“Yes.”
“I didn’t think the temperature was going to drop low enough for hell to freeze over, but wonders never cease.”
He laughed. “I’ll talk to—”
“Mother won’t listen to you. I tried, and the awful meals keep being served,” Sophie interrupted. “My losing weight is the one thing she and the duchess agree upon. It’s reaching the ridiculous level with the wedding only two weeks away.”
“How?”
“Mother has me using an app to log food, and then she checks my calorie intake each night. Of course, I’m only entering what the chef cooks for me. None of my outside food. I’m also faking my weigh-ins, so she can’t understand why I don’t look thinner.”
He remembered what Kat had said about Sophie not being a child. He’d always been quick to help his sister out of any situation because he loved her, and he wanted to help her with this, but perhaps he should do something with her, not for her.
“Tomorrow, do you want to speak with the chef together?” Gill asked. “He’s a reasonable man who adores you. He’ll find a way to appease our mother and make sure you don’t have to eat on the sly until your wedding day.”
“Yes, please.” Sophie studied him. A smile spread across her face. “You’ve not only been talking to Kat, but you’re also listening to her.”
“I listen to you. All you need to do is tell me what you want.”
He took a bite of his Pop-Tart®—a guilty pleasure he’d looked forward to eating at camp. Not that he’d admitted it to his sister. Or Kat.
“What I want…”
A faraway look appeared in her eyes. Not the wistful one he was used to seeing. “What is it?”
“This is going to sound ungrateful given how much I have, and when I know others would love to be in my place, but I just want to be…normal.”
“You mean a commoner?”
“I want to be like Kat.” Sophie sighed. “No title. No protocols. No pressure of living up to the expectations of both a family and a country.”
Gill understood. He’d felt the same way, but he needed to choose his words carefully. Kat would know what to say. He pushed that thought from his mind.
“Has Kat’s life been that perfect?” he asked finally.
“No, not at all,” Sophie admitted. “Her life’s been a struggle.”
That was news to him. “In what ways?”
“She’s never had much money. She’s had to work for whatever she wanted, including going to college. Her parents dumped her at her grandparents’ house, so they could do research in Africa, and they both died there. Her grandparents loved her and were the most amazing people. They passed two weeks apart. My favorite times as a teenager, other than camp, were when I stayed at their wheat farm.”
“You were a child.”
“I was seventeen the last time I was there. Old enough to know what I was doing and feeling. We worked so hard in the fields during that harvest, and I’ve never been more exhausted, but it was so…satisfying.”
“You never said anything.”
“Yes, I did, but no one heard me. Not that anything could have been done.” Sophie leaned back in her chair. “When I wanted to mention it a few years later, Mother and Father were so torn apart after Jacques renounced his title, I couldn’t. Granted, he had the best reason ever. But I never wanted to put our parents through that kind of pain again, so I didn’t say anything more. And after Father died and Mother was so on edge all the time…”
Sophie had always been so cheery, and nothing seemed to bother her. Their own personal sunbeam to light their lives. He hated learning she’d been hiding so much.
But not from Kat. He was thankful his sister had a confidant, even if it was the American. Something, however, didn’t make sense.
“If you’ve felt this way, why did you go on that reality TV show?”
Sophie half-laughed. “So I could get away from all this.”
“By marrying a prince?”
