Tales of Darkness & Sin - Pepper Winters Page 0,161

my heart roiled in my chest.

I fixed my eyes to a point beyond the crowd of reporters and cleared my throat before speaking.

“Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here on such short notice. Though, I’ll note, most of you have been camped out on my doorstep since dawn.” I slanted them a cool look. “Perhaps one day I’ll afford you the same courtesy.”

There was a smattering of dull laughter.

They quieted, though, as soon I launched calmly into my prepared spiel.

I am sorry for any reports of an untoward nature…Mr. Talbot-Ullswater and I are good friends…First, you claim I’m too much for the ladies in my younger years, now this, are you never happy (cue laughter)…It’s a slow day in politics when one man’s story takes control of the media…

It made me sick to speak it. So ill, at one point, that I felt my skin bleach white and my stomach heave dangerously.

Good Lord, let me not lose my breakfast on national telly.

When I finished, I laid a hand on my gut, willing it to settle, and smiled woodenly out at the sea of people letting me feed them this utter rubbish.

A reporter I trusted not to be outrageously inappropriate raised their hand with a question, and I pointed at them, allowing it because I needed a moment to catch my breath.

“Mr. Prime Minister,” he began, an edge to his voice I didn’t recognize that made my gut clench. “The hashtag #gaygate has gone viral on social media platforms, with many saying that Tobias Talbot-Ullswater, well-known for his sexual exploits, seduced you into indecency.”

“Is there a question in there somewhere, Mr. March?” I asked coldly.

“Is it true he seduced you against your better judgment, or are you really, as you claim, ‘just good chums?’”

The reporter cast a quick glance over my shoulder as a few of my staff who stood behind me and I knew this was a part of their tactic. Plant a reporter who would open the door for me to deny my active participation in this affair. Make like Ron Davis and claim this was merely a moment of pure madness when I’d given in to the witchy charms of a charismatic boy.

Anger burned clean through the anxiety and doubt that had clogged my arteries for the better part of thirty-six hours. My fingers gripped the podium so tightly, my knuckles cracked and burned.

I imagined Tally, maybe at home curled up on his couch in those silly, endearingly adorable, fuzzy green pajama pants watching the news and feeling like shite because I was doing more than keeping him a secret. I was condemning him as the bad guy in the story.

As an immoral slut. A horrific aberration in my infamously contained and gentlemanly manner.

My heart squeezed so tightly, I worried it would never beat properly again.

Tally had said he could wait for me in secret and be mine in the shadows, but he couldn’t endure knowing I was ashamed of myself for wanting him.

And suddenly, acutely like an arrow through the chest, I understood that sentiment exactly.

I opened my mouth, and words spilled forth before I could think things through, before I could rein in my gut instinct and my heart’s inner song.

“I will not let Tobias Talbot-Ullswater’s life be defined by this affair. He is not the kind of man who deserves to be nor enjoys being in the shadows.” I sucked in a deep breath and nearly panicked when it brought me no comfort. “I forced him there with my shame and my inability to be honest—not just with you all but with myself. There is only one thing I want to be taken from this entire invasion into my privacy, and that is this…”

I stared out at all those faces, reminded that this was being live-streamed on the 10 Downing Street YouTube channel so people might very well be tuning in internationally as well.

Being prime minister had always been about setting the right example for this country, and I had fallen down on that job in the most unforgivable way.

“Being gay is nothing to be ashamed of. Certainly, anyone who identifies with the LGBTQIA community should be proud and should never be persecuted for who they love or how they choose to present themselves. In keeping my relationship with Mr. Talbot-Ullswater a secret, I implied that there was something to be embarrassed about when the truth is, knowing him has been one of the highlights of my life.” I held up my hand to