"𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒍..."
Beatrice "Birdie" Isley Kane is many things: a trust fund baby, a child star turned teen icon, and, in an unexpected twist, a British Royal.
But just months into her marriage to Prince Edwa...
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July 20, 1988 Buckingham Palace
—BIRDIE'S EYES—
Shit!
I inspected the drop of blood oozing from the prick I'd given myself trying to close my gold and pearl clip on earrings. That damned infernal contraption.
I sucked on my finger and continued inspecting my makeup in the mirror as I did. Tonight we'd be attending the dinner for Michael at Guildhall, where the press was strictly denied entry seeing as its doors weren't open to commoners. That is, unless you're Michael Jackson.
I'd decided against calling Louis to do my makeup seeing as he would've gone all out as usual and though I would've appreciated a heavy layer of paint to hide the dark circles and overall exhaustion on my face, I knew it'd only tick Edward off.
"Darling, have you seen my cufflinks?"
Edward appeared behind me, his eyes finding mine in the glass, and then dropping down to my finger in my mouth as I tried to suck the rest of the blood away. It wasn't much, really.
"What are you doing?" he asked with a grimace.
"I pricked my finger."
"What a child," he rolled his eyes, deeply unamused. I ignored him and went back to the original question he'd posed.
"They're on the mantle in the study. I took them off last night when you fell asleep," I explained, remembering how he'd been passed out on his armchair with his dress clothes on.
"Usually, one would put diamond cuff links back in their box, not laying around carelessly on a mantle," he snarked, heading for the study.
"Usually, one would say 'thank you' but hey," I muttered to myself, kissing a napkin for my lipstick and taking another glance at the time.
I opened the medicine cabinet, contemplating if an OxyContin would be in order tonight. I felt a headache coming on, pummeling my temples, and I knew I could bear most of Edward's obnoxious and bound to be drunken behavior tonight if I was more mellow and, well, zoned out.
But I also knew how glassy my eyes got when I took my pain meds and figured it'd raise some questions. Michael surely had some thoughts about my behavior after a bizarre phone call I'd made to him just a few nights ago and to show up in those conditions would only make him more suspicious.
The real solution, as I saw it, would be taking something that wouldn't make me lethargic. I closed the cabinet, making a note to check with Dr. Klein about filling me a prescription for the "happy pills" that were all the rage back home. I was supposed to be flying back to LA next month for a charity event anyway; I could hold off until then.
