Page 40 of Tabloid Princess

“I don’t know.” She shrugged.

“Spit it out.”

She stuck her tongue into the side of her cheek. “I don’t know. Just something I picked up on.”

I shot her an evil side glare. “I’m sure the poor guy is more than happy to not have me being rude to him again.”

“Babe, we’d all like that.” She sipped her wine. “Anyway, he might come back tomorrow, you never know.”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’m tired.”

“Oh, come on, Leia. I know you aren’t totally dead inside. You fancied him, didn’t you?”

“Did not!”

“Dead, dead. Your lady bits are dead.”

“They aren’t. I’m just not stupid enough to waste time fantasising about anything to do with him. He was…” I sought for the word. “…Nice.”

“He made you tear up.”

“No! Seeing Janine getting rewarded for her hard work made me tear up.”

“You keep telling yourself that. Anyway, talking about fantasising, last night I…”

“Molly!” I squeezed my hands over my ears. “Stop talking.”

She laughed and threw back her wine. “Shall we watch the news and see what the coverage was like?”

“Channel 4? Don’t they hate the royals?”

She shrugged a shoulder. “It’s all headlines one way or the other isn’t it?”

“I guess.” It was becoming increasingly hard to associate the Prince Oliver who’d been in our office with the attention grabbing royal constantly pictured with a woman on his arm. The only royal in history to ever cancel a royal wedding.

Picking up the remote, I flicked on the box and then settled back down. I couldn’t help but wonder why he called off his wedding, but then told myself to stop thinking about him.

“Ooh, just in time.” Molly sat up straighter as the presenter said the words “Prince Oliver.” And a picture of him in his white and purple T-shirt came up on the screen behind her. “Prince Oliver has surprised Londoners for the second time this week. This afternoon he held an impromptu charity event in the area of Bermondsey. Calling it a celebration, Prince Oliver told the crowd and the press what a phenomenal week he’d had spending time with the secret heroes of London’s needy.”

The screen cut to his little speech and some of the question and answers he’d done.

My mouth dried a little as I watched. Even from here his eyes were so vivid, almost unnaturally so, and now I knew about the freckles I could almost see them.

The coverage panned in on Janine who was saying how honoured she was to have such an important guest after working in the field for the last twenty years. “It will make such a difference if people know there is someone they can come to, that a family member can come to. We aren’t here to judge or to label, but to guide and give advice where we can; trying to give everyone the opportunity to dream free of the issues that shape their lives.” As she said this, I noticed Prince Oliver’s eyes dart slightly to the person behind. Thankfully that person wasn’t on screen.

“Oh my god, Leia. I told you those leggings would end up on TV.”

I snorted and slopped my wine everywhere. My heart thudded an uneven beat. “I had to put them on with the T-shirt. It would have looked so much worse over the dress.”

The camera cut back to the presenter in the office. My mouth fell wide open as a giant picture of me filled the screen behind her. “One of the big talking points of the day was the obvious intimacy between Prince Oliver and a woman from the charity. This small moment has been captured by cameras everywhere and has got everyone asking the question, ‘who is she?’”

I stared in horror as the camera again cut to an outtake of the afternoon. The prince stood smiling at me, his attention focused solely on my face as he talked with me and then reached to brush a lock of hair behind my ear, his fingers seeming to linger slightly. Then it cut to us both laughing as the balloon launched itself into the air.

“Oh my god. That is not how it happened.”

Molly’s eyes were as wide as saucers. No, as wide as dinner plates.

“Is this the reason for the royal breakup and failed marriage?” The presenter asked.