Royal spin, p.1
Royal Spin, page 1
Dedication
For Yoshi, Marnie, and Hudson
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Copyright
About the Publisher
One
It had, Lauren quickly realized, been a spectacularly stupid idea to apply mascara in the back of an Uber on the way to a job interview at Buckingham Palace, especially when said Uber driver seemed to favor the brakes more than the gas pedal.
In her defense, though, the lighting in her tiny hotel room had been terrible, and there was also the small problem of having slept through her alarm, forcing her to get ready at lightning speed while puffy and jet-lagged.
As far as omens went, it wasn’t looking particularly great at the moment.
The picturesque sights of central London tinged with autumn colors flew past her as they drove down Park Lane, then stopped abruptly before disappearing once more. The towering parade of sycamore trees along one side of the road were shedding their final leaves as the nation’s capital waved farewell to the final days of fall. She knew little about the area other than it wrapped all the way around Hyde Park (thanks, Google Maps!), but the impeccably dressed men and women stepping out of luxury cars and into five-star hotels, including the world-famous Dorchester, made it clear this was a part of town that had a lot of money. The private-jet dealership they briefly braked in front of confirmed her thoughts.
Ever since Lauren had received news of her in-person interview at Buckingham Palace, she’d been replaying the moment of her grand arrival in her mind. She’d imagined gliding through its gates in a glossy black London taxi, sailing past curious tourists with an air of reverence toward the institution—and of course humility for the opportunity—before gracefully stepping out to ascend the . . . steps? Runway? She had only been to London one time before, on a poorly chaperoned high school trip in which she spent most of her time hunting down One Direction merch instead of paying attention to the landmarks around her, but she vaguely recalled a grand entrance flanked by serious-looking guards in scarlet uniforms and bearskin hats somewhere.
The reality, however, was that she was showing up in a dented Prius that smelled like wet dog, with her feet throbbing in a pair of too-tight high heels (she had picked up some nude Prada pumps on sale at Nordstrom, but they had only been available in a half size too small), and to top it off, she’d nearly been blinded by a mascara wand. The Palace had sent her a PDF map of the drop-off point where she should go, but the driver had waved it off when Lauren offered it to him, muttering that he knew the city like the back of his hand, and Lauren found herself envying his easy confidence.
She felt discombobulated and not like herself.
She hated it.
Her phone buzzed in her lap, and she picked it up without thinking of who it might be. Or more specifically, who it might not be. In the past six years that she had spent in DC working at the White House, her circle of friends had narrowed to just two people who also worked there: her boyfriend, Brian, and her best friend, Brooke. She hadn’t noticed it at first, her days and nights so busy with work. And then once she did realize how anemic her social life had become, it hadn’t seemed so bad. She had her best friend and her boyfriend! Who else could she possibly need?
A best friend and a boyfriend who didn’t hook up behind her back for months before Lauren finally found out. That was who.
She glanced at her notifications and sighed before swiping up on her screen. “Good luck!” the message read, accompanied by a custom emoji image that looked just like her mom.
“Thanks♥♥,” Lauren texted back without thinking, which proved to be a mistake because her mother took it as an opening for conversation.
“Are you in the car now?”
“Yes, heading to the Palace.”
“Is your driver being safe? I can see your location on my app. Is he going the speed limit?”
“Yes, very safe,” Lauren, who had no idea what the speed limit in London even was and didn’t have the brain space right then to calculate kilometers to miles, texted back as they came to an aggressive halt at a red light. So safe. Safest ride ever.
“Rosie next door said that there’s a lot of crime and theft outside of Buckingham Palace so BE CAREFUL. Lots of tourists means lots of pickpockets. And probably norovirus.”
Lauren suspected that her mom’s next-door neighbor, Rosie, most likely hadn’t left Atlanta in at least fifteen years, much less owned a passport, but she tapped on the message to like it because it was just easier that way.
Lauren had been sitting on the couch in her studio apartment in DC when she was first contacted by a British-based recruitment agency about the deputy head of royal communications role at Buckingham Palace. At the time, she’d been surrounded by a half-eaten pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, a cashmere throw that she had spent way too much money on, and the very specific despair that came from losing both your boyfriend and your best friend in one fell swoop. By the time the conversation ended, she hadn’t known who to tell first. Buckingham Palace! London! Royalty! Her fingers had immediately tapped on Brian’s contact info, where he was unfortunately still saved as one of her favorites. Lauren thought there should be an “Unfavorites” list as well, a place where you could save all your shitty ex-boyfriends so that you would be automatically blocked from calling or texting them at three in the morning after drinking four margaritas with a bunch of friends who had just listened to back-to-back episodes of Call Her Daddy.
Ahem.
Her finger had hovered over Brian’s number, Brian’s name, Brian’s photo. It had been taken at a wedding the previous summer at Martha’s Vineyard where Lauren had known exactly one person: Brian. But if there was one thing Lauren knew how to do, it was integrate herself into a crowd, and by the end of the evening, she had become besties with half the bridal party, led a small but very raucous conga line, and listened sympathetically to the groom’s drunk aunt rant about her philandering ex-husband.
She very pointedly did not catch the bouquet. She had laughed off the idea and stood next to Brian while some of the younger women pretended to elbow each other out of the way, and he had put his arm around her and squeezed her close. Lauren thought at the time that she had something better than flowers, something strong that wouldn’t wilt in her hands, and for that brief moment, she had felt like she truly had it all. An amazing job in the White House press office; a cute apartment in DC; Brooke, the bestest bestie who had ever bested; and Brian. Alex Cooper would have been so proud!
What an idiot she had been.
In an ideal world, after getting the invitation to interview, Lauren would have called Brian and then Brooke and screamed for a bit about what to wear, but that hadn’t been an option anymore either. So instead, she had called her mom, and it was nice, but it wasn’t the same. Afterward she showered for the first time in three days, put more than a few empty wine bottles into the recycling bin, ordered sushi on Postmates, and sat on her couch in somewhat-clean sweats to research everything she could about the job, the British royal family, and the Palace.
And fortunately, handling problems that took place in internationally famous landmark buildings was kind of her specialty. Or at least it was, until she’d found out about Brooke and Brian. Until she couldn’t even step into the White House without feeling like she was going to dry heave. She had prided herself on being able to think on her feet in any situation, her days occupied by press releases, foreign dignitaries, global leaders, and relentless demands from reporters and TV news producers. Sometimes it was glamorous and sometimes it was drinking cold leftover coffee with a Celsius energy drink chaser at three in the morning, eyes all blurry and red, but Lauren had loved it. She had loved being able to control the narrative, being able to handle anything that came her way.
And then the one thing that she couldn’t handle completely derailed her.
Lauren glanced at her phone again as the Uber driver made a sharp turn that was definitely not at the speed limit, kilometers or otherwise, and opened up her calendar, which now contained nothing but empty white squares. She scrolled back a month to mid-September, when her boss had called her into her office and gently but firmly suggested a leave of absence, the tone in her voice making it clear that it wasn’t really a suggestion at all. At first it had been a relief to leave her job, to cut off the limb rather than deal with the wound, but then Lauren’s days—and the wine bottles and takeout containers—started to stack up, all of them empty. The night before she got the call about the Palace position, Lauren found herself crying over a movie that featured talking dogs.
Had it really been just three days ago that she got that call and managed to pull herself together, put on some Skims, and fly across an ocean? Time really had no meaning sometimes.
Her phone buzzed again. Mom. Who else?
“Do you have hand sanitizer?”
Sometimes having a mom who worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was great and sometimes it was . . . not. Time to engage Do Not Disturb mode, Lauren thought, and quickly swiped out of the app.
The Palace loomed ahead of her, surrounded by tourists (and criminals, according to Rosie, the world’s least traveled person), and for a moment, Lauren felt the same rush that she often experienced whenever she’d arrived at the White House every morning for six years. The feeling almost took her by surprise, the way that it was both familiar and unfamiliar. Could she maybe start feeling that way about Buckingham Palace? Could she see such a hallowed building as a revered institution that perhaps—
“Fuck’s sake,” the Uber driver fumed. “Bloody tourists.”
Lauren snapped out of her sentimental reverie.
As the full scope of the Palace came into view, it seemed both larger than life and more quaint in person than it had when she was sixteen years old and busy mourning Zayn Malik’s departure from One Direction. She immediately pictured those iconic moments on its famous balcony in front of huge crowds—the big kiss after a royal wedding, waving to the people after a coronation. Could she help orchestrate those moments? Could she really be a part of this?
As her car approached the building, Lauren waited for the crowds to part, for the iron gates to open up and allow her driver to graciously pass through and coast up to the front door . . . but then she watched as the driver went right past them.
“Um, excuse me?” she said, bothered by the timidity in her own voice. She was always extremely aware of being an annoying American whenever she visited a foreign country and took great pains to not be that person, but more often than not, it just made her a stranger not only in a strange country, but a stranger to herself, too.
The driver waved off her concern, hunching over the wheel as he navigated a little too closely around a group of schoolchildren. “I know where I’m going,” he snapped, then jabbed a finger toward the printout of the map that Lauren was still holding on her lap. “You want the side entrance.”
Yes, of course she did. The side entrance. The discreet, members-only entrance that was probably only for the most important people, like the pope. And Beyoncé. Lauren preened a little at that, smoothing her hands down her forest green pencil skirt that she had paid a lot of money to have dry-cleaned in twenty-four hours, before picking at a thread in the hem. Damn. She wished she had seen that back at the hotel.
As she looked up, they were arriving at . . . well, a rather normal-looking side gate on the sidewalk with two bored-looking security officers leaning against a patrol booth. They both glanced at her car with the same look that most people gave to squirrels: not thrilled to see them but resigned nonetheless.
Lauren climbed out of the Prius, wincing a little as the heels pinched her feet. She had planned to return the shoes once work in DC eased up a bit, but when her schedule suddenly became empty, she realized she didn’t want to leave her apartment. And so the shoes continued to sit unworn in her closet until three days ago, when she found herself tossing things into her carry-on suitcase like she was the best friend character in a rom-com movie, flailing and frantic.
And now, standing in a new city in front of one of the world’s oldest institutions, Lauren wondered if this was just how it would be from now on, if she would soon be entering her thirties trying on new jobs, new relationships, and new locations, none of them ever fitting as well as the ones that had gotten away.
One of the security officers checked her ID and credentials, only giving her a passing glance as he made sure that she matched her passport photo, then ushered her inside to another waiting area. Lauren smiled as she walked up to the tall security counter. The man asked for her details, proof of address, the purpose of her visit, and then proceeded to hold up a battered-looking webcam to take an extremely unflattering below-the-chin photo for her visitor’s pass. Lauren hung the small lanyard around her neck and flipped the front side around so it wasn’t visible. One eye shut and her embarrassing full name printed on the ID were not part of the cool Palace entrance she had envisioned.
In front of her, two rows of glass security doors awaited, and beyond them a courtyard that led into the Palace itself. She looked around and caught sight of a delivery cart filled with boxes addressed to the office of the Princess of Strathearn, who, thanks to a Wikipedia deep dive, Lauren knew was fifty-two years old and currently the youngest of the working royals. She casually sidled up to get a closer look at the fancy brand names on the address labels before a man popped his head into the room and gave her a quick look up and down. “You must be Bea—”
“Lauren Morgan,” she said brightly, offering her hand. “And you must be James.”
He shook her hand in a way that made Lauren think he’d be applying hand sanitizer as soon as he could. “James Colleran,” he replied. “I’m the chief of staff to the principal private secretary to the Queen.” His glasses gave him a somewhat preppy, boyish look, but because of his tweed suit and neatly parted brown hair, Lauren wasn’t sure whether he was in his thirties or fifties.
“It’s really nice to meet you,” she said. “Thank you so much for having me here today; it’s such an honor to be at Buckingham Palace.”
James paused just long enough before speaking that Lauren wondered if it would be up to her to fill the awkward silence. The courtyard beyond the security office was quiet, and she was very aware of how loud her voice sounded. She had gotten used to speaking up at work, to make sure that she could always be heard over both the din of reporters at press briefings and the interruptions of some of her younger, cockier colleagues. If she looked, there were probably a few cough drops at the bottom of her purse. She used to buy them in bulk.
She was about to open her mouth when James finally replied.
“Yes, well, thank you for coming.” His smile was somewhat friendly. “Especially on such short notice, of course. I trust your flight was comfortable?”
She had been in economy in the middle seat, the person behind her grabbed at her headrest every time he stood up to use the bathroom, and somewhere on her plane was a toddler with a cough that could only be described as “tuberculosis adjacent.”
“Oh, it was great, thank you,” she said. “Piece of cake.”
James’s right eyebrow twitched just a little. “Well, excellent,” he said. “I assume you got the briefing notes about the position that we sent you?”
Lauren patted her bag, gesturing toward the iPad inside. “Right here,” she said. “Thank you so much for sending them.”
James held open the rather unassuming door on the other side of the courtyard for her. This was it, she thought. She was about to walk into Buckingham Palace. Hours of Netflix binges had given her a vague idea of what was coming: antique furniture, sweeping staircases, ornate silk rugs, bitchy courtiers, and, of course, the grand artwork.
So she was more than a little disappointed to be greeted by what looked like the service area at the back of a hotel: exposed pipework, battered walls, staff running back and forth, and zero art. In fact, the only thing on the walls were ugly plastic bumpers to stop carts and trolleys from causing further damage. It was a hive of important activity, but, as she caught sight of a vending machine filled with chips and chocolate bars and a sticky-looking bank ATM, it felt far from regal. The Crown it was not. This must be a special shortcut to get to the royal offices, she thought, like when the Secret Service would take the president out of restaurants through the kitchen.
James began moving down the corridor at a much faster clip, and Lauren hustled to keep up with him, her strides matching his just like she had taught herself to do back at the White House. She weaved in and around those racing past—cleaners, kitchen staff pushing carts full of produce, gruff-looking men with deliveries, laborers carrying toolboxes.
“Of course, we’re still interviewing for the position,” James said, gesturing to her to keep following him. “We have a few candidates in the running, but we prefer to do interviews in-person. It may be a bit old-fashioned—”
“Oh no, it’s wonderful,” Lauren said, waving away his concern with her hand, and was glad she had managed to get a last-minute appointment for a gel manicure. “Honestly, if I don’t have to do a Zoom call ever again in my life, I’ll be very happy.” That was a lie. Lauren would have killed to see a bunch of professional faces in a grid from the comfort of her own home. “Plus it’s nice to actually see where I could be working, get a feel for the office, meet people face-to-face.”
