Page 70 of Scandal
And god, doesn’t that make me a fucking hypocrite? How many women have I slept with, not caring whether I was the first, second, or fifth? As long as we both enjoyed ourselves, who cared?
But with Mercury, I very much care.
For the first time, I don’t want to be just a number. I don’t want to be just her first.
I want to be her bloody last.
“We should probably talk about this interview today,” she says, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Why?”
Her mouth gapes open, then closes, as she stares at me. “When I asked Evie about it, she said, ‘Remember those crazy interviews the royal couples did after they each got engaged? Expect something like that.’”
The blankets slip off her legs, and I’m momentarily distracted by all that bare skin. I still remember what it felt like to have those legs wrapped around my waist, her rubbing up against my?—
“Okay,” I manage to say, turning my gaze toward the dresser.
Clothes. I need clothes.
And a shower.
“Okay?” I hear her scoff. “That’s all you have to say? Asher, this reporter will probably ask us questions we don’t have answers to. Questions like, where did we meet? How long have we been dating? Or even more revealing—what we love most about each other.”
“We’ll be fine.” I shrug.
I turn back to her, watching her stare at me, eyes wide and unblinking. Her arms cross her chest, and she lets out a frustrated sigh. “Okay. If you say so.”
Our interview is scheduled for the early afternoon. I tried to convince my mother to hold it somewhere off-site, like a quaint café or a pub to showcase a local business, but all my requests were firmly denied. “You in a bar is exactly the image we are trying to erase, Asher.”
So it will be held here at Blackstone House, in all its splendor. Mercury and I will be dressed for the occasion, she in a beautiful blue silk dress and me in a steel-gray suit. It’s the perfect place to introduce the world to the happy couple, or so my mother tells me.
As the hours dwindle down to the reporter’s arrival, my apprehension grows.
Mercury and I haven’t spoken since this morning.
Things between us have been strained for over two weeks since that heated moment in the loch, but we’ve managed to keep it cordial and communicative. At no point have we stopped conversing altogether.
Until today. And what a day to start.
Well, you did sort of brush her off this morning…
God, I’m such an idiot.
While I meant my words regarding the interview to sound reassuring—as in,don’t worry, we’ve got this—I realize now, in hindsight, that they may have come across as uncaring and rude, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
I know this interview is important.
Despite my mother’s relentless efforts to rehabilitate my scathing reputation, I couldn’t care less what the rest of the aristocracy thinks of me. I’m inheriting this title whether they see a rock star or an earl, and there’s nothing I can do to change their opinion of me.
But it can make a difference in how the world perceives Mercury.
Right now, she is more or less a blank slate—a mystery. The world knows she’s my manager’s daughter, but beyond that, there is little else known about the woman at my side. And that has sparked quite a flurry of interest online.
The tabloids have done deep dives, trying to find anything they can about her. There are articles about her younger days in which an unnamed source describes her as “shy and forgettable.”
Then there’s the interview with one of her sorority sisters—someone named LuAnn—who claims she is “best friends” with Mercury and that she never heard her mention my name once.
Of course, Mercury has no idea any of this is going on. At the insistence of her family and me, she’s been staying off the internet and social media to protect her mental health.
