I can’t handle a single guy who isn’t interested in me?
Shaking my head, I let out a sigh. Our relationship isn’t even real. It’s as fake as my nails, and the only reason I’m playing along is because it’s my job, and I’m a professional. With the exposure that my relationship with the Prince will bring, I know the phone calls will start rolling in for the next big role of my career. I’ll be turning thirty in less than a year, and for a man, it might not matter. For a woman in the spotlight?
My crow’s feet are the subject of much discussion.
Anxious thoughts needle at me, and I do my best to blink them away. I think of the white, sealed envelope that I’ve hidden at the back of my closet.
I told Ivy that the results were negative, but the truth is that I’m too chicken to open it up.
Sighing, I lean back in the sun bed as the itching starts at the base of my spine. I know this feeling. Swirling thoughts. Tingling sensation. Churning stomach.
The first panic attack I ever had was three years ago, when I was twenty-seven years old. I was in Hollywood, starting the first day on set for the biggest role of my career. Right before I stepped in front of the cameras, I forgot all my lines from one second to the next. My vision started to tunnel. I couldn’t breathe, and my chest ached like I’ve never experienced before.
Have you ever heard of a film and TV actress who was scared of being filmed?
Yeah, me neither.
Now, I go to therapy every week and I take a cocktail of anti-anxiety medication. It helps, mostly.
But ever since that white envelope arrived in the mail, things have gone downhill. My medication isn’t as effective. My therapist knows I’m holding back.
Every time I knock something over, or fall, or feel my hand trembling, I take it as a sign.
I have what Mama had.
You might think it’s just the anxiety talking. Of course, if you have an anxiety disorder, having a fifty percent chance of developing a degenerative brain disease does nothing to help. But what if I told you that mood changes and things like anxiety and depression are a symptom of Huntington’s, too? It’s a feedback loop that just gets louder, and louder, and louder.
So loud, in fact, that I can’t enjoy the first rays of sunshine of the year, or the fact that I’m on a luxury yacht with literal royalty.
I haven’t even told Ivy about the anxiety, or the sealed white envelope—why would I? She’s always been the good one. The healthy one. The perfect one. She wouldn’t understand what it’s like to be under the kind of pressure I’m under.
Plus, whenever she’s disappointed with me, the way her eyes pierce through me is worse than any panic attack I’ve ever had.
Being famous feels like being locked in a tower, staring at the world below me. It’s luxurious, and well-stocked, and I can have anything I need, but I can never go down to the ground. I can’t walk among the people of Farcliff without being mobbed, I can’t go to the grocery store or go for a haircut without pictures of it ending up online.
I know, I know. I sound like an entitled, ungrateful brat. I’m thankful for everything that I have, and I’m happy that I can provide for Ivy and my father. It’s just sometimes, I wish I was a normal person with a normal life.
I wish I didn’t have to take medication to feel normal. I wish I didn’t have to refuse Ivy every time she offered me a treat she baked for me, just for the sake of staying skinny.
Instead, I’m locked up in a high tower, torturing myself.
“Deep in thought?” Prince Beckett asks from the sun lounger next to mine.
I force a smile. “Something like that.”
The itching at the base of my spine gets stronger, and my fingers start to fidget. I adjust and re-adjust my bikini, trying to ignore the thoughts that are starting to circle in my mind.
“Thanks for those antihistamines,” the young Prince says with a shy smile.
I frown, and then remember. “Oh, at the welcome dinner! Of course.” I nod. “My allergies are bad year-round. I know how painful it can be when you can’t stop sneezing.”
The Prince sits up and moves to the chair next to mine. He waves his hand toward a waiter, who brings over a couple of