PLAYBOY PRINCESS (gxg) ✓

12. Rory Preston

            "It's okay to be nervous," Paris said. "You'll be fine."

            They had arrived at the entrance to the operation room.

            The face of a kind nurse was suddenly hovering above Rory and she said, "Are you ready for the anesthesia?" 

            Rory swallowed. Nodded.

           The moment the needle slid into her inner elbow, calm soaked into her veins. Drenching her in soft, still water.

           Her head was underwater. She was breathing at the bottom of a lake.

          "You'll be alright, Princess," Paris whispered.

          Her soft smile was the last thing Rory saw before the undercurrent slipped over her. The darkness enveloped her like a sweet dream.

          She was sinking. Down, down, down. 

          Shadow and silence and the memory of her mother, giving her what she hadn't known would be a final goodbye before she took off into the night.

          But then Paris's steady fingers closed over her own, and it kept Rory from drowning.

✫✫✫

          "SHE'S LYING."

          "LISTEN, RORY, I . . ."

          But Rory continued pacing the stone ledge on the outskirts of Vega's Boarding Academy. She had shortened the black skirt they were forced to wear, so it rustled around her thighs as she strode from end to end.

           Paris was sitting cross-legged on the grass, squinting up at the sun.

          "I don't believe it!" Rory snapped. "How can anybody possibly believe this? He's my brother. He's the prince. He's—"

          "None of that makes him a good person," Paris said softly.

          "Whose side are you on?" Rory snarled.

          They were both sixteen. They had been given their midday break, and their next period was English—the class where they had first acted out their iconic Romeo and Juliet scene.

          "But we know Billie," Paris said. "She's not a liar."

          Rory rounded on her. 

          "Are you saying my brother is the one who's lying?"

          "I'm saying maybe we should look at this from both sides."

          It was always so difficult to rile Paris. She was so calm and level-headed that Rory's hot temper usually bounced off her. 

          And usually, Rory appreciated that. Paris knew when to argue and when to stand her ground. But standing her ground today meant—

          It meant Paris believed there was a possibility.

          A possibility that the rumours were true.

          A possibility that Billie wasn't lying.

          But Declan was all Rory had. He was her idol. And if this was true . . . if this was true . . . the person she had looked up to all these years hadn't been real.

          "No," Rory growled, still pacing. The wind swirled through her hair. "It can't be true."

          Paris stood now. Her face was awash in the summer glow of afternoon, and she looked so beautiful—she always looked so beautiful—that sometimes Rory thought she might never deserve her.