Miles only shakes his head in reply, one corner of his mouth kicking up.
I’m sorry, he mouths back, and I wish we could sit next to each other like Ellie and Alex are.
“Daisy, are you listening?”
I snap my head up, looking at Glynnis, and am about to guiltily confess that no, I wasn’t, and await whatever public shaming ritual she devises for me when Ellie suddenly stands up, her hand still in Alex’s.
“I’d like to speak to my sister alone if that’s all right.”
Queen Clara, sitting at the head of the table, waves a hand. “Of course,” she says, “as soon as we’re done—”
“We’re done now,” El says, and she sounds every bit like a queen, her chin high, her shoulders back.
The queen actually sits back in her chair a little, clearly stunned by this show of backbone.
So am I, actually, but Ellie just turns her gaze on me and signals for me to get up. Once I do, and walk over to her, she says, “Change into something comfortable and meet me by the servants’ entrance in ten minutes. We’re going for a walk.”
* * *
• • •
And that’s how I find myself just a few minutes later, following my sister up a volcano.
Okay, it’s not an active volcano, and these days Arthur’s Seat is really just a big hill behind Holyrood Palace, a place where people go to eat their lunch on nice days. I was surprised when we just walked out the door, no car, no bodyguards, El in track pants and a T-shirt, her hair in a ponytail, face hidden by giant sunglasses.
I follow her up the rocky path now, trying not to let on just how hard I’m breathing, especially when there are little kids practically frolicking up the hillside in front of us.
The sun is doing its normal thing of sliding in and out of the clouds, making the light shift and change over the green grass and gray rocks. Turning on the path, I look back down at the city, getting smaller beneath us. I can see Holyrood Palace and the Scott Monument, shooting up in the sky, but it suddenly feels very far away. Hard to believe a place like this could exist in the middle of the city. The breeze is strong, smelling like growing things and the distant ocean without a hint of exhaust or the cold smell of stone buildings.
Seeing me stop, El comes to a halt, too.
“I come up here a lot when we’re in Edinburgh,” she tells me, and I nod at her big sunglasses.
“Do you always ditch the bodyguards?”
El flashes a grin, surprising me. The biggest disaster of my trip so far, and she’s smiling at me?
“Whenever I can,” she confesses, and I find myself smiling back.
We don’t say much more as we continue to make our way up, and there’s a fine sheen of sweat on my skin that cools rapidly in the wind. My hair is blowing all over the place, and as we go to sit down on a grassy flat space, El pulls an extra ponytail holder out of her pocket and hands it to me.
I thank her, wrangle my hair, and we sit. Nearby, there’s a guy on a chair playing a cello, and I stare at him, wondering how he managed to haul that thing up here.
Ellie doesn’t turn around but clearly knows what I’m looking at. “He’s here a lot,” she says. “It’s nice.”
The music is nice. It’s also nice to sit here with my sister, just the two of us. We’re quiet, the wind blowing our ponytails, rippling through the grass, filling up all the silent space between us.
“I’m sorry,” Ellie says finally, and I turn to her, surprised.
“What?”
She’s not looking at me, her gaze focused below us. I wonder what she’s thinking, if she’s looking at the city and thinking how pretty the view is, or imagining a day when she’ll be queen of this country.
“I’ve asked you to do so much, Dais,” she says on a sigh. “Go here, go there, don’t do this, don’t do that. Don’t spend time with Seb’s friends, but now spend time with Seb’s friend because it’ll make the queen happy, and that’s all I care about these days.”
She turns to me then, golden ponytail brushing her shoulder. “I’ve been the worst big sister ever. I’m very aware of that.”
“I saw a thing on the true crime channel about a girl who tried to kill her younger sister with a blender,” I tell her, shrugging. “You have competition, is my point.”
El laughs at that, and then, shocking me, she leans over and rests her head on my shoulder. “It’s all just so mad. I love Alex so much. I do.”
“I know you do,” I tell her, laying my cheek on her sun-warmed hair.
“But everything that comes with him scares the shit out of me,” she says. “And I feel like two different people all the time. Maybe even three. I want to be your sister, and Mom and Dad’s daughter, and just . . . me. But I want to be Alex’s wife, too. And being Alex’s wife means being a princess.”
“A duchess, technically, settle down.”
She laughs again, then lifts her head to look at me. I can’t see her eyes behind her glasses, but I feel her gaze on me.
“I’m trying so hard to be everything to everyone that I feel like I’m actually screwing it up. I haven’t been a good sister to you, I basically told Mom and Dad they embarrass me, and Alex . . .” She heaves a sigh. “I didn’t tell him about Seb because I thought it would upset him.”
“With good reason,” I remind her. “Alex punched Seb in the face.”
A sudden smile splits her face. “He did, didn’t he? So unlike Alex,” she muses, turning her gaze back to the city. “It was hot.”
“Okay, gross,” I laugh, nudging her with my elbow.
She nudges back, and a brief silence falls again. I wonder if we’re done when she says, “I have to do this. Be this. And for me, the gains outweigh the losses. But you didn’t choose this, Dais, and I never should’ve made you play along with any of it. I have Glynnis for that, and the Flisses and the Poppys of the world, but I just . . . I want you to be you. I like you. And I’ve missed you, Daisy.”
It’s not the most eloquent of speeches, but it still makes my throat go tight, and I nearly shove her with a “Shut up” just to shove down any inconvenient sisterly feelings.
Instead, I put my arm around her. “I love you, El,” I tell her, and she gives a slightly watery laugh.
“Now who’s being gross?”
But she puts her arm around my waist, and we sit up there on top of the world, watching the city for a long time.
* * *
• • •
When we get back to the palace, Alex is waiting for us, his face relaxing in a grin when he sees Ellie, and honestly, I’m not even that grossed out when they kiss. I’m just relieved.
When they part, Alex turns to me and reaches out to ruffle my hair. “At least we made your last week here an exciting one,” he says, and I smile back, stepping back from his hand.
“I definitely feel very royal now that I’ve witnessed punching and paparazzi,” I reply, then look around.
“Is Seb still here?” I ask, and Alex’s grin fades.
“No, I think he’s nursing his wounds and his pride at his club with the rest of his friends.”
That makes sense, and I’m glad I’m not going to have to run the risk of bumping into him for a little bit.
And then, from behind Alex, I see Miles coming down the back stairs, hands in his pockets.
Glancing over his shoulder, Alex clears his throat and takes Ellie’s hand. “We’ll let you two chat, shall we?”
Ellie gives my arm a last squeeze, and then she and Alex are gone, heading down the narrow hall off the main foyer, leaving me and Miles standing there.
“Are you getting beheaded?” I ask him, and he laughs, shaking his head.
“No, so far my neck seems to be in the clear,” he says as he reaches up to loosen his tie. He’s still smiling, but I can see how tense his shoulders are, and I remember
that for all the joking, Miles could be in real trouble with the royal family here. His apartment, his school, even medical stuff . . . that’s all been on the Baird family dime, and what if this one stupid thing with me today put all that at risk?
It’s not worth it. I’m not worth it.
Ellie and I have made things right, so there’s really only one thing left to do here.
“Look, Miles,” I say, stepping back from him. “I really appreciate what you did today. Standing up for me, not letting Glynnis use . . . whatever this is.” I gesture between the two of us. “Oh, and also the kiss, that part was definitely A-plus, well done, you,” I add, giving him a thumbs-up.
The tips of his ears turn pink, and a dimple appears in one cheek as he tries not to smile, which is really very unfair right now.
Which is why I have to rip this Band-Aid off, and fast.
“But it’s not like there’s any chance of this actually going anywhere.”
That hurts to say more than I thought it would, and when he looks up at me, his brows drawn together over those green eyes, I feel like something is squeezing my chest.
“I’m going back to America and regular high school,” I hurry on. “And you’re going to, I don’t know, some university where people wear striped ties and spit at poor people.”
“That place actually rejected me,” Miles says, and I give a slightly forced laugh, shaking my head.
“Ugh, don’t do that,” I say. “Don’t be funny when I’m trying to—”
What am I trying to do? Break up with him? We were never really a couple, and one kiss doesn’t change that.
I move closer and lift my face, brushing the quickest of kisses on his cheek. Just over his shoulder, I can see the bust of one of Alex’s ancestors, and in the distance, I hear the steady tick-tick of the grandfather clock in the hall.
“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.
My stomach drops, and my knees are weak, everything inside me suddenly feeling liquidy and queasy, and I nearly turn and bolt out of the store.
But Dad stops me. “Now wait just a tick,” he says, and ambles up to the stand.
“Dad,” I say, trying to keep my voice low, but there’s a clear edge of desperation to it.
Dad either doesn’t hear it or chooses to ignore it. “Now then,” he says, flipping through the pages, “is any of this true?”
It’s not what I’d been expecting, so I only stare at him, confused, and shake my head.
“None of this happened, then? Prince Sebastian was not desperately in love with you, only to lose you to his best friend?”
Now my face is
turning red, and I’m glad the store is fairly empty. “No,” I say in a whisper. “You know that.”
“I do,” Dad agrees. “Well, most of it. Not sure how much I really want to know about all this if I’m being honest. Your mum knows the truth. Ellie does. Isabel does, I’m sure.”
I tug at the hem of my T-shirt. “Still not sure where you’re going with this, Dad.”
He puts the magazine back on the rack, then places both his hands on my shoulders, looking into my eyes. “Is there anyone at all, anyone who matters to you, who thinks any of these stories are true?”
The Sur-N-Sav is fairly quiet except for “Lost in Love” playing over the speakers and the occasional beeping of the scan belt and the squeaking of wheels on the carts. And the answer to Dad’s question suddenly seems so easy.
“No,” I say. “There isn’t.”
Dad shrugs his bony shoulders. “Then there you have it.” Jerking his head back toward the magazines, he adds, “This is a bonkers world your sister has entered, and you can’t stay out of it because she’s family. Even when you’re here, even when things seem normal, they never really will be. But you”—he squeezes my arms slightly—“you can stay as normal as you want, my Daisy Mae. So long as you remember that all that matters is the truth as you know it, and as the ones who love you know it.”
I’m suddenly really afraid I’m going to start crying in the middle of the Sur-N-Sav, and then I may never get any of my dignity back. “Thanks, Dad,” I manage, and he pulls me in for a quick hug.
I leave that afternoon, my green apron back in my hand, and as we make our way out of the store, I don’t stop to look at the magazines even once.
* * *
• • •
Two weeks later, I’m wearing that apron, at my usual register, and while there are still two magazines with my face and name on the cover, I’m not quite the hot story I was. Luckily for me, Seb got caught making out with some model at a party. Normally, that would’ve just been, like, a Thursday for Seb, but this particular supermodel was dating Declan Shield, and when he went after Seb at a fashion show the next week, there was an all-out brawl. “PRINCE AND ROCK STAR BRAWL OVER VICTORIA’S SECRET ANGEL” beats whatever I had going on by a mile.