Groaning, I slowly sit up and look around the room with bleary eyes. In the limited moments I managed to sleep last night, I dreamed I was walking the streets of Invem after my coronation. Someone shouted at me from the cheering crowd, telling me that I was not wanted, and Markham Grimstad was waiting for me a few steps ahead, his hand outstretched to steal the crown from my head.
Needless to say, it was not a pleasant dream, and I am exhausted.
Sighing, I untangle myself from my covers and cross the room to where the tea tray waits for me along with a tablet with the day’s newspaper. As I pour a cup of tea, I scan the front page without taking in the meaning of any of the words. The headline says something about pretense and manipulation and—
I nearly drop the kettle when I see my name. Suddenly alert, I read the headline again.
Are Pretense and Manipulation the New Normal for Freya Alverra?
Before I can read more than the first couple of paragraphs, which highlight my apparent deception in a pub in Invem, my phone lights up with a call where it waits next to the tea tray. I expect to see Derek’s name, but it is Cole calling me.
“It is late,” I say when I connect the call.
Cole chuckles. “For you it’s early.” With nine hours of difference between Candora and Los Angeles, our schedules do not easily allow forphone calls. “Have you looked at any of your texts?”
“As you said, it is early.” Though, I would guess my friends have heard of my misadventure. With their lives so often in the public eye, they have learned to pay attention to the gossip. “I imagine you are not calling for a happy reason.”
“Hot Scoopis in Candora.”
I let out a curse and press my phone to my chest, my eyes shut tight.Hollywood Hot Scoop, an absolutely atrocious tabloid in the States, has done their very best to ruin the lives of my friends over the last few years. They have been particularly vicious in the past year, since the day they heavily targeted Liam after he had an altercation with someone at one of his concerts. I have been a topic of interest because of my relationships with so many high profile celebrities, but I had hoped I would be free from the gossip while here at home.
“What did they say?” I ask, almost too afraid to learn the answer.
Cole hums in clear debate with himself. “Ignorance can be bliss, Peach.” His warning, combined with the nickname Liam gave me when we met a few years ago, reminds me how it was only a few months ago when Cole and his girlfriend, Carissa, were the website’s primary targets. Before that it was Bonnie and her fiancé, Hank. The tabloid can be as cruel as they are fictitious in their claims.
“I will read it regardless,” I tell Cole. “Give me a summary to prepare me.”
“They found out your new bodyguard is American.”
“Vitte.” I had hoped to avoid that knowledge getting out.
“They claim you were attacked by a gang of thugs.” He says this bit with a tone that suggests he is rolling his eyes.
I do the same. “It was only one man.”
“What? You were really attacked? Freya!”
His concern brings some much-needed warmth to my chest, but I do not need him to worry about me from afar when his focus should be on his girlfriend. “It is my job to worry about you,” I say. “Not the other way around.”
“That’s not how family works, Peach.”
“I am fine. Elliot was there. He kept me safe.”
I owe my bodyguard an apology. In the light of day and away from the moment, I can see why my plan was foolish. It is clear the people are morethan simply frustrated. They were outraged when they realized I was in their space without their knowledge.
“Is Elliot going to last longer than the others?” Cole asks. There is hesitation in his question, and I wish this was a video call so I could see his face. Does he think me ridiculous for sending so many bodyguards away?
Perhaps the problem was not the bodyguards. MaybeHollywood Hot Scoopwas right, and I am the reason my protection agents did not stay long in their positions.
“I do not know,” I say honestly. “I have a difficult time trusting, and he is frustrating.”
“But he’s a friend of Derek’s, right? That has to count for something.”
I wonder why Derek does not tell the others that Elliot is his cousin, but now is not the time to contemplate my friend’s private life. Right now, I need to find Elliot and apologize for my conduct last night.
“Cole, you know I am always happy to talk to you.”
He chuckles. “But you’re busy. I know. Carissa says hi.”
