Flora laughs at that, the real kind that shows her teeth, and her hand is tight in mine.
“I’m sorry, too,” she says. “I should’ve told you the truth about Tam, and I definitely shouldn’t have paid your tuition without telling you, but . . .” She shrugs. “What can I say? I’m a mess.”
“You’re not,” I immediately reply, then I rethink that. “Okay, you are, but you’re kind and sweet and lovely, and did I mention the whole ‘in love with you’ part? Because seriously. In love.”
“So I’m your sort of mess, then,” she says, and I reach into my pocket, pulling out the rose quartz.
“You are,” I tell her, pressing the rock into her palm. She looks at it for a long moment before lifting her head to meet my eyes.
“This is a very fine rock,” she says at last, her voice a little tight, and I grin back at her.
“You already have all the fancy jewelry in the world,” I say, “but I can keep you supplied with actual rocks. And read maps for you. And there’s a whole world of laundry out there you don’t even know about. Towels were just the beginning.”
“Well, how can a girl resist such an offer?” Flora says, tossing her hair a bit, and my heart feels so big in my chest, I’m surprised I don’t burst.
“Kiss her, lass!” a man shouts from the crowd, and Flora bursts into giggles, covering her mouth with one gloved hand even as tears sparkle in her eyes.
“Is he talking to me or you?” she asks, and I step forward, shaking my head.
“I don’t know,” I tell her, laying my palm against her cheek. “But it’s good advice, so I’m going to take it.”
And I do.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, thank you so much to the fabulous team at Penguin, who knocks it out of the park on every book. I feel very lucky to get to work with such brilliant ladies!
To my editor, Ari Lewin, and my agent, Holly Root: They don’t let you put GIFs in acknowledgments, which is a real shame, because I need a lot of Real Housewives GIFs—you know, the ones where someone is crying and being messy in a fancy dress, and other, more responsible people are holding her up?—to express all y’all do for me. Thank you for helping these books—and me!—be the best we can be.
Thank you so much to the readers who’ve come along on this wild and woolly (literally! sheep!) journey into the Royals ’verse with me. Your enthusiasm has meant the world to me.
Thank you to my family, as always, for everything.
And last, but never least, for all the girls like Millie who are still figuring themselves out, or the girls who, like Flora, feel pretty damn secure in who they are and who they want to be with: This one is for you, with love.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rachel Hawkins lives in Auburn, Alabama with her husband and son, three cats, and numerous abandoned craft projects. When not writing about fake royals, she's reading about the exploits of real ones and tracking some of their bigger scandals via her #SexyHistory stories on Twitter. Her Royal Highness is Rachel's eleventh novel.
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