My stomach pitches uncomfortably. “Maybe Reggie will change his mind.”
“Did Henry tell you about our dad?” he asks abruptly.
I sit back in surprise. “No. Why?”
“Do you hear that?” He cocks his head to the side. I hold my breath, but all I hear is rushing water. Theo stands and sticks out his hand to help me up.
I’m too tired to move. “Tell me about your dad, Theo,” I say softly.
He rolls his shoulders and shakes out his hands, suddenly skittish. “I need to work up to that.”
I let him pull me to my feet. “Then start with Henry. Why are you two always competing?”
He glowers into the distance, his hands on his hips. “It’s a boring story,” he warns.
“Try me.”
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “It’s just jealousy. It drives me mad that he wasn’t the heir when he shouldhave been. You don’t seehimout here throwing a wobbly in the forest.”
I recognize his self-deprecating tone and give him a light shove. “Cut yourself some slack. He’s never been under the pressure you have.”
“He would have handled it better.” His voice is strangled with emotion. “If he got the chance to be the monarch, he’d make Mum proud in the way I never could.”
“And what about your dad?” I prompt.
He cuts me a sideways glance. “While we’re walking,” he says, and that’s when I realize this is a conversation that he needs to distract himself from. He won’t be able to talk about it unless we’re also doing something else. If this is what it takes, we’ll walk all night.
We follow the stream to higher ground. The air is wet with mist, drops of it gathering on thick moss and glossy leaves. The trees here are denser than ever, and as we scramble over a fallen trunk, I can’t help but think this forest feels prehistoric; it’s astounding that the natural environment is still so lush and untouched, even on an inhabited island.
We walk for long enough that I wonder if Theo is ever going to tell me his story. “Rock here, be careful,” he says, pointing to a loose rock a step ahead of us. His voice is scratchy with emotion or thirst or disuse, but he continues. “Royal marriages are historically fucked up.”
A sharp laugh escapes me, and I clap my hand over my mouth. “Whatever happened to ‘Once upon a time’?”
“Not that kind of story,” he says. “Rock.” He grabs my hand and helps me over the obstacle.
“Sorry. It’s just—you weren’t this cynical about love when we—” I bite my lip as my cheeks heat. I almost said “when wegot married.” In our wedding vows, he said we were fate. He made me want to believe in it too. “When we first met,” I finish.
“Who’s talking about love?” he says wryly. “And anyway, I didn’t know then what I know now.”
“Which is what?”
“I’m getting there. Duck.” He holds a tree branch up so I can duck underneath it. “First, you must understand that royal marriages are usually balls-up, and Mum and Dad’s was no exception. When you add political pressures and media scrutiny on top of regular old relationship rubbish, it’s a disaster waiting to happen.”
“Is that what happened to your parents?”
“My dad came from a wealthy family that everyone approved of, and he and my mum loved each other in the beginning. That’s what they told us, anyway. But my mum was the heir, and there was so much attention and pressure on them to have a bunch of babies and make it work. Add that on top of my dad’s depression and the constant cheating rumors, and it was never going to have a happy ending.”
I slip on a muddy rock. Theo reaches for my waist, his hands spanning my hips. I swallow as his gaze sweeps across my face. “I thought he got sick.”
“He did. But not in the way people assume.” There’s something achingly stoic in his tone that tells me this story is going to break my heart.
“They decided to separate. The news was leaked to the press, and the media scrutiny was relentless: paparazzi stalking Dad, articles about what he did wrong, what she did wrong, which kids would stay with which parent, body-language experts dissecting every public appearance they’d ever made. The press hounded him relentlessly and dragged fifteen years’ worth ofspeculation onto the front page of the tabloids. It was utterly unsurvivable.” He clears the emotion from his throat. “He died by suicide a few weeks later, though the Firm covered it up and blamed his death on other health problems.”
My stomach plummets. I reach for Theo’s hand. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
“Just wait!” Theo says, like he’s building to the best part in a campfire story. “There’s more trauma coming.” He places his lower hand on my back to steady me. “When my mum died, I got access to a bunch of her stuff: documents and emails and everything. I was combing through it all, looking for information from that time, and would you believe that everything came from her? The divorce story, the hit pieces on my dad, all of it.”
My mouth falls open as a chill seeps into my bones. Yesterday I was lying on a speeding car floor, being chased by cameras. I can still feel the way my heart stopped. I’d never felt less human. “Why would she do that?”
