For years, my life has been narrated by others — jealous siblings, deceitful rivals, and offspring who inherited their fathers’ biases. My name has been dragged through their versions of events, their convenient retellings, their selective memories. But here is the truth: you cannot believe everything you read, especially when the storyteller benefits from painting you as the villain.

Yes, I am a woman who loves men — young, warm, intoxicating in their own ways. I love good booze, good music, and a good party when the mood strikes. But I am also a mother, a fiercely loving one. And I have only ever truly loved one man. Our love was forbidden, so I made do with the life I was allowed to have.

Being the child of cross‑continental aristocrats is not glamorous; it is suffocating. Every decision in my childhood belonged to my mother. “Mum knows best, my dear,” she would say, and I resented it every single time. I wanted to run barefoot through the meadows during my summers in London. I wanted a sip of wine at family dinners in Prague. Instead, I was expected to sit pretty, stay quiet, and behave.

I grew up in the 1960s and 70s — not in one place, but between Washington D.C., Kensington & Chelsea, and Prague. My heart belonged to Kensington & Chelsea. I spent six months of every year with my maternal grandparents, Murtle and Dick — darlings, truly. My grandfather, Robert “Dick” Morgan, was a barrister, and his colleagues were like granduncles to me. Their tall Victorian townhouse was a weekend hub of laughter, debate, and classical music.

My days were full: French tutors, piano lessons, ballet at the Royal Academy. My girlfriends — Gertrude, Lillith, and Petunia — were my soulmates. We kept “grave diaries,” locked away forever, buried near an ocean no one would ever think to search. Summers meant The Proms at Royal Albert Hall, new gowns sewn by my seamstress, and wardrobes packed for my return to Washington.

In Prague, at our home in Vinohrady, my mother was in her element. My father stayed mostly in D.C., devoted to his law firm. My mother, however, devoted herself to friends and lovers — she was a free spirit, always chasing something new… or someone new. I learned from her, perhaps too well. When she left early for D.C., I felt liberated. Ms. Tally, my chaperone, adored me and turned a blind eye to my antics.

I became the woman I am because of that childhood — privileged, pressured, restless, and determined to live on my own terms.

Then Xavier arrived. A nuisance. His mother destroyed my parents’ marriage, though truthfully, it was already cracking beneath secrets my father never knew. I despise Xavier for who he is, but I also know the marriage would have ended eventually. I always imagined I’d marry at least three times — commitment was never my strong suit. Except with the one man I truly loved. Him, I would have married. But it was not permitted.

When we finally came together, it was passion — dangerous, hidden, undeniable. We had to conceal our feelings; my mother would never approve, and Xavier certainly wouldn’t. We sacrificed ourselves for the comfort of others. We could have had our happily ever after, but we didn’t take the chance.

He was mine before he married her. She never knew. When I became pregnant with our daughter, I was elated — and so was he. But his wife was also pregnant. He was not happy, but he had obligations. She was his wife.

We kept our pregnancy secret. I went to Chelsea to give birth, hiring Nanny Evania to care for my baby. She was wonderful. I visited often. My mother, of course, disapproved. “He is married,” she scolded. “You have stained the family.”

I told her she was no better — she simply had no proof of her own indiscretions.

And that is the truth they never tell. The truth they never want you to hear. The truth I am finally claiming for myself.