Page 120 of Wear It Like a Crown

Christ, Charlotte was studying in London. She was twenty-three now. Rosalind was nineteen.Nineteen. She’d been nine when Leo had run, and did she even remember she’d had a brother once? Did she care? What was it their parents had told her?

This wasn’t helping.

Leo unlocked his phone, selected Charlotte’s number from the list and waited for the dial tone. Only then did he realise that it was early still, and as a student, she might not even be?—

“Yes?” a confident, female voice asked. Young, yes. Early twenties could have fitted. Was this…? Maybe. That one word wasn’t nearly enough to tell anything for certain, and Leo felt abruptly out of words.

What had he even wanted to tell her? He hadn’t thought that far.

“I can hear you breathing, you know. Is this a joke?” the girl asked, tone sharpening. “I’ll have you know that if you’re prank calling me, or if you want to sell something?—”

“It’s Leo,” he interrupted.

Vast silence.

“Your brother?” he tried.

“You bloodybastard,” Charlotte hissed. Then she started crying.

Leo’s first thought was that his sister looked like Daenerys inGame of Thrones—the same sweet face, the same white-blonde hair and pale skin, a similar style of dress that left her shoulders bare.

“You look lovely,” were his first words.

Charlotte was silent for a beat, studying him carefully, her eyes narrowed. Around them, life in Hyde Park was moving at a normal pace, tourists and locals strolling through the afternoon sunshine, a squirrel darting across the path. “So do you,” she said eventually, almost reluctantly so. “All grown-up, and, like…” She made a helpless gesture. “Relaxed?”

“Thank you.” Very slowly, Leo reached out, watching her expression and giving her plenty of time to pull away. He felt like someone testing out a weathered wooden footbridge, uncertain whether it would support the weight of a body. While her gaze flickered, she didn’t move back. Then he was drawing her into a hug, holding on until she sagged into it and went weak against him.

“I thought you might be dead,” she whispered, broken, and Leo felt as though the inside of his ribcage had been plated with lead. He’d never imagined—oh God.

“I’m so sorry.” He choked on it. “I thought—didn’t they ever tell you what happened? Mum and Dad? They never?—”

“When do they ever tell us anything that matters?” Straightening out of his embrace, she rubbed at her eyes, smudging mascara. Gently, Leo lifted a hand to wipe it away.

“Point,” he said softly. “So you thought…”

“I didn’tknowwhat to think. All they told us was that you were, like, a failure and had brought shame to our family or some crap like that. That we should be glad you were gone.” Charlotte’s chest rose on a breath. “I wasn’t glad. But I also—how could you justleave? Without a word, and then you never even tried?—”

“Because Ididfeel like a failure,” he cut in. “For a while there… I didn’t think I was the big brother you deserved, and I couldn’t… I was hardly an example.”

“Like I’d have bloody cared.” Her voice cracked and she wiped at her eyes again, angrily, turning her back on him. Leo inhaled around a raw ache.

“I’m so sorry,” he repeated, perfectly inadequate.

“It’s been a decade, and you never once bothered to let us know you were alive. Or how you were doing.”

“I thought about it so often,” he told her, moving close enough to touch her shoulder. “I thought of you girls all the time, but for the first four years, I was just…” Trailing off, he didn’t know how to finish that. Did he really want her to know just how low he’d sunk?

Very soon, the whole world would know his past. Not all of it, but a good portion. He didn’t want her to learn it from the papers.

Gritting his teeth, he counted out a few beats, regular and steady. It took effort to keep his voice even. “I ended up on the streets. I didn’t feel that was the big brother you’d have wanted.”

“Just having a big brother would have been a start,” she snapped back, and then she twisted around to stare at him, eyes wide. “I mean—shit.Leo.”

This time, she was the one who reached out.

They retreated to a corner table in a café shortly after that, Leo assuring her she was invited upon noticing her slightly worried glance at the price list. So it seemed their parents kept her on a financially short leash; it had always been their preferred method of punishment. His suspicions solidified once he’d noticed that her phone background was set to a picture of her kissing a girl.

“Do they know?” he asked, pointing, and she squinted at him before shaking her head.