I closed my eyes. Clive’s Little White Lie drifted past them. He had told me. In that way and a thousand others.
“I did know.” I felt like a jerk. “And I tried to pretend I didn’t, because I was having fun and I wanted it to be simple. And when it wasn’t anymore, I chickened out. I’m sorry, Clive. I am the worst. I never meant to hurt you. You really are great.”
Clive cleared his throat and blinked hard, then took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“Right. I’m just lovely,” he muttered.
In that instant, I realized the first guy I hooked up with in England was, basically, the man version of my beloved Chicago Cubs: never the big winner, no matter how promising it looked. I was hit with a flood of sympathy for him, and anger at myself. Why hadn’t I sacked up earlier and been honest?
“I’m not in love with you or anything,” he said suddenly.
My lips twitched. “Nor should you be. I snore.”
“Yes, it’s untenable.” He shot me a rueful grin. “Mostly I just thought I’d gotten to a good thing first and might get to see where it went,” he said. “And this is where it went.”
Clive put on his glasses again. “But you’ve got bigger problems than me, anyhow,” he said. “You’re up against at least three other posh, moneyed girls the papers have already latched on to, and they know what they’re doing.”
I didn’t expect Clive to hug me and wish me good luck, but the emotionless speed with which he transitioned into business mode startled me even more than his frankness.
“You’re also too trusting,” he added for good measure. “You got lucky this time, but what if that had been a paparazzi camera?”
“There is nothing going on in that photo,” I reiterated.
Clive rolled his eyes. “If you say so. But it doesn’t matter, anyway. To an outside eye, it’s Nick kissing some random tart in the street.”
“Gosh, ‘random’ seems kind of harsh,” I joked.
“And you’re completely na?ve if you think that footage wouldn’t have gotten picked apart,” he rattled on. “They’re going to eat you alive.”
“Okay. I think you are getting way, way ahead of yourself here. I don’t even—”
He held up a hand and took a folded square of newspaper out of his shirt pocket. “You should also know that the Mail columnist is reporting that Nick got a Lyons ancestral ring for India.”
He had come armed and ready. My hands shook slightly as I unfolded the paper to reveal an article headlined GOING FOR (BOLING)BROKE. Nausea hit me as I tossed it onto the bed, next to Clive. I’d gone and uncorked myself and now the jealousy was flowing.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Clive said, sounding satisfied.
“I’m glad to see you’re enjoying this,” I said. “I guess I deserve that.”
“I’m not,” he insisted, softening. “But this is what you’re up against.”
“It’s just a rumor. The Daily Mail is full of them.”
“India is Richard’s pick,” Clive reasoned, standing up and stretching. “Someone is working hard to make this happen. And if it’s not Nick, it’s the family. Which is actually worse for you. You can’t compete with that. You’re an American and you don’t have any kind of background. Will the Queen even agree to meet you? And if not, what then? You mess about for a bit in secret? Regardless, it all ends the same way: He marries someone else.”
“I’m not looking to—”
“And neither is he, yet, but he will, and he has to. It’s his job,” Clive said. “And then you’ll be out in the cold.”
I must have looked miserable. Clive may have enjoyed that, but to his credit, he reached down and tucked my hair behind my cheek with a sad smile, bringing with it the memory of Nick so recently doing exactly the same thing and inspiring completely opposite feelings.
“You always would have been my first priority,” he said.
I felt remorse, but not regret. “You deserve better than what I can offer,” I said softly.
Clive nodded, resigned, and turned to leave. “I’m not rooting against you, Bex.” He paused, searching for words. “His world is messy. It’s not like being with the homecoming king, or…whatever you have in the States.”
“I know,” I said, touched. “Thank you. And—”
“Right, I know, it’s not me, it’s you,” he said, allowing himself the levity as he walked to the door. “It probably is you. Fortunately, I covered my bases and have plans with another girl in twenty minutes. Good luck.”
As the door closed behind him, I flopped onto the bed, my head spinning. Then I grabbed the Mail article. It was much easier to scrutinize it now that Clive was gone. There was a photo of Nick and India leaving Clarence House a day or two earlier, his hand on her back, and two different shots of India and Prince Richard in recent months, looking very compatible. I didn’t believe for a second she and Nick were getting engaged. Bea was right; it was too soon. And it seemed impossible that the Nick I knew—the one I’d seen almost every day for so long, the one I would have sworn was about to kiss me—was in so deep with a person he barely mentioned to me. Even with the evidence of a united front plastered all over the papers, a voice in the back of my head kept telling me I couldn’t have developed my feelings for him in a vacuum. I wasn’t a stalker sociopath inventing stories and scenes and memories, seeing things the way I wanted to see them instead of for what they were. Was I?
Then again, India was there, and I was here. Maybe Nick, right now, was assuring her of exactly what I’d been assuring Clive: that nothing had happened, that the grainy still from Edwin’s camera was grossly misleading. Maybe, unlike Clive and me, they’d both believed that. And maybe Nick’s universe, the whole machine of the monarchy, was bigger than some fleeting foreign friend in his residence hall who liked crappy TV shows and Cracker Jack. Clive was right—it was absurd to imagine me in all of that. India was the crystal decanter of brandy, while I was wine poured from a plastic spout, and Nick and I were doomed before we even started. I curled up with my glass of Shiraz and cried.
In the dramatic film of my story, the camera would have pulled back on me lying there, fetal, weeping all over my quilt, then cut to me bravely soldiering forth until my prince returned and swooned at my sexy dignity. In the rom-com, I’d go get a sassy new haircut and realize Gaz is the love of my life. In reality, the crying and wine slurping lasted about ten minutes before I sat up and glared into the mirror at my red, puffy face.
“Get a grip,” I said.
I may not have come to England to fall in love, but it had happened anyway. And I’d never been the sort of girl who willingly took a seat on the bench without fighting for a starting spot; I wasn’t going to let England change that about me, too. If Nick didn’t want me, that was his call, but I couldn’t just sit back and wait to see if it occurred to him to pick me. I wasn’t going to play dirty, but I was going to play.
Chapter Nine