Page 131 of Tabloid Princess

I couldn’t contain my sob.

“Oliver. Please don’t come here again.”

“So, all of this has been for nothing? After all of this, you are going to call it a day over the phone?”

“It’s better this way. I should never have let it go on like this. I made a mistake.”

There was a long pause.

“No, Leia. I’m sorry. It’s me who’s made a terrible mistake.”

The phone went dead, and I fell to my knees.

The fairy tale was dead too.

Freya organised the removal of the security team. I don’t know what Oliver told her on the phone, but the extraction of the team was quick and painless. For them.

I’d always preferred the plaster approach. Why stop now?

“Look at this.” Later in the evening, Molly came and woke me from my stupor. I’d gone beyond pain and hurt. Everything now tingled with an almost comfortable numbness.

He said he’d made a mistake.

He’d finally seen me for what I was.

Molly handed me her phone and I blinked at it almost unseeing. Sky News again. Prince denies secret romance.

“Good.” I threw the phone across the sofa to her and then curled back onto my side.

The following day I got out of bed, showered, pulled on my jeans and took my girl to school. We walked, but we held our heads high. The press still gathered at the end of the street, but I refused to be defeated. The security guards were no longer there to stop me going out of the house and like a bull chasing a red flag I pushed my way through. “No comment,” seemed the best thing to say. I’m sure the pictures they took of my face would tell them all they needed to know.

Try as I might, I couldn’t hide the heartache inside.

I realised that all these years of protecting myself had been completely futile.

Love had still hurt when it finally came.

But I knew if I didn’t hide this would end. One day I’d be the long-forgotten commoner who had an unexplained photograph taken with the future king.

“Mummy, look.” Daisy pointed at the same newsagents we’d walked past hundreds of times on our way to school.

Stalking over, I grabbed the front one off the stand. Princess Leia, daughter of a prostitute and drug addict.

The print couldn’t have been any bigger. I stared at it, momentarily stumped while Daisy used her reading skills to sound out the words. “Dr-u-gg a-d-ict.”

Miss Evans would be so proud.

“Mummy, what’s a drug addict?”

I sighed and motioned for her to start walking at my side again. We couldn’t afford to stop; it was obvious we were being followed. I gripped her hand tight and squeezed hard.

“My mummy wasn’t always the best, Daisy. And I know I’m not either.” A bubble built in my chest, but I couldn’t let it pop. “It’s hard when you’re a mummy to make good choices.”

“That’s why you need a daddy to help. Like Daddy Pig in Peppa when he always gets them lost. Mummy Pig finds it funny.”

I nodded slowly. “You see, Daisy. When I was your age, I didn’t feel warm and safe in my bed at night. I thought there were monsters in cupboards and ghosts under the bed.”

“You know who could help that, Mummy?”