Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Blair
“Okay, what was the exact time of your birth?”
Summer is perched on the kitchen counter, her bare feet dangling over the freshly washed floor, and the whole of her focus on the phone in her hand.
She technically got off work an hour ago, but a flurry of snow had appeared out of nowhere just before the end of her shift, and I persuaded her to spend the night instead of braving the drive back to Port Briar.
I haven’t seen Damien since this morning.
Shortly after I left his cottage, I received a very long voice message from him with the news that he was leaving Thornhurst to run errands for the day.
This was followed by instructions he’d already given me on how to activate the security system and the locations of all the house’s fire extinguishers.
Now, we’re hanging out in the kitchen, having a marvelous time surrounded by every snack we could find, and have big plans to spend the night binging the newly released season of a reality dating show where the contestants all seem to be the most horrible people the producers could find. I bet my parents would like it a lot.
“Can I ask your opinion on something?”
Summer’s eyes lift from the phone in her hands to meet mine. “Non-star chart related? I’m hyper-fixating pretty hard right now.”
She’s teasing me, and I offer her a playfully exasperated look in response before voicing a question I’ve been turning over in my mind for weeks. The one that’s suddenly begun to feel much more pressing as my relationship with Damien has grown—impressively—even more complicated.
It’s pretty difficult to convince myself I’m not falling for him, but even as we’ve gotten closer, fucking more than fighting, and even edging closer to something more intimate… he’s lying to me. Or, if not outright lying, at least omitting the truth.
Damien has secrets, and every time I feel my heart flutter at the sight of him or find myself fantasizing about what it would be like to be with him—actually be with him—those questions never fail to bring me up short.
I didn’t dare voice any of this or ask about him to my family while they were here, terrified of drawing attention to my interest in Thornhurst’s head of security. After weeks of wondering, I can’t hold it in anymore.
Fiddling with the can of flavored water clutched in my hands, I try to decide how best to say it. “You know Damien, right? The estate’s head of security?”
“Damien, huh?” Summer asks, raising her eyebrows. “I’ve noticed he isn’t Satan or Evil Incarnate anymore? What—or perhaps who—could Mr. Mallory have done to bring about such a dramatic change of attitude toward him?”
Even as preoccupied as I am, I can’t hold back my laugh. “God, you’re the worst.”
“I definitely am,” she beams, unrepentant. “Come on, I’m aggressively single. It’s pathetic, really, and you’re a bad friend if you don’t lessen my patheticness by letting me live vicariously through you.”
Shaking my head, I groan, relenting to the blatant manipulation. “We’ve been hooking up,” I admit, prompting a gasp of glee from my friend. “It’s not… nothing, you know?”
“Nope. I don’t know.”
“I don’t either,” I laugh helplessly, looking around as if a definition of mine and Damien’s relationship is going to be painted on the wall. When that fails, I look back to Summer with a sigh. “I like him, but it’s just hooking up. We’re here all alone and—”
“Decided that fucking is a more enjoyable way to pass the time than murdering one another?”
Pretty much. “I’ll keep you posted,” I promise her. “Seriously, there’s not much to tell.”
Summer pops a piece of popcorn into her mouth. “You can tell me about the sex. I’ve only been in a room with both of you that one time, and the tension.” She fans herself. “Oh my god, I could die. Is it hot? I bet it’s hot.”
It is indeed very hot. Unfortunately for Summer, that isn’t what I’m interested in discussing at the moment. I glare at her. “It’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it? What happened to the shy art student I met last month?”
“You feed her, routinely help her do her terrible job, and now look.” She gestures to herself, swathed in a borrowed pair of my sweatpants, her hair pulled up with one of my favorite scrunchies. “She’s imprinted on you like a baby duck. You’ll never be free again.”
My heart tugs with fondness for my new friend, who already might be the best one I’ve ever had. “A duck who needs to get herself laid, so she can stop perving over my sex life,” I retort, fixing her with a playful glare.
Summer throws a handful of popcorn at me in response.
Laughing, we hop down to clean it together, and when we straighten up, I finally voice the actual thing I wanted to discuss.
“Does Damien kind of look like Prince Leopold to you?” I ask Summer hesitantly, cataloguing her reaction. “The king’s brother, I mean. In case you aren’t up on Stelland’s royal family.”
It’s been on my mind since I saw them arguing the day outside the security office.
I’d even gone so far as to look up a picture of the prince to make sure I was remembering correctly, and covertly compared the two when Damien wasn’t paying attention.
There are differences, of course. Damien is older and a little more rugged than Leopold.
His hair has the same wavy texture, but a shade lighter, though even that could possibly be attributed to his being outside so much.
There’s a resemblance, and I’m not really sure what to make of that, but coupled with the other mysterious facts I’ve stumbled (or snooped) upon, I can’t convince myself to ignore it, either.
A thoughtful line appears between my friend’s brows.
“I know who Prince Leopold is; he’s a bit of a local celebrity at Orwick.
And now that you mention it… Yeah. Mallory does look like him a little.
” It’s more than a bit, in my opinion, but this resemblance doesn’t seem as interesting to Summer as it does to me.
“What’s your time of birth?” she asks again, returning to fixation on star charts.
“How should I know?” I demand with a laugh, temporarily distracted from my preoccupation with Damien’s links to the royal family.
“Text your mom!”
Of course that would be Summer’s solution.
I learned recently that she has a group chat going with her entire family, and is always recounting news from their life back in Pennsylvania, like it’s totally normal to know when your little sister fails her driver’s test for the fourth time, or that the “darn baler”—I had to look up what that one was—is acting up again.
My mother, on the other hand, would probably think I’m on drugs if I texted her out of the blue to ask what time I was born.
I reach for the grapes in the bowl resting beside me and pop one into my mouth. “February third. Take it or leave it.”
Summer heaves an exaggerated sigh as she resumes tapping away at her screen. “Your chart changes hourly, Blair. This won’t be nearly as accurate.”
“So, you agree they look alike? Mallory and Prince Leopold?” I ask carefully, fingering another grape.
“I guess so.”
I fall silent, considering. It might be a coincidence, sure, but in combination with everything else I know about him… There are a lot of connections, too many to be easily written off.
According to Alba, Mallory came to be here because my mother’s godmother, Araminta—sister-in-law of the late King Fabian—recommended him personally.
By his own admission, he worked for the royal guard for years, and in that time he…
what? Just so happened to strike up a friendship with King Benedict’s notoriously private younger brother?
Was Leopold the “Leo” who was calling him in the car the day we went to Wyngate?
Then there’s the watch, the royal heirloom piece that I discovered in his medicine cabinet the day I broke into his cottage. Damien isn’t sentimental. He wouldn’t have kept something like that if it didn’t mean a lot to him.
My stomach sinks.
I keep reminding myself that he’s older than me and has a past that goes back much longer than I’ve been alive.
The problem is that I’m afraid asking about that past would lead to his telling me no.
That I’m too young, or silly, or foolish, and that this thing we’ve been doing always had an expiration date.
I have feelings for him. More feelings than I should, given the circumstances, and I’m not sure I’ve ever felt quite so in danger of having my heart broken before.
The sound of a door closing has both Summer and me looking around, staring at the far side of the kitchen as Damien steps into view, brushing snow from his winter jacket. He stops short at the sight of Summer and turns his gaze to me.
“We’re having a sleepover,” I inform him cheerfully. “That’s not an issue, is it? Unless you want Summer to drive into a snowbank and freeze to death, helpless and alone. Is that what you want, Damien? For Summer to die?”
He crosses his arms, scoffing at my dramatics. “No, I do not want Summer to die. However, I’ll point out that we’ve only gotten flurries, and it’s due to stop within the hour.”
Summer, who has been watching this exchange take place, and looking as though Christmas has come early, suddenly scowls.
“Are you trying to get rid of me so you can bang my friend? If you are, and I really do freeze to death, please be advised I intend to turn into a ghostly entity whose sole purpose for existence is seeking revenge on you.”
Damien stops ten yards away from us, frowning at Summer. “I thought you were shy.”
“She fooled us both,” I commiserate.
Summer brightens suddenly, pointing at Damien. “Hey, I bet he knows his time of birth. What’s your time of birth, security man? I need the exact hour and minute, otherwise there’s no point.”
“Unfortunately, February third is the best I can do.”
His words have made me lean back, though, reeling. “No, February third is my birthday.”
Damien arches his eyebrows, and my belly flutters as he turns his gaze to meet mine. “Well, it’s mine, too.”
“Wait, seriously? We share a birthday?”
“Apparently.”
I’m not sure why this learning piece of information—which is totally just a strange, random coincidence—makes me feel so off balance.
We’re still looking at each other, and I let out a nervous little laugh, finally forcing my eyeballs off him and onto Summer, whose entire face is split in an expression of sheer delight.
Recovering herself, my friend blinks rapidly, rearranging her expression into something more composed. “That’s… um. Definitely a super normal thing to happen, and I will not be researching it for any higher astrological significance when he leaves.”
Experiencing the bizarre combination of exasperation and fondness, I glare at her. “Why are you like this?”
She shrugs, unrepentant. “I have no idea. But heads up, it tends to get worse the longer you know me.”
“Okay, just to be clear, the whole ghostly entity whose sole purpose for existence is seeking revenge thing? Does that apply to homicide, or is it exclusive to Damien sending you to a snowy grave because he wanted to bang me?”
“Oh, I trust you, girl. I’m sure if you kill me, I’ll deserve it. No hauntings necessary, it’s totally my bad.”
I press my hands over my heart. “That is so sweet, Summer! Thank you!”
“Goodnight!” a loud call comes from the doorway, and we both look around, frowning at the place Damien was standing a second ago. He’s gone, and seconds later, we hear the heavy thud of the back door closing.
Grinning, I lean past my friend to peer out at the snowy grounds, where I can just make out Damien’s form striding toward the truck, shaking his head.
When I look back to Summer, though, I see her smile has faded.
“Wow.” She turns away from the window, frowning distractedly.
“He really does look like Prince Leopold. I wasn’t looking for it before, but now that you’ve said something… Yeah.”
“Yeah,” I agree, and I want to say more, to tell Summer about the watch, and his work history, and what Alba told me about Araminta recommending him personally.
We might not have known each other for long, but I trust Summer more than any of my supposed friends in the glittering, fake life I used to have.
Still, something about all this feels heavier than an ordinary relationship problem you’d discuss with your friend, and out of respect for Damien, I keep my theories to myself.
It stings to realize you trust someone more than they trust you.