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I should have done a background check on her.
I should have asked how she was able to keep supporting herself while she wasn’t working as a stripper. She couldn’t have had that much saved up.
I should have wondered how she was able to pull up some detailed searches on my father and mother. It never occurred to me that she had inside access as a journalist.
I should have realized that her sources on her fucking gossip column were none other than herself.
I’m a fucking fool, mate.
I stare at the bars to the holding cell.
This is where I belong.
>
Alicia
“Darling, are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Mom asks me as I get ready to leave One57. The King is standing next to her, a grave expression on his face.
It’s several hours after Derrick was taken away in handcuffs and I’ve just spent the entire time crying in my mother’s lap as the King and her have tried to calm me down.
I went through everything. How I jumped at the opportunity to teach Prince Derrick Blaine a lesson. How Mike helped me set up a secret identity. How this was supposed to only be a few articles before the DA took action and should have been over by now. But then how my apartment got broken into, Derrick saved me from Jake, and I finally gave into the fact that I had fallen in love with him.
“Oh, dear, you were in love with him even before you left St. Livy,” Mom told me towards the end.
I blush now thinking back to a few hours ago when I had looked at her with confusion when she said that to me.
She had only nodded her head and looked to the King with a slight smile.
“You were always so upset with him and he was always tormenting you that the King and I had several discussions after work,” she told me. “We got to know each other and that’s actually what started Leo and I on this journey we’re on together as well.”
I didn’t know what to say then and I don't know what to say now, but Mom continues, “When the King and I talked, we both found out that out of everyone both of you were always the ones that were secretly upset at each other. He thought you ignored him and you thought he tormented you.”
“It was pretty obvious it was love,” the King chimes in.
I smile, thinking of the two of them. At least Derrick and I were able to make someone happy.
“Are you sure you want to go back to your apartment?” the King asks me. “I think it’s perfectly fine for you to stay here.”
My eyes are still red from crying but I shake my head definitively. I can’t stay in Derrick’ place. Not until I get a chance to talk to him. I want to say how sorry I am. I want to apologize. But I don’t know where to start.
Luckily, the King sees my face and I think he understands, because he lays a hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t you worry, lassie,” he says in his off-English accent that I find so irresistible in him. “Derrick will come around, I know it.”
“I hope…” I was going to say more but my heart is literally afraid of hope. I stop myself. My mother comes over to hug me and the King squeezes my shoulder and gives me a friendly smile.
“Listen to me, Alicia,” he says, his eyes twinkling. “No matter what you may or may not have done, you alone brought my son back from a darkness which I helped create by hiding the truth from him. For that at least, I thank you, and pledge to do everything I can to help you.”
Wow. These Blaine men have a way with words. But it makes me feel a bit better. I manage a smile and I give the King a hug, and then I hug and kiss my mother.
They wave as I leave and get into a cab and in ten minutes I’m standing outside my door in the Lower East Side.
I walk in and look around. Derrick had Sam fix everything and put everything back in order so I could Airbnb out the place, but even so, it has an air of sadness as I sit on the couch. I remember how just four months ago I walked through the living room to find Jake and Chrissy in bed together, naked. I barely think of Jake anymore. I’m too busy being Daphne as well as Alicia.
I sit on the couch and sigh. Tears come out all over again. For Derrick, I can’t stop crying. I had the perfect life. But it was built on a lie.
“Those aren’t tears for that asshole Jake, are they?” a voice penetrates me out of my darkness and I look up.
