Grand Entrance

Adeline Welland scanned her hotel room, taking in the blinding sea view, tacky furnishings, pregnancy test, overturned luggage, half-eaten food…

And was forced to conclude that she had fucked up. Badly.

At this rate, she would soon be joining Uncle Percy, Viscountess Linora, Ms Dalrymple, and Earl Farel as the latest family embarrassment.

Everyone talked about connections and nepotism and knowing the right people, but no one ever considered what it was like to be the black sheep in a family this huge, this interconnected, this gossipy.

So gossipy.

Folks who didn't know what a workday was except theoretically had a lot of spare time, and nothing filled time like gossip at the dinner table. 

Adeline was certain that she was now the appetizer, side dish, and dessert whenever someone in her tumbleweed of a family tree decided to have a meal.

It was mortifying. 

Instinctively, she reached for her phone, because mindlessly scrolling through social media drivel was one of the best ways to distract herself from thinking too much. 

With a bit of luck, it might even stop her from thinking completely.

Her phone dutifully did just that by flashing a photo of one Micah Carrington.

Adeline involuntarily cringed. 'Ew. Ewww. Ew. Ew. Ew.'

It's not that he's ugly. Quite the opposite actually. His acting dreams were only mostly, not entirely, built on nothing.

With his sharp eyes, bold brows, defined cheekbones, and bronze complexion, he had the resting bitch face of an aloof CEO from a romance web novel. Intimidating, magnetic, powerful.

Until he allowed his facial muscles to move.

Then he's more spoiled husky than trained Doberman.

Not just any husky, but one that had been spoiled dumb.

The problem with Micah was that unlike a typical romance novel CEO, he was way *too* expressive and too open.

And too idiotic.

If he had befriended her genuinely, she would have been able to find him goofy, endearing, and cute. 

But he hadn't, so she found him greasy, overconfident, and pathetic.

Readers could readily accept a morally gray (or black) character if he's charismatic and smart enough to get away with his ethical shortcomings.

If he's not smart, then he better be sweet. An adorable himbo could be just as appealing too—his innocence and goodness often triggered a sense of protectiveness in readers.

But bad and stupid main characters? Especially those who were too stupid to know how stupid they really were and thought everyone else idiots instead? That's just the most insufferable combination.

Even the lock screen picture seemed so unbearably corny that Adeline wanted to shudder until she remembered she had been responsible. 

She was the one who took the candid photo and set it as her wallpaper to convince him of her affection for him. 

To no one's surprise, he fell for it, hook, line, and sinker, believing that it's further proof of his attractiveness to the fairer sex. Her willpower was sorely tested by those thinking skills—if they could even be called that—of his. 

She had barely—just barely—resisted the urge to laugh at his foolish joy and crush his fragile ego. 

Stupid, stupid man.

Adeline would continue relishing in this triumph, but it was starting to get a little too messy for that. 

'Perhaps,' she considered, 'I should've just laughed. Then we'd break up and he wouldn't propose publicly and I wouldn't accept and we wouldn't have ended up engaged. I would've gotten to see his face when he realized he'd been had too.'

Not witnessing Micah's moment of epiphany was one of Adeline's regrets about this whole fiasco. 

One of several. Or one of many.

'Well, it is too late now to think about what-ifs and what-could-have-beens and what-I-should-have-dones.' 

Not like that had ever managed to stop her.

'Doomscrolling it is then,' she decided with forced positivity.

Except that's not really an option either. The lack of notifications reminded her why she wasn't already wasting time on social media.

It had been radio silence since her so-called elopement. Not a single message or missed call from her mother or brother or ex-fiancé. Not a single "Where are you now? Are you alright? Are you safe?" from a perplexed wedding guest eager to get the first-hand scoop.

Not even a barrage of texts from Felicia as she ranted about which tabloid site was portraying Adeline as less than perfect again.

That was honestly the weirdest part, even if it was something of a relief.

Adeline had been looking forward to ignoring those desperate attempts, especially from her almost-husband, to reach her. But now it's clear she's the one being ignored, not the one doing the ignoring. 

She couldn't lie—this flagrant lack of concern was a blow to her self esteem. 

Luckily, unlike Micah, she was able to see past her injured pride. Something was wrong, very wrong. She could feel it in her blood.

'Think, Addy, think.'

This was beginning to look a lot like a unified response. It seemed like everyone in this damned family—from the royals to the nobles to (a big chunk of) the gentry—had gotten the memo on such short notice. 

Everyone except her.

'Ah, I think,' she reasoned, 'I think I'm being walled out. That's not good.'

Anyone who had the misfortune of ending up in a group project in school or at work would know just how difficult it was to get any number of people to agree and work together.

But her family had accomplished it, with more people than a group project ever would have—because they might be a tumbleweed, but they were a tumbleweed that kept getting bigger the more it rolled around.

Within a few short hours after her disappearance too.

It had to be a monumental effort, and one Adeline did not think her shenanigans deserved. It's just too petty.

And yes, while many in her family were known to be petty (the natural result of having too much time and resources at their disposal), she could not imagine the Haytol Earldom and the cadet branch of the Midford family ever agreeing on anything. Unless…

'Unless I'm being banished from nobility.'