American Royals (28 page)

“Still, someone must have known,” she persisted. “There’s no way a photographer just happened to be on campus with that camera, happened to notice you, and
happened
to snap a photo of us in the one second that you kissed me!”

Jeff shrugged. He clearly wasn’t as bothered by this as she was, but then, he was much more used to having his privacy invaded. “Maybe they were tailing the town car? I can try to get my security involved, if you want,” he offered, though he didn’t sound hopeful.

“It just makes me feel unsafe, thinking that there’s someone who sold us out,” Nina insisted. “I don’t know who to trust anymore.”

“You can trust
me.
” Jeff took a hesitant step toward her. “Please, Nina. Tell me what I can do to make this right.”

She slipped her phone from her pocket and pulled up her photo album. She had taken a picture of every page of the nondisclosure agreement Robert had asked her to sign. Nina had already read through it in its entirety, but now she watched Jeff skim through the various sections.

I will not disclose confidential information to any party … I shall not use or exploit my relationship to the Crown to promote my own interests … In the event of a dispute, I waive my right to a jury of my peers in a public court proceeding, and agree instead to a closed arbitration …

Jeff cursed. “I had no idea.” He handed Nina’s phone back to her, shaking his head in disgust. “Please don’t feel like you need to sign that.”

“I don’t mind signing. I would never sell secrets about your family,” Nina said gently. “This isn’t about the contract. It’s about what the contract represents. That if you and I keep dating, it won’t ever be just you and me in the relationship. It’s you and me and the palace—or, worse, you and me and the world. Which makes things a bit crowded.”

“
If
we keep dating?” Jeff repeated.

A lock of his hair kept falling forward into his eyes; Nina resisted the urge to brush it back. “I don’t know if I’m the right person to be dating you.”

“Says who, someone at the
Daily News
? I couldn’t care less what she thinks,” Jeff shot back, but Nina shook her head.

“It isn’t just her. All those thousands of comments—America used to adore you, and now they hate you, because of
me.
And what about Daphne?”

“What about her?”

“Everyone likes her better!”

“You really need to stop reading the tabloids. Those things rot your brain,” Jeff said, at which Nina couldn’t help but smile. “Honestly, Nina. I don’t care if America ‘likes her better.’” He lifted his hands into air quotes to show his skepticism. “America isn’t the one trying to date you; I am. And I like
you
better.”

Nina wasn’t trying to validate all those articles, and yet … “It feels like there’s still something between you, some kind of unfinished business. Don’t you think that, eventually, you’ll end up going back to her?”

“I’m sorry again about Daphne, and graduation,” Jeff said heavily. “I know what I put you through wasn’t fair. The thing is, I should have ended things with Daphne much earlier than I did.”

He swallowed and looked into her eyes.

“We had just been together for so long, and my parents and all my friends and even the
media
were always telling me how good she was for me. So I kept thinking that she must be,” he said helplessly.

“That’s exactly my point!” Nina cried out. “You said it yourself: your parents and friends and the media were all rooting for her. I wish that didn’t matter, but it does. It isn’t just the two of us anymore, Jeff. And I worry that I’m not the right fit for this life. For your family.”

Jeff reached for her hand, and Nina let him take it. He rubbed a thumb lightly over the back of her wrist.

“You’re already part of our family,” he told her. “You’ve been Sam’s best friend for so long that you’ve seen behind the curtain. You know the
real
us, the bickering and the pressure. You know that my cousin Percy is a little menace and that half the time when Aunt Margaret does royal engagements, she’s drunk. You of all people shouldn’t worry about fitting in. You already belong with us. You belong with me.”

Nina let out a heavy breath. “If only things could stay like this, when it’s just the two of us. Simple, no complications.”

Jeff’s dark eyes seemed to possess impossible depths. “I hate that all this baggage comes with dating me. It’s a lot to take on, especially for someone as independent as you. I wish I could say that things will get easier. But they never will—not for me.”

He gave Nina’s hand a final squeeze, then let go. “I don’t have a choice, but you do. If you want to walk away from this, from all the attention and the madness and the NDAs, I won’t blame you. But I will miss you.”

Nina opened her mouth to say yes—that she wanted to walk away, that she wished him nothing but the best and would always be his friend. That this life and everything that came with it were just too
much.

What came out instead was “No.”

The prince looked up sharply. Nina swallowed. “No,” she said again, and realized that it was true. “I’m not done with you, not yet.”

Then she was flinging herself into his arms, kissing Jeff with such enthusiasm that he stumbled backward and had to lift her off her feet—literally, her boots were dangling in the air. Nina didn’t even notice that the buttons on Jeff’s jacket were digging into her. The impact of their kiss crashed through her like cymbals, tingling all the way to her lips and toes and the very edges of her hair.

Finally Jeff set her down. Nina reached for the table to steady herself, and her hand almost knocked over the milkshake.

She shook back her hair and took a celebratory sip, smiling around the straw. “Thanks for bringing me this,” she told Jeff, and handed it over so that he could try.

He grinned. “You’re right, it really does taste better with double M&M’s.”

Daphne sighed with a hollow sense of discontent.

It was Saturday morning, and she was seated next to her mother in one of the luxurious pedicure chairs at Ceron’s, the top salon in Washington. They were ensconced in the place of honor at the center of the room, with prime views over the rest of the salon. Daphne saw Henrietta of Hanover, one of the royal family’s numerous distant cousins, with her hair wrapped in a Medusa helmet of silver foils. And wasn’t that the senator from Rainier walking out of a treatment room, her face red and angry from a facial?

Daphne’s mother knew Ceron from years ago, back when he did hair for magazine photo shoots and runway shows, though he moved in more rarified circles these days. His life had forever changed once he was named the official palace hairstylist. It had caused business here at the salon to triple, even if half those clients were just royalty fanatics who plopped in their chairs and declared that however Her Majesty was wearing her hair, they wanted the exact same thing.

Tiffany, the salon assistant, finished the topcoat on Rebecca’s toes. “Can I get you anything else, milady?”

Rebecca couldn’t help preening a little at the title. She never was happier than when she was being
milady
’d somewhere. “Not unless you have any news for me,” she said meaningfully.

Ceron went to the palace several times a month, to touch up the queen’s highlights or style the princesses’ hair before an event. Sometimes he brought the junior salon technicians along with him. And while Ceron was far too loyal to the Washingtons to be susceptible to bribery, not all members of his staff were. It had only taken a few carefully dropped hints and overly generous tips for Tiffany to reach an understanding with Daphne’s mother. She had provided the Deightons with details about the royal family on more than one occasion. Small details, like what color gown the queen might be wearing to an upcoming event, and some that were more significant.

Tiffany leaned forward, lowering her voice to a near whisper. “He was at the palace yesterday to do a trial updo on Princess Beatrice. They’re holding a black-tie ball soon, in honor of her engagement to Teddy. The invitations are about to go out.”

Rebecca flashed her perfect white teeth in a smile. “Thank you, Tiffany.”

Tiffany retreated, her platinum ponytail bouncing. She’d looped a thin red scarf through the belt holes of her waxed black jeans. It was the trademark of Ceron’s salon: each of the stylists had to wear black and white with a small pop of red. The salon itself was decorated in the same color scheme, from the vases of vibrant red daylilies to the black-and-white photographs on the walls.

Rebecca shot her daughter a curious glance. “You need to go to that engagement party as Jefferson’s date.”

“I know, Mother.” Though privately, Daphne was more concerned with the wedding itself. She could
not
let this play out the way the last royal wedding had—when Jefferson’s aunt Margaret got married, and Daphne wasn’t even invited.

Rebecca gave a vague
hmm
of concern. She looked as stunning as ever in a crisp white shirt and jeans, her light blond hair styled in seemingly effortless layers. But no matter how well she dressed the part, you could still tell that Rebecca Deighton hadn’t been born to the aristocratic life. It was something hard and hungry, glinting in her catlike face.

Daphne glanced down at her nails, which gleamed with a coat of pearly sheer polish. GOOD AND PROPER, the bottle was labeled, which was so spot-on that it almost seemed ironic. The last time she’d visited the hospital, Daphne had brought a bottle of deep red Va-Va-Voom, and painted Himari’s nails with it.

She didn’t tell her mother about that, because she knew precisely what Rebecca would say: that visiting Himari was a waste of Daphne’s time. But Daphne wasn’t sure she was going for Himari’s sake.

“At least you got rid of that
obstacle.
” Rebecca gestured to the magazines on her lap—
People, Us Weekly,
the
Daily News.
They were all filled with pictures of Nina Gonzalez looking tacky and second-rate next to images of Daphne. Although in the days since Beatrice announced her engagement the coverage of Nina had decreased sharply.

“This is good work, Daphne,” her mother added, a bit clumsily. She clearly wasn’t used to giving praise.

The moment she’d returned from the New Year’s party at Smuggler’s, Daphne had sent Natasha the tip about Jefferson and Nina. She’d even figured out which dorm Nina was living in, so Natasha could stake it out; all it had taken was a bit of online sleuthing and a phone call to the school. She knew the
Daily News
couldn’t run a story like that without photographic evidence.

“It wasn’t that difficult,” Daphne replied. “The commenters did most of the hard work for me.”

Daphne knew there was no easier target than a so-called social climber, which was why she’d urged Natasha to take that angle in the article. Predictably, the internet roared in outrage that anyone would set out to ensnare their beloved prince. Some of them went so far as to claim Nina’s parents had planned their daughter’s entire
life
for this purpose: that Isabella had taken the chamberlain job specifically to throw her daughter in the prince’s path.
That girl is like a weed,
one commenter wrote.
She’s ugly to look at and has a ferocious ability to climb.

Daphne didn’t feel especially sorry about what she’d done. Nina had brought this down on herself by going after the prince, when everyone knew he belonged to Daphne.

There were plenty of other, more anonymous boys in America—millions of them, in fact. Didn’t Nina understand that to date someone as high-profile as Jefferson, she would necessarily become a public figure herself?

If she couldn’t take the pressure, she should have stayed out of the big leagues.

“When are you seeing Jefferson next?” Rebecca cut into her thoughts. “You should find a way to bring up this party.”

Daphne pretended to blow on her nails, her mind racing, but she couldn’t think of an easy way to lie. “I actually haven’t heard from him,” she admitted.

There it was: the reason Daphne felt this vague and caustic discontent. She had done everything in her power, had schemed and blackmailed and knocked out her competition, and still Jefferson hadn’t reached out. What was he waiting for?

Rebecca’s eyes drifted to her phone, where she was scrolling through several gossip blogs. Her eyes widened at something she saw.

“Perhaps
this
is why.” Her mother’s voice was dangerously quiet as she held out her phone. Daphne reached for it with trepidation.

It was a blurry cell-phone pic of Nina and Jefferson, taken last night at a college party.

“He went to a
frat party
with her?” Daphne forced herself to breathe, trying not to scream. “Well—after all these articles, no
way
will the palace let him date her.”

“He isn’t the heir to the throne. He has more leeway than Beatrice.” Her mother frowned. “Daphne, you’ve completely lost control of this situation.”

“I—y-you were just saying I did a good job—” Daphne stammered, but Rebecca’s fierce look quelled her protests.

“That was before I knew what an utter disaster it is.”

Panic flooded Daphne’s synapses. “I don’t know what else to do! I can’t just throw myself at him; I tried that at New Year’s and it didn’t work.”

Rebecca turned toward her daughter with an impassive glare. “There are two people in that relationship. If you aren’t getting anywhere with the prince, then it’s time to try another approach.”

When Daphne understood, she felt almost sick. She couldn’t imagine seeing Nina Gonzalez again. She despised her.

“Daphne, you can’t just sit around waiting for something to happen. Nothing ever gets accomplished that way,” her mother hissed. As if Daphne didn’t already know that.

Rebecca leaned back in her chair, running her hands along the edges of the magazines in her lap to arrange them in a perfect stack. “Haven’t you learned anything from me? Never attack a rival unless you can finish them off completely. Either finish the job, or don’t start it in the first place,” she said quietly.

Daphne nodded, but her thoughts had drifted to Himari, lying in a coma for almost eight months now.
Either finish the job, or don’t start it in the first place.

What would happen if Himari ever woke up and told the world—told Jefferson—what Daphne had done?