Page 125 of Tabloid Princess

“What do you think of his trip abroad?”

I shook my head.

“How does your daughter like knowing a prince?”

What were they talking about? Oliver had been out of the country for four days. The cold shiver along my spine spread across all of my skin.

My pulse thumped with an uneven beat, my skin sprinkling with chilled sweat. The path to the office was blocked. They’d managed to wait for me when I was nowhere near the boundary of the restraining order. And I’d gone waltzing down the river with no thought.

I couldn’t see further than the wall of paparazzi. They jostled with one another, physical and aggressive. This wasn’t just the few I’d had camped outside my house weeks ago. There were hundreds. I looked behind me, but only the river stood at my back.

I faced them again trying to breathe some air into my lungs.

Something had changed.

In the time I’d been at work something had changed. The thunderbolt of clarity hit me direct to the stomach.

A shadow moved and then a wide arm wrapped itself around my shoulders. I screamed but then swiftly cut it off when I glanced up into the face of Bill. Wasn’t he supposed to be in New York?

“Miss Lawrence, if you please?”

I automatically knew what to do. I dropped my head to the height of his arm and then let him lead me forward, unable to see any further than the distance of my own feet.

The cool air of Bright Futures blasted onto us as we crashed through the door. I shivered uncontrollably, and not with the tentative, nervous shiver of the other evening, the one Oliver created with his fingertips. No, these were deeply alarmed wracks which shook me from head to toe. I couldn’t stop myself. My teeth chattered.

“Where did they come from?” I tried to talk around the bash of my teeth. “Why have they come back?”

“Miss Lawrence, they’ve never been away.” Bill’s voice was gentle, but a little surprised.

“Leia?” Janine shot out of her office as quick as Molly leapt from her chair. “What happened?”

“Just the press, Miss.” Bill spoke for me. Good job too. My jaw had hardwired itself together, all the bones fusing.

“Why?” Molly asked him. “She’s got nothing to do with the prince anymore.”

Bill didn’t even flinch, although he, better than anyone, knew just how much I had to do with the prince. “Just a story, Miss.”

He turned to me. “I’m going to have to take you to safety.”

“I am safe.”

His face didn’t even give me the chance to argue.

“I’ve got work to do. I can’t just leave.”

Janine stepped closer. “Leia, it’s fine. This will all blow over soon. I’m so sorry. I really thought it was better.”

“It’s not your fault.”

It wasn’t hers. It was mine.

My heart crashed a little. My stomach dropped. This wouldn’t get better anytime soon. Not if people really did find out.

“But I got the Tube and everything this morning. It was all fine.” Somehow, I got my jaw to move.

Bill met my gaze and I suddenly realised what was going on. My trip to work had been okay because Bill or security of some description had been around me. My rushed trip to school with Daisy had been viable because I’d been watched from a safe distance, protected from people getting too close.

Not for the first time since meeting Oliver Beaufort my world tilted.