Page 37 of Tabloid Princess

“Janine’s the boss, you should take good ideas to her.”

His gaze narrowed. “Of course.” He stepped back as though about to leave. “But I’d like your opinion too.”

Whyyyyyyyy???

“Okay.”

“I wanted to do some interviews with people Bright Futures had helped. Do you think anyone would be willing? I got the impression yesterday that Ian had been helped.”

A deep dagger twisted in my heart. “We’ve all been helped one way or another by Janine, but you should talk to her.”

“Fine.” He turned to walk away. “Oh.” He stopped and turned back. “I managed to reach out to Taylor Swift. We are sending her a shirt to wear.”

He didn’t turn back to see my reaction which was just as well, because tears prickled my eyes.

I rubbed at my chest. The area around my heart began to ache like a bruise and I tried the best I could to shut it off.

“Leia.” Janine called me in just after ten. I cast my gaze towards the prince who was in deep talks with two bodyguards. It was the first time they’d entered the building and it was impossible to ignore that the crowd outside had necessitated the change.

The phone had been ringing all day. Oliver, while talking a lot to Janine and our two counsellors, had also been taking phone calls of his own. Not always looking happy.

Not that I was watching.

Only every other minute.

“Hey.” I stuck my head in through her door, finding her in her own Dream Free T-shirt. I’d already uploaded the logo onto all our sites—that was my sole contribution to going viral.

She motioned me in, and I shut the door. “Prince Oliver is doing a walkabout in about twenty minutes; he’s just talking to his security team.”

“Oh that’s good.” I wasn’t sure why I’d had to be called in for her to tell me, but I guess it was exciting for her.

“I’d like you to go out with us.”

“No.” My answer flew like a bullet. “Nobody needs to see me out there, and also, this is your baby. You go and be seen with the prince doing the walkabout.”

“The more white shirts out there the better. And he wants us to be an intimate and relatable bunch of people.”

I scoffed with no restraint. “We are an intimate bunch of relatable people.”

“Yes, but all those schoolkids out there don’t know that. People have heard there is to be a royal walkabout and they’ve come running.”

“Schoolkids,” My voice faded to a whisper. “People. Not just press?”

“Leia, have you looked outside?”

I shook my head, my tongue drying.

“It’s purple and white all the way down to the river. Balloons, banners, all sorts.”

“But…” Nope, there was nothing there again.

“Freya told me it’s been a long time since something of this scale has been planned on behalf of a public organisation. Usually this level of involvement is reserved mainly for official royal events.”

“He must really want to kick off his own foundation with a bang.” My inner cynic rose with little prompting.

“Or maybe he genuinely wants to help us.”

“Maybe.” I don’t know why I had trouble accepting this, but it rattled me. “Please don’t make me go out there. You know what I’m like. I’ll fall flat on my face and then the whole thing will go tits up. Nobody wants to see my arse falling over in front of a prince on News at Ten.” Bet that’d go freaking viral.