That trollop shot him a vicious glare.
“Excellent.” Nick stood up suddenly, clapping his hands. “In that case, Abby and I will continue on as usual, and you can talk to my father about the engagement. With any luck, just the news of an impending marriage will be enough to—”
“I’m sorry, Nicholas,” Harold cut him off with an apologetic hand, “but that does still leave us plenty of work to do in the meantime.”
Nick blanked. “It does...?”
Under the present circumstances, his confusion was understandable. But being an ace in my chosen profession, I understood.
It was not enough to simply say that we were engaged. The public would need proof. Photos. A ring. On that note, it wasn’t at all unlikely that Harold would ask us to ‘re-stage’ the proposal on camera, just so he could ‘leak’ it to some news site for the world’s viewing pleasure.
When you were dealing with a family as prestigious as the H
unter’s—the sky was the limit. The public would be insatiable—like a pack of ravenous dogs. Hungry to get their hands on every juicy detail we deigned to provide.
Harold flashed Nick a quick smile, before gesturing to the kitchen. “I know you’ve already had a long morning, so why don’t you get yourself some coffee? When you come back, the two of us can really buckle in and get started.”
I cleared my throat loudly, and the man rolled his eyes.
“I meant...the three of us.”
Nick nodded quickly, looking a little shaken, then pushed to his feet and vanished down the hall—leaving me and Sir I-Swear-I’m-Going-To-Strangle-Him alone in the parlor.
“Well,” Harold said the second he was gone, “I can see I have my work cut out for me.”
He had somehow found a way to look down his nose at me—even seated all the way across the room—and his accent was straining under the weight of all those exaggerated vowels.
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, and kept my eyes locked on the floor.
“Seems like you do.”
Harold had always resented me for being hired to spearhead Nick’s team. It was like he took my very application as a personal slight. Rumor has it that he had always wanted to do it himself—protect the entire family, and whatnot—but realistically, there was simply no time for him to do both. Mitchell was a full-time job, and then some. And while Nick might have been the prince, Mitchell was still the king.
Relegated to the sidelines, Harold did—however—manage to find a clever way to pass the time. He liked to judge. CONSTANTLY. In two years, there hadn’t been a single week when I didn’t get at least three emails criticizing the way I’d handled some situation. They had a special folder in my inbox. After month eight, I’d stopped opening them.
I could only imagine how he was judging me now.
“In a way, I must admit I’m not surprised.” He pulled a pair of spectacles out of his pocket, and started polishing them unnecessarily. “Public relations is a man’s job. It was really only a matter of time before you took things into your own hands.”
My head lifted with an incredulous glare.
“Excuse me?”
“You couldn’t help yourself, could you?” he hissed. “You knew Nicholas was drunk, impulsive. You probably engineered this entire thing yourself—”
“Oh please!” I cut him off angrily. “You really think it was me who initiated?”
The idea was absurd. And let’s be honest, it’s not like Sir Harold over there wouldn’t have done the exact same thing himself if given the chance.
He straightened up stiffly, unwilling to engage in a fight he started.
“What’s done is done. No point rehashing it now. My only consolation is knowing that this is going to be a thousand times worse for you, than it will be for him.”
That actually made me pause. I dropped the sneer at once and gazed up at him curiously, trying to ignore the feeling of dread that was bubbling up in my stomach.
“And why’s that?”
Harold looked at me as if I had said something very stupid.