Page 124 of Tabloid Princess

She narrowed her eyes a little. “You’ve had a traumatic few weeks. Have the press tailed off now?”

“Yeah, yeah.” I nodded almost automatically. “Nothing for them to get excited about. It was all a misunderstanding.”

“That’s good. I had a call from Freya just now. She’s popping in later. Apparently, Prince Oliver is in the States and he’s had an idea.”

“Has he?” I sat up a little straighter.

“Look at this.” She turned her laptop around on the desk. The BBC News homepage filled the screen. She clicked on her mouse and a video started to play.

My heart stuttered in a painful way.

“I’ve been visiting projects similar to my own Bright Futures back in London and seeing how issues such as dependency and its effects on family life are dealt with Stateside.”

He has? I thought he went for an ambassador’s dinner?

“What have you found?” The interviewer asked.

Oliver ran a hand though his hair, and I could almost feel the strands tingle against my palm.

“That the issue of addiction is widespread on street level, everywhere. This is a global problem, not isolated issues experienced by individual countries.”

“Do you have a solution?”

Oliver’s smile was rueful. “No. I’m working on it.”

Behind the shadow of the princely façade, I could all too easily see the man who lay on my lounge carpet and played Lego… the man who’d drank coffee in my small kitchen… the man who’d made my daughter squeal with delight as he’d chased her while wearing bright pink fairy wings.

The interview ended and Janine turned the screen back. “I wonder what he’s thinking?”

I shook my head. “I honestly don’t know.”

“What are you thinking?” Her look searched my face.

“That we need to focus on those nearest to us. Global ideas are fine, but there are still families here who need us. It’s not an inferno you can extinguish with one small can of fire extinguisher.”

The newsreel bothered me all morning. There was a difference between viral, and spreading yourself too thin wasn’t there?

Maybe I knew nothing.

At lunch, I grabbed my bag and headed down river ignoring Paula and Molly’s request to come with me.

I wanted to check my phone without being seen. Desperate to have any contact with Oliver.

About thirty steps up the river I knew I’d made a massive mistake. Two girls pointed at me, hiding their mouths behind their hands as they whispered to one another. Another group of teenagers saw them point and then turned, grabbing their phones and lifting them in my direction.

A chill ran up my spine.

“Oi, love!” A loud voice shouted. Deep and low, it wasn’t one I knew. I turned slightly, finding a guy with a massive camera slung on his shoulder wheel in my direction. “When are you and the prince going public?”

I dropped my head and focused on walking without tripping, trying to pick up the pace of my step.

“Leia! What do the palace say? Do they approve?” A different voice called.

Where had they come from?

“How does it feel to be a girl from Hackney in love with a prince?” There was a sliver of a pause. “How did you get involved with Bright Futures? Are you a user?”

Almost with pack-like co-ordination, two more journalists came around one of the side lanes off the main river path, crowding into my space. I held up a hand, so they couldn’t take a picture.