Page 34 of Ruthless Prince

“They’re fine. You’d like Mal. He’s blond, and that seems to be yourtype.”

“Damn right it is,” she said. “So anyway, the main reason I called… I wanted to tell you that I’m back! I literallyjustgothome.”

“Yeah, I figured you must be back, seeing as we’re looking at the same stormy sky,” I replied with a grin. “How was the trip,anyway?”

Simone had jetted off to St. Bart’s for a family vacation the morning after the PM’s ball. In the three weeks since then, everyone on her Instagram page had lived vicariously through her photo updates. Myself included. It lookedamazing.

“It was awesome. I’m glad to be home, though. I hate missing out on stuff.” She let out a dramatic sigh. “Speaking of which, what’s this I hear about you being rushed to the hospital? I only just foundout!”

I took another deep breath and repeated the lie my mom fed to the media. “It was nothing major. I just had monoagain.”

She gasped. “Really? I thought you could only catch thatonce.”

“Apparently once you’ve had it, you carry the virus in your system forever. It usually stays dormant but sometimes it can flare up. That’s what happened to me. It hit me in the middle of the night after the ball, and I was totally out of it for a few days. Horribly sore throat, fever, swollenglands.”

“Ugh. Thatsucks.”

“Yeah.” I swallowed hard as guilt gnawed at my guts. I hated lying, but I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone what really happened to me. Not even my friends. My mother had made that abundantly clear to me. Having a ‘troubled’ daughter didn’t fit her image, and if the truth ever got out because I chose to open my mouth to the wrong person, she would rain hellfire onme.

“So… it was definitely just that?” Simone asked. I detected a note of skepticism in her tone. “Nothingelse?”

I gritted my teeth. “You saw the Buzz article,huh?”

“Um.Maybe.”

“How did you only just see it?” I asked. “They took it down agesago.”

Beltway Buzz had issued a retraction on their article that insinuated I had a drug problem, and they’d also posted a public apology. After that, the gossip died down almostimmediately.

“I didn’t see it firsthand. Marissa… um…” Simone trailed off and coughed nervously. “She screenshotted it and showed it to me at breakfastyesterday.”

“Breakfast?”

“I went out for pancakes with her and Kate,” she said. “Oh my god, the blueberry gluten-free ones were to die for. You have to try this place with me soon. It’s calledCarillon.”

I frowned. “I thought you said you only just gotback.”

There was a long pause. “Oh. Yeah. I meant like… I got back pretty recently. Not this exact second. It was about two daysago.”

“So you and the others went out for breakfast and didn’t invite me?” I said in a smallvoice.

“I would’ve invited you, but Marissa and Kate wanted to show me the article and see what Ithought.”

My brows pinched together. “So you guys met up just to gossip aboutme?”

A fractious note crept into her voice. “Don’t get mad! We were just worried. I know the Buzz admitted it was all bullshit, but you’ve been a bit off over the last few months, so we were all wondering if there was more to the story than randomsickness.”

“Right.”

I expected this kind of behavior from Kate or Marissa, but Simone was usually better. Now I was glad I lied to her about my hospital visit. If I told her the truth, she’d probably pass it on to the other girls, and they’d have a field day gossiping about it, as if my mental health was some sort of casualjoke.

“Willow…” Simone said in a wheedling tone. “We weren’t bitching about you or anything. Seriously, we were justworried.”

“Well, you can report back to the others in the gossip squad that I’m fine. Like I said, it was just a mono recurrence,” I saidstiffly.

“Oh my god. You sound so hostile.” She snickered. “It’s not like you never gossip about your friends. Remember when Marissa got those horrible highlights with the curls at the same time, and you said it made her look like a zebra crossed with Justin Timberlake circa1999?”

I groaned. “I said that in the eighthgrade.”