Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
LEXI
I’m not sure what’s worse, the headache from the scotch or the furry mouth from all the sweet ice cream.
“She lives,” Becca declares as I stumble into the living room in my bare feet and pajamas, yawning and running my fingers through my tangled hair.
Becca is sitting under a big fuzzy plaid blanket on the sofa in her pj’s, which are covered in terrible sleep-related headlines like “Napping Now Legal in All Fifty States,” “Feathers Fly After Fight at Pillow Factory,” and “Yawn of the Dead Breaks Box Office Records.”
“Sorry. I was worried that making this coffee might wake you.” She holds up her steaming mug and puts down her novel with a cartoon couple on the front.
“But I couldn’t wait any longer. And I didn’t want to go out to get some in case you woke up while I wasn’t here. I’m not leaving you alone today.”
She pulls back the plaid blanket. Fuck, even that reminds me of Scotland and therefore Oliver. “Get under here,” she says while standing up. “I’ll pour you some. It’ll make you feel better.”
“What time is it?” I obey her instructions and climb under.
“Almost noon.” She takes the four steps to the kitchen area of our small living space and grabs the coffeepot.
“Shit. I haven’t slept in that late since college.”
“Well, we didn’t go to bed till three a.m.” Becca grabs the dishcloth and wipes up some coffee she’s slopped onto the counter. “And there’s the jet lag as well.”
“And the unemployment and the heartbreak.”
“At least you finally admit you like him enough that he could break your heart. I’m classifying that as progress.” She opens the fridge and stares inside. “Vanilla or pumpkin spice creamer?”
“Vanilla, please. And I’m happy you’ve found an upside to all this. Because I have not.”
“Oh, come on, Lex. Being in love is the fucking best. Of course it’s an upside. Figure things out with the hot prince and all your problems will be solved.”
“Did I not tell you about his family last night? And the staff? There is no part of being involved with him that isn’t a whole bunch of new problems.”
She bounds back from the kitchen and slides onto the couch next to me, handing me the coffee, which looks like it’s approximately fifty percent cream. “Apart from how much you love him. And the amazing sex.”
My phone pings with a text, but it’s muffled.
I pat the blanket, searching for a rectangular lump. “Did I leave my phone in here last night?”
“Maybe, dunno.” Becca grabs the other end of the blanket and gives it a shake, sending a ripple through it.
There’s a thud that resembles phone on rug.
I bend forward to pick it up. “It’s fucking Julian again.”
“At least he can’t have any more bad news.”
When I read his words, my body doesn’t react at all. It’s like I’m numb to everything. Nothing can shock me anymore. If you kick someone enough times, one after the other, they won’t feel the final one.
“What does he want?” Becca’s voice makes me realize I’m staring blankly at the message.
“The book’s canceled.” I toss the phone onto the coffee table. Of course that’s what’s happened. Of course the only news I’ll ever get now is terrible. “I knew the royals would try to stomp on it. But I did think Oliver might have the balls to stop them.”
The fact he hasn’t is shockingly more disappointing than the fact that the book is scrapped and I have no immediate prospect of income.
Apparently, my people-judgment is shot. Or I was deluded by Scottish castles and screaming orgasms. Probably both.
“So now you have no war correspondent’s job and no high-profile memoir to ghostwrite?”
“Thank you for succinctly summing up every aspect of my current employment status. Or, rather, unemployment status.”
A sip of the hot, creamy coffee helps to lift the fog of the sugar and booze hangovers, and the reality of my jobless situation starts to sink in.
Becca has long been the only person I’d want to talk to at a time like this.
But right now, all I want is Oliver. Not because being around him would make me feel better, though I’m sure it would, but because I want to comfort him too.
He was banking on that book in so many ways. He’ll be devastated.
Maybe that’s why he hasn’t been in touch since I left.
I’d intended to text him after I landed to say I’d arrived safely, but the airport was a shitshow, and I fell asleep in the cab from the airport, then was absorbed in the whisky and ice-cream fueled debrief with Becca for hours until I stumbled to bed and passed out.
But I would have thought Oliver would have at least sent a quick message to tell me the book’s off, and asking me to call him when I’m up so he can tell me the full story and rant about it.
I grab my phone again.
ME
Are you ok? I just heard about the book being canceled.
He’s probably too busy to reply immediately, so I put my mug and phone down on the table and roll onto my side, pulling the blanket over my head.
“Oh, no.” Becca tugs at it, but I tighten my grip. “No wallowing. No hiding. Fuck all those people.”
I peep over the edge, knowing my hair will now look like I stuck my fingers in an electrical socket.
“Seriously, Becca. I’ve lost the new job I’ve always wanted to a talentless rich kid, and now I don’t even get to use my powers for good by finishing Oliver’s book and helping him make his side of the story public. I think I’m allowed at least one day of hiding and wallowing.”
My phone beeps. That was fast. The sight of his name instantly relieves the pressure in my chest, brings a smile to my lips and a coiling flutter to my belly. At least he’ll be back in New York tomorrow. Being around him, kissing him, lying in bed with him, will make everything feel a lot less bad.
OLIVER
Yeah, it’s shit. And it means we don’t have to work together anymore. I’m going to need some time to figure out what to do next. About everything.
“Aha!” Becca snatches the blanket from my momentarily loosened grip and pulls it back. “I knew you really fucking liked him.” She pokes at my leg with both index fingers.
But I barely notice it.
It’s like a giant sinkhole has opened up beneath me and my entire universe has crashed through it.
Up until a couple of weeks ago, I would have thought that losing my job and the new one I had lined up would have been the end of my world.
But I would have been wrong.
The end of my world is losing Oliver.
And this is the one I didn’t predict.
The biggest hammer to fall was the hardest one to see coming.
Becca’s still pummeling my leg. “You like him. You like him. You liiiike him!”
“Doesn’t matter. I think he just sent me an I-need-some-space text.”
“What?” She stops poking me and bolts up straight. “I thought he was smart. No smart man would dump you.”
She grabs my hand and turns my phone to face her.
There’s silence while her eyes scan the message.
Then scan it again.
“What the fuck?” Her shoulders slump and all the fun drains from her face. “It’s totally an I-need-some-space text. Asshole. His whole life is fucking space. No one has more space in their life than a royal person.”
Becca’s words send the tiny bit of hope that perhaps I’d misjudged the message up in smoke, which feels like it’s suffocating me from the inside out.
“Not helping,” I say. “No one comes back from ‘I need time to figure out what to do.’”
“Yeah,” Becca says. “Whatever they figure out, it never involves the person they’re telling they need to figure things out. What a pathetically cowardly way to end it.”
She’s right. It is cowardly.
Particularly from a man who took such a brave stance to move here and distance himself from the world’s most famous family.
If there’s one thing I know about Oliver, it’s that he has a mind of his own. And if he’s decided that what he wants is not me, there’s no way I’m going to demean myself trying to change it.
I never wanted him anyway, right?
I tap out the only words necessary.
My heart crawls up to my throat while my thumb hovers over the send button that’s getting blurrier the more I look at it.
There’s no point drawing out the agony.
I close my eyes, moisture leaking out between my lashes.
Then drop my thumb, and the text is sent.
ME
I understand.
That’s it.
Done.
Line drawn.
I might have a gaping, growing chasm inside me, but I do understand. He doesn’t need me—someone who doesn’t fit with his life and who his parents and their staff clearly don’t approve of. He could easily find himself a perfectly lovely woman with a more appropriate background and career.
I try to take a deep breath, but the air jerks into my lungs and my chest won’t expand.
Tossing my phone back onto the coffee table, I slump onto my side, pulling the blanket up over my shoulder, trying desperately not to give in to the expanding lump in my throat or the prickling behind my eyes.
I will not sob over a boy.
“I hope you told him he’s a weak-assed coward,” Becca says. “And that he needs to stand up to his deluded family and come get the woman he loves.”
“Absolutely not. I don’t need a Prince Charming on a white charger. My priority is to get a job if I’m going to ever pay rent again.”
That’s what I have to do now—try to take my mind off Oliver by channeling all my focus and energy into getting my career back on track.
The buzz of my phone makes my stomach lurch so hard it crashes into the lump in my throat. I yank the blanket tight, like somehow it can hold in all the awful emotions swirling around inside me and prevent them from spewing out.
Becca stares at my phone. “Do you want it?”
“I can’t deal with another Oliver message right now. And if it’s Julian wanting to know when I’m going to clear my desk, he can fuck off too.”
“Well, I’ll very gladly deal with both.” She picks up my phone. “It’s neither. It’s an unknown number.”
“Then definitely ignore it.” I smush the side of my face into the pillow.
But she stares at the text like she’s reading a long, involved article. “Do you know someone named Amanda Lagden?”