Page 1 of Tabloid Princess

One

“I’m here, I’m here.” I shouldered my way into the office wondering why the air seemed hotter, before remembering that the air con went out last Friday. It’s the hottest September on record. Just for the record.

I landed in my chair, the decent force of gravity behind me scooting the wheels partway into the middle of the room. I used my feet to work my way back to my desk. “Have you seen this?” I threw the newspaper down. “I mean, seriously. Look at this prick.” I shook the paper out and stabbed my index finger at the bold headline: Prince to invest in new charity initiative. I scowled at the paper and the image below it. I mean, really?

‘The Prince’ was stepping off a yacht for fuck's sake. Wearing a polo shirt and those posh brown leather boat shoes only utter tossers wore.

“Shh!” Molly frowned at me and shook her head. Clearly she wasn’t reading the headline properly. To make sure she understood my point I rustled it in her direction.

“Molly. What does this guy know about charity? I mean, maybe he’s bored. Maybe he’s run out of new restaurants to visit or journalists to punch. But let’s be real here; he doesn’t know the first thing about places like us. He’s just swanning around in his fancy car, at his fancy palace, all while we are sweating our arses off because we can’t afford to fix the air con and help the people who need us. He’s beautiful, there’s no denying it—but there are homeless people starving on our streets, surely that’s worth more column inches?”

“Leia!”

“No, Molly!” Nothing could stop my tirade. “I’m sick of it. This country is just so fucked up. This guy could fart, and it would make headline news.”

“Leia! What the hell are you wearing?” Molly said the only words that could stop me talking.

“What do you mean?” I pushed at my fringe. The sticky heat had made it weld itself to my forehead. “It’s new.” I frowned down at the corduroy.

“New, when? Two decades ago?” Molly’s voice dripped with latent sarcasm and I glanced over at her. Of course, she wasn’t sweating and flustered. Her long blonde bob was beautifully sleek, and her canary-yellow sundress nipped in at her waist.

I flipped her the bird.

It’s a Monday morning thing.

“The woman in the charity shop said it was vintage chic.”

Molly lowered her head to her desk, one of her arms wrapping tight around her middle. “Your fashion sense is going to be the end of me, Leia.” She waved her hand in my direction. “Or my eyeballs will actually explode once and for all.”

“Bite me.” I wheeled back to my desk, grabbing for my cardboard coffee cup and tipping it to my mouth. If I could squeeze some caffeine into my morning, I’d be able to come up with a slightly wittier comeback than ‘Bite me’. I mean, who said that these days apart from thirteen-year-olds?

I watched my reflection in my monitor shoot Molly a spectacular eye roll. Now that, any thirteen-year-old would be proud of.

“Go on. Give it to me. Tell me I’m an apple shape and should be wearing a miniskirt on the bottom and some sort of tent to cover my tits up top.”

“Leia….”

Two things happened at once. Molly, who looked like a volcano on the cusp of explosion, pointed behind me. While my right hand, usually my stable one out of the two useless limbs I’d been charged with owning at birth, just let go of the coffee cup.

I leapt from my chair, turning to where she gestured towards Janine’s office behind me. I’d get in trouble for swearing, again. Maybe she’d send me home to get changed so it didn’t look like I’d pissed coffee all day. Maybe I’d change into something that wasn’t actually a carpet circa 1970.

Janine was there but my eyes skipped right past her. Like a foot to the side and then two foot up.

There he was.

His lips curved at the edges, and those green eyes—there wasn’t a single woman in the entire universe who hadn’t fantasised about those staring back into hers—blinked a slow, dazzling knicker-melter.

There he was.

“Oh.” That’s all I had. It was the sum total of my education articulated into one long and drawn out vowel sound.

Prince Oliver.

The future king.

I stared blankly, my expression surely one of a deer about to be mowed down by a truck going too fast. His returning smile said it all. Basically, ‘Look at this utter lunatic’.

“Oh, shit. Uh.” Still with the excessive vowels and cursing. I reached my hand for the newspaper; but there was no chance in hell he hadn’t heard my morning rant. There were people in China who’d heard it.