He grinned. She loved him. She’d said so herself, plain as ink on the page. And tonight, after they’d had some private time together to reconnect, he would send all the other girls away and announce to his country that the two of them were courting.
And then, in a few more weeks once Ella had had some time to settle in, he’d pop the question. He wasn’t sure yet whether he’d use the royal engagement ring or not. He’d always considered it to be terrible luck, but it did lend an extra touch of romance, of finality. Maybe he could pull Anna aside, ask her what she thought her stepsister might prefer.
He turned into the library and closed the door behind him, sitting down across from the reporter. The man had an officially-sealed envelope in his lap—his invitation to this interview. This was the last of the puff pieces Phillip would have to do for the next few days, and he couldn’t wait to get it over with.
The reporter smiled and shook hands, then launched into a volley of questions about the Summer House Party, his plans regarding Parliament, and his project to improve the country’s roads. Phillip answered politely but succinctly, barely able to keep himself still in his seat.
Finally, the interview was over and Phillip rose. “It was good to meet with you,” he said graciously, internally urging the man to get a move on so he could go to Ella.
But the reporter stayed seated. “If you don’t mind, I have one final question,” he said.
With a sigh, Phillip sat back down and waved his hand, granting permission.
The reporter handed him the envelope. “There must have been a mix-up,” he said, a small smile that Phillip didn’t like the looks of playing at the corner of his mouth. “I believe you intended this for someone else.”
Phillip looked down at the letter. It was made of thick, creamy stock, sealed with red wax imprinted with the royal seal from his ring. There could be no doubt it was from the King of Danovar. But Phillip had sent precious few letters today for there to have been a mix-up—just one to the reporter, and…
And half a dozen to Ella.
Slowly, he reached for the letter, dread curling low in his gut. No. It couldn’t be.
He pulled it open, slid the letter out. It was from Ella to him. He scanned it, praying it was one of their more innocent pieces of correspondence. It wasn’t.
He raised his eyes, his stomach turning over. “You opened this.”
The reporter pursed his lips. “A guard handed it to me. It wasn’t addressed to anyone, so I thought it was the official invitation with the time of our interview that I’d been expecting. I of course would never have opened a royally-sealed document intended for someone else otherwise.” He folded his hands and leaned closer. “But now that I have opened it, I have an exclusive on the biggest scoop of the year. King Phillip and his secret tryst.”
Phillip’s hand curled into a fist around the letter, crumpling it. Knowing this man had read Ella’s letter, invaded her privacy, seen things that were meant to stay between her and Phillip—it made him sick. It made him furious. “I could have you arrested,” he said in a low voice.
“I’ve already taken pictures, emailed them in a zipped folder to a friend. If I’m arrested, he opens it and releases them to the public.”
Phillip slumped in his seat. The threat had been half-hearted anyway. The press in his kingdom was free, and throwing a reporter in jail without any real charges went against everything he believed in. He just wished he could see another way out of this. “What do you want?” he asked.
The reporter sat back in his seat. “I want a scoop. I need a scoop, if I want to keep my job. But I respect you a lot, so I want to make you an offer.”
A thread of hope shone through, and Phillip grabbed it with both hands. “Go on.”
“In anticipation of this interview, I’ve done some digging over the last few weeks, and I’ve found evidence that a member of your staff—likely one in a high position—is a thief. One of the crown jewels went missing six or seven years ago and then reappeared just as suddenly. The royal family did their best to cover it up but they couldn’t erase all the records of such a high-profile theft, albeit a temporary one. So here’s the deal I want to offer you. I need a scoop, but I’ll let you decide which one. Expose these letters—and I mean all of them—or expose whoever the thief is that you’ve been protecting all this time.”
A headache pounded at Phillip’s temples. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be facing this choice. Allow the public at large to invade his and Ella’s privacy, or turn over a person who’d become one of his most loyal subjects to the public’s wrath.
He closed his eyes. If he looked at this reporter for another second, he’d punch him. “If I choose the letters,” he said, feeling sicker with every word, “I would need a guarantee that they wouldn’t be published until after the wedding.”
The wedding. A few minutes ago he’d been full of joy and hope for the future when he thought about his and Ella’s marriage, and now the word tasted like sourness and betrayal.
He cleared his throat. “I would also need a guarantee that they would be exposed in a romantic light, not as some kind of dirty secret. This woman is your future queen.” He opened his eyes and gave the man a hard stare, and the reporter quailed a bit and nodded, agreeing to both demands.
The reporter extended his hand. “We have
an agreement then,” he said. Phillip nodded sharply but kept his hands on the arms of his chair, refusing to shake hands with the devil. After a moment the man straightened his suit and walked out, and Phillip was left by himself, staring at the wall and hoping he hadn’t just ruined his future.
13
Ella woke up with hay in her hair, blinking away sleep. She stretched and yawned in the crisp early morning air. Danovar had such great morning air. Danovar had great everything. Air, stars, kings.
She grinned and climbed to her feet. She’d spent the night in the hayloft of the royal stables, mainly to get away from her family. She’d done it plenty as a teen when she needed some space. It was a bit different now, though. Instead of fleeing her duties, she was fleeing the attention of being the royal girlfriend. Now that the Summer House party had ended and her stepfamily were the only non-royal guests left, they seemed to be taking perverse pleasure in preening her and demanding all the juicy details of her relationship with Phillip. She didn’t exactly mind the extra—and overdue, if she was honest—attention and affection, but sometimes a girl needed some space.
Plus, the four a.m. ride Phillip had asked her out on had been way too early to set an alarm for.