“Oh no,” I say.
“There’s something intoxicating about someone who has witnessed your nastiest impulses and likes you anyway,” she says ruefully. “One night, we went out to dinner just the two of us, and we ended up at his place and one thing led to another…” She coughs. “We had sex. By the way, you were right, Bex. He’s a weird kisser.”
Mom grimaces. “You’ve both…?”
I look heavenward. “It’s a long story.”
Mom shifts uneasily. “There is a lot more sex in this than I anticipated,” she says.
“Is it better if I call it something else?” Lacey asks.
“Pole-vaulting.” I couldn’t help it.
“Well, I’m sad to say, I was way into the pole-vaulting,” Lacey says. “Whatever other problems he has, he’s a talented pole-vaulter.”
“No, go back to saying ‘sex,’” Mom says, bodily cringing. “You’re going to ruin the Summer Olympics for me.”
“I’ll skip ahead,” Lacey offers. “We cracked a bottle of wine afterward, and then another one, just cuddling and talking. He started stroking my face, saying something about how he couldn’t imagine how you could hurt me so badly. I thought we drifted off after that.” She scrunches up her face. “I woke up thirsty at like five a.m., and he wasn’t in bed, and I heard my own voice coming from the living room. Apparently we’d talked a whole lot longer, and he’d recorded me.”
“How is that even possible?” Mom asks.
“I do remember him setting the alarm on his phone, at one point,” Lacey replies. “He must have turned on the memo function. I don’t know if he recorded me any other times, but he definitely got all our pillow talk, because I heard him playing it back.”
My insides curl at how he used her. “What a sneaky bastard,” I say.
“And a first-class asshole,” pipes up Mom. She shrugs at our surprised expressions. “Sometimes the only appropriate word for a person is a rude one.”
“The quality didn’t seem like it was great, but it’s unquestionably me,” Lacey says. “I was saying that you’re selfish, that you froze me out of the Royal Family so you could lord your status over me, that Nick shouldn’t marry you.” Her face is ashen. “I told him you and Freddie were having an affair. I may have called you a sex addict. It was hard to hear. I sound so bitter.”
A loud knock comes at the door.
“Bex? Kira is here,” Cilla says, opening it slightly and poking her head around it.
“Just a sec,” Mom says, sounding very chipper. “Family bonding, dear. You understand.”
Cilla clearly knows this is a lie. “Five minutes,” she offers, then disappears.
Mom looks at Lacey. “So you’re not in on the blackmail,” Mom clarifies.
Lacey shakes her head vigorously. “No. God, no. It honestly took me a minute to even figure out what he was doing. He could’ve just been some weird fetishist, you know?” She looks over at me helplessly. “I swear, I never would have kept hanging out with him if I’d known he was The Royal Flush.”
“I believe you,” I tell her. And I do.
Lacey turns back to Mom. “I begged Clive not to do anything with what he had, so he asked what I could give him in return.” She twitches. “I may have leaked the Agatha story.”
“Ohhhhhh.” I let out the word like air seeping out of a balloon. “Eleanor was pissed.”
“Clearly I should not have repeated that to you.” Mom looked abashed, then thoughtful. “Although Agatha was rather relieved to have it out there.”
The story had run two days ago on The Royal Flush, and it alleged that Agatha and Awful Julian would be divorcing quietly during the nation’s giddy afterglow from our wedding. I had wondered how the Flush scored such a scoop, in fact, and its total truth forced the Queen to let Agatha confirm everything—which in turn gave the site even more credibility.
“I figured giving up that info didn’t really hurt anyone, and I thought I could buy us some time,” Lacey explains. “Maybe until after the wedding. He seemed thrilled, but I guess he was just toying with me.” Any cheer she has managed suddenly vanishes. “He called me this morning and told me…let’s see if I can get it right…‘I stand with Freddie and the rest of the world on this one. You’re just the appetizer. She’s the main course.’”
The strength of my gasp catches even me by surprise.
“Disgusting.” A year’s worth of anger at her dissolves. “It is amazing how disgusting.”
“He is, as we’d say in my day, a cad,” Mom says.
“I still can’t believe Clive is The Royal Flush,” I say. “Nick is not going to like this.”
Nick is not going to like a lot of things. That particular thing, in fact, is just icing on the cake of Things Nick Won’t Like.
“I just don’t get where Clive is coming from,” Lacey says. “Disliking you two is one thing, but this is beyond. What did he tell you?”
I heave a deep breath. Just thinking about the call makes me queasy.
“He just said he was sick of waiting for his turn, and that it was long past time for me to help him become a smash. And if I didn’t, he’d do it himself by destroying me.” Clive had sounded so calculating, so cool, that I instantly knew he’d practiced this threat a hundred times. “Basically, he freaked me out so badly that I hung up on him, so he started sending all these capsy texts.”
As if on cue, my phone buzzes.
BEX. DO IT MY WAY AND WE BOTH WIN.
“This is a mess,” I say, my voice catching. “Why the hell couldn’t I just pull my shit together like a grown-up?”
“It’s not your fault,” Lacey attempts.
“It is completely my fault,” I say. “I wish I could blame someone else, but the fact is that if I’d been smarter, or stronger, there would be nothing to tell.”
“Bex,” Mom says, getting up and coming to me, boring through me with her stare. “You have to be honest with me. If Nick isn’t satisfying you as a lover, then—”
“That’s where your head went?” Lacey squeaks.
“It’s a fair question. If these Freddie incidents mean Bex needs satisfaction elsewhere, then she can’t marry Nick,” Mom says firmly. “I will put it in terms your father would have used. You can’t just pick the best starting pitcher. You need middle relief and a closer.”
I groan. “Dad would have left the room ages before that analogy was even necessary.”
“Then Cosmopolitan will back me up. I’ve been reading a lot of it lately and it’s quite enlightening,” she says. “I even clipped some of those how-to guides. Mostly for Agatha, but—”
“Stop,” Lacey and I say at the same time.
Mom rolls her eyes at us. “You two are the ones who brought up all the sex in the first place.” She turns to me and gently runs a hand over my hair. “But it’s not my only concern. Honey, remember at Nick’s birthday party, when your father told you that you’d have to really love Nick to go through all of this? Earl was more right than he ever knew.”