“He can barely ski at all,” Cilla added. “He just doesn’t like Clive to feel superior.” She sighed. “I’d best go make sure he hasn’t broken his leg again.”
“I’ll take you down the hill, Bex,” Nick said as she skied away. “It’ll be nice to slow down and actually see the views.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said. “I will be watching my feet.”
We pushed over to a patch of snow-covered trees and plopped down in the powder to get our gear in place. Nick sat with his back to most of the other skiers and pulled up the hood on his parka while rubbing sunscreen onto his face.
“My family has been in rare form,” he said. “I’m sorry about that whole scene down there today. That reporter’s question had me in such a mood, I didn’t even defend you properly until you were already gone.”
“Don’t sweat it. I understand.”
“I just can’t believe we’ve got a leak,” he said. “I promised I’d keep you out of the papers.”
“It’s not your fault,” I insisted. “You can’t control the entire world.”
He blew out his lips. “Clearly, I can’t even control my own corner of it.” He stared out at the mountain. “I just wanted it to be on our terms, always. What’s the bloody point of being who I am if I can’t even make it safe for you to be with me?”
“Nick. A question from a reporter is not going to scare me off,” I said.
He gave me a grateful smile, then fell silent, fiddling with the straps on his poles.
“Gaz seems happy in his legal training. Clive’s a reporter, just like he always wanted. Joss is busy making clothes. Even Cilla seems to enjoy taking care of her sister’s children,” he finally said. “I’m going to sound ungrateful, but I’m so jealous that they get to pick. They can be anything. Even Freddie gets some choice, but I have none. I’m stuck hanging about looking cheerful until everyone around me dies and I’m given a job I am required by genetics to do.”
His voice cracked. I’d never heard him sound so dark about his life.
“I am a placeholder,” he said. “And I am a chess piece. And obviously, this comes with a lot of advantages. I know I am extraordinarily lucky. But do you know what it’s like to never, ever be asked what you want to be when you grow up? Or being told not to bother about it because it doesn’t matter?”
“No,” I said softly, wanting to hug him and hating that I couldn’t.
“I do sometimes look forward to military service,” he admitted. “But is that because it’s the best of the options I have, or because I actually want to do it? It’s so bloody hard to tell. I might never know.”
A certain sense of déjà vu crawled over me. “You mean, is it good on its own, or is it just good by default,” I translated.
I saw how stuck he felt, and it tore at me. This was also the most monumental confidence he’d ever shared, and I wanted to choose my next words carefully.
“I think,” I said slowly, “that you can’t change what you were born into, or what your life has been up to now, but you can control what it’s like going forward. Listen, you are who you are. Richard is your father, and one day, you are going to inherit the throne. That’s just the reality. But you are not a job, Nick. You’re not a title. You’re you. And there has to be a way for you to make this into a life you want to live. You’re still in charge of yourself. That has to be the key, don’t you think? That’s the touchstone.”
He poked me in the leg with his pole. “You’re the only touchstone I need,” he said, his voice blazing with feeling.
Looking back at this conversation, I want to hug both of us. We really did think we could handle anything as long as we had each other.
“You know that if I weren’t…the person I am…it would be totally different, right?” he whispered, urgently. “I would be going up to strangers in the street and telling them about you. The last thing I want to do is pretend we’re just friends.”
“I know,” I said, and I blew him the tiniest, most imperceptible peck, then looped my ski poles over my wrists, planted them in the snow, and heaved myself to my feet gracelessly.
“And now you’ve seen our seedy underbelly,” Nick said. “The press, the leaks, the squabbling, Julian drunk before noon. And Nigel. I wouldn’t blame you if you walked away.”
“You’ll have to do a lot worse than Nigel to spook me,” I told him. “Now, quit stalling. Unless you’re afraid to race me. Ready?”
He rose and studied me intently.
“I’m ready,” he said, leaning over and kissing me, briefly, tenderly, perfectly, not for more than five seconds.
We never even saw the flash.
Chapter Four
‘POSH AND BEX?’
Nicky Goes Snoggers in Klosters, says XANDRA DEANE
The Prince has a pauper: Single since breaking the heart of his most recent socialite, Prince Nicholas was caught on vacation kissing an Oxford classmate.
And she’s an American.
Nicholas, 24, was giving lip service to the plain brunette during the annual Royal Family trip to Klosters, the Swiss resort favoured by the Lyons clan for its privacy. Sources identify her as Rebecca “Bex” Porter, 23, an exchange student who met Nicholas at Oxford three years ago, and seduced him before the Prince broke it off with cuckolded party planner India Bolingbroke.
“She’s quite persistent,” one former classmate says of Porter. “Not bad looking. Bit heavy on the eyebrows, maybe. But she set her cap for him early on, and she got him.”
The Palace hasn’t issued a comment, but sources claim the Princess of Wales is particularly distraught…
“Well,” Bea said, drumming her fingers on a folded copy of the Daily Mail that sat on my dining table. “The good news is, they think you’re unemployed.”
“If that’s good news, then I’m in trouble,” I said, accepting a mug of cocoa from Cilla.
“Don’t drink that. It’s going to ruin your skin.” Bea snatched it and handed it to a brooding Pudge, whose face presumably was sacrificial. “And it is good news, because at least nobody is making fun of your ridiculous job yet, although it’s only a matter of time.”
The paparazzi snaps had hit the Internet the night they were taken. Nick was so upset that he put us on a charter straight back to England—where it turned out photographers were already lying in wait at Kensington. So he had PPO Furrow take us to my flat instead, refusing to spend New Year’s Eve apart; by the time we woke up the next morning, though, the press had found and surrounded my hovel in Shepherd’s Bush, forcing us to hole up there for several more days. It was us against the world, except for the occasional moments where Nick’s mood would char and I’d lose him to the wilds of whatever was whipping through his brain.