“I never hated you. Like, why? I obviously got all the good genes. You didn’t even know what a tardigrade was.”
Portia hiccupped out a laugh, and a little of the pain and fear that was all blocked up in her chest escaped with it.
Reggie sighed heavily. “Jesus. And I thought I was a masochist, trying to get your attention all these years. You’ve been carrying this half our lives.”
“I’m sorry,” Portia said. “I thought I was protecting you.”
“By pushing me away?”
“I didn’t say it made sense!” Portia dropped a hand onto her hip.
“You know, I should be mad. But I’ve done some nonsensical things myself lately. Speaking of which, the reason I’ve been blowing up your phone.”
Portia was unsurprised by Reggie’s pivot. Cool, calm snark was her general setting and she was sure the outbreak of emotion had thrown her off as much as it had Portia.
“My friend saw that pic of you being carried out of that party like a bag of potatoes and he noticed something.”
“Friend?”
“Yeah. The guy you found for me? It’s a long story. Anywho, he’s pretty good about detail stuff. And he noticed something up with your nail polish color. It’s pink in the earlier photos and black when you’re getting carried out.”
Portia’s brow crinkled. Ledi had treated her to a manicure when they arrived at the hotel, and she’d been too numb and disappointed with herself to pay attention as her polish was removed.
“That’s weird.”
“Well, maybe this is nothing, but we’ve promoted this safety polish on our site a few times. For college students. It changes color if you’re drugged.”
“Wait.” Cheryl had grabbed the polish from the kit they’d received from a company that wanted to provide products for the self-defense courses Portia had talked Cheryl into teaching . . .
“Oh my god.” Her face went hot with anger as she realized someone had drugged her and worse—had made her doubt herself. She’d believed that she drank until she passed out, even though it made no damn sense. The world believed it, too. Her past had been dragged out for judgment, and no one had been a harsher judge than Portia. But, as it turned out, Portia was pretty shit when it came to judging herself.
“Was it that prince? That guy is kind of creepy,” Reggie said, blunt as usual.
“No, Johan is my friend,” Portia said. “But I know who isn’t.”
“Oh man. Who do we have to kill?”
Portia opened the door to find Ledi pretending she hadn’t been listening. “We might just have to shank an ex-duke.”
Chapter 29
Tavish pulled up the internet browser window on his new smartphone and clicked through the four open tabs—one for each of Portia’s social media accounts. There had only been one recent message on each, all posted the day she left. A photo of her staring straight at the camera, a mischievous smirk on her face, wearing a shirt emblazoned with the words I solemnly swear I am up to no good. And the caption “Gone fishing.”
He’d seen that shirt before. Cheryl had one, too. He was sure Portia had no idea what it really meant either, and that simple thought—one way they were alike in a way that made them somewhat different, and how much he wanted to learn just how different and alike they were—bowled into him, rocking him like a physical blow. He wouldn’t have that now; couldn’t have that and be fair to her.
Tav had no fucking idea what he was doing. No, that wasn’t true—he was certain that he was completely screwing up anything that might have been between him and Portia. But that’s what was for the best. He’d crossed the line by asking her to stay anyway, and it was only when he’d seen the tabloids descend upon her like piranhas that he’d realized exactly how he’d messed up.
He didn’t care that she’d gotten stumbling drunk at the ball, outside of the fact that he knew she’d be angry with herself about it. He didn’t care about what the newspapers had insinuated about her past—loads of people hacked their way into adulthood through the field grown from all the wild oats they’d sown. Some people’s fields were smaller, some larger, and Tav didn’t think it particularly mattered as long as people reached a mutual agreement about whether their farming days were over, on hiatus, or some kind of special schedule.
What he did care about was exposing Portia to situations that would cause her pain, and whether she was his apprentice, his squire, or something more, her proximity to him would cause her pain. She found any hint of her own unworthiness entirely too credible, and the Looking Glass Daily loved nothing more than pointing out perceived flaws and creating ones where they found none. He already had to figure out how to protect Jamie and Cheryl, but he wasn’t sure how to protect Portia without drawing her deeper into the very world that would hurt her—and eventually destroy any possibility of love they had.
“Your Grace?” Leslie’s voice pulled him out of his daze. He sat across from her in that receiving room where he and Portia had first met with David. Where he’d first decided that he would become a duke if it gave him even the smallest chance of changing things for the better.
David had gone to ground since Tav had replaced him. Leslie said he’d retired to a country estate to formulate his next move. Tav hated him but he imagined it must have been a difficult change for a man so invested in the title.
“Perhaps we should go over the preparations for the garden party one more time,” Leslie said in that voice that was both wishy-washy and strident. It wasn’t her real voice, simply something she put on for work, like a smart pair of trousers. Tavish had almost requested that she be less formal, but changed his mind. She was his assistant, not his friend.
Boundaries.
“I get dressed up. I present the Queen with some jewels. I stand next to her while people mill about in the garden making inane chatter.” He sighed. “I disappoint my students.”
I miss Portia like a bloody fool.
“Your Grace, we still haven’t settled on the entertainment—”
Tavish’s phone rang and he whipped it out of his pocket, hope expanding in his chest and then deflating to a tempered happiness when he saw the word Mum flashing on the screen.
“I have to take this,” he said, and Leslie nodded and left. She was good at doing what she was told, at scurrying this way and that. Just once, Tav wished she would call him a wanker instead of giving him a treacly smile.
“Hey, Mum.”
“I have to say, Tavish, I really like this new ‘answering the phone’ habit you’ve picked up. Who knew all it would take was a title?”
That wasn’t the real reason he suddenly cared about incoming calls.
“Well, every job requires some sacrifice. Everything okay?”
“Oh, sí. The paparazzi here have moved on to other stories, in part because your father went after them with a machete and they don’t want to risk their precious cameras over me. Plus, one of them said people were more interested in your Portia anyway.”
Hearing the name unexpectedly sucked a bit of the wind from him. “Why? It makes no sense. She is no longer a part of the armory or my life and—”
Tav didn’t know why he stopped talking. The words left him like the heat from hot metal dipped into ice water.
“M’hijo.” His mum’s voice had taken on that round, loving tone that instantly made him feel like a child aching for a hug. “Do you remember what I asked you all those years ago?”
“Why did I have all those page three girl photos in that box under the bathroom sink?” he asked, just to get a rise out of her.
She laughed, indulgent and warm. “You sound miserable. You look miserable in the pictures on these sites. Jamie and Cheryl are worried about you. I meant this question—what are you willing to do?”