Page 73 of Royal Fling
“Drink,” he said.
“What the hell is that gonna do? He’ll need something stronger,” Leo said, only to get a scolding look from Dad.
I sat down at the head of the table and placed the cup down in front of me.
“There are pictures of you and a certain prince kissing all over the internet,” Leo said, turning to me as I took another sip of the coffee.
The hot liquid scorched my throat. My jaw dropped open, and the gulp I’d taken spilled out in front of me.
“Shit,” I said.
I wiped my chin, staring at Leo. Dawson got me a dishtowel, and I wiped the mess I’d made on the table.
“What are you talking about?” I finally said.
“There are pictures of you and August on a boat at nighttime kissing,” Dad said, and I turned to him.
“No.”
“I'm afraid so,” he confirmed.
Crap.
“How did this happen? I thought he had everything covered,” I said, more to myself than the others.
“I don't know that, but it’s not pretty,” Dad said.
“What do you mean it's not pretty? What are they saying about me?”
“Well, the good news is that they don't know who you are. Yet,” Dawson chimed in.
“The bad news,” Leo added, “is that because you're my brother, they'll probably find out soon.”
“And that doesn’t take into account how thorough those hounds are,” Dawson said.
“Wow, okay. That is a hell of a wake-up call,” I told them and stared at my hands trying to figure out what had happened.
How had this gotten out? What happened to the double that was supposed to be a diversion? My head was spinning, and not in the good way.
“Can I have my phone, please?” I asked.
Dawson hesitated.
“Please. I need to see what they're writing about me. This is important. I could lose my job, my privacy…”
I could lose August.
He gave me my phone, and I unlocked it to a frenzy of text messages from everyone back home.
I took a deep breath and jumped onto Google. It didn’t take me long to find the articles. They were all right there. One after the other as if I was the president of the United States. So many articles in so little time.
Royal Prince? More like Queer Prince.
The Prince and the Pauper.
Centuries old blue blood line marred by anonymous black man.
Anonymous gold digger seen kissing up to Elysian royalty.
