I ran up the stairs to the terrace that overlooked the gardens and brushed passed the one person I did not want to see right now. Elise.

“Jeanette—”

I didn’t stop, didn’t look at her, refused to even acknowledge her. I just couldn’t, not now, not when my chest felt like I was haemorrhaging from internal injuries.

Drew’s words still stung like tiny little cuts all over my body. Telling me he loved me when he so obviously didn’t was a low blow. He’d fed on my insecurities and he knew exactly how to hurt me the most. The worst thing was that I had let him. After all the years of emotional manipulation that I suffered at the hands of my mother, I should have known better. But like a dog with a broken spirit, I had rolled over and exposed my vulnerable underbelly to him. I had practically begged him to plunge in the knife.

I stepped through the doors into the ballroom and took a breath to centre myself. I couldn’t stay here a moment longer. I knew we were supposed to be celebrating Alex and Freddie, but the last thing I wanted right now was to celebrate love. I searched the room for Priscilla. I knew she would drop everything if I needed her and right now, I needed her. Her red hair stood out on the dance floor and I watched as she gazed up into Dom’s eyes. The two were so very much in love and it was obvious to anyone who saw them together. They would be the next couple to marry and Priscilla had already asked me to be her maid of honour. At this point, I didn’t even know if I could get out of bed tomorrow.

I turned away. She was my closest friend and she had suffered through so much in order to find her happy-ever-after. I was not going to ruin that for her with my own drama. I scanned the room for someone else, not someone who would comfort me, just someone to pass on a message. I spotted Martin and headed over to him. He was speaking to some Lord I didn’t know and I waited patiently at his side until he acknowledged me.

He introduced me to the Lord, but I didn’t pay attention to what he was saying. I responded by rote, my mind too scattered to really do anything else. He excused himself from the Lord and then turned to me, taking my hands in his.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his brow creased in concern.

“I’m not feeling well,” I lied, although it wasn’t really a lie. I didn’t feel well, it just wasn’t anything physical that ailed me. Could you die from a broken heart? “I - ah - I need to go. Can you please let Lord Cameron know?”

He stared into my eyes for a moment but I refused to let him see the pain I was in. He nodded slowly.

“Go,” he said, “I’ll speak to Lord Cameron.”

“Thank you,” I said and brushed a kiss on his cheek.

I didn’t bother to say goodbye to anyone else; I was barely holding myself together. I had to get out before I lost it completely and melted down in front of the country’s press contingent. The last thing I needed was to become tomorrow’s front page news.

I spoke briefly to a footman who waited outside the castle and he communicated with my driver. Priscilla, Savannah, Margaret and I had all arrived in the same limousine. The long, black car glided up to me and the door was opened by the footman. I slid in gratefully and leant my head back against the seat as the door was closed. I didn’t worry about leaving the girls without transportation. The palace wasn’t very far and the car would be back soon enough that they wouldn't even know it had gone. When we arrived at the palace, I left word with the driver to tell the others that I had left early because I was feeling unwell and then I headed straight to my apartment.

I dismissed my maids and undressed myself before crawling under the covers. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to crawl into the nothingness of sleep and escape the pain that was currently squeezing my chest. Of course sleep wouldn’t come. Instead my mind was plagued with images of Drew and not just images from tonight. Apart from our initial meeting at Alyssa’s wedding all those months ago, we had really only known each other for a few weeks, but those weeks had been full. I had so many memories of the two of us and as platonic and innocent as they were, each one still hurt. And then there were the ones when it seemed like we were falling in love. The stolen kisses and lingering looks.

Like a self-flagellating punishment, I pulled up each memory and examined it. I needed to purge myself of the soft feelings. I needed to look at these memories through the eyes of a broken heart and see them for what they were… fake. None of it was real. Drew had manufactured every encounter so that he could get through my defences. What I didn’t understand was why? Why had he singled me out? Why had he tried so hard to break down the wall that I had built to protect myself? What did he gain from it?

Did he really need a reason? I guess I was just easy prey; low hanging fruit. He needed to find some way to amuse himself until his fiancée could join him, so why not give the plain girl a thrill? Lavish her with attention and then watch her fall hopelessly in love. Oh what a fun game that must have been for him.

But the game was up. I had learned a valuable lesson. The very same lesson my mother had been trying to teach me for years. Love isn’t for people like me. Love is only for the lucky ones, the beautiful ones. I was neither lucky nor beautiful and I wouldn’t be duped again. My future was with Lord Cameron and I wouldn’t be tempted to look outside of it anymore.

Elise was waiting for me when I trudged out of the garden. She had the corner of her lip caught between her teeth and her eyebrows had pursed together in concern. The ingenuous and worried look didn’t work for me. I was so incredibly angry with her that I could barely look at her and I didn’t trust myself to speak. I knew we would have to have it out, but now was neither the time nor the place. I pushed past her, but she caught the sleeve of my jacket and I halted. I didn’t turn toward her, I just stood there and waited.

“What’s wrong Drew?” she asked all innocence and butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth.

“Not now, Elise,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Why were you in the garden with Jeanette?”

“I said not now.” My voice had dropped a couple of octaves and sounded like it was growled through the teeth of a bear.

“Oh my God,” she said with a gasp, forcibly turning me to look at her. “You’re in love with her.”

“Yes,” I said, my eyes flashing with anger. “Which is something you would have known if you had bothered to talk to me about your ridiculous scheme before you came all this way.”

“But…but… what about us?”

“What about us, Elise? There isn’t an us, there never has been. It’s all been a ridiculous fantasy of yours and encouraged by our mothers.”

“No,” she sniffed.

I huffed out a sigh. “Yes, Elise. Yes.” I shook my arm free of her hand but didn’t walk away. If she was insistent on dealing with this now, then we would. “Think about it. We dated for three weeks, that was it. By the end of that time we both knew there was nothing there. We even joked about it.”

“But your mother—”

“There’s your first mistake; listening to anything my mother says. Come on, Elise, you’re smarter than this. You are not in love with me and I’m not in love with you. Yes, I love you, but that’s because we’ve been friends forever. That is not the same thing and you know it. There was never any romantic spark between us. We’re more like brother and sister than lovers.”

She sighed and dropped her head. I wanted to comfort her, but I didn’t want to give her mixed signals. This needed to be clear, clinical even.

“Does that mean I won’t be getting the job?” She looked up at me with tears starring her lashes.

“I’m sorry?” I asked, confused.

“If you and I aren’t together, does that mean I won’t get the job at Monticorp? Because, you know, it could be awkward…”

I huffed out a surprised laugh. “That’s what you’re worried about? Not getting the job?”

She shrugged and wouldn’t look at me.

“Why have you been going around telling everyone that we’re engaged?” I asked, my anger back. Here I was worrying about her broken heart and she was worried about losing her job.

She shrugged again.

“Tell me,” I said, “And use your words this time.”

She huffed out an exasperated breath. “Fine. Look, your mother called me and said she was worried about you. She said you were pining after me and that’s why you’d left the country, because it hurt too much to be around me and not have me. She begged me to reconsider a relationship with you and what could I do? She’s your mother and as close to a second mother as I’ll ever have. Plus, I do love you, Drew, but you’re right. There was never anything romantic between us. It was your mother who showed me the advertisement for the job. The pay was good and I liked the idea of immigrating, so I applied. I didn’t tell you because I wanted to surprise you.”

“Yeah, well you sure did that.”

“Right, except our reunion didn’t go at all how I imagined it. You looked so angry to see me and I didn’t understand how that could be since your mother told me all that other stuff.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you were telling people that we were getting married.”

One shoulder hitched up in a wry shrug. “Once I found out more about the job, I really wanted it. I thought that if I could tie myself to you, then, well…”

I ran a frustrated hand through my hair and glared at her. It wasn’t entirely her fault, my mother carried her fair share of the blame too. “Do you know what your stupid games have done?”

She dropped her eyes and I could see the remorse weighed on her heavily. I didn’t care. Her little prank may very well have cost me the woman I loved.

“I’ll go to her. I’ll explain.” Her big blue eyes pleaded with me.

“It’s too late,” I said, “The damage is done.”

“But I can make her understand—”

“Enough!” I took a few calming breaths before I spoke again. “Jeanette made it very clear to me tonight that there is no future for the two of us. There is nothing you or anyone else can do about it.”

“Doesn’t she at least deserve to hear the truth?”

“Haven’t you done enough?” I growled. “If you go to her you are only going to make an already bad situation worse. Stay out of it and if you value your dignity, stay away from me too.”

“Drew—” she began, but I stalked off.

I couldn’t stand there and talk to her a moment longer. I needed space and time. Space to get my head sorted and time for my heart to heal. I had thought moving more than sixteen and a half thousand kilometres away from my mother would limit her ability to interfere in my life. I was wrong. Now, because of her refusal to listen and her belief that she knew best, she may just have destroyed the one thing that she had always claimed to want - my happiness.

I strode back into the ballroom, but I didn't bother trying to look for Jeanette. I knew she would already be gone, that was her modus operandi. It was yet another way in which we differed. I was all about the fight response, Jeanette was all about the flight.

I grabbed a drink from the first waiter I passed and down it in a couple of swallows. It wasn’t strong enough. Champagne (real champagne mind you) was very appropriate for the event; unfortunately it didn’t have the powerful kick that I needed right now in order to numb the pain. I headed for the bar and the promise of amnesia at the bottom of a very expensive bottle of whiskey.

When other people had spoken of the physical pain associated with heartbreak, I had never really believed them. How could something that I hadn’t even really been convinced was real, cause a very real ache? Surely it was all in their heads. I rubbed my chest, pressing against my sternum in the hopes of easing the ache that burned there. Apparently, I had been wrong. The pain was real. So real, in fact, that I wondered whether I was having a heart attack.

The bartender passed a glass with two fingers of whiskey over ice and I rolled my hand over to indicate I wanted him to keep them coming. I lifted the glass to my lips, the ice clinking merrily against the expensive crystal, and took a long draught. I closed my eyes as the liquor warmed its way down my throat. The buzz of conversation and the sound of music grated on me. The rest of the world shouldn’t be happy and joyous when my world was falling apart.

I finished the whiskey in my glass and picked up the next one that the bartender had kindly placed in front of me. As I lifted it to my lips a felt a person sit down beside me.

“Didn’t I warn you about hurting my sister?” Martin said to me as he motioned for the bartender to pour him a drink.

“I think you have the sequence of events around the wrong way,” I said.

“What are you talking about?”

“I believe,” I said and then paused to take a drink, “That your sister was the one to hurt me.”

Martin scoffed. “I doubt that very much. Jeanie is not capable of hurting anyone.”

“That, mate, is where you are wrong.” I turned on my stool to face him and opened my suit coat exposing my shirt-clad chest to him. “She just eviscerated me.”

He stared at me like I was mad and I may very well be. As well as being very fine whiskey, it also had a powerful kick that was sending me quickly toward oblivion. The sooner I could get there, the better. I raised my glass to the bartender and he shot a look to Martin as if asking his permission whether to serve me or not. Martin shook his head and the bartender looked at me with pity.

I stood to my feet and swayed alarmingly. I felt the strong grip of someone either side of me - Martin and Joshua - and they escorted me towards the exit. Frogmarched me. I didn’t particularly care. I needed to go home and take a bottle of something to bed with me. Perhaps bourbon would do the trick. It was a pity that I didn’t have any Bundaburg Rum. I knew for a fact that good ole Bundy would work a treat. My brothers and I had spent many a night feeling no pain with the help of some Bundy Rum and tonight I was feeling rather nostalgic for those times when life was easier.

Martin and Joshua poured me into my car and I closed my eyes as it snaked down the mountain on its way to my new home. MacClaren would not be impressed with my inebriated state. I didn’t care about that either. He wasn’t my mother; I was a grown man and if I wanted to get wasted then it was my prerogative. The car pulled to an easy stop and the driver opened the door for me. I stumbled out onto the footpath, landing on my hands and knees, very nearly using my head to stop my forward momentum. I was saved from that fate by a pair of strong arms and a disapproving sniff.

When I was once again upright, I slapped MacClaren on the back affectionately.

“Good catch,” I said.

He didn’t answer me but I felt his disapproval roll off him in waves. I was beyond caring at this point. My only desire was to make it to my room with a bottle of something that would finish me off so that I could sleep. I didn’t particularly want to wake up again, not if it was going to hurt as much as it did now.

It took some doing, but MacClaren eventually got me up the stairs and even stayed to help undress me, despite my protests.

“MacClaren, fetch me a bottle of brandy… or bourbon. Whatever, just make it strong.”

“Certainly sir,” he replied and I collapsed on the bed to await my anaesthesia.

I closed my eyes and Jeanette’s face immediately swum into focus. I hadn’t come here looking for a woman to share my life with, but I had found one regardless. After just a taste I was hooked and then it had all gone to pot. I didn’t understand what had gone so wrong. Why hadn’t she believed me when I told her I loved her? Why had she acted like I was killing her with my words? I didn’t think I would ever understand women. They seemed to be too far above my pay grade.

My eyes were heavy and I couldn’t open them. The darkness of sleep was calling to me and I surrendered willingly. Maybe I didn’t need that drink after all.