14. “Unbreakable” - Jamie Scott
“Unbreakable” - Jamie Scott
They tell me I’m an introverted extrovert, and maybe that explains why, when my plans to visit a senior recreation center are canceled as I’m walking to the car, I’m both disappointed and elated.
I was not looking forward to the honorary whack of hitting a tennis ball or needing to fake enthusiasm over sweaty gym lockers, but I was excited about seeing the work they’re doing in the community and chatting about the possibilities of adding some new programs.
Davies escorts me back to my suite to change out of my tennis whites. He’s filling me in on the camping trip he’s taking with his son this summer but stops abruptly at the entrance to the White Drawing Room.
“Tourists,” he says quietly when I come to a stop beside him.
Inside, a group of visitors are studying the room, necks craning to take in the ornate architecture and exquisite artwork.
They’re all wearing windbreakers, fanny packs, and trainers.
One man is sporting a sweatshirt from the gift shop with Wesbourne printed across the front.
The sight instantly takes me back to the day in Herrington Forest when my father asked a tourist to take a photo of us on our picnic blanket for my fifteenth birthday.
It’s the last photo I have of the two of us together.
“We’ll go a different way.” Davies places his hand under my elbow and steers me back out through the doorway.
The tourists haven’t spotted us, and we try to keep it that way by moving slowly. We avoid random run-ins when possible and are usually successful. My canceled tour is the only reason we almost slipped up today.
Davies scans the gallery extending in both directions from where we stand. I can read his body language well enough by now to know he’s scanning his mental map of the palace, looking for an alternate route that doesn’t put us in the path of any more visitors.
“Audience Room.” He motions down the gallery, and we walk in that direction. When we approach the jib door hidden in the wall, he holds up his hand, signaling that he will check the room before allowing me to enter. Even after three years as my PPO, he still thinks I’ll forget.
I roll my eyes, but he’s not looking at me. He has his ear pressed against the door.
“What?” I ask in a lowered voice. “Is someone in there?”
He swings his eyes to me, still listening. “We’ll find a different route,” he says, and straightens.
“Why?” I ask. “Who’s in there?” I move past him to press my own ear to the door.
He’s right. There are voices in there—two, specifically. I listen a few more moments. They’re speaking softly, and I’m about to give up on identifying them when I hear the laugh.
My stomach lurches.
Why is Henry holding a private meeting in my Audience Room?
Technically it’s not off-limits to the prince consort, but he’s never needed it for his own personal meetings before.
Then again, with most of my engagements taking place away from the palace, I have no way of knowing how often he uses the room.
I look at Davies. “It’s Henry.”
He nods and averts his eyes.
“Who is he meeting?”
He takes a sudden interest in his shoes, leaning down to polish a spot on one toe.
“Davies.” There’s a warning in my tone, but we both know I pose no threat to him. It’s not like I could ever fire him, not if it meant putting up with a PPO I can’t stand.
He lifts his head, then stands upright. “I should escort you to your suite.”
“Who is it?” I lean closer to the door.
Our eyes lock as I listen to the rise and fall of voices inside. The way Davies’s are hooded tells me he knows who is in there with Henry and would rather I didn’t. Which is all the more reason for me to find out.
There’s another round of laughter inside the room. Once again, I recognize Henry’s immediately, but I block it out so I can listen to the other. It’s softer and harder to make out. There’s a musical quality to it—
“No.” It comes out as a whisper, but a desperate one. Tell me he is not meeting her after we agreed—
God, what is happening?
Davies looks concerned as he reaches for me. “Let’s go,” he says.
For a second I want to lean against him and tell him everything, the way Henry and I hardly speak anymore except to yell at each other and throw nasty barbs. The way sex has become a meaningless exercise in convincing him that I do want a baby when everything inside me is screaming the opposite.
I shake my head. “I’m staying.”
“Ma’am, I don’t think—”
“My husband is in there with another woman.” I level my glare at him. “I’m staying.”
Davies closes his eyes briefly but nods. “As you wish. There is a dressing screen on the other side of this door. They won’t see you if you open it a few inches.”
I didn’t even remember that. I smile my thanks and slowly inch the door open. The voices get louder immediately.
“And then she says, ‘Who’s up for another round?’” It’s Elizabeth speaking. “The room groans as everyone clutches their stomachs. Ten seconds later, she’s passed out on the floor herself.”
Henry’s laugh commingles with hers again. The effect is sickening.
“I doubt she had any recollection of it the next morning,” Henry says.
“I’d say not,” Elizabeth agrees. “But the rest of us never forgot it.”
I don’t know who they’re talking about, but at least their conversation isn’t intimate.
“I’ll never forget the time she found out how to say ‘a coma.’ She’d always thought it was one word: ‘acoma.’ Like, he’s in acoma,” he says.
Elizabeth roars with laughter. “That doesn’t even surprise me.”
They know the same people. This realization hits me slowly, in waves, as they continue discussing this mystery person. It’s not proof that they slept together, or even that they knew each other before, but it’s a step in that direction.
The invisible bands around my chest squeeze tighter.
I glance at Davies, who is patiently indulging me, standing at my side, hands clasped in front of him. I offer him a grateful smile and return to listening.
“Do you remember that one party? I think it was at the Quantum,” Elizabeth is saying. “Clarice and Sabrina got on the table and couldn’t get back down?” She dissolves into giggles. “It was hilarious. We left them up there for at least an hour.”
“I’m not sure.” Henry chuckles. “Was I there?”
“I think that was the night you had your tongue down the throat of some girl who looked like Sydney Sweeney.”
There’s a masculine groan. “God, don’t remind me.”
Revulsion curdles the contents of my stomach. I know he had a life before me, but that doesn’t mean I want to hear the details. And now I know that he does know Elizabeth, something he thought he could hide from me.
Davies is looking at me. Can he hear as much as I can?
“Of course, you were hammered enough to not remember much of it,” Elizabeth says in that soft, soothing tone.
I want to hit her.
I picture Henry rubbing his face the way he does when he’s embarrassed. “Sounds right.”
“I used to think things might have turned out differently between us if you hadn’t been plastered every time we saw each other,” she says.
I hold my breath.
Several beats pass. Then Henry says quietly, “I’m sorry, Lib.”
Lib.
It’s there, hanging out in those three letters—the truth I’ve been shoving away from myself every chance I get.
Of course he had sex with her. Of course Axel is theirs.
Of course he would’ve gotten into bed with someone as beautiful and toned and glamorous as Elizabeth Gable. Even her name sounds elegant.
I thought Henry was mine.
It turns out the entire world wants a piece of him, and he’s more than willing to share.
Davies walks me back to my suite. I thank him at the doors, and I can tell that he understands it was for more than just the escort.
Inside, I wait in the living room for Henry. When he walks in a few minutes later, Tundra bounds over to greet him.
“Hey,” Henry says when he spots me on the blue velvet sofa. “I thought you had an engagement this morning.” He readjusts the jacket draped over his arm and scratches behind Tundra’s ears.
“It was canceled.” I don’t look up from the vase on the coffee table. If I stare at it any harder, it might start to levitate.
“Oh.” From the corner of my eye, I see him scratch his jaw. “How was the unexpected free time?”
“Enlightening.”
He starts to move toward the bedroom, as if he’s not sure what else to say.
“Why did you lie to me?” I ask.
He halts in front of the bedroom door, then slowly turns to face me. “What?” His face is a mask of confusion.
“You lied. About Elizabeth. Or should I say Lib?”
His chest inflates with a deep breath. “Celia, I can—”
“Explain? Oh, please do. Just give me a second to grab the popcorn.”
He tosses his suit jacket over an armchair. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“You can mark that mission unsuccessful.”
“C, I’m sorry,” he says. “I hoped if you thought she was just some nameless woman I might or might not have slept with, you wouldn’t feel as threatened.”
“As opposed to what? Finding out you had a relationship with her?” I stand and move to the other side of the room.
“We weren’t in a relationship.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
He looks down and sighs. His tongue prods the inside of his cheek. “We were friends, a long time ago. More like acquaintances.”
“It sounded like more than acquaintances in the Audience Room earlier.”
His eyes flash up to meet mine. “You were eavesdropping?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. Yes, I knew her. Yes, we had sex. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to hurt you.”
I cross my arms over my chest as though it will keep my heart from breaking all over again. “It would have hurt a lot less if you had just been honest with me.”
“You mean the way you were honest with me when Libby first contacted the palace?”
“Stop calling her that!”
“Why?” He spreads out his arms like he’s balancing on a precipice. “That’s her name.”
“You’re not allowed to give her nicknames, and you’re not allowed to see her again, either.”
He has the audacity to laugh. “This is a marriage, Celia, not a dictatorship.”
My nostrils flare as I exhale. “It feels more like a business arrangement at this point.”
“Have you stopped to wonder why that is?”
“For starters, we’re too busy putting out your fires to have time for anything else.”
He just shakes his head and mutters something under his breath that sounds a whole lot like unbelievable.
“When did you sleep with her? Or was it more than once?”
His eyes cut to mine. “Just once. And I don’t remember when.”
“A ballpark idea is enough.”
“I don’t even have that, sorry.”
“Your memory is not that bad. What aren’t you telling me?”
His fingers plow furrows through his hair. “It was a rough year for me. I made some stupid choices. A lot of it runs together in my head.”
“What made that year rougher than the others?”
His sigh is long and deep enough that the weight of the air shifts. He lifts his eyes, which are dark but flickering with heat. His voice is low when he finally speaks.
“You got engaged.”