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Feeling a little more on solid ground, I nod. “I’ll let you know if anything else comes up.”

“Thanks, Ver.” She squeezes my arm. “We should get out there, huh?”

But the thought makes my stomach lurch as I watch the door, imagining them all on the other side of it. Their cutting stares. Their acerbic whispers. “They all hate me now.”

Lavinia steps forward, jaw tight. “They don’t hate you. They just don’t understand. And if we’re being perfectly honest here, a few of them are probably jealous.”

I roll my eyes. “Like Kathleen?”

Lavinia smirks. “Definitely, Kathleen. She’s super pissed she’s not you.” We both laugh and her hand drops to mine, squeezing. “I’m going to ask one more time. Are you sure you’re okay?”

A sob, along with every detail of the last week, threatens to rip from my throat, but I hold it back. This is my burden, not hers. “Positive.”

Her responding grin is dimmed, but impossibly more kind. “Then let’s go prove to everyone you’ve got what it takes to be a Royal. Teflon skin and fantastic hair.”

Dinner is…different.

It’s not just Danner lurking in the back of the room like a watchful gargoyle, but the sense of being noticed so acutely. It’s attention that never came my way when I was Verity Sinclaire, Mama B’s daughter.

“Take my chair,” Porterfield says, hopping up as Lavinia ushers us to the table where she and the Dukes sit. He almost falls, tripping over his feet, but manages to stay upright and hold the chair out.

Blushing, I insist, “You don’t have to do that.” The whole gesture only makes everyone look at me harder. “It’s not like I’m—” I stop, because the word I’m about to say is ‘royalty,’ and well…

“Take the seat, Verity,” Nick announces, cutting straight through my nerves. “Donating that seat to you may be the closest he’ll ever get to a fine ass. That way he can brag about it for the rest of his life.”

“Like that time he got you with a right hook.” Sy snorts, sipping a beer.

Nick slides a dark glower his way. “That was a sucker punch. Little Bird had just walked in the gym in those tiny booty shorts that make the blood stop going to my head.”

“Your big head,” Remy notes, pointing his marker at Nick’s face.

Nick stands, grabbing his crotch. “You want to compare again, who has the biggest head?”

“No!” Lav shouts, slamming her hands on the table. “Onetime I let you have a competition, forscientific reasons, and we have to talk about it for the rest ofyourlives.” She winks at me and whispers. “It’s idiotic. Everyone in Forsyth knows who has the biggest cock, but they still have to compete over everything.”

My mother’s voice cuts through the echoey room. “Dinner’s ready!”

I glance up at her, but she’s already headed back to her office.

And she stays there.

For the whole dinner.

I keep anxiously waiting for her, fidgeting, my eyes constantly flicking to her empty seat, but she never comes. I only begin to relax after the guys strike up a discussion concerning tomorrow’s Friday Night Fury. They shout above each other, good-naturedly arguing about the odds for every matchup, and I feel myself reluctantly slipping into the comforting familiarity of it all. I glance at Lav and she rolls her eyes, clearly as bored as I am.

I haven’t missed a Friday Night Fury in years.

Tomorrow, I will.

Dinner is good, and it’s hard to believe that five days of cold, solitary dinners at the Purple Palace have made me forget just how much I love this. The laughter. The warmth. The way Sy chucks a garlic knot at Porterfield’s head, only for Porterfield to snatch it right out of the air with his teeth, causing a raucous round of celebration that’s impossible not to laugh along with.

Later, when I’m in that big empty bed, alone and grateful for it, I’ll probably laugh snidely at the idea, but I feel it in my bones.

It’s healing me.

The torn, wretched thing in my chest clutches onto the unabashedlifeof it all and doesn’t let go. Slowly, I feel whatever poison has tangled itself around my heart loosen, and by the time the big plate of brownies is being passed around, I feel almost like my old self.

“Here,” I say, holding out my hand for Porterfield’s plate. “I’ll clean this up.”