His Royal Favorite (14 page)

“I love it,” Ben admitted.

Which was one reason why it hurt so badly to have it all but taken away.

Two days later, he was supposed to go back to being a reporter again. But this now involved having the car drive him to a ritzy hotel, where he was ushered into a suite to interview a movie star. She had glossy black hair, six-inch heels, and a tan so uncannily even that Ben suspected airbrushing. The hotel suite was more lushly decorated than the private suite of Clarence House.

She was at least sympathetic. “Oh my God, those guys out there, they’re, like, piranha. Right?”

“Being in the public eye can be intense,” Ben agreed smoothly. “How have you handled it?”

“Well, I mean, oh my God, what can you do, right? You have to, like, remember that you’re above all that. You have to rise above life’s pain and suffering. Which is kind of like our movie, I guess?”

Ben tried to make the leap with her. “Your new release is—a romantic comedy about Olympic skiers, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. And, you know, my character, Caitlin, she has to rise above her fears that she only gets endorsement deals because of her looks.”

His brain thoroughly fried, Ben returned back to the office just in time for the tabloid afternoon edition that had printed the word SLACKER over his face. This troubled him less than the story’s content.

“They’re reporting about my work on the copy desk,” Ben said. “They’re calling it a demotion.”

“Which is bullshit.” Roberto was reading over his shoulder.

“I know that. But still.” Ben kept scanning, his eyes narrowing all the while.
Not capable of handling real news stories / likely to start doing puff pieces about movie stars next / only chasing celebrity himself
: It went on and on, in far too much detail. The lies and slurs didn’t bother Ben nearly as much as the few glimmers of truth.

He rose and went to Fiona’s office; she was on a call and held up one perfectly manicured finger, gesturing for him to wait. So Ben stood there silently until she hung up, when he announced, “We have a leak.”

“Huh?”

Tossing the newspaper onto her desk, Ben repeated, “We have a leak. Someone within the office is feeding details to the tabloid press. In with all the usual made-up junk are some facts about my work here that nobody outside Global Media should have.”

Fiona frowned down at the newsprint. “Nobody here would ever say you weren’t capable. You’re one of the best reporters we have, and everyone knows it.”

“Sure, that part is made up. But the fact that I’m going on the celebrity beat? That’s real, and not the kind of thing they’d invent.”

Her face fell. “Do you want me to start questioning people? I understand how you feel, Ben, but—a witch hunt, here in the office—”

“Just keep an ear to the ground.” It could be something very innocent, Ben realized. Another Global Media employee might be blabbing too much to a friend or lover with unknown tabloid connections. Maybe it was no more than that. Maybe. “Okay?”

Fiona nodded, though she obviously had other, higher priorities. “Speaking of the celebrity beat, I’m going to have my copy by deadline, right?”

“Right.”
Just as soon as I figure out how to regurgitate sap.

***

To the extent he could, James rejiggered his schedule to spend more evenings at home with Ben. Although Ben was too taciturn to speak of it, James could tell when he came back late in the evening that Ben had been lonely. Tonight he was especially glad to be able to listen.

“It drives me crazy just thinking about it.” Ben kept pacing the length of the room, the only outlet he gave to the dark energy James could see driving him. “All right, strangers want to think badly of me, make up lies about me—that much I signed up for. But a coworker? Someone I know personally?”

James had been betrayed by any number of “friends” over the years, starting with boyhood pals from school who had gleefully tattled on his behavior to reporters bearing sweets. He’d closeted himself so tightly as a response to that, and to his mother’s dire warnings; she had never found anyone she could truly trust outside the family. That hardly seemed the point at the moment, though. Surely he needed to think of Ben’s pain, not his own.

But then, hadn’t Ben said he wished James had talked to him about the photos of the plane crash that had killed his father? Maybe it helped Ben to know he wasn’t the only one.

As James opened his mouth to speak, however, the kitchen phone rang.

They looked at each other in mutual dismay. By now Ben knew as well as James did that this phone seldom rang, and almost never for a casual chat. “Sorry,” James said as he went to get it, but Ben waved him off.

It was Hartley. “I hate to trouble you, Your Royal Highness, but we’re having a difficult night.”

“How bad is Indigo?”

“She’s in her closet, sir, and I believe she has taken one of the blades with her.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck.
James felt his gut drop, and the floor seemed to wobble beneath his feet. “I’ll be right there.”

Quickly he hung up and dashed to his bedroom, where he’d left his mobile. As he texted the security service to get ready to take him to Kensington Palace, his mind was racing. Why, oh, why had he let Indigo keep that box cutter? He knew the closet was important to her, that she needed to be able to shut out the world sometimes to feel safe, but he wanted to run over there and rip the door off its hinges. Anything that would keep her from hurting herself again—

“Ben?” James hurried toward the stairs. “Ben, I’m sorry, I’ve got to go.”

“I heard.” Ben was already standing there, James’s coat in his hands. “What set her off this time?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes it’s not anything in particular.” Running one hand through his hair, he said, “I’m so sorry to leave you when things are rough.”

“I’m not in danger of hurting myself. Go.”

James went on tiptoe to kiss Ben, then descended the stairs two at a time. Behind him he heard the squeak of the hinges as Ben shut the door. For one moment it pierced him through, the thought of Ben alone yet again—but then he remembered Christmas day, the blood all over Indigo’s legs, and after that he could concentrate on nothing else but willing the car to get him to Kensington Palace even faster.

By the time he reached Indigo’s suite of rooms within the palace, Richard had gotten there too. “Am I to understand,” Richard said, voice quivering with rage, “that you
allowed
her to keep a knife?”

“She always gets something from somewhere,” James shot back, though inside he cringed with guilt. “Which might not matter if you weren’t confronting her every morning with the worst of the tabloid coverage, scaring her to death—”

“If she grew up and learned to face facts—”

“Facing facts? You think her problem is about
facing facts
?” James had never struck Richard before, but tonight might just be the night. “You’re a bitter, angry man who’s never been able to accept that you lost the throne by forty-five minutes. If that’s how you want to live your life, I can’t stop you. But you could at least stop taking it out on a girl who’s not well.”

“Taking it out on her? I’m doing my best by her, which is more than you say can. Too busy with your boyfriends to bother, most likely.”

This was outrageous, and James might well have lost it at that moment. Then he heard Hartley’s wavering voice from upstairs. “Your Royal Highness? If you could hurry, sir, I think it would be best.”

Both James and Richard knew which Royal Highness was being referred to. With one final venomous glance at Richard, James went to his sister’s room.

As soon as he walked in, he saw blood on the bed.
Not as much as Christmas
, his brain supplied in a desperate attempt to find hope. “Indigo? It’s me. I’m here.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, so faintly that her words were barely audible, yet James could tell she was still crying.

Next to the closet door was a chair. Hartley must have pulled it up to remain near her, as his nearly octogenarian knees wouldn’t allow him to easily get down on the floor any longer. James glanced toward the door, where Hartley stood, clasping his hands together. The naked pain James saw in the elderly man’s face pierced his heart. He mouthed,
Let me try for a while.

Hartley nodded and walked out, but James knew the elderly butler would wait just outside, in case Indigo called for him.

James moved the chair and slid down the door, allowing her to hear him sit down on the floor just outside. “Are you all right?” he said as gently as he could.

“I won’t need stitches. I promise.”

That was hardly a yes. “Can I come in and sit with you?”

“No. I can’t look at you now. I can’t look at anyone now. I’m so ashamed and so stupid and I don’t know why I don’t just—just
stop
. It seems like something as useless as me would just stop working, stop living, and drop off the face of the earth.”

“Don’t say that. You’re
not
useless.”

“I can’t do anything!” Her voice cracked, and the next words came through sobs. “I read the papers. People are angry because you might not become king, and that leaves me, and they know I won’t do. They
all
know it, James, and I do too.”

May the Good Lord damn Richard and his newspapers and his belief in torment disguised as “tough love.”
James forced himself to put his anger aside and think about his sister first. “I’m not done fighting for my throne yet, Indigo. And it’s not going so badly.”

Though the polls hadn’t budged a bit on the question of the church—

“What happened?” he said gently. “Was there something?”

“I was talking to Zale, and he didn’t understand why I wouldn’t come to Copenhagen—and I don’t understand either, I don’t understand what’s wrong with me—”

“Was he unkind to you?” All James’s old doubts about Prince Zale revived at once, making him scowl.

“No,” Indigo whispered. “But he thinks that I’m toying with him. Because I won’t go see him. I won’t make this real. He can’t know that it’s not because I don’t want to. He’ll never understand.”

James had thought she might eventually be able to tell Zale the truth. But she could only do that when she felt truly safe with him, and that would take a longer, deeper relationship than they could ever achieve while Zale still didn’t know the whole story. It was a perfect Catch-22. “I’m so sorry, Indigo.”

“I wish you didn’t have to worry about me,” she said. “I wish I could be queen and leave you to go be happy with Ben, far away from any of this.”

“I’m happy with Ben here and now. Please, won’t you at least open the door a little? I won’t come in. Just open the door.”

Indigo sobbed, “I can’t. I can’t.”

Under the closet door, he saw the very tips of her fingers; she was reaching out as much as she could with the door still shut. James lay on the floor and touched his fingertips to her own. He felt so powerless, so guilty. All he could do was stay there, hour after hour, until his stomach hurt and his bladder ached, because he couldn’t abandon her, not even to step away.

When he got home at 2 a.m., Ben was already asleep in his bed. James stayed in his own room, so as not to disturb him.

***

Two nights now, they’d slept apart. Ben didn’t like this trend.

Still, he knew the reason why James had left the evening before, and it would have been childish to object, particularly when he rose for breakfast and saw how haggard James looked. The dark circles under James’s eyes troubled Ben less than the way James’s hands trembled slightly as he reached for his coffee.

“I really thought she was getting better,” James said, staring into the unseen distance as they sat together at the table. “I let myself believe it, because I wanted to. But the past few months were an illusion. Indigo’s had spells like that before. Periods where she was almost normal. In the end she always breaks down.”

“Have you talked to her again about seeing a counselor?”

James shook his head. “Either she’s too fragile for me to mention it, or she’s doing well and I don’t want to bring her down again.”

Ben thought that attitude was only going to lead James and Indigo in the same miserable circles over and over again, but he held his tongue. In the end, it wasn’t his business. He simply let James vent, fed him more coffee, and sent him off for his day’s engagements with only slightly more loneliness than usual.

At least today would be better than yesterday had been, Ben thought—until Kimberley Tseng walked in with the morning headlines.

***

“Benji! Benji! What else can you tell us about the Prince Regent?”

“So how does Jamie like it, huh?”

“When James becomes king, do you intend to be crowned queen?”

“Benji! Hey, Benji!”

Ben pushed through the paparazzi, ignoring them more thoroughly than he would have ignored a cloud of gnats. Nor did he glance at the tabloids they waved in the air. He had his own copy of the
Mirror
in his coat pocket, at the ready.

As soon as he walked into the Global Media offices, Ben recognized the reaction of the other reporters in the newsroom. Their avid but slightly guilty attention had surrounded him ever since the news got out, but it was stronger now. More amused. Less guilty. He had no name for what was being projected at him now, but it was a mixture of amusement, contempt and . . . call it alienation. Maybe the only person in this room who still saw Ben as a human being was Roberto.

He went straight to Fiona de Winter’s office and walked in without knocking. She glanced up from her work as he shut the door. “Hey, there. What’s going on?”

By way of reply, Ben held up the cover page of the
Mirror
, which read: “
Benji’s not in it for the cash—says Jamie’s the ‘BEST SEX OF MY LIFE!
’”

Fiona shook her head, as if exasperated by the silliness of a child. “Don’t let
that
get to you.”

“I only ever said this to one person, Fiona,” Ben said in a low voice. “Only one. And I remember exactly who I said it to.”

There was some slight satisfaction in watching her go utterly still, as if she had just turned into a statue. In her eyes he could see her try to come up with an out, fail, and then decide to just face it. “Okay. You know.”