The Un-Apparent Heir: A Royal Family Saga Romance (Spare Change Book 4)

20. Meddling

Lucy hated being pregnant at an inconvenient time. The admission pained her, but she knew it to her core. It wasn’t her intent to keep this from Winston forever but she wasn’t sure what she wanted or needed. She was prepared to discuss the next steps with Winston. She’d been gone a week and missed her boys. Even though she longed to put them to bed at night, she’d needed the escape. Running away may have been cowardly, but Lucy’s batteries needed the charge.

Iona slept in a travel crib by the bed when she rang Winston to talk for the first time. She knew the boys were asleep and planned to discuss a ceasefire and what happened next. She didn’t owe Winston more than honesty, but she loved him and he deserved to know the truth.

“Luce, hi,” Winston said, voice worried and tired.

“Hi,” Lucy said. “Um, so I don’t want to make this a big thing. I’m not sure I could do that over the phone.”

“Oh, well, okay,” he sounded suddenly deflated. “So, you aren’t coming home?”

“No,” Lucy replied. “I haven’t decided what I want to do yet. I want us to decide things together, Winston. If we’re still together, that is.”

“Of course,” Winston said. “Lucy, you’re my wife. I’m frightened you’re never coming home. I never wanted you to run off and leave.”

“I needed to,” Lucy said. “Which was selfish, but you must understand how fucked up things were. I was afraid if I went home, I might do something I couldn’t take back and didn’t want to do. I’m feeling better here. Natalie is taking care of me. I have help with the baby—help I sorely needed.”

“That’s good,” Winston said. “Just so you can sleep or… what?”

“Just in general. George and Patrick are staying on for a bit, long story. Patrick took Iona out in the jogging stroller this morning. It was wild. I went back to bed and rested. I feel like I’ve been sleeping a million years, but… I haven’t slept properly in years, Tony. That’s the issue.”

“Oh? We can get help?—”

“I want to talk and discuss the next steps, but only in person.”

“Alright. So, come home.”

“No. I am home. London is my home. Windsor was our home. I will meet you in one of those places—no children—and we can discuss it. You can bring the boys but… we need to talk.”

“How can you just leave them?”

“Tony, don’t start!” Lucy’s voice was sharp.

Iona stirred. Lucy waited for her to go back down.

“I’m… I’m sorry. I don’t understand. I want to but I cannot, Lulu. This hurts me.”

“I thought you hated me—still do—and I thought life was better without me. I expected you to toss me out.”

“Lucy, I would never do that,” Winston said. “I love you and want you to come home. I want to talk. The boys are desperate to see their mother. I will come down there and leave the boys with Mum. I’ll come out to Windsor, and we can go from there.”

Lucy agreed. “Okay.”

“Lucy, I’m sorry I made you feel the only option was to leave. I have much to atone for, but I could never hate you. You would never do something to deserve that.”

Choked up, Lucy said, “I will see you when? At the weekend?”

“Sure. Friday. I’ll bring the boys down in the afternoon. Drop them, Come to you?”

“Sure.”

Lucy soon hung up. She got up and walked down the hallway towards the TV room at the end of the hall—too emotionally exhausted to cry. There, she found George working on something on his laptop.

“Well, she lives,” he joked.

“Fuck off,” Lucy groaned. “Do you mind if I watch something?”

“Go mad. I don’t care. Patrick told me my typing was keeping him up.”

“What are you doing?”

“Working on my memoirs.”

“Really?”

“Fuck no! No, I’m working on a statement about moving back. The trouble is… how do you come back after leaving?”

“I dunno,” Lucy said. “I can think of a few ways, but?—”

“Luce, can you help? Please help Nat and me!”

The ask came out of nowhere.

“I’m no use?—”

“Bullocks!”

“I am shot to hell,” Lucy sighed. “You don’t understand. I’m no use.”

“You’re out of practice but never out of your depth, Lucy. We need you.”

Look shook her head.

“What happened?”

“Uh, I got married, had children, and became a mum.”

“You made yourself small and lost who you were, but you’re a bright light, Luce—always have been. You’re wasted on being the stay-at-home spouse.”

“George, you are the stay-at-home spouse last I checked.”

“My point remains.”

Lucy snickered.

“Ah, she is capable of smiling.”

“Stop it,” Lucy groaned.

“Move back here.”

“I dare not. Winston will leave me. He’ll divorce me and take our children away. You think I am kidding, but I’m not.”

“I cannot believe he would do that for as long as he held a candle for you. He waited. He’s inarticulate, perhaps. Lord knows I am! But he needs to know what you need. Men are dense.”

“Not all men. Patrick is perceptive.”

“I’m a pig who doesn’t understand subtlety. Winston may be, too.”

Lucy smiled and shook her head. “Winston isn’t a pig. He’s just in his little world. We both want the best for the children but disagree on what that means.”

“He needs to get his head out of his arse. If their mother is hurting this much, she’s not going to be doing anything for them. Lucy, the boys need to see you happy. Otherwise, they will grow up thinking that women are just around to pad their egos and fix their lives for them.”

“What, like I did for you for five years?”

“Ouch! Fair but I did love you, Lucy. You are correct in that I let you fix everything, but I always had love for you.”

“So, I should return to be your fixer?”

“You should return to run the whole show as Natalie’s general—the way Rita runs things for Mum and Dad as smoke and mirrors. That is what you are best at.”

“So I can be gone ten hours a day?”

“Isn’t that what you love, though? And wouldn’t you have all the negotiating power to spend less time? The boys would be proud of their mother for having an important job. Seeing that makes them better men. Winston is trying to replicate what he thought was beautiful about his childhood.”

“It was a beautiful childhood. He’d know. Mine was torture.”

“He sees it with rose-coloured glasses. Rita suffocated. She was fucking miserable—she’d say that if you asked. He’s chasing a dream. If you can wake him up, he will see reality and realise he’s losing the best thing in his life. Breaking your heart is… it feels fucking terrible. I would tell him that.”

Lucy shook her head again.

“He needs to recognise that he can’t just pull you around. He holds all the cards.”

“Your self-awareness hasn’t improved?” Lucy asked.

“No. It has. This is why I can say I am sorry I hurt you and that you felt abandoned by the one person who swore they would take care of you. I didn’t and that’s on me. But that’s not on Winston.”

“I should have taken care of me. I should never have quit my job. I failed both times to stand up for myself—with you in a big way and now him. I trusted Winston and lost. I fell in love and lost my mind, but it won’t work this time. I know better..”

“Don’t say that,” George said.

“What, Georgie? It’s the fucking truth. I can only trust myself.”

“That’s a bleak way to look at it, Lucy. You love him, don’t you?”

“I loved you, too. It’s foolish.”

“Lucy, don’t cast Winston in the same light. He’s misguided. You’re unfulfilled. Trusting someone is essential to loving them. I am sorry I left you with this abandonment complex. I see it now but I’m asking you please, Luce, just give my cousin a second chance to get his head out of his arse.”

“What is the difference then?”

“Because you are Winston’s moon and stars. There has never and will never be anyone else, Lucy. He fought me over you and was willing to drag me through the mud to treat you properly. You’re not just a trophy he’s willing to discard. For what it’s worth, I didn’t see you that way, either. However, I always loved Patrick even as I loved you. And… while I could love you both, that wasn’t fair to you. You’re a monogamist. I realised I honestly wasn’t. I had so many reckonings much later in life than most do. You were just collateral in me finding myself. For that, I’m sorry. But while Patrick and I work well, I never would have been the man you deserved and needed.”

“Really?” Lucy was surprised. “Are you saying… you two aren’t…”

She couldn’t even say it. George and Patrick had a very interesting relationship. George was right. That wouldn’t have worked for her.

George shrugged. “My life is fun but I don’t need a fucking lecture from you as well as Nat.”

“I’m not open to that but won’t cast stones. Although maybe that’s what Tony wants?”

“Nah. I think Winston is a serial monogamist who loves you to bits. He’d fight a war for you. Natalie would, too, but she’d win. The thing is, you two deserve a second chance and I hope you get one. Your kids need to see what a badass their mum is. They need to watch you fix everything. You and Natalie could take on the world and save it, but only if you’re here. Give yourself that chance. Give them that chance.”

Lucy appraised George’s earnest and sincere face. This vulnerable confession was an outpouring she didn’t know he could give—certainly not on Winston’s behalf.

“Is he telling you to say this?” Lucy asked.

George chuckled. “I tried to ring him and give him a piece of my mind and he said he didn’t want to talk, so no. Out of respect for you, he was keeping it private. Natalie has probably already ripped him a new arsehole along with his mother. He’s broken, Lucy, but he must fix this on his own. Maybe with some help, but… he’s capable of it.”

Lucy hoped Winston could fix it. She wanted Winston back but needed to feel alive. Without both, there was no way forward.