Page 23 of Mercury Rising

“Telling them my father caused your miscarriage is kind of personal.”

“And bloody true. I don’t want to talk about all that. What are you going to do to make things better?”

Mercury settled in his chair. “Just be myself. Maybe an edited version. It is making me think about things though.”

“Such as?”

“The whole influencing thing. It’s all a bit shallow, isn’t it?”

“Does it have to be?”

That was the thing Mercury had been wrestling with. He had this platform that he’d built from scratch.

Am I really using it to the best of my abilities?

“Who knows.”

“Anyway, Mitzi in the office says you haven’t posted since the incident. If you don’t sort yourself out, this will be a moot point. Then what will you do?”

Of course, Madeline wouldn’t do her own social media. She struggled to connect a call. Mitzi covered all that for her. She had taught Mercury everything she knew when he’d decided to take the plunge.

“Don’t. You sound like Bobby.”

“I know. He called.”

“Fucking hell.”

A bright blue ball sailed over the fence and hit the parasol, momentarily bathing Madeline in sunlight and causing her to screech like the Wicked Witch of the West when it started to rain.

Mercury grabbed the offending item.

“Sorry,” Simon shouted over.

“Not a problem,” Mercury replied. “Sounds like fun over there.”

“Come and join us.”

Mercury had almost declined when he really thought about it. Why shouldn’t he?

“You’re on.”

He threw the ball over and grabbed his T-shirt from the lounger.

“Not so fast,” Madeline said, taking hold of his arm as soon as he came in range. “We were having a conversation.”

“Fine. I’ll do a post today. Although people will probably ignore it. They’ll be sick of me now.”

“Darling, don’t say that.”

“Of course, if a loving family member were to appear in it…well, that might get the engagement soaring.”

Madeline scowled. “You strike a hard bargain.”

“Like mother, like son.”

“Fine but I’m keeping my sunglasses on. I’m having a makeup-free day to indulge my pores.”

Mercury positioned his phone against the bottle of champagne Madeline was also treating her bloodstream to. Once satisfied, he snuggled against his mother and pressed Record.