“Yes, of course I’ll marry you. Yes!”
In that moment, they were the only two in the world. No media. No rules. No traditions. No two-hundred-year-old laws. No expectations. No aristocratic loyalties on either side of the ocean. No pressure. No deployment. No war. No obligations.
They were free to follow their hearts. And so they did.
She glanced at the photo, staring for another moment. The face smiling at her from the photo paper was hers. But the emotion ofthatCorina was a lifetime away fromthisCorina.
And her prince? He was more handsome than ever, confident and full of swagger, his physique rugby-muscled and disciplined.
But that was on the outside. He still carried pain in his eyes. The same look she saw when she flew to Brighton that New Year’s Eve.
“What happened in Torkham, Stephen?”
His crystal blues were dull, lacking life and merriment. Something ate at him deep down. But instead of telling her what it was, he ended their marriage.
Enough. Memory lane was fraught with peril. Returning the picture to the envelope, Corina spied the ferry tickets lodged in the bottom. They’d barely made the last boat to Hessenberg, their feet landing on the deck just as the vessel was about to pull away from the dock.
Laughing, they tripped their way to an inner cabin.
“Are we doing this?”
“We’re doing this.”
“Are you sure, really sure? I can wait—”
His lips covered hers, stealing her breath and her confession. “Corina, I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you. Walking across campus.”
She pressed her hand against his chest. “And I didn’t give you the time of day.”
What was she to do with her unrequited love? The man wanted an annulment.
Corina stuffed the envelope back into the secret compartment of the wardrobe and slammed the door shut. When and if she ever met a man to marry—should God be so kind to her—she’d find the courage to toss that envelope, with all of its treasures, into the river.
SIX
Gigi
Even when she was a girl running barefoot through the hills of her Blue Ridge, Georgia, home, Gigi Beaumont had a nose for news.
She’d collect all the best gossip by sneaking around the wizened mountain women—who had a knack for telling a yarn or two—as they talked in the Mast General or strolled the town square. Then she wrote their stories and mimeographed them on the machine she found in the church basement, producing her first newspaper at the mature age of ten.
When Mama read it, whoa doggies, she gave Gigi a walloping for the ages on account of what she printed about the mayor’s wife. But when it turned out to be true—an affair with the sheriff—Mama became her chief distributor and fact finder.
Forty-six years later, she still crawled around behind the storytellers and gossips, hoping for the scoop. The scandalous story that would turn the world on its ear.
Mercy knows, Beaumont Media needed a break. A big one. Hiring Mark Johnson was just one stealth move to reignite her newspaper’s faltering brand.
Twenty years ago, she was a pioneer in the online news game.
Fifteen years ago, she was the lead dog in the ever-growing pack of Internet news outlets.
Ten years ago, the bigger, old print dogs jumped off the porch with the power and might of their long traditions and stocked bank accounts and edged past her.
Last year, her books ran with red ink.
She was failing. Losing. A place she’d never been in all her adult life. Things were so bad she’d almost,almost, prayed this morning as she showered, dreading the morning meeting with her CFO.
What she needed was a scoop. A big story. Get her back on top in the reality, gossip news business. That’s where Corina was worth her heiress weight in gold.
