Tabloid Princess, page 10
“I’m sorry.” That low musical voice I’d come to recognise all too painfully over the last few days spoke from the other side of the room.
I lifted wild eyes to meet his face. Anguished and torn, it was as though a masterpiece painting had been ripped in two.
“What are you doing here?” My voice trembled with the beat of my heart.
His deep gaze met mine, but there was no lingering twitch of his lips. “Can we?” He swept his hand in the direction of Janine’s office.
There was no way in hell I was going in there.
Not a chance.
That was why I was in this mess. For some reason I couldn’t quite fathom, a delicate web of unpredictable intimacy had bloomed in a place it shouldn’t. But only I could have been feeling that. This was his normal; but now he’d dragged me into it.
I shook my head.
“Please, Leia.” It was utterly unfair of him to say my name like that.
Dropping my bag on my desk, I turned without speaking and marched into Janine’s office. Once there, I folded my arms like a battle shield across my chest and rounded to face him. He shut the door with a gentle click.
I glared at him for a full minute while he watched my reactions.
“You shouldn’t be here. This is a nightmare because of you,” I grunted eventually when the silence became unbearable. I was being rude, again. But for once I didn’t care. All I could think about was Daisy in that playground with everyone talking behind their hands.
“Can we sit?” He gestured for the chair.
I dropped a deep curtsey—my best one yet—and replied, “Yes, Your Highness.”
It was utterly ridiculous that there was a large percentage of me who expected to see that lip twitch I’d become so familiar with. The fact I was looking for it told me all I needed to know. I’d stepped too far. This was the realm of dreams and fantasy; a dream I’d been largely sliding into by myself.
Because, he was a prince for God’s sake.
His lips didn’t twitch or flicker with a hint of anything other than total disapproval.
I sat in a chair and watched as he folded himself into the one opposite. “I’m guessing my type of headlines aren’t the ones you want?”
It was a ridiculous thing to say.
“Anyway, that’s not why I’m here.”
“So why are you here? I’d say enough was done yesterday.”
He glanced down at his fingers. “I’m sorry. I’m usually so careful in public.”
“With all the other women you hang out with at charities?”
His glare was as hard as flint. “No. In public, in general.”
His words still had the ability to make me think, to make me question. I hated him for it.
“Your Highness.” The frown grew but I carried on regardless. “Is there nothing you can do? This is not good for me.” I shook my head. “I don’t want to be associated with a prince.”
His eyes lit for a moment. “No?”
“Hell, no.” I flushed.
He slumped back in his chair. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard that before.”
I slanted forward, as though we were two opposing objects that moved alongside one another. “I’ve worked hard to protect my life. For it to be brought down in scandal and gossip now would be unbearable.”
My throat tightened as I thought of Daisy at school, with those girls, and those mums… all judging us. Me.
“It would hurt me.”
“Leia. I’d never want to hurt you.”
“They know my name…” Sweet Jesus, I nearly called him Oliver. “When will they know where I live? Where my daughter goes to school?”
He sat back at this. His face no longer carefully guarded. A flash of utter shock broke through his calm mask.
I shifted closer still, almost impossible not to. “You see. You said yourself, the people here, we’ve all been through something. I’ve spent a long time leaving that behind. You need to make the press drop this for both of our sakes.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed slightly. “I understand. I’ll arrange for a statement to be made.”
“Thank you.” It looked like I sagged with relief, but it was that searing pain in my chest that made me slump a little.
“Leia.” I looked up at the low call of my name. “I hope you know this was never my intention.”
“To tangle yourself publicly with a girl from Hackney? I can all too well imagine.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I gave a short laugh. “It’s what you should have meant. Prince Oliver, please, if you can do anything to stop this, I’d be grateful.”
He pulled a face that was oddly un-princely. “Unfortunately, the British press resemble Bulldogs when it comes to a story, and they aren’t that opposed to fabricating what they can’t discover as truth. That much I know.”
“But they are saying I’m the reason you didn’t get married. That’s insane. I met you like…” I trailed off, was it really only four days ago?
I caught the tiniest hint of that twitch. Part of me grateful I got to see it one last time.
I stood first, although I was probably breaking protocol—again. “It’s a good thing your time here is done, and you won’t have to see me again.”
He stood, towering over me. Oriental and spice notes whirled in my head. “I’ll see you at my birthday ball, won’t I?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t think so.”
“Leia, if you don’t come it will make it so much worse. It’s only next week. The story won’t be dead by then, no matter what I say. If you aren’t there, then there will just be more column inches.”
“So, I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place?”
He stared at me, his eyes burning furiously. “I think you’ve just summarised my entire existence.”
He did it again, made me feel sorry for him. It was unfair.
“I’m sorry.” His arms hung limply at his side and for one long intense moment my body ached like I’d never known before.
“Me too.” I hesitated. “I think I’m going to tidy up here and then go home. I want to go and speak to the staff at Daisy’s school.”
“Daisy?” His lips did curl this time into a faint smile. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had a daughter.”
“Why would you?”
His face flickered with a frown. “I don’t know.”
I turned for the door. “Will you be okay?” he asked as I put my hand on the handle.
“As surprising as this may be to you, I’ve survived worse.”
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Ten
So much worse.
Head in the oven worse.
“Body language experts have been analysing the images of Prince Oliver and unknown charity worker Leia Lawrence.” I lifted my head from the paper and quirked an eyebrow at Nana. “While no statement has been received from St Mark’s Palace, there are plenty of people who are willing to speculate on this new royal romance.”
I skimmed a bit.
“The fact they are leaning towards one another, their bodies almost holding a mirror image of one another, speaks volumes. It shows an intimacy and familiarity that we have never seen from the usually controlled prince before.”
I shoved the paper to one side and put my head on the table in its place. “Nana, this is terrible,” I groaned. “It’s been over twenty-four hours. Why hasn’t he put out a statement denying everything?”
Nana shrugged and pursed her lips. “I guess he’s a busy man.”
“He has staff for these kinds of things.”
Nana’s eyebrows lifted into her hairline. “Oh, does he indeed?”
“Oh, don’t start. His Press Relations manager or whatever her title is was in the office with us the whole time. Surely she can say something?”
“I have no idea how these things work,” Nana added, although she didn’t need to. None of us knew how this worked.
I pushed back from the table and pulled my legs onto my chair, wrapping my arms around my knees. I wished the last twenty-four hours had been spent with me furiously angry and planning a stampede on the palace calling for them to exonerate my involvement. Rather I’d spent a lot of it staring at the two most printed pictures of myself and Prince Oliver, as though having him touch my hair and stare me in the eyes like that wasn’t already scorched into my brain in glorious technicolour detail.
It was.
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.
Maybe I was a dick.
Definitely that one.
I pushed my way through the stragglers of the press still hanging around outside the house. The small little pavement couldn’t really hold them and as I stepped out through the front door some of them spilled out into the road.
“Leia! Why hasn’t there been a statement from the Palace?” One guy who’d been more than persistent asked.
I shrugged but didn’t say anything.
Mrs A’s curtains twitched, and I gave her a cheery wave. Maybe she could put the money she earned towards Christmas presents for her grandkids? That would make it more worthwhile somehow.
I put my head down and walked off the estate to the main road, thankfully without a tailing audience. They would get bored soon, they’d have to. There I hailed a cab and slunk into the back seat, giving the address of Daisy’s school.
“You could walk from here, love,” said the cabbie helpfully, but then he glanced into his rear-view mirror and saw me. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” I slunk down further.
When he pulled up by the gates and idled the taxi he turned. “Miss, do you want me to wait for you so you know you can get away quick?”
I flushed a heated burn. “That’s very kind, but I can’t really afford the meter running. I stared at the red ticking numbers. Actually, the meter already twittered dangerously close to the maximum I could run to.
To my utter surprise he switched off the engine and pressed a button that reset the meter. “Not a problem.”
His simple act of kindness made a giant lump stick in my throat.
“You look like you’re having a couple of shitty days.”
“Am I that easy to recognise?” I didn’t know why. There wasn’t a single thing eye-catching about me. Not at all.
“The missus loves a gossip page.”
“I think my days of reading those pages are over.” I shot him a rueful smile. “Thank you—”
I waited for his name. “Gordon Stevens, Miss.”
“Thank you, Gordon. I’ll just go and get my daughter and come straight back.”
“No rush, love. I haven’t had a break yet today, I’ll take my lunch now.”
Much happier that Daisy and I now had a means of escape if needed, I got out of the cab and walked through the wrought-iron gates of the school.
Yesterday, I’d manage to duck straight into the building and speak to Mrs Cole, the headmistress, before the school had broken up. Daisy and I had been home before anyone had a chance to find out or to make a scene.
Today, I stood like any of the other mums. Apart from instead of people talking about me from behind their hands they now stared at me open mouthed.
“Leia!” A voice called from behind. For one awful moment I thought it might be a journalist, then I turned and knew it could only be worse.
Emily Johnson’s mum waved at me before making a direct beeline for where I stood. Glamorous and fake-tanned, with long black eyelashes, she made the other mums in the playground look like they’d just performed a supermarket sweep while she’d cruised the aisles of Harrods.
“Leia, it’s so wonderful to see you,” she said. “You remember me? I’m Vicky, Emily’s mummy.”
Even the way she said mummy made me want to stick pins in my eyes. “I remember,” I ground out. I didn’t add that what I remembered was her ignoring me to my face and then talking behind my back.
“What a week you are having? Is it true then, about you and the prince?”
Considering she’d been the one gossiping about me being the youngest mum she knew; I couldn’t believe she’d even consider this as an option.
“No. It’s not. Prince Oliver came to my office where we were unfortunately snapped, it was nothing.”
I wished the aching pain in my chest would go do one now.
“But isn’t he delicious though? Did you flirt with him?” She fanned herself down. “I would have.”
A wild territorial surge buzzed within me, but I buttoned it down.
“Aren’t you married?” I made my question light and innocent.
“Well, of course.” Her implication was clear, but then she giggled. “But what a man. What I would do if I had ten minutes with him, I can’t tell you.”
I offered her a tight smile. Internally, I wondered just how many 'shag lists' Prince Oliver was on.
“So fit. For a royal to have those looks. I mean he could be in movies with that face and body.”
I couldn’t help but narrow my eyes.
“Seen him naked, have you?”
“Oh you know, only in those magazines where they sneak pictures of celebrities on holiday. I think he was on some private island.”
“So you mean pictures taken when he hadn’t given permission?”
“Oh, Leia. Don’t be silly. No one expects to be in the limelight like that and not be snapped.”
Ironic. Some of us aren’t supposed to be in the limelight and still get snapped.
How did Prince Oliver feel knowing his private moments on his holiday were widespread gossip like that? As much as I wanted to hate him right now, it was little niggling thoughts like this—and my irrational obsession with looking at that picture of us—that undermined it.
Just then, Miss Evans came out of the classroom door. Her eyes searched for me and before she’d even beckoned me over, I knew something was wrong.
Was I expecting anything else? More fool me.
“Listen.” Vicky touched my arm and held me back. I shook her off but turned expectantly. “Some of us mums are going out next week for drinks. It would be lovely for you to join us. You’ve missed the last few.”
I’m guessing when she said last few, she meant all of them—because I hadn’t been invited.
“Thanks, but I’m pretty busy at the moment.
She swept her gaze over me, her burning curiosity utterly transparent. I knew what she was thinking. Why her?
