Page 73 of The Heir Apparent

“You’ve been comparing Louis and me,” I said. “I’m the experiment, he’s the control group.”

He stopped and looked at me in the dim glow of the stars.

“You’re the wine stored in oak—he’s the wine stored in steel,” he said, smiling. His jacket wrapped me in the scent of him, and I pretended not to enjoy it. We kept walking, the gravel crunching under our feet.

“It’s not a comparison,” he added. “I just feel like I understand you better, that’s all.”

“We’ve been watched our whole lives.”

“I know.”

“It makes you… I don’t know… unable to tell the difference between reality and what you’re trying to make seem real.”

“It makes sense. Everyone’s probably doing that. For you two, it’s just on a whole different level.”

“I don’t know what happened to him, actually,” I said, eager to change the subject before I said too much. “He must have gone to bed an hour ago.”

As we turned the corner on our verandah, we saw them: Louis and Finn kissing among the vines. They were under a halo of starlight, and they were oblivious to us. They were laughing and necking, two young people drunk on wine and each other. I glanced at Jack, who seemed briefly stunned but rearranged his face when he caught my gaze. He must havesensed my discomfort, because he looked at me kindly and shrugged.

“Time to call it a night,” he whispered. I watched as he slipped through the cottage door. Before he closed himself in for the night, he gestured with his chin towards my barn, telling me without words that it was none of our business. I was to go to bed and leave my brother to his own reality.

Louis’s flight was at dawn, but when I came to the cottage at the agreed-upon hour, the living room was dark and empty. My irrational anger rising, I found the guest bed empty. I went back to the living room again and stood there, wondering what to do, wondering what Jack would do. But there was no other option. I stalked over to Finn’s door and knocked softly, though my fist was ready to punch it wide open.

“Louis,” I murmured, “we’ve got to go. Your flight’s in an hour.”

There was a deep silence, then a rustling of bedclothes, the padding of bare feet on the wooden floors. The door opened a crack and Louis peered through it, his hair a mess but his face still perfect in its hungover state.

“Come on,” I urged. “Are you packed?”

“Yeah,” he croaked. “Give me a second, would you?”

“I’ll be in the car.”

Through the windshield, I watched the clouds turn gold to herald the rising sun. The clock counted down the minutes to Louis’s flight. By the time he came out of the cottage with his bag over his shoulder, his security guards had twice knocked on my window to ask where he was. He barely had the door shut before I hit the pedal and kicked up a spurt of gravel as I accelerated down the path.

A van was idling outside the gate, and it flicked on its high beams once I turned onto the road. I had no doubt it was a photographer. Someone must have posted photos from the party on social media. They would have torn through the internet in a few hours, landing in the inbox of a tabloid editor with justenough time and plenty of hustle to hire a stringer in southern Tasmania.

Louis was silent in the passenger seat as we drove. His security team managed to put their four-wheel drive between us and the photographer’s van.

“Louis,” I said.

“What?”

“What happened last night—”

“Is none of your business.”

“Okay, sure, yes. But I have to say this.” He sighed and looked out the window, but I went on. “You said you’re being careful. Do you really think going to a party with a bunch of strangers and then sleeping with a guy you barely know is being careful?”

He sighed again.

“Are you sure no one else saw you but me? What do you know about Finn except that he’s my friend?”

“Are you saying you’re friends with someone who’s not trustworthy?” he snapped.

“I just…” I faltered. “What about Kris?”

“You don’t know anything about us.”