Page 71 of Scandal Queen

I couldn’t, couldn’t grip anything.

“It’s a woman who’s lived in Douglas House all her life. Her son, Jacob, he was in your year at school and lived two floors above you.”

The echo of that front door slamming echoed in my head again; my feet pounding in the stairwell.

It had been a climb up the stairs in shame, not down.

“Jacob?” I tried to reach into my memory, trying to push through the wall of black to find anything. Nothing; just black and pain. Destruction and shame. “So this Jacob has realised Daisy’s a royal meal ticket?”

“Leia, Jacob is dead. He was killed in action three years ago.”

I stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“It seems Jacob was just as desperate to leave those flats as you were.”

I couldn’t get any air in my lungs.

“He’s dead?”

“Yes.”

“So we don’t even know if this story is credible? It’s just a mother who’s putting two and two together?”

“It’s a simple DNA test to find out.”

I shook my head and Janine reached back out for my fingers, squeezing them harder than before. “She’s a mother who’s lost her only child. Leia, that’s a story even you should understand.”

I shook my head and grabbed my bag, standing from the chair on trembling legs.

“How long have you known about this, Janine?”

She hesitated but then met my eye. “Since you and Oliver came back from Cornwall. I’ve been trying to piece it all together, but then last week I realised I needed more help.”

“That’s been weeks. You could have told me. I would done something.”

“What would you have done?”

“I would have never let myself go to the palace. I would never have pretended to be anything other than I’m not.”

“Leia…”

I turned, unable to look my old friend in the eye.

Seventeen

“Leia, you have to get ready.” Vanessa wrung her hands as she hovered in the bedroom doorway. Daisy and I had the duvet pulled up to our chins while Cinderella played out on the television.

I couldn’t let go of Daisy. My hugs had been too tight since I’d collected her from school. The press, still there, had waved, expecting me to talk to them like I’d started to do, my theory being if I gave them something then they would stop looking for it.

All that theory had disintegrated into dust.

I’d got out of the car leaving Isabella inside and hid behind the broad shoulders of the bodyguard, unable to ignore the sinking feeling of doom in my stomach. With every call of my name it felt more and more like the press knew my story, knew my deepest darkest truths.

Jacob.

Funny I should find out his name right now. All these years of not knowing, and then suddenly it’s there, a truth that can’t be ignored. Actions that I took that have consequences.

Janine.