Page 33 of Scandal
“Why can’t it be both?”
“It can be,” she agrees. “It should be, but right now, I need to be sure.”
Would she ever be sure after my name is permanently attached to hers?
Christ, I can’t do this to her.
“What do you mean we have to tell my parents?” Merc asks for the second time. I set her down just moments earlier, and she wasted no time before she started asking questions.
So far, I’ve ignored both her attempts, shrugged off my coat, and am currently attempting to start a fire. It’s fucking freezing in here.
“Asher!”
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell her as I start stacking the logs. “I changed my mind.”
“You—” She huffs. “You changed your mind? On what?”
“Just call it a moment of insanity. But the good news is I got us out of the dating thing, so…”
I stare into the soot-black void of the fireplace until, suddenly, I see a pair of feet beside me. The pink toenail polish is cute as hell. Against my better judgment, I let my gaze drift up her bare legs.
Her cheeks instantly turn red. “I feel like I’m missing some context here. Can we back up? Please?”
It’s the please that makes me cave. Not because she asked nicely, but simply because she asked. So many people have demanded things from me over the years—record producers, agents, and now my parents.
Mercury is simply asking, and it feels so fucking good to have someone to talk to that doesn’t have an agenda or something to gain from what I have to say.
I finish lighting the fire, hoping it will warm the chill in the air, and take a seat on the old sofa. Mercury joins me, tucking one foot under her leg.
She’s patient as I take a breath and finally say, “My father is dying.”
Her eyes widen, then soften instantly. Her hand lifts like she’s going to reach for me but decides against it. I feel a twinge of disappointment. “Oh, Asher. I’m so sorry.”
I give a halfhearted shrug.
“Is that what your mom wanted to talk to you about?”
I nod. “Among other things, yes.”
“No wonder you were so quiet afterward. I wish you had told me sooner. I could have faked food poisoning or said I was jet-lagged.”
“It’s okay,” I answer with a hollow laugh. “I’m not sure how to feel about it. I’m still in shock, I guess.”
“That’s understandable.”
“All this talk about duchesses and balls…” I swallow. “It hasn’t been in jest. Turns out they’ve just been preparing me. I’ll be inheriting my father’s title sooner than I realized.”
“But I thought you didn’t want it?”
I just shake my head. “I was a fool to ever think I could walk away from this. There’s a reason why they call the royal family an institution. Nobility is no different. There are rules, and I can’t be the one to break a five-hundred-year-old tradition becauseI didn’t feel like it.”
The gears in her mind seem to be spinning. “But they surely can’t expect you to marry a duchess? That part was just a joke, right?”
“Maybe not a duchess, no. But they do want someone at my side to?—”
“To what?”
“To makeover my image from the photo leak.” And a decade of debauchery.
