Page 128 of Ruthless Prince

I thought that remark would make my mom happy, but the stony look in her eyes didn’tfade.

“Yes, I totally agree,” Dan replied. “But the thing is, a lot of people aren’t able to separate those things. They’re looking at your mom right now and thinking: if her own daughter doesn’t trust her and isn’t on her side, why shouldwetrusther?”

“I never said I don’t trust my mother,” I said, keeping my head held high. “I—”

Jules cut me off. “Sorry, Willow, hold that thought. It’s relevant to our nextquestion.”

I frowned. “Okay.”

“You say you trust yourmother?”

“Yes.”

“Implicitly?”

“Ofcourse.”

“So how would you respond to allegations made to our studio this morning, stating that she may have been involved in President Rutherford’s death? That she engineered his heart attack in order to steal the presidency fromhim?”

Mom’s eyes widened, and her lips parted. She looked like she was about to have a heart attack herself. Jared giggled, obviously thinking it was some sort ofjoke.

“That’s ridiculous,” I said to Jules, heart pounding. “Who made thoseallegations?”

Her smile widened. “You.”

“What?” Panic bloomed in my chest. “I didn’t dothat.”

“Well, not directly. But we were told that you believe thattheory.”

“This is utterly preposterous,” Mom cut in, eyes laser-focused on the hosts now. “Willow would never say such a thing. It sounds like the plot to a B-grade thrillermovie.”

“That’s what we thought,” Dan said. “Until we receivedthis.”

My heart sank as an audio recording began to play. It was unmistakably my voice. I was talking about how I had a sneaking suspicion that my mother might’ve been responsible for a plot to assassinate the previous president and cover it up as a death by naturalcauses.

Eyes wide, I looked over at Logan again. His lips were drawn into a tight line, and his arms were folded across his chest.Bastard.

He didthis.

He was there the night I confessed my suspicions to the Order, and his dad was a high council member. He must’ve used his father’s access to get his hands on the recording, and now he was letting a TV network play it for the world to hear, just to punish me even more than he already had in the last few months. My mother, too. After all, hedidpromise to find some way to punish her for her involvement in the incident with Chloe. I guess this was his plan allalong.

“Turn it off,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “This is allwrong.”

“Howso?”

“I was in a bad state of mind when I said those things,” I said, trying my best to speak clearly despite my rage and terror. “I was under the influence of certain…substances.”

Jules looked like the cat that swallowed the canary. “You mean you were ondrugs?”

“Not exactly. I mean, sort of, but not in the way youthink.”

My mother’s face reddened. “Stop talking,” she hissed. “You’re making itworse.”

“So you didn’t mean any of those things?” Dan said, prodding me further. “You’ve never suspected your mother of any sort of cover-up?”

I froze, mouth going dry. What the hell was I supposed to say right now? Yes, I had some misgivings about my mother after I overheard her talking to Jamie Torrance a few months ago, but it was just the tiniest sliver of suspicion. I knew that I’d more than likely taken what I heard out ofcontext.

Then again, I now knew for a fact that she was involved in another cover-up—the one involving me and Chloe. She had no issue doingthatfive years ago to protect our image and keep her rising career safe, so maybe she was even more of a ruthless political animal than Ithought.