Holy shit.
The bastard was gone. My father was gone. The bugger had gone and died on me. I wasn’t fucking ready for this.
My mother was crying quietly in the seat next to me as we pulled away from the hospital in my father’s car, his chauffeur behind the wheel. She wasn’t making a sound. I only knew she was crying by the frequent wiping away of tears. I’d never actually seen her cry, and I wished I knew how to comfort her. She must have actually loved the bastard. I knew I shouldn’t think that about him right after he died, but I couldn’t help it. I put my hand over hers and squeezed.
“He wasn’t always that way, you know,” she said to me, and I stilled. My mother had essentially never spoken to me, not in any real, honest way. A confession like this was tantamount to her telling me she was really a man. “I know you think he was always horrible, but he wasn’t. Not always. I really did fall in love with him when I was young. He was so handsome then, so charming. He would bring me these flowers—these white tea roses that grew by the west garden.” She stopped, choking on her tears, and I could see her chin start to quiver. She stopped talking for a while, reining in her sadness, and the silence settled between us like dead weight, heavy and lifeless.
Then she turned to me. “You know you’ll have to say something.” She meant a statement of some kind. She was right. I would, but I wasn’t bloody ready to even think about it yet. I just nodded once and squeezed her hand again.
“And you’ll get Emily?” she asked.
“Lloyd is picking her up and bringing her to Humboldt. I’ll take care of it, Mother.” She nodded and let go a sob. My father had been dead only a few hours, and already I was stepping into his shoes.
It was amazing how quickly one’s world could crumble. My father’s death was going to turn my life wrong-side out, but that wasn’t even the worst of it. Only five days ago I’d thrown the best thing in my life away, and I had no idea if I would ever recover from that, let alone this.
It was completely fucked, but instead of thinking of my father, I was thinking of her. Today was her Thanksgiving. I was supposed to be watching her play hostess, hold her hand during her first Thanksgiving without her father. I was supposed to be warding off that goddamn neighbor of hers, Michael. I was supposed to be with her. And instead, everything had gone to shite.
But what else could I have done? The whole disaster oozed with my own lack of self-control, my own selfish idiocy. I had let it go too far, and I’d had to let her go. It killed me that it involved hurting her, but better to hurt her now rather than later.
The real problem was that I had slipped up and let someone in at all, let her see me, the real me. Even worse, I’d exposed her to the cold gore that was my life, and just as I had known it would, it had cracked her and cracked me. Being with her had broken down my defenses, my frigid walls, the habits that let me ignore the pull of what I couldn’t have and navigate through the world. She’d exposed me, and now I was fucked.
It had been more than five days since I’d heard her voice or touched her, and those five days had been different from the five before: torture, because this time I knew I’d never touch her again. That night at Buckingham Palace kept reeling through my head, on bloody repeat. I kept reliving it every time I closed my eyes.
Seeing Tristan’s hands on her made me want to kill someone. Thinking about how devastated she’d looked as I’d ended things. Thinking about how devastated I’d felt when she’d let me. I was ill thinking about it. I was violent with frustration. I was angry. I wanted a different life, one that centered around her instead of a huge estate and a title. One that didn’t involve chasing after a goddamn Russian mob family with MI6. And in a flash, with my father’s death, my life became the opposite. Wrong-side out.
After she’d left that room, left me, I’d sat in that press office in Buckingham Palace for three hours before Caroline found me. Will must have told her where I’d gone, after he went off looking for Lydia. Knowing the position I was in, she’d waited until the photographers had all left before fetching me, urging me to go home. It was sweet of her to protect me, and thank god she had—I had blood on my shirt and looked bloody awful, but I probably would have deserved it if the event had been splashed across the papers the next day. Dylan Hale back to his brawling ways. How I hadn’t been able to hide my temper. How I’d put my girlfriend in danger.
Tristan sodding Bailey. How had I missed that? I’d been blind.
He’d been interrogated of course, taken in. I’d had security go after him and then retrieve the photos and footage as soon as possible, and it had all been destroyed. He’d used Hale Shipping resources to hire some private investigator and some blacklisted paparazzi to follow us and get the photos. The Humboldt video had involved a stealthy trip to my room while visiting my father one weekend—a tiny video camera tacked behind one of my rowing trophies. The thought that he’d seen us during those moments made me want to both vomit and murder the fucker. The whole thing had me feeling more protective of Lydia than ever.
In the days after the engagement party, I’d stationed Abbott outside her house to make sure she was okay, but she hadn’t left again until Monday morning and then wouldn’t let him give her a ride. My stubborn girl. He’d said she looked sick, which wasn’t a surprise given that the foolish girl had fucking walked home from the party in that dress. I wanted to spank her for that. Spank her and then wrap her in my arms and never let her go.
Apparently she’d gone to and from work and appeared fine, apart from her cold. She’d been seen buying groceries and having lunch with her friends. She’d been seen out for coffee and taking the Tube. She appeared fine, but I had this pit in my stomach. I knew that the press were following her, looking for photos of us. Someone had leaked our breakup—if I found out who, I’d strangle them personally—and she was doing just as she’d learned to do, never showing a crack.
That night, when the Evening Standard posted a picture of her and Daphne walking through Notting Hill, I realized that had changed. Lydia had been wearing her black coat and the sunglasses I’d bought her in Athens. I couldn’t see her eyes, but I knew from the flush on her cheeks and the turn of her mouth and the worried look on Daphne’s face that she was anything but fine. Even without seeing her eyes, I knew she’d been crying. The tabloids couldn’t really claim that she was upset based on that photo alone, but I knew her. I could see her defeat. I’d done that to her. And the worst part was that I hadn’t wanted to. And she’d let me. Had it been too hard for her? Did she really want nothing to do with my life and what came with it? She’d protested, but then she’d let me go. Then again, I’d pushed her away so fiercely.
Fuck me. What the fuck had I done?
Those were the thoughts that ran on repeat in my mind all afternoon, through the family dinner, through soothing my tearful sister, through climbing the stairs of the estate house, which now belonged to me, the day finally over.
I now lay staring at the ceiling in my bedroom at Humboldt. The last time I’d been in this bed, Lydia had been in my arms, her weight on my chest, and I’d been stroking her back. And we’d been violated. I looked around and saw the offending rowing trophy on the shelf, the books from school, the crap that fills a person’s bedroom over a childhood. I’d be expected to move into the master suite, but Christ, I wasn’t ready for that. Maybe I’d just renovate.
At that moment my phone rang. I stared into the big brown eyes in the picture on my phone, one I’d taken just as she was waking up. You couldn’t tell from the photo, but I knew she was naked in the picture, and it made me instantly hard. Fuck, I wanted to answer. I wanted to talk to her, to tell her to come to me. But that would be selfish. I let the call go to voicemail and gripped the poor device so tightly to my chest I was probably in danger of breaking it.
Finally I went to my voicemail and listened.
Um. Hi, Dylan. It’s me. It’s Lydia. I heard about your father, and I just wanted to say…There was silence for a moment, and I could hear her voice crack as she began to speak again. I’ve been there. I know you weren’t close, and I know that today is about more than losing your dad, but I imagine none of that matters. Not entirely. He was still your father. An anchor in this world. A signpost, even if he was a bad one. Anyway, I wish…I…I’m thinking about you, okay? Goodbye, Dylan.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried. As a child perhaps. But I didn’t remember it feeling like this. I didn’t remember that tears were so warm or could come so quickly. On any other day I probably could have survived the loss of my horrible father without so much bloody emotion, but Lydia, even from afar, even kicked out of my life as she had been, even over a sodding voicemail, wouldn’t let me get away with that. She knew me too well to let me pretend that I didn’t feel anything, that this day wouldn’t be the most complicated of my life.
And if she knew all that, she also knew that I loved her. Which meant she also knew I was a coward.
When I came downstairs to the kitchen the next morning, Emily and Mrs. Barnes sat with coffees in their hands. I hadn’t slept at all. If I managed to get Lydia off my mind even for a moment, I was left staring down the barrel of being the Duke of Abingdon, of having Humboldt Park, Hale Shipping, and my entire family’s legacy under my charge. Something I hadn’t even begun to come to terms with.
“Your Grace.” Mrs. Barnes had said it quietly, but I still winced.
No. Please no. I was not ready for the formal titles, for these conversations. It wasn’t her fault. She was just being proper, doing her job. I was technically master of this house now. Ready or not. Here I fucking come.
I kissed Emily on the cheek and touched Mrs. Barnes on the shoulder.
Suddenly Emily was up and out of her seat, pointing her finger at me violently. “You. Me. The library. Now.” God, she could be downright scary. When had she grown up and become so bossy? I guess it ran in the family.
“What?” I asked, my voice cracking and groggy.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Where’s Mum?” Maybe I could distract her from whatever bee was in her bonnet.
“Busy despairing over being the dowager, something about how she feels old,” she said, but then she snapped her fingers at me. “Hey. Don’t distract me. We need to talk. Library.”
“Can’t we just do it here? Clearly the two of you have been chatting anyway. Just say what you have to say.” I sighed and filled a mug with coffee.
“Fine. You’re an idiot. This whole breaking-up-with-Lydia nonsense is a flaming pile of bollocks, and I”—she paused to look at Mrs. Barnes—“we think you need to get your sorry arse to London to get her back.”
I stared at the two women, dumbstruck.
“I—”
“No,” she continued. “Stop being a complete and utter prat, and get. Her. Back. I know you, Dylan, and you have the mother of all shit storms heading your way—”
“Emily!”
“Oh, please. Shut it. I use foul language.”
“I don’t think—”
“Exactly. You’re not thinking. How the hell are you going to be the duke you’re supposed to be without her?”
“The duke…?” The duke I was supposed to be? Meaning, the duke I was supposed to be. Not my father. Not my grandfather. But me.
In one phrase, my sister had just wedged a sliver of hope into the shit storm, as she’d called it. Was she right? Was there another way to do this? If being the duke didn’t mean having to run Hale Shipping, if it didn’t mean having to follow the archaic rules my father lived by, if it didn’t mean having to give her up…After a moment I realized I hadn’t spoken. I was staring at the coffee cup in my hand. “I think I need a walk.”
“As long as that walk is towards London—” But Mrs. Barnes put her arm on Emily’s indicating she’d said enough. Christ, my sister was like a pit bull. Not to be reckoned with apparently.
“Emily, let’s say for a second this made any sense, and I’m not saying it does. What makes you think she’d take me back? I couldn’t protect her from everything that’s hard about this. And I pushed her away. Being with me was nothing but hell.”
“First of all, since when does the Dylan Hale take no for an answer? And somehow she didn’t exactly look ‘hell bound’ when you were together. For some insane reason she loved you and seemed to be figuring it out. That girl is tough as nails, if you hadn’t noticed. Plus, she doesn’t exactly look happy now,” she said, shoving yesterday’s paper towards me across the table. Lydia’s picture, her gaze behind those sunglasses, looked up at me.
“Dylan, dear.” Mrs. Barnes placed her warm aged hand on my forearm to quietly get my attention. And it didn’t escape my notice that she had called me Dylan. “Choosing someone to be with…well, it’s about who you want with you when times are hard, who you want to hold your hand when you’re in the trenches. Remember that.” She looked so herself in that moment, so kind, and while I knew she cared for me, this was the first time she’d ever stepped outside her role so fully. Christ, this must have looked like a real emergency for these two to pounce on me. As if I didn’t already know.
I sighed before walking out the kitchen door into the frosted garden—I needed to be outside.
All day Friday I was in the gardens. I walked farther into the park than I had since I was a child. I avoided my mother, saw her only once that evening—sitting prim and proper in front of the fire, staring into the flames—and I paused only briefly before heading up to bed. I also avoided Emily, which was harder, since she seemed to be lying in wait, ready to pounce, to talk, to insist. What she didn’t know was that I’d heard her. And really what she’d done was to pull away the blinders, to shove my face into what I hoped to god I would have realized on my own eventually: This was my time, and if I started out this new phase by ignoring what I knew in my gut was right, then what hope did I have for the future? Start as you mean to go on—wasn’t that what they said?
That night was a combination of excitement and calm that should’ve been impossible but I now realize is symptomatic of a good decision.
Being with her might be the most selfish thing I’d ever do, but the simple fact was, I couldn’t do any of this without her.