze. The only small blessing in this moment was that Jefferson’s mother was still downstairs, and Daphne would only have to face one disapproving Washington woman.
“What are you two doing together? You weren’t supposed to see each other until the ceremony,” Beatrice began, then fell silent at the look on Jefferson’s face.
Louise took a step back. “Perhaps I should leave you en famille.”
Beatrice cast a plaintive glance at her friend, clearly unwilling to abandon whatever they’d been discussing, and Jefferson shrugged. “You can stay, Louise. Everyone is going to find this out eventually.”
There were a few staff members bustling through the room: plucking a flower from an arrangement if it looked the slightest bit tired, checking the place cards on the dinner tables. Beatrice called out, “We need a moment, please,” and they scattered like leaves blown by the wind.
When they were alone in the ballroom, Jefferson looked at his sister and said, “Daphne and I want to call off the wedding.”
Louise gasped, her manicured hands flying to her mouth, but Beatrice didn’t flinch. She was as perfectly composed as if he’d remarked upon the weather.
He kept talking, explaining that they’d both had reservations for a while but that the wedding preparations had steamrolled over their concerns, how they had both decided this morning—independently—that they couldn’t go through with it.
Daphne held her breath, knowing that this was better coming from Jefferson than from her.
When he’d finished, Beatrice glanced around the ballroom with a nearly imperceptible sigh. “I wish you’d figured this out a bit earlier than the day of your wedding. It would have saved us a lot of headache.”
“Two canceled weddings in the span of a year,” Louise chimed in. “No one will come to your next one.”
“I’m happy to do a press conference, if it helps,” Daphne offered.
Beatrice shuddered. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary.” A typical Washington family response, to want to avoid the press at all costs.
Daphne had nothing left to lose anymore, which must have been the reason she argued with the queen. “I know it’s not typical, but the circumstances aren’t typical. If we say nothing, people will interpret our silence in unflattering ways, but if we say something—even just a few remarks—then we’ve set the tone. It’ll be hard for people to accuse us of being unfaithful if we go out there holding hands, as a team, and say that we mutually reached this decision.”