Luca hated him on sight.
You made me fall in love with you.
If she loved him, she should have trusted him enough to tell him about her past. Enough to stay.
That’s all he could think as he stared across at her standing in that other man’s embrace, the image like radiation that destroyed his insides the longer he stared.
“Sir, there are people in the terminal getting all this on their phones,” someone said from inside his plane.
Brilliant. His final humiliation was being recorded for uploading to the buffet of public ignominy that was already so well stocked. Outstanding.
He went inside to take his seat, sick with guilt that he’d wanted to right a wrong and it had resulted in yet more wrong.
Everyone stared at him while he settled into his chair.
“Our first step is to make clear to her the legal and financial consequences she will face if she divulges any of this to the press,” one of his lawyers piped up.
“We should make an immediate statement that she was asked to leave. Get in front of whatever photos come out from this.” Another one tapped the window.
Luca had had the team meet him here in Athens in hopes they could find a way forward that wouldn’t destroy both him and Amy. He had expected her to weigh in.
Now he could only stare in disbelief while another backstabbing idiot said, “Given her history, we could reframe the photos and make a case for you to take back the throne.”
Luca swore and waved his hand. “Get off my plane. All of you.”
Neither Bea nor Clare were in London when Amy arrived.
Bea, bless her, said Amy could use her flat. She was deeply grateful and sank into the familiar oasis of Bea’s personal space.
But with both of her friends still away, it fell to Amy to keep London Connection running. She popped an email to her assistant to say she would do it remotely to minimize the disruption she was already causing at the office. She didn’t mention her plan to resign. She would wait until Clare and Bea were back to tell them personally. For now, she focused on drafting a statement about her past and most recent disgrace.
It started out very remorseful, but the more she looked up statistics on sexual harassment and noted the delight trolls took in being sadistic toward women, and the punishment gap when a woman made a mistake versus a man, the more incensed she became.
She wound up writing:
How is it that a twenty-nine-year-old man was deemed to have more to lose than an eighteen-year-old woman?
Everyone had something to lose when this affair happened, but I—the person with the least life experience and fewest resources—became the scapegoat. I was expelled before I could take my A levels, destroying my university aspirations.
No one cared that my future was derailed. It was far more important to Avery’s mother, the headmistress, that she keep her job and avoid a disciplinary hearing over her son’s behavior. She convinced my parents to sweep it under the rug. They agreed because they had financial, social, and career pressures to protect.
Instead of urging me to call the police, which I was too humiliated to contemplate on my own, my parents cut me off financially. I was literally left homeless while Avery was immediately transferred to a position at another school.
What began as a PR spin became an essay on feminism and the distance that still needed to be traveled. When she was done, there was morning light outside.
Amy hit send to a senior editor of an old-school but well-respected newspaper in America, then hired bodyguards to escort her to her own flat.
“‘The king of Vallia hired me to assist with the Queen’s Foundation,’” Sofia read aloud from the same open letter that Luca was reading on his own tablet. “‘At the time of my professional engagement, we discussed extending my purview to other assignments, but those discussions were discontinued after we became personally involved.’”
Mio Dio, she knew how to gracefully pirouette with prose, Luca thought.
Perhaps Sofia was thinking it, too. He could feel her staring at him from her position at the opposite end of the table, prodding him for details on those halted discussions.
Luca and his twin had always breakfasted together if they were both in the palace, even after Luca took the throne. It allowed them to connect personally, but also discuss any political developments or other rising concerns. Luca had wanted Sofia to be in the know so she could seamlessly take over when the time came. She was keeping him equally well-informed as a courtesy. She certainly didn’t need him weighing in with advice or opinions. Vallia’s populace was adapting well to the changeover, seeming energized and eager for the new order.
Luca wished he could say the same. He was miserable.
While I regret the anguish King Luca must have suffered from the photos of us that emerged, I feel no remorse over the fact he was pressured into giving up the crown as a result of our affair. Men should be held to account when they cross a line.
“I like her,” Sofia mused.
Me too, Luca thought, heart so heavy in his chest it was compressed and thumping in rough, painful beats that echoed in the pit of his gut.
He reached the end where an editorial note stated that Avery Mason’s wife had recently retained an extremely pricey and ruthless divorce lawyer.
“Do you suppose that’s why she sold the story?” Sofia asked as she clicked off her tablet. “To pay for her divorce?”
“And bolster her petition for one,” Luca surmised. Perhaps she’d seen this as her only avenue for escaping her marriage. He couldn’t spare much thought or empathy for her, though. Not when she’d ruthlessly used Amy to achieve her own ends.
The way you did? his conscience
