Page 62 of Scandal Queen

“Say what, what?”

“Imagine how many followers the Tabloid Princess would have if she was on Instagram.”

I cringed and ducked my head into his shoulder. “Imagine how much hate I would have.”

“How else are you going to reach out and tell people the things they need to know? You aren’t one of us, Leia. You are better, more real, a person who has lived out there in the real world.”

“The real world sucks, Ollie. I don’t think people want to hear about the elevation of a council estate girl to one of nearly a princess.”

“I think you are wrong. They are going to want to know everything about you. Who would you rather tell them? You or the tabloids?”

Well he had me there. The tabloids had already printed the worst they could about me.

Yet still, here I stood.

He caught my lips, distracting me with a deep kiss. When he pulled away, his eyes burned bright. “How do you feel about becoming a real princess? Just out of interest?”

I narrowed my gaze, my heart bashing hard in my chest. “Are you actually asking?”

His lips quirked into my favourite smile. “I might be thinking about it.”

“Well that’s not a yes or a no.”

“You haven’t said yes or no either.”

His lips landed back on mine, harder, insistent, leading me down that path that only existed with us in the moment, when it was just him and me and not a care in the whole damn world between us.

Fifteen

“You can’t just go marching off through Kensington. It’s not the done thing.” Marcus’ glasses slipped down his nose and he pushed them back up. The meeting room next to the library was full of people. The quiet and calm of the palace didn’t extend to this room. It was like the NASA launch zone.

“So you’d rather we rewound two years and I was falling out of a club instead?” Oliver’s hands had curled into a tight ball and I wiggled my fingers in between them.

“Yes. Maybe. At least that way we would be giving the public what they expect. The papers would be printing less because it wouldn’t be new for them.”

“For me to be an idiot you mean?” Oliver’s words snapped through the air.

“Sir, you look more of an idiot strolling down the road like you have no concern about who you are or where you should be.”

Oliver turned to the Queen. “This is outrageous. Why are we still listening to this man? He hasn’t a clue what people are like or what they want to see from us.”

The Queen sighed and rubbed at her temple. “Oliver, you just need to see things within the bigger picture. The people aren’t used to seeing us walking down the road holding hands or kissing in the street. It’s never been done before.”

“Kissing, Mother?” I cringed in my seat. Right now would be a great time for an invisibility cloak to land in my lap. “I’d like to think you and father would have at least managed a kiss before.”

“On our wedding day and on the balcony yes. That’s when people expect it.”

Oliver’s hand flattened with a bang against the table. His head shook, a vein pulsing in his temple, and I leant over and caught his fingers again, squeezing them tight. “This is utterly ridiculous. Are you telling me any other couple in the world can walk down Kensington High Street holding hands, apart from Leia and I?”

Marcus coughed and pulled a pile of newspapers across the table. “It’s not just that. It’s keeping open the discourse about Miss Lawrence. It’s not allowing her to drop from the headlines. Yesterday you went to Harrods; today everyone is saying she’s above her station, that she’s using you.”

Invisibility cloak now please.

“But we know that’s not true. The whole issue we have here is that people don’t know us. They don’t know that Dad likes to go fishing, or that John…” he trailed off here and a curtain of silence hung over us all. After a pause he cleaned his throat and then went on. “It’s Christmas soon. We should stay here for this year, live in the city, spend time with the people; not run away and lock ourselves in a grand house while other people don’t have enough to celebrate.”

I’d pulled my hair in front of my face as a shield, but I peeked out through the blonde curtain to look up at him. His face was set with utter determination.

The King spoke. The man had few words. He seemed to store them up for maximum input. “The family will stay together at Christmas as is the tradition.”