Page 7 of Tabloid Princess

Janine was going to kill me. This was it; I’d be out of the door for sure. I cringed and twirled a lock of hair around my index finger as I waited for his ruthless judgement.

He settled back, those deep green eyes flashing. “So, are you going to tell me? I mean I’ve got dinner reservations later. I guess I could cancel though if it’s going to take all day.”

I breathed a shuddering breath of relief and silently thanked God. “No, it won’t take that long. Thank you.” I sounded too gushy and I cringed internally. “I’m sorry I was rude. I’m just very protective of this place.”

Again, his gaze seemed to read me. “Then maybe what you tell me will make me protective too?”

My mouth dropped open. “Could you maybe be protective, but in a way that involved telling everyone, so people knew who we actually were?”

His laugh turned my insides warm and my brain to something close to melted jelly. “That’s the plan.”

He’d waited more than patiently while I flicked through random files in the cabinets. Somewhere there had to be the perfect file. I ignored the one with Lawrence written in Janine’s bold handwriting and skipped to the one labelled Lester.

I turned back to where he still sat, his long fingers loosely slipped around a glass of water Janine had brought in. The look of desperation on her face made me shrivel in shame at the fact I’d nearly fucked up, just because I had an issue with over-advantaged high achievers who felt comfortable enough to ignore the plight of many.

I didn’t know Prince Oliver. Not at all. But I couldn’t shake the feeling he wasn’t like them. But then he was the Prince of England, and one day he would wear a crown on his head and open parliament and probably do nothing about the debt of poverty ruining our country, so maybe I’d been temporarily stupefied by his smile.

Maybe.

Possibly.

Definitely.

His close proximity was doing something to my brain I’d never experienced before. I’d never leant close to someone before and subtly sniffed at their aftershave. I’d definitely never tried to count freckles before; well not on a man, but I found myself doing all these things as I sat at the desk and he wheeled his chair around to sit next to me.

I wondered if he’d pick me up if I fell in a swoon on the floor. I reckoned he probably had staff for picking up unconscious women.

Which reminded me. “Where are your bodyguards?” I blurted.

His mouth twitched again. “Do I need them? Are you going to slash me to death with paper cuts?”

“No.” I found myself smiling at him. “I just wondered.”

“Bill is sat outside.”

“Has he been there all day? You’ve been in here hours.”

He shrugged.

“Wow. Bum job.”

His gaze flickered over me again, but he nodded down at the file. “So, what did you find in there?”

“The Lester family.” I held my palm flat down on top of the file and he shot me a questioning glance. “These are real people; what they went through is real. I hope you’ll respect that.”

He watched me for a moment, his expression utterly blank. “Yes.”

I smiled and fell back in my chair. I didn’t need the file.

“Barbra Lester came to Janine three years ago. She was worried her eldest daughter was hanging with the wrong crowd. Her behaviour was becoming erratic, more than erratic. Their once happy home had become a minefield of daily arguments and fights about everything. Then one day the daughter was gone. Barbra was beside herself. She’d contacted the police, but they said as Emilia had left of her own accord and was eighteen, there was nothing they could do.”

I watched as he nodded slowly. “I thought Bright Futures was about drug addiction, not homelessness.”

It took all of my willpower not to roll my eyes. “Drugs, alcoholism, homelessness, poverty, all these things are so closely intertwined. You can’t treat one without the other.

“Barbra had found Emilia living in a squat. She wasn’t in contact with any of her friends. She’d walked away from everything and her mother didn’t know what to do for the best.”

“Did you manage to reach out to Emilia?” The prince’s breath fanned over my face with his question and I realised how close we’d shifted towards one another. With a small cough I moved back.