Chapter 16

Brooks

I wake up—head pounding and mouth full of cotton—on the back porch of my parents’ house. Briggs is sprawled out beside me, his head resting on a coiled-up water hose. I guess I should be thankful that I managed to pass out on an extra cushion Mom keeps nearby.

Hayden is nowhere to be seen. Of course, he didn’t get drunk off his ass, which was good for Briggs and me because it meant we didn’t have to find an Uber or walk home.

“Am I dead?” Briggs moans. “Who turned off the lights?”

“No, but I’m in hell because you won’t shut up,” I say through gritted teeth. It takes me three tries but I push myself to my feet and manage a weak shuffle to the back door.

“Don’t leave me.”

With a groan that vibrates my entire body, I shuffle over to my twin and take him by the arm that he’s thrown into the air. I tug him to his feet. He sways, his eyes bloodshot and his hair looking like a rat’s nest. I know I can’t look much better.

Except I don’t have imprints of a water hose on the side of my face.

“You look like shit,” he says.

“Feel like it, too.” I head straight for the pot of coffee that’s already full. “I think we’re in trouble.”

“Nonsense. Every mother loves to wake up to her sons passed out on her begonias.” Georgiana brushes past me and fixes two cups, handing them to us. I hold on to the mug and drink every bit of the coffee down like it contains the power of immortal life.

“We weren’t on those,” Briggs protests, sipping his like the delicate flower he is.

“Because I moved your drunk tails,” our dad says.

“Great.” I shake my head and a mini explosion goes off in my brain. “Shit.”

“Sorry, Momma.”

“Language,” Bishop barks and holds out a bottle of aspirin. “Take these, get a shower, and sleep it off.”

“Yes, sir,” Briggs and I say in unison, just like when we were kids. Except when we were kids, we didn’t dare come home drunk as two skunks in a distillery.

“Is Charlotte awake yet?” I ask, tossing back the pills and chasing them down with another gulp of coffee.

“No, that poor dear had to fly out last night. I thought she would have texted you.”

Shit. She left without saying goodbye. Although she could have tried but I left my phone in my bag, I can’t remember the last time I did that. It’s almost as important to me as my dick. “I left my phone in my room.”

“She left a note for you. Such a sweet old-fashioned thing to do,” my momma prattles on, blissfully unaware that I’m starting to panic. “Told her to come back anytime she wants.”

“That’s incredibly good to know. Think I’ll get that shower now.” I set the coffee cup down and all but run out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

My light is on in my room and the door is still cracked open, but where the top of my desk was pristine, there’s that fucking envelope and all the contents spread out.

I feel sucker punched. Why did I bring it with me and why did I have to put it in a place so easy to find? Several times, during our stay here, I attempted to read it, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I also couldn’t bring myself to tell Charlotte.

“Coward.” I grab her note and read. With each word my heart twists and my stomach sinks. “Fuck me sideways.”

“What’s the matter, lover,” Briggs says as he stumbles inside. “You and Charlotte have a fight?”

I slap her note against his chest and he grabs it. “Read this.”

“You read it. My head hurts to bad.”

“Suck it up, buttercup, and read the damn thing.” I sort through the pictures and handwritten notes that I did not make. None of this is in my handwriting, but how can I prove that to her. She’s never seen my handwriting.

“You’ve known all along…” Briggs joins me at my desk. “I don’t understand.”

“She thinks that I’ve known her secrets and was just using her.”

“Well, if you already knew her secrets, why would you use her to get them?” he asks.

“To confirm them. She knows I don’t publish anything without verifying.”

“Dude, you have to go after her.”

“Will do, bro, right after I shower and beat the shit out of Davies.”

“Want some help?” he asks.

I turn to him, a smile kicking up the corners of my mouth. “You have a political career ahead of you. No need to do something I’d be forced to write about.”

He grabs my shoulder. “I mean it, Brooks. I have your back.”

“I know you do, but this is something that I have to take care of on my own. I caused this mess in the first place.” Well, I didn’t force her mother’s bodyguard to confess that he fathered five of the six Sinclair siblings and I sure as shit didn’t have a fucking clue that my princess is actually the rightful queen of the Isle of Man. “I have to protect Charlotte and make things right.”

“You’re still a good guy—I knew it.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Yeah, well, you’d buried that good guy under a huge pile of asshole.”

I can’t argue with my twin because it’s true.

“Seriously, go. Get a shower and some sleep. You smell like ass.”

“Better than your ass,” he quips, making no sense. Another squeeze of my shoulder and he’s gone, his footsteps heavy on the hardwood floor.

Leaning over, I grab my phone from the bag and call Charlotte. Just like I expected, she doesn’t answer, so I leave her a voicemail.

“I’m coming for you, Princess, and I’m going to prove that I’m a changed man.” There’s no need to tell her I didn’t do it. That I hadn’t gathered information on her or her family over the years, because I have…only I didn’t have this kind of information. The kind of information only achieved via a mole in the government.

The birth certificates have the original official seals, after all. Not even your average villain of a journalist with the best connections, i.e., me, could have gotten his hands on this.

It’s fucking platinum.

It’s the truth, her birth certificate anyway. There’s nothing salacious about it, like the maybe babies’ daddy confession.

I could win so many awards if I published a piece on her. So damn many, and doors would open. Doors I’ve dreamed of walking through, only to flip those bastards off and walk out again.

Besides, I reason with myself, doesn’t Charlotte deserve to be queen? Doesn’t she deserve to be the one with all the attention instead of a wallflower? If I were to publish, just the part about their birth certificates, it would be a good thing.

An unselfish thing on my part because I know I could never have her then, but she’s worth it. Her happiness is worth it.

And that’s what I keep telling myself when I call the number on the card that’s at the bottom of the pile to make arrangements to meet with the former prime minister.

I’m not shocked at all when Davies agrees to meet me in London the next day.

He’s waiting for me in a small tea shop near the British House of Lords. Without waiting for his permission or some kind of smug wave over, I stride to his table, spin the chair around, and sit down, making sure to place both elbows on the table.

I figure shit like that gets to a man like him.

His gaze zooms right in on my arms.

Bingo.

“How’s it hanging, Dave?” I ask.

“Davies.”

“Davies? Is that a British slang for dick?”

His jaw ticks and it’s all I can do not to laugh in his face. “No. I take it you’ve sorted through the contents of the envelope I gave you.”

“Yeah, and it’s big news. Huge. Could totally make my career—if it were true.”

He looks so offended that I’m surprised his beady eyes don’t bug out of his head. “I can assure you that everything has been carefully documented.”

“That handwriting is very neat. Better than my chicken scratch.”

“I wrote them myself.”

I pull out my phone, pretending to scroll through my texts. “I’m sure you got an A in penmanship. Anyway, how do you expect me to publish something that’s not verified from an original source?”

“I’m the source. I was there when the twins were delivered and certified their birth certificates myself,” he says smugly. “We can’t have the queen trying to pass off another’s child as her own.”

“You were in the hospital room?”

“Naturally.”

My jaw all but drops. “That’s…”

“The burden of royalty, Mr. Walker. It’s a matter of public record, should you like to search the royal library at Saint-Lyons castle.” He picks up his teacup, pinky out in a way that Frankie Prescott could never get the boys to do during Cotillion lessons. “In any case, since you now have verified the original source, what are your plans?”

“To verify your verification. It’s the burden of journalism.”

“You’ll need an invitation to the castle, but—”

I shake my phone at him. “I have one of those and a press pass.” That showed up in my in-box the morning I discovered Charlotte had left. Since they still haven’t been revoked, I’m assuming Charlotte hasn’t shared anything with her sister.

Yet.

“Are you sure you’ll be able to pull this off? You and the princess seem to be rather close. She met your family and was seen with you at your private residence on Smith Island.”

My skin crawls at the thought of him knowing her every move. “We’re no longer seeing each other. She got…tired of slumming,” I say with a shrug. “You know how those Sinclairs are.”

“Ah, so revenge is in order,” he replies, indicating that he knows less than shit about Charlotte.

“Something like that.” Only it’s going to be on your ass, not hers.

He extends his hand and I take it, even though I’d rather break off his fingers and feed them to him. But I can’t show my hand and he’s got his security team with him.

“Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Walker. I’ll be sure to email the owner of the private Delaware LLC to let them know a takeover is no longer needed…as soon as you send me the draft of your article.”

Fucking asshole. “I’ve already asked for my shares back that will make me majority owner.”

“And your request has been denied.”

“The contract was ironclad.”

“There are always loopholes,” he says pleasantly. “Strange that you haven’t heard from them as of late.”

“You think you’ve got me by the balls, but you won’t win. Squeeze as hard as you want, Davies. I won’t squeal unless I feel like it, and even then it will only be what I think is best for public consumption.”

He smiles, pleasant and friendly. “I won’t have to squeeze. Your ego will do it for me.”