Chapter Nine
Clementine
Gareth’s surgery went well, according to the brief, carefully worded statement James forwarded me from the palace press office late that evening, three sparse sentences that told me almost nothing beyond the barest medical outcome, but the genuine relief of that good news barely had time to properly register before Aria walked into my office the very next morning wearing an expression that told me, instantly, something else entirely had gone badly wrong overnight while I slept.
“Dennison Group just pulled their entire pledge,” she said, setting a printed letter down carefully on my desk like it might bite her fingers if she held it too long. “The three-hundred-thousand-dollar one, specifically earmarked for next year’s planned expansion into the Bronx building.”
“Why would they possibly pull that funding now, of all times?”
“They didn’t say it outright anywhere in the actual letter, but it specifically mentions concerns about, and I’m quoting directly here, ‘the organization’s current visibility in unrelated controversies.
’” She tapped the offending sentence firmly with one finger.
“They clearly mean you, Clementine. They mean the entire royal story, all of it, bleeding straight into our carefully cultivated funding relationships.”
I read through the letter twice, my hands steadier than my roiling stomach felt, and understood in that exact moment precisely how far this whole situation had already spread well beyond just me personally.
It wasn’t only my own reputation being dragged endlessly through the headlines anymore.
It was Marisol’s potential future transitional apartment, and the next woman down our waitlist’s job placement opportunity, and the entire kitchen that fed forty vulnerable people a night, every bit of it suddenly, unfairly tethered directly to a royal scandal that had genuinely nothing whatsoever to do with any of those women and everything instead to do with a family I hadn’t personally chosen to marry into.
Matilda called that same afternoon, her voice cool and composed in the particular manner of a woman who had spent her entire adult life carefully aware of being photographed, even over a simple private phone call.
She had married Gareth eleven years earlier and had never, in all that considerable time, said more than a small handful of politely distant sentences directly to me in person.
“I wanted to check in on you personally,” she said. “This particular sort of week is always so genuinely difficult to navigate properly. I remember my own early years within this family, slowly learning firsthand exactly what the position actually asks of a person, day after day.”
“I’m not entirely sure I’m actually in the position you seem to be imagining I’m in, Matilda, if I’m being honest.”
“Perhaps not formally speaking, no, that’s true enough.
But you are married to a prince, regardless, and prince’s wives learn certain necessary lessons over time whether or not they happen to hold an official title of their own.
” Her voice stayed gentle and even throughout, almost genuinely kind in tone, which somehow made the entire exchange land considerably worse in the end.
“The palace communications team will properly handle the coverage in due time, I promise you. Your role, for right now, is simply to remain patient, and quiet, and trust fully that it will all eventually resolve itself naturally. I know it feels genuinely unbearable right now, in the thick of it. It does become bearable eventually, I promise you that from experience. You learn, gradually, over time, to let certain things simply pass through you instead of holding onto them so tightly.”
I thanked her politely for calling, because I had been raised carefully to stay polite even in moments when I genuinely wanted to scream instead, and hung up the phone with a strange, hollow feeling spreading slowly through my entire chest. She wasn’t entirely wrong about the underlying pattern she was so carefully describing to me.
She was describing, with what sounded like total, unguarded sincerity, exactly the kind of quiet, patient endurance the royal family had always historically expected from its women, and she genuinely, sincerely couldn’t understand why I found her careful description horrifying rather than remotely comforting.
That evening, once Byron had finally come home from his day, I asked him directly about the upcoming gala.
“Second Door developed the entire housing initiative you’ll be personally presenting at that event,” I said, standing firmly across the kitchen island from him, arms crossed over my chest. “I should genuinely be there for that specific presentation. I want to be there, Byron.”
He didn’t answer me right away, and the sheer length of his uncomfortable silence told me everything I needed to know before he finally, reluctantly said the actual words out loud.
“Your invitation was withdrawn, Clem. I found out about it myself only this morning. I’ve spent the entire day trying to figure out some way to fix it before I even mentioned any of it to you directly.”
Something inside me went very still and very cold all at once. “You knew about this since this morning, and you’re only telling me about it now, nearly twelve full hours later?”
“I genuinely didn’t want to say anything to you until I actually had a real solution in hand to offer alongside it.”
“I don’t need you to solve it for me, Byron.
I need you to tell me the plain truth the very moment you learn it yourself, even when that particular truth is ugly and completely unresolved, even when you don’t yet have a proper fix ready to offer alongside it.
” My voice shook audibly as I spoke, and I let it shake freely, because I was thoroughly, completely done performing calm for him after an entire exhausting day already spent performing calm for Dennison Group and for Matilda and for every single reporter who’d called since the leak first broke publicly.
“You keep quietly, unilaterally deciding, entirely on your own, exactly what I can and cannot handle, instead of simply telling me what’s actually happening in real time, as it happens.
That isn’t genuine protection, Byron. That’s plain control wearing slightly better manners than your own family’s cruder version of it. ”
He didn’t have an answer ready, and I didn’t wait around for one, hanging up and sitting for a long moment with my hand still resting on the phone, feeling the particular exhaustion that comes from saying a hard truth out loud and not knowing whether it landed anywhere at all.
Aria knocked softly on my office door a few minutes later, holding a folder I recognized as the quarterly board report I’d been putting off for days. “Bad time?”
“Honestly, there hasn’t been a good time in about three weeks.” I waved her in anyway, grateful for the interruption, grateful for a problem that had an actual solvable shape to it. “What have you got?”
“The board wants a statement about the coverage. Not a defensive one, just something acknowledging it exists, so donors don’t feel like we’re hiding from it.” She set the folder down. “I drafted something. Tell me if it’s too much or not enough.”
I read through her draft twice, a careful two paragraphs that mentioned the recent media attention only obliquely, focused almost entirely on Second Door’s mission and its continued commitment to the women it served, and felt something in my chest ease slightly at the simple competence of it, the reminder that not everything in my life required me to manage a crisis alone.
“This is good,” I said. “This is exactly right. Send it as is.”
“You sure? We could soften the second paragraph if you want.”
“No, leave it. I think I’ve had enough softened language for one week.
” I handed the folder back to her, and something in my own voice surprised me, a firmness that hadn’t been there in days.
“Let’s send the true version. I’m tired of everyone else’s careful drafts standing in for what’s actually happening. ”