“I’m serious. Look.” She points to the mounds of flowers and stuffed animals leaning against the wrought-iron gates. The piles are so deep and sprawling that they nearly spill into the street. I assume they’re for the late queen, but then I see several posters with faces on them. Theo, Victoria, and Henry, obviously, but I’mnotprepared to see posters with my face, at least one of which features a hand-drawn tiara on top of my senior yearbook photo.
“What the hell?” I blurt without thinking.They couldn’t have used a better picture?
I crane my neck as the car cruises past the palace. Either I actually died on the island, or I’m trapped in a surreal daydream.
I press my palm to my forehead to check if my fever has returned. “How did I go from being called a gold digger and a crazy stalker to… this?” I direct Naomi’s attention to a poster with my and Theo’s faces superimposed over a picture of London. It readsMY KING AND QUEEN.
“People love a love story! Especially one with a wedding and a happy ending!” Naomi squeals.
Butterflies fill my stomach. I turn to Graves, who is still glaring at me. “Are Theo and I really married?”
“No,” he says quickly, but before I can sort out how I feel about that, he adds, “Probably not.”
“You don’t know yet?” I gape at him.
“We’ve been a bit busy,” he says tightly.
Naomi leans forward in her seat to get a better look at him. “But if theyaremarried, she’s about to become the queen consort.”
“We are figuring it out, and you will stay in London until we do,” he says.
“When can I see Theo?” I ask.
“The King does what he wants,” Graves says acidly.
I flinch. So, it’s entirely Theo’s choice not to see me.Cool. Cool cool cool. That’s fine.
The ring in my pocket digs uncomfortably into my hip.
We pull to a stop, and a set of solid black gates opens, allowing the car to pass through the throngs of reporters waiting on the street.
“We’ve arrived.” Graves steps out of the car on the driver’s side, and the door swings shut behind him. When Naomi’s door opens, she yells “One minute!” and closes it firmly.
She turns to me. “Don’t listen to him. I’m sure there’s a reason why Theo hasn’t seen you yet.”
“Like what?” I ask doubtfully.
“Maybe there’s some sort of national emergency we don’t know about?”
I flop back into my seat, a nagging feeling eating at my stomach. “Isn’t it weird that the press is writing negative stuff about the King just a couple of days after he came back from the deadand less than a week before his coronation? He should be untouchable!”
“I’m telling you, the press here is bizarre.”
“Okay, but like, why does Henry get a ten-minute news segment about playing soccer—sorry, ‘football’—with orphans, while Theo gets dragged for missing a phone call from the queen of Norway?”
“The press always goes easy on Henry.”
“Because of the dimple?” I ask.
Naomi laughs. “What else could it be?”
“The curls?”
“The combination of the twoislethal,” she confirms as the car door swings open. She looks at me over her shoulder before climbing out. “Don’t tell Levi I said that.”
“I would never.”
I follow Naomi out of the car and into the gray humidity. I can practically feel my red-orange hair frizz around me as my eyes lift to a three-story white stucco Regency-style town house. It’s not quite a palace, but itisstunning.
