2. Miri
2
Miri
AGE EIGHTEEN
I almost died when I was fourteen.
Or perhaps I did die and rebuilt myself from the ashes like a phoenix, hell-bent on seeking revenge for those who had been taken from me.
I didn’t remember much from that day, the worst day of my life, and many therapists would say my brain intentionally blocked it out. I was in the back seat, ducking down on the ground to keep the photographers from taking pictures of me. I didn’t like seeing myself in the magazines. I didn’t like it when they said things about me.
“Drive faster,” my father shouted.
“Gerald,” my mother said. “We’re already going too fast.”
“We can lose them,” he replied. I sank down farther, my hands over my ears, terror in my chest. I hated the people who chased us. Why couldn’t they leave us alone?
The sound of the wreck haunted my nightmares, the sickening crunch of metal on metal as the car hit something hard and impenetrable. The world went topsy-turvy, and much of what happened after that was darkness.
When I came to, I lay in the grass ten yards away, staring into the lifeless gaze of my mother, hanging upside down in the car, her head bent at a wrong angle.
I wanted to cry.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to yank them from the twisted cage and pray to a cruel, merciless God to bring them back to life. Just bring them back. Unconsciousness took me again, and the next thing I remembered, I blinked awake in a hospital bed. I had minor injuries and a concussion, but other than that, I was relatively fine.
“How’d you get out of the vehicle?” a policeman asked.
“Were there witnesses, Princess?” another person added.
I didn’t know. I didn’t remember. The beep-beep-beep of my heart rate monitor went faster, and I took a deep breath, my vision murky with tears.
This must be a dream.
Any second now, I told myself. Any second, I’d wake up in my bed at Kensington, realizing I’d watched too many soap operas the day before. That never happened, and when my Uncle McCormick walked through the door next, that stoic look on his squirmy face, I knew I was screwed.
My grandmother, the queen of England, had sent him to check on me. My grandparents planned to adopt me, to bring me into their household, which, at first, brought great relief. The situation quickly became stifling as my grandmother raised me like the daughter she’d never had.
It should have been little surprise I rebelled after that.
I did the whole London club scene. I woke up in strangers’ beds, words of regret and an NDA on my lips. I stumbled out of buildings, unsure of where I was, only to have the cameras flash in my face, capturing the worst parts of my adolescent meltdown. I understood it wasn’t a great look, that it painted my family in a manner they didn’t particularly enjoy.
“This isn’t how young ladies are supposed to conduct themselves,” my grandmother said at brunch one morning, sipping her tea. Her white hair sparkled in the morning light, curled to perfection in the same hairstyle she’d had for decades. “You know what gossip like this does to our image.” She pointed to the headline.
Princess Miriam working her way through London’s nightlife. What would her father think? The Royal family declines to comment.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and glanced to the floor between us, refusing to meet that unscrupulous glare.
“I’m sorry, Gran,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
Acting out like this would hurt me in the end, but I didn’t care what the newspapers wrote. I didn’t care about the reputation of the royal family. I didn’t care about any of it. No one understood what it was like to stand up in front of the world, missing your heart, and pretend to smile pretty for the cameras. To know you survived something that killed everyone else that ever loved you.
Was it so shocking that I’d become lonely? That I wanted companionship?
“Your grandfather and I have agreed that it would be best for you to get some breathing room,” she said.
My hackles rose, but I knew better than to question the queen.
“There is a boarding school in America. The president sends her children there. It will do you some good, darling.”
The last thing I needed was to be away from my home, but I didn’t want to disappoint her. She promised if I played along, if I followed the rules, the Stuart fortune would be mine when I turned eighteen. My grandfather would officially invite me to court, give me my father’s title, and make me a duchess. Finally. All I’d ever wanted.
So I went, and I told myself on the flight over that I’d start again. This would be a new life for me, a chance to reinvent myself.
And then I met Ivy.
She had a hard time making friends, and I thought it was perfect because I didn’t have any to speak of. That became the basis of our relationship. I warmed her, she hardened me, and together, we ruled Mount Oberon our senior year. Her bright-eyed reason and calculated hesitation made me want to shake her and laugh at her.
I loved the way she blinked awake first thing in the morning, immediately looking to see if I was still there. We could sit in silence for hours, saying nothing and everything in that blissful peace. Being in her company balanced me out, and she needed me in ways she’d never admit. I grew too attached to her, knowing I’d have to leave her in the end, and the thought nearly killed me.
We couldn’t go public with a relationship. Just imagining the look on my grandmother’s face made me wince. An American? A progressive? Utter nonsense. She wouldn’t have it.
Because of this, I kept my desires to myself until the last day of school, when we’d gotten drunk together and stumbled back to our room, giddy with teenage disillusionment. The way she’d looked at me. The way she’d brushed hair out of my face.
How could I not?
How could I not?
I took her in every way I’d fantasized about. I made her moan and twist her fingers in my hair, and the next morning, when she woke up panicked about what it meant, I pretended it didn’t hurt to see relief in her eyes at my casual nonchalance. I brushed it under the rug as I always did when it came to her.
I acted like Ivy’s eager acceptance to get over it didn’t mean a damn thing. In truth, it had scarred me more deeply than anyone else ever could. But fate had other plans for me. The very next day, I met my soul mate.
Lex Fairfax.
We matched. Our jagged edges had always fit together like yin and yang. The media hadn’t been kind to either of us in our youth. He was the drugged-out American fuckup, and I was the slutty British disappointment.
Together? Well, there was a reason we’d made it through four years of college, despite the ups and downs. I’d fallen in love with him instantly at Kensington, when he’d shown up at my gran’s dinner and gotten stoned with me, eating snacks until well in the morning.
I’d just made love to Ivy Washington and acted like it meant nothing when it had meant everything. I had to pretend like everything was okay. I had to put on the pretty dress and force a smile on my face and go to dinner like nothing was wrong… again .
Lex and I reveled in the joke of the charade—these maniacal villains with their violent delights that would lead to violent ends. They plotted to take over the world while we plotted to escape it forever.
Was it because he reminded me of Ivy that I became so enraptured with him? Or was I looking for a life raft to cling to? Someone to replace the steady force she’d become?
I feared the answer to all of it was simply… yes .
My feelings for Lex were always so twisted with my feelings for Ivy; it was damn near impossible to separate the two.
I thought Ivy would be pissed. I thought she’d be jealous, and if she was, she held on to it only until she met Carter. Beautiful, sweet Carter with a heart the size of a planet and a smile just as wide. I loved him, but only the way I loved any other close friend.
Perhaps, at the beginning, there had been casual flirtation, but we immediately shut that down because Ivy was taken with him from the start. If I hadn’t been so emotional both my best friend and my boyfriend, I might have paid him more mind.
He quickly fell in love with his Weeds and rekindled his friendship with Lex, and on life went.
Even though I had Lex and I loved him dearly, a small part of me died when Ivy and Carter made it official. I envied Carter for being able to crawl into her bed at night and kiss her the way I once had, to take her as often or as frequently as she deserved.
But there were moments when Ivy’s gaze caught mine from across the room and her smile widened, and I’d feel that heartbeat in my soul again, the one that pittered just for her patter. It should have confused me, but even in its infancy, this strange relationship had always been so right.
I told myself life was too short to dwell on the things I couldn’t control. I couldn’t make Ivy want me the way I wanted her. I couldn’t make the world be okay with a relationship between us. I couldn’t change the way our families saw each other.
I had to accept it and move on.
Four years had passed since then, and I had nothing to change that perception.
I had lived with it and learned to accept it…until we went to Ireland.
* * *
AGE TWENTY-TWO
LA
There’s no such thing as a pleasant goodbye, especially not with a lover.
You say you’ll call. You say you’ll visit. You swear it’s not the end. But in reality, words are only hot air and actions mean everything. Lex and Ivy could have come to California with us. They could have rebelled against their parents and postponed their law school plans, maybe held firm on their reluctance to get married.
But they didn’t.
Ivy swore to fight the good fight, and Lex swore to help her, and we all swore to love each other anyway. Swear, and swear, and swear.
“Miriam, darling,” Gran said, annoyance dripping from her tone. “I do not approve of unscheduled changes of plans.”
“Of course, Gran.” I forced a grin. “But this will be a good opportunity for me to network with charitable organizations on that side of the US.”
I know, I know.
LA? Miri, my love, what are you thinking?
The truth was, I’d been hung over and sorely dehydrated when I agreed to go with Carter. At the time, I didn’t know the secrets Lex and Ivy were hiding. I didn’t know Carter knew the secrets they were hiding. But now that everything was out in the open, I wouldn’t back down from it. Going with him seemed more important than ever.
“Hmm.” She sipped at her tea, the soft noise rattling through the speaker on the phone. “The prince of Monaco has been asking about you.”
I suppressed a groan, watching Carter fidget next to me in the limo. Was I cutting it close by calling her on the way to the airport? Certainly. But Gran didn’t need to know the sordid details.
“Oh?” Hiding my disgust took work. The prince of Monaco was twenty years older than me, and even if he made a desirable financial match, I wouldn’t be caught dead with that walking midlife crisis. No, thank you.
“I will allow this impromptu trip if you will agree to have dinner with him once you return.”
I remained silent because I didn’t want to, but Gran so rarely threw out a negotiation that if I didn’t take her up on it, I would simply be commanded to come home now and have dinner with him anyway.
“Yes,” I said. “Whatever you think is best, Gran.”
“Delightful. Have fun in Malibu, and do try to stay out of trouble. Love you, darling.”
I hung up and swallowed the impending awkwardness of having to sit through that fiasco. Oh, well. Those were tomorrow’s worries. I had enough on my plate today.
“Do you have her royal blessing?” Carter grinned and winked.
I nodded. “For the time being. She’ll soon grow impatient and send someone to bring me home.”
He nodded, and now that we were alone for the first time since Ireland, the strangeness of this new relationship between us settled. For four years, he’d been Ivy’s boyfriend. Lex’s best friend. My stage partner. But now, things were different. We were running off to Hollywood together.
“I’m still surprised you agreed to this.” He reached across the limo to grab my hand, giving it a tender squeeze.
“I’m surprised you asked.”
The day after we blurred the lines between us during the beer pong game, the theater group had taken a bonding camping trip in the forest. Carter and I had been put in the same group, and somewhere around the waterfall, he’d wandered off alone. I went to find him, and when I did, he’d admitted to being heartbroken about leaving Ivy at the end of the trip.
“Leaving both of them is going to kill me,” he’d said.
“They’ll have each other, and in the end, I’ll only have my garden.” I had laughed, hoping to cheer him up.
He sighed. “And I’ll have the lonely streets of LA.” He paused before adding, “You should come with me.”
I prattled on about how pissed Ivy would be, how insulted Lex would get, but then he confirmed what I’d long believed. Actions did speak louder than words. Both could come, and they’d chosen not to.
But I did.
I had relatives out in LA, contacts and friends that could help him. My cousin, Roxanna Stuart, had become a very successful talent agent in the last few years, and if Carter played his cards right, he could sign on with her.
“Ivy and Lex would have each other. And you and me? We could take Hollywood by storm. We could have us.” He made a sad noise. “All we’ll have is us.”
It had hit me in the gut then and again sitting in the car next to him. “We’ll be heartbroken and homesick together.”
He made that same noise and shook his head. “We’re not even to the airport, and I already miss them.”
“Me too.” I didn’t know how I’d survive the next few weeks without hearing Ivy’s laugh or watching Lex’s eyes roll. How could I go on without listening to them bicker and complain, especially now that I knew how much adoration they’d always harbored between them?
What a strange relationship, and things between me and Carter were even stranger. I wouldn’t pretend to understand what happened to us at Midsummer or the days leading up to it and after.
Did we imagine the ruins that turned out not to exist? Did we carve those words into our own palms? Did we make vows that a power higher than ourselves would hold us to keep?
I didn’t know.
“Why did you agree to come with me?” Carter asked.
I took a deep breath and let it out on a sigh, flicking through all the replies in my head and trying to decide which was the best one. Because I’ll need you, and you’ll need me. Because it would hurt too much to be alone. Because I don’t know where else to go.
I ended up with, “Because you’re my friend, Romeo, and I can help you. So I’ll help you.”
“I’ll never be able to repay you.”
“Hogwash,” I brushed off. “One day, you’ll be a mega movie star like Marlon Brando, and then it’s me that will need you on my arm.”
“Pfft. I should be so lucky.” He smiled, and I focused on his dimples, remembering how they’d cast a shadow in the firelight.
We’d married each other out there in those woods, too. We’d taken each other until we couldn’t stand. I loved Ivy and Lex with everything in me, but in the haze of the lust and the rush and the sweat, Carter and I had unlocked a hidden sanctuary between us.
Most of it, I didn’t remember. But there was this moment, when Lex and Ivy were clawing and moaning next to us, that I found myself straddling Carter’s lap, his cock deep inside of me. I’d slung an arm around his neck, digging my other hand into his thigh to help me rock my hips against his pelvis. Our foreheads pressed together, his breath and mine combined, the taste of him and them hung on my lips, and the orange glow from our makeshift fire licked against his skin.
Our gazes had locked, and the world had slowed. Our heartbeats synced with each other as I cupped his jaw and he tightened his fingers on my waist, his indigo eyes bouncing back and forth between mine.
As actors who often worked together, our bodies were already familiar with one another. We’d done physical comedy. We’d played a married couple more than once. We looked right next to one another. But this was an intimacy we’d never experienced before. It changed the way I saw him.
Carter and I understood each other in a way Lex and Ivy never could. They’d never know what it was like to be in love with them, to be the object of their affection. They could never know what it was like to be the rival in a romance where the odds were stacked against them from the start.
Lex and Ivy could only have ended up together. That was obvious now. But that didn’t mean I got left with Carter. It meant Carter and I got to keep each other.
Hardly a consolation prize, if you asked me. Six-two. Blond. Blue eyes. Gorgeous jawline. No wonder Ivy and Lex had fallen for him so hard, and if I hadn’t been so blindsided by the two of them, I would have realized it sooner.
A girlish tingle twisted through my body at the thought of having Carter Scott to myself for the foreseeable future. But I pushed that down. Ivy wouldn’t like it. Lex would only like it if he could watch. Were we permitted to sleep together outside of the four of us? Would I get jealous if they fucked without the two of us?
If I’d been a smarter person, perhaps a few years older, I would have called to ask. We should have put down ground rules before we left. Instead, I had only this instinct growing in the pit of my stomach like a weed.
Carter and I were meant to be more than stage partners or metamours.
But what that was, I wasn’t exactly sure yet.