“I never thought I’d be this lucky twice,” he whispers in the dark. The rest of our clothes come off one piece at a time, and then I’m caught in his eyes and tangled in his arms, and life has never felt so exactly, perfectly right.
CHAPTER36
DAYS UNTIL THE CORONATION:ONE
Theo slips out of bed just as the hazy dawn light is spilling across the rug.
I roll over with a tired groan. “Not yet,” I mumble, snuggling deeper under the covers.
“Not yet,” he agrees. He pulls on his shirt and bends to kiss me on the head. “But soon. Meet me at Buckingham this afternoon? I have good news.”
“I can just walk in the front door?”
“Not for long, but today it should be okay,” he says with a wink.
The next time I open my eyes he’s gone, leaving the window slightly open and a breeze blowing through the drapes.
I do everything slowly, appreciating what might be my last day in this museum of a house. I take Comet out for his morning walk in the courtyard and let him coerce me into an hour-long game of fetch, because why not? Then I stay in the shower until the water runs cold and sample every kind of weird British candy from a box that was delivered to the house last night. Ieven sit on a couch that looks like it hasn’t been touched this century and Google my name, where I see that Theo’s press people have released a statement confirming we’re not married.
When my stomach does a weird little somersault, I tell myself it’s because I ate something called “wine gums.”
I use my new phone to text Victoria and ask for a ride to the palace. She sends me a car in the early afternoon, and I load it up with all of the untouched gift baskets that will go to waste if they sit around this house. When I ask Comet if he wants to go to the palace, he barks in excitement and hops into the back of the car.
“Buckingham Palace, please,” I tell the driver. It feelsridiculous,and I half expect him to laugh at me, but instead he drives me right past the crowds on the steps of the Victoria Memorial, through a set of black gates adorned with gold accents, all the way to the front door, where Louise is waiting for me.
I try not to think about the cameras pointed at me on the other side of the gate.
“You brought gifts!” Louise exclaims. “Andrew and Charlotte will be excited. Let me get them!” She runs into the house and returns minutes later with the two youngest royals and their nanny, Penny.
“You must be the infamous Wren. I’ve been badgering Teddy to bring you around.” Penny folds me into a warm hug, her mom energy so strong that tears pool in the corners of my eyes. Penny has been the royal nanny since Theo was a baby. She’s one of the people he cares about most in the world and the woman he tried to save by refusing to get in the bunker. I love her for loving him unconditionally when no one else did.
“I didn’t know you called him Teddy,” I tell her.
“I’m the only one who’s allowed,” she says with a chuckleand a wink, before looking at me seriously. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do, but for now, let Andrew and Charlotte help you unload the car.” Penny loads the kids’ arms with gift baskets bigger than themselves, to their extreme delight.
The Buckingham Palace Grand Entrance Hall is darker than I expected; the windowless space makes me feel like I’ve stepped into something that belongs in a fairy tale. Red-carpeted staircases branch in every direction. Goose bumps trail up my arms as I take in dozens of marble columns and Greek sculptures displayed in golden niches. I mentally take notes on everything, including the scent of the thousands of bouquets at the palace gates, so I can describe it in perfect detail to Naomi.
“I’ll give you a tour!” Louise says as she leads me to the Grand Staircase, and Andrew and Charlotte challenge me to a race up one side and down the other. Andrew wins (and does a victory dab at the top) and then Louise shows me half a dozen rooms, each with its own name: the White Drawing Room, the Green Drawing Room, the Music Room, the State Dining Room. Everything is blending together into a haze of gold and opulence when I stop dead in my tracks in front of an open door.
“Is this…”
“The Throne Room, yeah,” Louise says.
You hear the word “king,” you see the paparazzi, you walk through the palace, but nothing can prepare you to see a red-carpeted dais holding two honest-to-goodnessthrones.
I swear under my breath. “He really is aking.Weird.”
“And here I thought I was hiding it so well.”
I turn at the sound of Theo’s voice, and my stomach floods with heat to see him leaning against the open door of the Throne Room. “I’ll meet you in here in ten minutes?” he says.
“In the Throne Room?”
He rubs a hand self-consciously over the back of his neck. “Why not?” He then turns to Louise. “We need to talk.” He motions for her to follow him down the hall.
I hesitate at the entrance to the Throne Room, not sure what to do in his absence. Andrew and Charlotte come cruising past me, balancing one of the largest fruit baskets between them. “Go on now,” Penny says, ushering them along. “Theo called a family meeting.” She takes the basket from them and hands it off to me. “Find somewhere to put this? I overheard the kids plotting to drop a pineapple from the top of the Grand Staircase.” She shakes her head in exasperation as she follows the youngest royals down the hall.
My stomach flutters with excitement as I wait for Theo to come back, and when I see Richard Graves walking briskly toward me, even that’s not enough to ruin my good mood. “What are you doing here?” he demands.
