Royals (Royals #1)(75)

“It was never real,” I tell Miles, backing away. “It was just . . . part of summer in this bizarre-o world. And it’s messed up enough for you already, so let’s just call it a day, okay?”

Miles watches me, and it’s like I can see that invisible suit of armor he wears half the time building itself back up. All the warmth slips out of his eyes, his jaw tight, his shoulders stiff.

“If that’s what you want,” he finally says.

It’s not, not really, but what can I say? One kiss and a weird summer of fake dating is not worth screwing up his whole life for. And it’s not like there’s a future for us anyway. For all I know, we both got carried away faking a romance and just tricked ourselves into thinking it was the real thing.

But when he turns and walks back up the stairs, never looking back, the sudden pain in my heart feels pretty freaking real.





Chapter 35


It’s so hot back in Florida.

There’s a part of me that loves it, that wants to soak in the sun, the vaguely salty air, the bright colors. And for the first couple of days, I do. I shake off my jet lag lying on a blanket in our backyard, watching tiny lizards run over the palm fronds. I slather myself in sunblock and let the smell of coconut remind me that I’m home now, and that everything that happened in Scotland is in the past.

Of course, it can’t really stay in the past—the wedding is still very much on and will be in Scotland in December. Then I’ll have to go back and face everything I left behind. Ellie and I are fine, so at least that’s good, but I’ll still have to deal with Alex’s family. With Seb.

With Miles.

That’s the one that still hurts. I hadn’t talked to him before I left, and even though I have his email—thanks to Sherbet—I don’t want to risk it. The whole thing had been such a mess, and it seems like it’s better to leave it alone. Maybe now that I’m gone, Miles can repair his relationship with “the palace,” and by the time I come back in the winter, it won’t be a big deal anymore.

That’s probably wishful thinking.

Isa told me that it was all over the blogs, and I haven’t ventured out of my house since I got back, afraid to suddenly see my face on all those magazines.

I guess it’s impressive, how the palace spun the story of what happened at the polo match, and from everything Isa told me, the stories had Glynnis’s fingerprints all over them. There was no mention of Seb’s declaration of love to Ellie, and now Alex had punched him because he’d besmirched my honor or something. A total misunderstanding was turned into me being some kind of scarlet woman, breaking up the Royal Wreckers, and while Miles and Seb had definitely not been fighting over me—well, not really—I guess the end result is the same anyway.

For those first few days I’m back, I mostly just sit either in the backyard or in my room, checking in with Isa (and, yes, asking her to check the blogs for me), too afraid to go out. The paparazzi have never bothered us here in Perdido, but that was before I became a story, and every time I lie out in the backyard, I tense for the clicking of shutters. I won’t even wear a bathing suit when I lie out, just in case.

It’s on day four of my self-imposed hermitdom that Dad comes into my room wearing one of his loud shirts and a pair of long cutoffs. His gray hair is a mess, and he’s got his sunglasses perched on top of his head with his regular glasses balancing on the end of his nose.

In other words, typical Dad.

“C’mon,” he says, and I look up from my laptop, frowning.

“What?”

“No more of this,” he replies, gesturing around my room. “Baptism by fire, here we go.”

He wants me to go out.

I scoot up the bed, pulling my knees to my chest. “Nope. No baptisms, no fire, no outside.”

But when Dad is in one of these moods, he can’t be talked out of it. “You can’t live in this room forever, Daisy Mae,” he reminds me. “Eventually you’re going to have to go to school, or maybe get another job so that you can pull your weight around here. Can’t raise a moocher, you know.”

“Mrs. Miller said I could have my job back at the Sur-N-Sav,” I say in a low voice. “But I don’t . . .”

“You don’t want to see yourself on magazines, I suspect,” Dad finishes, then quirks an eyebrow at me. “Or perhaps you don’t want to go back to your former life of unglamorous servitude now that you’ve tasted the finer things.”

That irks me as, I guess, Dad had thought it would. “That’s not it,” I tell him, and he shrugs.

“Prove it, then. Let’s go to the Sur-N-Sav right now and tell Mrs. Miller in person that you will be donning the smock this week, shall we?”

Which is how I find myself back in the land of linoleum and cheap bread just fifteen minutes later, wincing as we pass the rows of magazines by the registers. Isa isn’t working today, but Bradley, one of the kids from my school, is, and when he sees me, he gives me a wave. Nothing else, no look or weirdness, just a wave.

I’m beginning to think things might actually be normal after all when I see the first cover.

“CRAZY FOR DAISY!”

Seriously, why is that their favorite headline?

It’s me at the polo match, before everything went wrong, standing with Miles, and there’s a little inset picture of Alex punching Seb.