Royals (Royals #1)(54)

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Thirty minutes later, I’m tucked up in a room that’s not unlike my room at Sherbourne—super fancy, full of old stuff, and also freezing cold. Oh, and fully tartaned up. My bedspread is plaid, the canopy is plaid, even the carpet seems to have a faded plaid pattern, and if I manage to sleep in here every night and not get a migraine, I’ll consider it a win.

In a few minutes, I’m supposed to go downstairs for tea, but before I do that, there’s something else I need to do.

Flopping on the bed, I pull my laptop out, firing up Skype.

After a few moments, Isabel’s face appears on the screen, and I think I actually sigh with relief.

“There you are!”

It’s not that I’d been worried that Isa might be mad at me about all that had happened while she was here, but there was a part of me that wondered if she might not want a little break from all things Scotland (and by extension, me). She’d seemed pretty eager to get home last week.

But no, she’s smiling there in her room, sitting on the floor by her bed. I can see the edge of her sheets, bright pink with little yellow flowers all over them. She bought them in the kids’ section at Target because “everything for adults is so boring.”

“Where else would I be?” she asks, bringing up a can of Diet Coke to take a sip.

“I don’t know. Away from all things royal? I know the trip wasn’t exactly what you’d thought it would be.”

She sighs, pushing her heavy dark hair back from her face. “Like, I thought it would be really fun and exciting, but instead it was just kind of a pain? The guards and the photographers, and obviously Sebastian.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Yeah, I picked up on that one.”

Shrugging, Isa leans back against the side of her bed. “He was weird. I felt like he was acting like the person he thought he was supposed to be, not who he actually was, you know?”

I do. Ellie has started doing the same thing sometimes. I remember how she talked to people at the race, the fake-bright smile, the way she would tilt her head down whenever she was listening to someone, making this intense face I’d seen Alex do a bunch.

So I nod to Isa and say, “They’re all weird.”

“Even Miles?” she replies, a dimple appearing in one cheek as she smirks at me.

“Of course you saw that stuff,” I say on a sigh, and she reaches out and actually flicks the computer screen, like she’s hitting me in the head.

“I cannot believe you didn’t tell me!” she says, and for a moment, I hesitate. Do I tell Isa it’s not real? That it’s actually because of everything that happened the night she went to Seb’s club with him?

I’d like to say it, but I don’t want Isabel to worry, and the truth is, I’m a little embarrassed. I’ve only been here a few weeks, and I’m already faking a relationship in order to please “the palace.” That’s . . . not a great look.

I shrug. “It’s nothing major, just a summer thing.” And then, because I need a change of subject stat, I ask, “Anything with Ben?”

“Ugh, I don’t want to talk about him,” she groans, and while we’re definitely going to have to get more into all that at some point, for now, there’s another reason I called her.

“Okay, so if you’re not averse to looking at those royal blogs, do you think you could maybe do me a favor?”

“Oooh, reconnaissance?” Isabel asks, dark eyes going wide. “Into it.”

I lower my voice. “Princess Flora is here,” I tell her, “and she’s . . . not exactly mine or Ellie’s biggest fan. I don’t want to be busted searching for anything on her, so could you—”

“Find out what she’s like and report back via secure emails?” Isabel finishes, and I laugh.

“Settle down, Jason Bourne,” I reply. “Just . . . see what you can find out, and email it to me. I want your take on it, not just a bunch of links.”

Isa gives me a little salute. “On it,” she announces. “By the time I’m done, you’ll be more than prepared for her visit.”

I laugh, and we sign off, letting me go back to unpacking. And sure enough, within half an hour, Isa has sent me a rundown of all things Flora.

Really, it’s not that different from what I’d expected. Like Seb, she can be a bit wild, but unlike Seb, her foibles have ended up in the tabloids. She also just got kicked out of school, so maybe that explains the attitude. There’s also a pretty hefty list of former boyfriends.

Then I get to the last line of Isa’s reconnaissance:

And just so you know, Dais, one of those exes? Miles.





She’s harder to track down than her famous brothers, but Princess Flora of Scotland, currently attending an elite all-girls school on the Isle of Skye, is no less talked about. According to sources, Flora is the real wild child of the family, a title she laughs off when I sit down with her in a coffee shop not far from the flat she keeps in Edinburgh. She’s home for a break before heading back to her (unnamed at the request of the palace) school and looking forward to a summer spent “with friends, probably. Somewhere quiet.” She tells me she’s gotten very used to the solitude there on Skye and that “it’s definitely been a tonic for the soul.”