Page 1 of The Spare

Prologue

SELENA: NINE YEARS AGO

Two brothers, both alike in dignity⁠—

Actually, that’s completely inaccurate.

The de Vere brothers may be alike in many ways—both tall, lithe, athletic—but in dignity, they most certainly are not.

Take right now, for example. I’m sitting courtside at the sun-drenched semi-finals of the inaugural Wentworth Cup at Belvedere, my eyes concealed behind dark shades as I watch Xavier and Benedict thrash it out. Their form is excellent, but Xavier is laser-focused on every point, while Benedict is playing for the crowd: feinting the wrong way before saving shots, heckling his brother, and generally being a pain in the arse.

The crowd is lapping both of them up, which, given it consists mainly of girls my age, is unsurprising. (The boys are getting stuck in in the Pimms tent across the lawn.) Technically, only one de Vere brother is on the market. Last night, at his twenty-first birthday party, Xavier put his family’s five-carat flawless diamond on my finger in front of hundreds of people, but really, we’ve been engaged for as long I can remember. I’ve spent my whole life with the understanding that we’d marry at some point: a match concocted by our mothers and shaken on by our fathers before we were even potty trained.

We won’t actually tie the knot for years. We’re not even boyfriend and girlfriend, a fact that means, I suppose, that Xavier is still fair game for any girl here in the near term—as long as she’s not expecting a ring on her finger at the end. We decided long ago that we’d both remain free agents until the time came to walk down the aisle.

He’s the kind of guy every teenage girl should want a poster of on her wall: dark-haired and green-eyed, dutiful to a fault, and, as the Duke and Duchess of Oxford’s firstborn son, heir to the title as well as to the monstrous, sprawling De Vere Estate. He is the ultimate end game, one of the most eligible bachelors in the UK, and certainly the most handsome.

Benedict, however, is another story.

Like his brother, he’s in tennis whites.

Like his brother’s, they offset his gorgeous tan perfectly and offer the onlookers the occasional sliver of flat stomach when he serves.

Unlike his brother’s, Benedict’s whites resemble the Before example in a laundry detergent ad.

I’ve been doing everything with my left hand today: surprisingly difficult yet endlessly rewarding. The diamond is a satellite dish. I can feel the envy emanating off the other girls like lethal infrared beams. Being low-key promised to someone is one thing; having him present you with a perfect family diamond in front of three hundred people on the lawn of his unimpeachable ancestral pad is quite another. The future is locked and loaded, our fates now formally entwined. On paper, Xavier and I make the perfect power couple: a dynastic union of dreams.

I got him.

It’s supremely uncomfortable, then, that, as I tuck my flawlessly blow-dried hair behind my ear—with my left hand, naturally—I find myself unable to tear my eyes off the infantile antics of his younger brother.

Benedict.

The spare to Xavier’s heir.

CHAPTER 1

Selena

‘The problem with you, Selena,’ an old housemistress of mine remarked when I was in the Sixth Form, ‘is that you’re exceptionally good at going after what you think you want and exceptionally bad at understanding how that differs from what you actually want.’

To this day, I have no earthly clue what she meant. What you want is what you want. It’s not rocket science. I’ve always been focused. Always had my eye on the prize. And I’ve been lucky enough that the prizes up for grabs have been dazzling. Just dazzling.

No one could deny that.

Not for me the confusion and frustration of being unable to figure out my path in life. My path has been set for me my entire life, and boy, does that focus the mind.

The prizes? There are just two. But they’re biggies.

A seat at the table, a proper seat, where my family’s legacy fashion empire, Wentworth, is concerned.

Check.

I’ve spearheaded the launch of Wentworth Home, and I now run that entire division. I understand the power of taking an aspiration, a way of life, beyond clothing and soft luxury to a full-wattage lifestyle brand, and that’s what I’ve done here. It’s currently the growth powerhouse behind the company, and its margins are a hell of a lot healthier than on the fashion side, that’s for sure.

But I digress. Because the second prize is the really special one: the one that will take me—and my family’s brand—stratospheric, and that’s marriage into the de Vere family. In six days, I’ll marry Xavier in a New Year’s Eve wedding at Christchurch Cathedral, Oxford, and cement my position as part of one of the pre-eminent families in the UK. The Dukes of Oxford have been nobility in this country for nine centuries. When Xavier’s father succumbs to the advanced lung cancer from which he’s suffering—something that’s as certain as it is tragic and premature—the baton will pass once again.

Xavier and I will become the Duke and Duchess of Oxford, bringing the cachet that only the bluest of blood can bring to a brand that’s a mere three generations old.