Royal Disaster by Parker Swift (11)

An hour later the garment bag was hanging off one of the chairs in my kitchen, and Emily and I were collapsed on my couch.

“Good. Now, you have black heels, right?” she asked, looking at me in a way that suggested she was trying to tell me what shoes to wear but disguising it as a question. It was kind of lovable actually.

I nodded, thinking of the Manolo Blahniks Dylan had gotten me for my birthday.

“I seriously don’t know how I could have done this without you,” I said, sipping from a glass of wine. A bottle of the good stuff Dylan had hidden away in my house.

“You’ll do fine. She’s actually really nice. Kind of like a really reserved grandma. Only, you know, with way more power and some gravity-defying hair.”

I laughed, and it started out like a normal chuckle. But I was so tired, I’d had just enough wine, and I was worn out enough that it turned into one of those belly laughs I couldn’t control. I heard myself uttering nonsense like “curtsy” and “cleavage” and “grandma” and just laughed. Emily thought I was nuts at first, but the thing about laughter is that it’s contagious, and within minutes we were both crying.

“I really like you, Emily,” I sputtered while catching my breath and wiping a laugh tear from my cheek.

“Aww, that’s so American of you, telling me that! I like you too.” I was pretty sure Emily and I would have been friends no matter how we met—it’s just that we probably never would have met otherwise. “So are you seeing my stuffy, cranky older brother tonight?” she asked.

“Who knows?” I said. “I mean, yes. He’s coming over, but lately I’m asleep when he comes home.”

“He’s been awfully busy lately, hasn’t he? Although not nearly as hostile, which is probably due to you. Thank you for that.”

“No problem.”

“Father’s been taking him to task. The two of them always seem to be seething at one another.” Emily’s eyes were closed while she talked, her head leaning against the top of the couch. We were both destroyed by our afternoon shopping. But I couldn’t help wanting to know more. I wanted to probe, to get her to tell me everything, but I knew that would just put her in an awkward position.

“He’s taking me to Humboldt Park tomorrow,” I said and looked at her for her reaction. Her eyes opened and her eyebrows rose. “I haven’t seen your parents since the party at the Savoy.”

Emily leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees. “Don’t let them intimidate you, okay?” she said, but before I could press her for more information her cell phone rang. While she chatted on the phone, I brought the dress upstairs and poured some more wine.

“I’ve got to be off,” she said, and she was smiling. I’d bet my left arm it had to do with whatever mystery guy she was dating or not dating. She came over and kissed each of my cheeks. She was already at the door when she added, “And don’t fret about tomorrow. Dylan will be with you, and he’d probably murder our parents if they treat you with any less respect than you deserve. I’ve never seen him so protective before. Well, at least not with anyone other than me.”

I realized that I hadn’t checked my phone in hours, so I took it from my bag and began scrolling through the notifications. I’d missed a few calls from work, a text from Josh, and texts from Dylan.

Dylan cooking? That was a surprise. I texted him back.

It was only five thirty, so I had some time to recover from the day. I was beat, and all I wanted to do was collapse and watch the episodes of The Bachelor that Daphne had put on DVD and sent over to me. Which was exactly what I was about to do when the doorbell rang. I looked out the window, and it was pouring rain. Whoever was out there was getting soaked, so I jumped up to get to the door.

“Michael!” I said, probably sounding more surprised than was polite.

We’d spoken once or twice in recent weeks—about the package at my door, which Frank had picked up, and he’d called about what he thought might be an animal in my yard—but I had only seen Michael once since that evening when he’d come by only to have me rudely shut the door in his face. Dylan had forced us to retreat to his house to escape my neighbor’s attentions, which I still found absurd. He was a sweet guy, and harmless, I was sure.

“Um, come in,” I said after too long of a moment. He was getting completely drenched on my doorstep. I stepped aside, and sure enough, a puddle was forming beneath him. “Do you, um, want a towel? Are you locked out or do you need anything?”

Michael stood there, dripping, looking sheepish. Was it really raining that hard out? I looked past him to the window.

“Coffee? Can I get you coffee or tea?” Was he okay? I couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t saying anything. Another moment went by. It was getting awkward.

“I’ve been standing outside your door for a half hour,” he finally said.

I looked at him, confused.

“Trying to get the courage to ring the bell,” he continued.

I looked him over and only then saw the hard copy of HELLO! magazine in his hand. Even from the side and even soaked I could tell it was turned to the page with the pictures of me and Dylan from the hotel. Oh god, had he really not known about me and Dylan?

“Michael—”

“No—” He stopped me and looked up. “I’m sorry for being awkward. This is terribly rude. I’ve been rather foolish, haven’t I? And I wanted to apologize.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary, Michael—” But he held up his hand.

“I like you, Lydia. Obviously. But had I known that you were involved with Dylan Hale,” he said, rubbing his forehead with his hand. He suddenly looked up, slightly panicked and looking around. “Oh god, he’s not here, is he?”

I shook my head.

“Well, I’d like to think I would fight to date you no matter what, but I fear I don’t stand a chance against a man like that.”

“Michael, that has nothing to do with it. You’d stand a chance with any girl, and any girl would be lucky to have you fighting for her.” I could see his chest letting down, his sigh of defeat. “Dylan is the person I fell in love with, but it’s not about power or money or anything. It’s just…I’m sorry.”

“You love him?”

“I do.”

“Will you tell me if you break up?”

I smiled halfheartedly. “Sure. But, Michael, I think you can do better than being someone’s rebound. Don’t you? You’re a catch.”

Michael looked up through his sopping brow and smirked a little. “You think so?”

“Of course!”

He smiled and then looked back down at the magazine in his hands. “You two look good together.”

“Thanks,” I said, but I couldn’t help feeling that those pictures didn’t tell the whole story. They showed us flirty and lovey, but they didn’t reflect how I felt at the moment. I was in love, but I also felt far away from Dylan, and that feeling was nowhere to be seen in the pictures.

“You sure you don’t want some tea? Or a towel?” I asked as Michael started to head towards the door.

“Nah, that’s all right. Thanks for letting me in.”

“Of course! Hey,” I said, stopping him. “You should come to our Thanksgiving dinner. It’s at Dylan’s in a few weeks.”

“Really? You don’t think that’d be awkward? Is that really a good idea?”

It would definitely be awkward, and this was probably a horrible idea. “Of course!”

Dylan would just have to get over it. Where I came from, everyone was invited to Thanksgiving. Especially soggy, sad guys on your doorstep whom you’ve just rejected.

“You bloody invited him to dinner?” Dylan was trying not to yell, but he was kind of yelling. Or was on the verge of it—he was using his big bad architect voice.

“Where I come from, everyone is invited to Thanksgiving,” I said, going to the refrigerator for the wine.

“Wait, since when are we hosting Thanksgiving dinner anyway?” he asked, rummaging through my cupboards for clean glasses.

“I emailed you about this on Thursday. You said okay.”

“I did?” He had the glasses in one hand and was rubbing his temple with the other.

I couldn’t believe him. “Seriously?”

He turned around. “No, rather, I do remember that now. Sorry—it’s been a hellish week.”

I went up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist, resting my cheek on his T-shirt. He’d worn dark jeans and a faded grey T-shirt under his leather jacket to work today, and I loved it when he was all relaxed. At least relaxed looking.

“It will be fine—it was the generous thing to do, invite him.”

“But he said he likes you.”

“Yeah, but I like you,” I said, and he turned in my arms so we were hugging and kissed the top of my head. I could hear the glasses clinking behind my back. “I love you.”

He pulled away to look at me. “I suppose I’ll be there to defend your honor, damsel,” he said with a little too much of a twinkle in his eye, like he couldn’t wait to have the chance to humiliate poor Michael or hit him or something else boorish and adolescent.

He shook his head with acceptance, and then I felt him chuckle into my hair.

“Like you’ve left me with any honor to defend, knighty,” I scoffed, imagining all of the ridiculously dishonorable things he’d done to my body over the past couple of months. He gave my ass a quick slap, and I jumped a little in his arms.

“Okay, dinnertime,” he said while stepping back and rubbing his palms together.

“This oughtta be good.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” Dylan replied, rolling up his sleeves and tying my floral apron around his waist. I flung myself onto the countertop next to the place where he was setting up his cutting board and ingredients. I gripped the edge of the counter and leaned over, examining his project. “You know, there are plenty of chairs,” he added, smirking at me.

“Where’s the fun in chairs?” I asked as I ate a small chunk of Parmesan that had found its way off the cutting board. “What are you making?”

“Gnocchi.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I don’t see any potatoes.”

“Not that kind of gnocchi,” he replied in a way that clearly conveyed that I was not supposed to ask any more questions. So I sat there, dangling my feet, wine in hand, and watched him cook. He put on some Louis Armstrong and just did his thing.

Forty minutes later I was taking my first bite of something that could best be described as a cloud. A cloud dripping with the most flavorful olive oil I’d ever tasted.

“Holy fuck, what is this?” I mumbled, and Dylan just chuckled.

“Ricotta gnocchi with sage,” he said.

“How did you learn to make it?”

Dylan shrugged. “I was in Florence for a summer studying with an architect there. His mother was an amazing cook.” As though that explained everything. As though it didn’t open up an entirely new folder in the Dylan part of my brain now labeled Sweet Young Man Who Learns Italian Cooking from an Old Lady. As if that entire folder didn’t make me love him just a little more.

“Well, now I feel like a prostitute, because I will definitely have as much sex with you as you’d like in exchange for this,” I said.

“You’d be a terrible prostitute.”

“Excuse me, but I think I’d be fabulous,” I protested.

“You’re far too generous a lover,” he said, leaning over my plate and kissing me with his wine-flavored lips. “You’d go broke.”

We ate slowly, savoring, and I was so grateful to feel calm after a week when I’d felt nervous about us, uncertain.

I told him about the day I’d had with his sister, and he smiled curiously through the whole description, as though he’d never seen her the way I did.

“What?” I finally asked. “Why are you smiling like that?”

“You two have become fast friends, haven’t you?” he asked, almost surprised, curious.

“She’s kind of awesome,” I said. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”

After dinner Dylan mumbled about being coated in cheese and flour and went upstairs to take a shower. I pulled on a T-shirt and sleep shorts and crawled over the bed, ready to nestle in with a book while I waited for him. As I pushed the duvet aside, Dylan’s slick leather laptop bag fell to the floor, and a small stack of papers spread out from its unzipped top. I went to pick them up and paused when I saw my own name.

It was an email. To Dylan. Just like the ones I’d received—a series of random digits as the sender. The subject line was just my name, in all capital letters: LYDIA. And the body had one line of text:

Below the text was an icon indicating that an audio file had been attached.

I stood there, stock-still, staring down at the email. I looked at the date. It had arrived three days earlier.

I heard Dylan emerge from the bathroom. I could feel the steam enter the room. I could smell his body wash on him, feel the heat coming from his body, but I couldn’t look at him. I just held the slim paper in my hand.

“Three days ago?”

“Lydia—”

“You got this three days ago and didn’t tell me? I thought you were going to tell me if there was any new information!”

“There was no need to worry you—you’re safe.” Dylan was now standing right in front of me, his warm, damp hand cupping my chin, trying to coax me to look at him.

“What was in the audio file?” I demanded, shaking my face free of his hand.

“Lydia, it’s not important. I’ve got it handled.” He was withdrawing at the same rate I was.

“Dylan,” I said, all the warmth from the evening gone.

He sighed, his hands dropping to his towel-clad hips.

“It was a recording of a conversation between Frank Abbott and me. Discussing your schedule. We were discussing when there might be a couple of gaps—when he couldn’t be there, and neither could I.”

My eyes went wide. I really hadn’t thought I was in any danger, but this scared me. All of a sudden I didn’t think of Frank as a lumberjack so much as a ninja, a ninja I wanted around.

He must have seen the look of fear in my eyes, because he put his warm hands around my upper arms and looked me straight in the eye as he said, “You’re safe. There are no gaps in your coverage. I promise. Because I had to be somewhere, he and I solved the problem over text immediately after this recorded conversation, but the person recording us clearly wouldn’t have known that.”

“But—”

“Look, this asshole hasn’t been able to get close enough to you to get any more intimate pictures. That scare tactic is off the table. So he went directly to me. We found the recording device. It was stuck to some flowers that were delivered to Thomas from Alex.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this? I’ve been wandering around thinking everything was status quo, and now I find out that this lunatic knows all of these things about my schedule, is looking for times when I won’t have any protection?!” I was trying not to sound panicked, but I knew I was failing.

“Good.”

“What? What do you mean, ‘good’?”

“I mean, I didn’t want you to worry. The whole point was for you to be able to go about your day not worrying.”

I groaned and grunted and threw up my arms in frustration.

“Dylan,” I began, “I don’t want you to handle all this on your own. I want to help. I want to be involved. I want to know what’s going on.” Inside I was an indecipherable swirl of hurt and sadness, anger and frustration. Outwardly I was just exhausted. Mere hours ago I had been shopping for a dress to wear to tea with the queen, and now I was discussing whether or not our threatening cyberstalker was getting closer to committing actual harm.

He pulled me to his chest and held me tightly. “Damsel. Let me take care of this. I won’t let anything happen to you. This is my world. You don’t know how these assholes work—”

“And you do?” I asked, pushing my palms against his chest and creating distance. Since when did being a marquess involve investigating criminal activity?

“I do,” he said firmly. I looked into his eyes, and he did.

“But you’re not going to tell me how you know.”

He stood there silently, not budging.

“I think you should go,” I said. Not fully believing the words myself until they were out of my mouth.

“What?”

“I’m mad, Dylan. You promised to keep me posted. You promised to tell me what was going on with this. This is worse than just having some weirdo freak emailing me.”

“You want me to leave?” he asked, still incredulous.

“Either talk or leave.” I stood there, my arms crossed. Just as mad about ruining what had been shaping up to be a perfectly lovely night at home with him as I was about him not talking to me about this in the first place.

“I can’t,” he said, sitting on the bed.

“Dylan!”

“No, seriously, I really can’t. The people I am quite sure are behind this are dangerous, Lydia. Frank isn’t around for no reason. I wouldn’t hire security for you if I thought this was some prank.”

“So you do know who it is?”

He shook his head. “Not for certain. I’ve not been able to confirm it, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure.”

“And you won’t tell me?” I was still standing, partly in shock that he was actually communicating, partly just eager for this information.

“I’ll tell you at some point—” I rolled my eyes, and threw my hands in the air. “Lydia, I’ll tell you when I know what the situation is. Right now I don’t want to expose you to any more. It’s sensitive information. It involves my father and some horrible decisions he made, and it involves some…criminal information.” I opened my mouth, about to press him further, but he gave me a look that said Please don’t.

“Baby,” he continued, and he fell back onto the bed, grabbing one of my pillows and tucking it under his head. “My father…” He exhaled and rested his forearm over his eyes. I remained standing, still not quite ready to give in. “When I left secondary school, I had top marks and was already certain I wanted to be an architect. My family had taken a trip to Los Angeles when I was fifteen, and I’d seen the Getty Center. Have you been there?”

I shook my head.

“God, its stunning. Architectural perfection. I was mesmerized. When I got home, I took in everything I could. I read every book.” I felt myself give a little, crawled onto the bed, rested my head on his shoulder, and placed my palm on his flat, bare stomach, somehow trying to coax more words from him. “Of course I knew that someday I’d be Duke of Abingdon, but my grandfather ran his own company while he was duke, and he enjoyed my newfound passion. He even took me on a trip to Paris to look at Le Corbusier’s buildings. He encouraged me.”

“He sounds amazing—I wish I could have met him.” I felt myself soften even more.

“As do I,” he said and wrapped his arm around my middle. “God, I had so much energy for it. I was feverish. I went to Cambridge and studied with a fabulous professor. By the end of the first term I had even earned a spot working with him, a kind of apprenticeship—we’d be designing council housing blocks, providing a real service and doing it well, solving problems. I’d found what I wanted to do with my life, and I was good at it.”

“That’s incredible, and you are. You’re amazing at it,” I said softly, letting my anger fade. He was talking. He was telling me what he could tell me, even if it wasn’t the information I’d asked for. And I was all ears.

“Then I came home for Christmas. I felt so alive. I couldn’t wait to tell my parents. I won’t ever forget this conversation.” He paused for a moment, and I thought I could feel him cringe or gulp, like he was bracing himself.

“I came into the library. The fire was roaring. My parents already had their drinks, of course. Emily was off watching the telly or something. It just spilled out of me—the courses, what I’d been learning, the apprenticeship, all of it. I remember my mother smiling, but it was almost a sad smile, and my father told her to leave the room. She gave me one of her patented non-hug hugs without saying a word and left. My father said it was time I grew up, that he barely recognized me as his son. That I was living some pipe dream. He wondered at how I could have missed that my job—my only job—was to fill his shoes. To run Hale Shipping. To be duke. Why else would he have had a son?”

“He said that to you?” I asked, flabbergasted.

“He said that I shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking my life was my own. He couldn’t understand why my grandfather had ever encouraged me. He eventually conceded, in as disgusted a way as possible, that I was free to do what I would while at university, as long as I understood what my real obligations were. That he hoped by the time I was done with Cambridge I would have come to my senses.”

Dylan spoke in such a detached way that I understood it was too painful for him to remember. He’d told me before about his early childhood, his parents instilling him with a sense of duty, but I hadn’t realized that he had held on to hope for so long, that he must have been an optimistic child and adolescent in spite of his parents. That it wasn’t those early toddler moments that had crushed him, changed him, but this moment. The one he shared so vividly with me now.

“I’m so sorry, Dylan. No father should say those things to his son,” I said, stroking his stomach and laying a kiss on his chest. “I don’t understand—your grandfather sounds so wonderful, so open-minded, like such a vibrant person. How did your father become so cruel?”

“I honestly don’t know. But it changed me. I didn’t do the apprenticeship—when I thought about it, I just felt the weight of my father’s words. He robbed me of the pleasure, the joy I’d found in it. That’s when I started acting like the asshole you’ve read about online, like the aristocratic son he wanted me to be, one he identified with—someone who looked like money and treated others accordingly.”

“How did you finally start designing again?”

“Well, you know about Caroline—that was me trying to please him in a way. But one day my grandfather took me to task. He’d been trying to talk to me for ages, trying to bring me back to life, but I had shut down, lowered the curtain on that part of myself. Then that night he took me to dinner, which was normal, but afterwards he had Lloyd park in front of a hotel. I asked him what we were doing there, and he told me to wait. About ten minutes later I saw my father, drunk, with his hands on the ass of his secretary.”

“Your grandfather is the one who told you about your father’s philandering?!”

“Yes. And he said—I’ll never forget his words—‘He is half the man you could be.’ He said there was nothing he could do about the fact that Hale Shipping and the title would go to his son, but that he had been proud of me when I’d found my passion. That he still desired that I become an architect. That he knew I could do something important. No one had said anything like that to me…probably ever.”

“I’m so glad he did.”

“Me too. I broke up with Caroline—I told you a little about that—and I went back to work. It all came back. But I still…I don’t…Lydia, I’ve never told anyone any of this.” He whispered it, almost as though he couldn’t believe he’d just told this story at all.

“Not even to Will? Or Caroline?”

“No one. No one but you. You have to understand that even though my grandfather brought me back to life, there was a part of me that died that day my father spoke to me. Since then, as a rule, I’ve never dared share anything I truly care about with him, really with anyone. I learned the hard way that he could kill it.”

Suddenly I understood Dylan a thousand times better. How closed off he was. How he insisted on control, was pained when he had to give it up. I thought of every time I’d pressed him, defied him, insisted that he move outside his comfort zone. Each time he’d laughed, he’d played along, but I could see now that each time it had also probably been a challenge. Each time I’d been breaking a well-formed mold that had, in some ways, saved him.

“Tomorrow, at Humboldt Park, I will break that rule for that first time in eleven years,” he said and squeezed my hand, linking our fingers.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll share you.”