Page 46 of Tabloid Princess

Painfully so.

I’d been trapped in the house since yesterday afternoon, but there was a large part of myself I was trying my best to ignore which didn’t want to go to work anyway because I knew he wouldn’t be there. When I contemplated that single, deeply depressing fact, I got an aching emptiness spreading from my chest right the way down my limbs.

What was I thinking?

How had this week ended up like this?

I was hostage in my own home, and worse than that, having uselessly inappropriate thoughts about a man so far out of my league he may as well be living in space.

Reading body language experts reports wasn’t helping any. I remembered all too well that push and pull sensation that seemed to run between us.

It hurt now it was gone. Like the air close to my body was too cold, or too empty.

Utter fucking nonsense on every level.

Nana chortled loudly and passed me a copy of the Mirror. “Look at this.” She pointed to a paragraph under the bold title; Who Is Princess Leia?

It was the same question as yesterday. I guess I should be grateful that no one had dug deeper than that yet.

“Leia is a wonderful neighbour, and mother,” said neighbour Mrs Abersham. “We were worried when she moved in so young and with a new baby, but she’s always been the perfect resident. Until now of course.” The piece then went on to talk about how Prince Oliver’s new girlfriend was a teenage mother, and what this may mean for the royal line of succession.

Utter fucking nonsense.

I rolled my eyes. Part of me wanted to go and knock on the old lady’s door and ask how much money she got for her story. Part of me was just grateful she’d had something vaguely nice to say. I grinned to myself when I remembered the scandal that had surrounded me arriving in my council house with Daisy. How the tongues had wagged.

“I’m glad I’m perfect at something.” I shoved the paper back at Nana and then dropped my feet from my chair. “I need to go and get Daisy.”

“Leia, I’ll go. You don’t need to head out there.”

By ‘out there’, what she meant was through the gaggle of press who were hanging down the street hoping to catch a glimpse of me. Well, I guessed what they were really waiting for was a glimpse of Prince Oliver near my house or me near his, but that was never going to happen.

“I want to go. The more they see I’m not backing down and that I’m not hiding anything, the quicker they will get bored with me.”

“Are you still going out with Molly and Patrick tonight then?”

I hesitated. I’d asked Nana to babysit days ago when life still remained normal. I knew I shouldn’t go, should just stay home and keep out of the way, but this was my life. I’d never see Prince Oliver again; it was time I just carried on.

“I think so.”

Nana flickered a frown. “I don’t want you being harassed, Leia.”

“I won’t, and I’ll have Molly with me; she’ll give anyone who comes close an earful. Right, I better go and put some make-up on just in case I make tomorrow’s headlines.”

“Or in case the prince sees them in the paper.”

“No!” Although, yes maybe a little bit, in some sort of insane sick way. “I’m sure he has far better things to do. I mean come on, Nana, he can’t even find the time to put out a statement denying this. I can see how far down the list of his priorities it comes.”

I put make-up on anyway and told myself that Nana had it totally wrong.

Yeah, right.

I wanted to hate him. And I did in many ways. But… there was a large part of me inexplicably drawn to him, as though he was a puzzle I needed to solve.

I’d always despised the rich and the wealthy—Molly and Patrick excluded.

Prince Oliver hadn’t seemed that way to me.

Maybe he’d fooled me.