She hated the pronoun we. But he was right. She and the other nine girls in the show agreed to the modified premise.
“I knew this would haunt me sooner or later.”
“Again, I’m sorry. But I was trying to make something happen for us. What do you want from me? I can’t undo it.”
Her tears pooled on the worn leather seat. “I want my dignity, Matt. Give me back my dignity.”
“Yeah, that’d be great if I took it. Truth is, Gemma, you gave it away. We all gave away our dignity. If you want it back, go get it.”
“Too late for that, isn’t it?”
“As a matter of fact, no. Let this be my final advice to you. Don’t let this get you down. Beat it, Gemma. Don’t let it beat you.”
She sat up and dried her eyes. “Thanks, Matt. I mean it.”
At the airport, she sat in a corner and searched for a flight back to Nashville. When nothing popped up, she got in the long line up to the ticket counter. From her travel pack, her phone pinged and dinged, but she refused to answer.
The ticket agent informed her she could not exchange her Sunday morning first-class ticket for another flight. Even more joyous, there were no seats on a Nashville flight until tomorrow. But if she wanted, she could purchase the only remaining seat on a flight to New York.
Last row. Middle seat.
Gemma slapped down her credit card. “I also need the first flight to Nashville.” The ticket agent typed and frowned, sighed, then typed and frowned again.
Maybe she was paranoid, but she kept feeling the heat of second glances. Heard the mumbling of “on the internet.”
After aneternity, the agent announced Gemma was booked through to Nashville. For two-thousand-fifty-one dollars and sixty-three cents.
Gemma breathed a sigh of relief. Best two grand she’d ever spend.
She arrived at her gate hungry and on the verge of tears. No, not tears. Meltdown. The reality of it all began to anchor in. A familiar panic stirred but she was too weary, too angry, too sad to give in to it.
Grabbing a sandwich and chips, she returned to her gate and waited to board. Once she was in the air, she’d have eight hours to work on her explanation, find some sense of the girl she was yesterday, before the video shocked the world. And tell herself over and over she was not the girl in that dark video anymore.
She was the girl from the Heart of God. The girl full of light.
Chapter Twenty-six
John
August twenty-first. How things had changed since he buried his wife a year ago. John stood alone on the lush, green plot of ground of the Royal Memorial Garden where his wife would be remembered forever.
The granite headstone had been polished to a sheen, and when a slice of evening sun broke through the summer clouds, John walked on a lighted path.
Placing the final bronze wreath on the hook of an iron pole, he said a few words in private. The roto surrounded him, their cameras whirring and flashing. Boom handlers stretched their microphones to catch one word, any word, of his memorial sentiments.
His parents waited behind him in dark attire and solemn expressions. Holland’s parents, Lord and Lady Cunningham, wereunavailable.
Cletus was out on bail, now campaigning he’d been framed. John anticipated he’d implicated Holland, his own daughter, to maintain his innocence.
A quartet of trumpeters began playing Lauchtenland’s national anthem, and John knelt down to place his hand over her name.
Her Royal Highness, Princess Holland Caroline, House of Blue
“I wish you were here to tell me what happened. Why did you lie to me about the diamond? I wish you were here because that was our plan.”
The trumpeters moved from the anthem to an old Lauchtenland hymn. John stood. Time to begin again.
Holland was gone. Gemma also. At least now he understood why she refused to talk about her Hollywood career. Why she said they would never be more than friends.
