Chapter 11

C HAPTER 11

DAYS UNTIL THE CORONATION: NINE

I'm on my second private jet in three months, sitting across from a boy I once loved who does not want me here. It's as awkward as it sounds, which is why I spent a good portion of last night brainstorming ways to get out of this.

I'm morally opposed to flying private. (True.)

I'm too sick to fly. (Technically true, since my stomach is churning.)

I'm pregnant. (And it's not Theo's.)

The easiest escape route would have been to tell Brooke and Naomi what I overheard, but it won't help anyone if they murder the king of England.

"Do you think Princess Victoria will be on our flight?" Naomi asked when we were all in the car early this morning, a notepad of hotel paper clutched tightly in her hand.

My stomach churned anxiously. "Probably. Why?"

"I've made a list of conversation topics to help Theo's siblings get to know you. First, I'm going to tell them about the time your pet hamster died, and your parents buried him in the backyard, and you couldn't stop crying so you dug him up and walked around for three days with a dead hamster in a shoebox."

I gaped at her. "Please don't."

"It's charming! Second, I want to know if it's true that she doesn't squeeze her own toothpaste. That one's not about you. Third, I'd love to know her thoughts about weather. "

"As a general concept?"

"Yes. Exactly." Her eyes scanned the paper. "I guess most of these aren't about you."

When the ride ended, Naomi stepped onto the tarmac, stared up at the dreary, pre-dawn sky, and declared that it would be a great day. She then fired off a dozen emails to her roommate, her RA, her student adviser, and her professors, informing them all that she's on a diplomatic mission and would be back in a week. Brooke, still behind on sleep after spending an entire night driving to Canada, wordlessly slunk to the back of the plane and conked out.

I was surprised to learn that most of Theo's team would be on a second plane leaving later today, and that this morning's flight would just be us, the royal siblings, Comet, and Winston. I overheard snippets of heated conversation about whether the direct heirs to the throne would be allowed on the same plane as Theo, but it sounds like Victoria and Henry wanted on the first plane out of Canada. In the end, Theo overrode royal protocol to allow all three of them on the same flight.

I feel mortified every time I look at the King, flushed with the shame of thinking he wanted to kiss me in his suite last night, that I ever meant anything to him. I'm glad he left when he did, and even more glad that he didn't come around asking for Comet. He would have found me in a bad mood, unwilling to give up my dog, and deep down a rabbit hole of Googling his brother.

I can feel Theo's eyes on me now from across the small plane, and it takes everything I have not to acknowledge him. His presence is so distracting; I can practically feel when he blinks. But that doesn't matter. From last night onward, I am indifference personified.

Henry takes the seat next to me and opens a book. Without taking his eyes off the page, he says, "Find anything interesting?"

Given the way our conversation ended last night, I'm pretty sure he's talking about my promise to look him up online.

It's hard to know how to separate fact from fiction when it comes to the royal family, because their fans and haters won't shut up and log off. I could have read all night and still not scratched the surface of royal family lore. One pattern was easy to spot, though, and it's exactly as Naomi said: Henry gets disproportionately positive press. He's consistently named the "hardest-working royal," with more than twice as many royal engagements as Theo and endless puff pieces about his charity work.

Theo, on the other hand, is the face of a monarchy in crisis. I didn't pick up on it when I was just scrutinizing pictures of him and Comet, but apparently public support for him is waning, especially outside the UK. He's suspected of drinking too much and enjoying his job too little. According to some outlets, this (now-scrapped) royal tour was a desperate and doomed effort to gather goodwill for a capricious teenage king in the weeks leading up to his coronation.

I'm not about to discuss any of this with Henry, however. "What are you reading?"

He tilts his book so I can see the cover. Sceptre, Throne, and Crown. It looks like a dense nonfiction book about the history of his own family.

I laugh out loud. "Everyone already likes you best! You don't need to do all this."

He uses his finger as a bookmark as he closes the book. "You did research me."

"Is that why you weren't at the park yesterday? Because you've been getting too much good press?"

He raises a cryptic brow before flipping the book back open and returning his eyes to the page. I'm dying to lean forward and look at Theo, but I heroically resist the urge.

The smell of nail polish fills the cabin. Eager for a distraction, I push myself up onto my knees and turn around, resting my chin on the back of my seat. Naomi is painting her nails a kelly green while Victoria frowns at her. I realize with a stab of jealousy that Comet is lounging on the seat next to the princess.

"Hey, Theo. Can you change Mum's rule about colored nail polish?" Victoria asks, running her hand over Comet's head.

"You wear colored nail polish all the time. You're wearing it now," Theo points out.

"Barely." Victoria rolls her eyes at her pale pink nails. "And the press still won't put a sock in it. I want to wear black. Or neon purple with silver sparkles. I want my nails to be two inches long with charms hanging off."

He cocks his head. "You do?"

"I want the option."

"Do it. You know I don't care."

"Also, I'm done with tights. They make me feel like a grandma."

"I'll write a statement," Theo deadpans.

"Never complain, never explain," Henry says ominously.

"What is that?" I ask.

"Our family motto," he says proudly, and I remember Theo telling me how the Queen forbade him from talking about his depression. I can't help but wonder if she saw it as complaining, and my impression of her plummets even further.

I glance at Theo, and my heart surges. "That doesn't seem fair," I say to Henry.

He shrugs. "No one wants to hear rich white people complain about clothes or nails when there are families struggling to put food on the table. It makes us seem out of touch."

"We are out of touch," Victoria and Theo say at the same time.

I slide back down in my seat. "Even so, I'd rather live naked at the North Pole than get my brother's approval on my nail art. "

"You should know that if you stick around, you'll be expected to follow the same guidelines," Victoria says.

"She's only staying for a few days," Henry answers for me. "Right?" For clarification he turns to his brother, who is watching our conversation with interest. "Once the wedding fuss is cleared up, she's going back to Chicago?"

"You two aren't together?" Victoria butts her way into the conversation now, but my gaze is still locked on Theo's. My face heats as I think about the conversation that I overheard last night.

"No," I answer, before Theo beats me to the punch. "No, we're not together. Yes, I'm leaving London as soon as possible."

Theo stands and crosses the aisle. "Switch with me," he says to his brother.

"Is that an order, Your Majesty?" Henry jokes.

At least I think it's a joke until I see Theo's jaw clench.

Henry raises his eyebrows at me. "That's the trouble with my brother. If it were me—"

"Sod off," Theo says gruffly.

"Attaboy! Way to take charge!" Henry bows and sweeps his arms out to the side, dramatically giving his seat to his brother.

Theo sits and buckles himself in and motions to his brother. "In case you doubted that he was better for the job…"

He's too close. I stand up. "I have to go to the bathroom."

"Safety hazard," Theo says. "The pilot never cleared us to take off our seat belts."

"I'll risk it." I step toward the aisle, but his arm reaches out, blocking my path.

"I have it on good authority that you've been known to hide in the loo. You wouldn't be planning on doing that again, would you?"

I close my eyes against the memory of him and me in a public bathroom on the Eurostar: I counted the number of times his legs touched mine by the giddy spikes in my pulse. When the world was on the brink of disaster, everything else was simple. There were no consequences to worry about or futures to plan. It was just him and me, bumping knees and hiding smiles.

Fate had to play out exactly right for us to have ended up on that train together, in a situation we couldn't run from, but I sure as hell am running now. I wrap my fingers around Theo's wrist (a grave error in judgment), momentarily frozen, when the pilot makes an announcement.

"We're expecting rough turbulence ahead. Please stay seated with your seat belts fastened."

One side of Theo's mouth hitches up in a wry smile. I can't tell if he's being flirty, or if he's just happy to be right. I drop into my seat and buckle my seat belt, my eyes firmly on the window.

"I think I'm missing something," Theo says to the back of my head.

I want to ignore him (well, I want to want to ignore him), but doing so would be the opposite of unbothered. "I don't think so," I say coolly, turning to look at him.

"I'm sorry I left last night."

"I'm not upset about that."

"But you are upset?" he prompts.

Great. Two seconds into my unbothered act and I'm already failing. "Nope!" I turn my gaze back to the rain-speckled window.

"Why won't you talk to me?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"The truth."

I whirl on him. "I can't!"

His jaw clenches in frustration.

I lean back with a sigh as the plane hits turbulence and jostles me against him. I quickly lean away, removing all points of contact between us, only to be thrown back into his side. My hand lands in his lap. "I didn't mean to!" I quickly withdraw my hand.

"You're not responsible for the turbulence?" he asks in mock surprise.

The plane hits another huge bump, and he grabs my hand and squeezes hard. I look at our intertwined fingers in surprise before glancing up at him. "I didn't mean to," he says sarcastically.

My head slams into the window as Theo's shoulder collides with mine. "Ow!" I yelp in pain.

"Switch seats with me," he says immediately, but I wave him off. I don't need special treatment, and I'm too scared to unbuckle now anyway. This storm is rougher than anything I've ever felt. Books, water bottles, and phones crash through the cabin; Theo and I duck to avoid being hit as we strain against our seat belts.

Silence settles over us as the turbulence intensifies, until Naomi yells "Sorry about the nail polish on the leather" from the back of the cabin.

"Where's Comet?" I ask.

"Buckled in his safety harness," Victoria confirms from somewhere behind me.

"Buddy system?" Naomi jokes. "In case we crash or whatever."

"We're not going to crash," Brooke says. "Flying is safer than driving."

"Even so, you probably shouldn't have let all three of us on the flight, Your Majesty." Henry's voice is strained, and Theo's jaw clenches in response.

I close my eyes and try to slow my breathing, but I can feel my panic bubbling to the top. "Remember we're in Jell-O," I say loudly.

"Care to explain that?" Henry calls, his fingers gripped tightly around his history book.

"The plane is a shaken-up cup of Jell-O and we're the peas safely inside. It's physics," I say, fairly certain that I could explain it better if I wasn't worried about our plane falling out of the sky, cracking the Jell-O cup, and crashing our little pea bodies into the ocean.

"Do Americans eat peas in their jelly?" Victoria asks, managing to sound haughty even in dire circumstances.

"Who said anything about jelly?" My fingers are starting to ache, but then Theo relaxes his white-knuckle grip, and I realize the turbulence is lessening with every second. I open my eyes and look around. The cabin is a disaster, and rain still lashes at our dark windows, but the worst of it appears to be over. The chaos churning inside me settles.

Winston appears from the front of the plane and physically checks to ensure that Theo's seat belt is fastened. I use the moment to quickly swipe tears off my cheeks.

I pull my hand from Theo's loose grip and shake off the remaining terror. My heart hasn't caught up with my brain, and it's brutalizing my rib cage. "Do you think it's over?"

"I reckon, yes," he says.

A voice comes through the speakers. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking again. Storm conditions have shifted rapidly. If the cabin loses pressure, oxygen masks will deploy."

"Just a precaution," Theo says quickly.

"We're going to be fine." I smile tightly.

"We're Jell-O." Somehow his hand has found its way back around mine.

"We're in Jell-O," I correct. "But if something goes wrong, no worries, Your Majesty. Everyone will help you put your mask on first."

"You would take the piss out of me even on the brink of death," he whispers back, a glint in his eye.

"So dramatic." I try to swallow my fear, but my throat is burning with it, my eyes brimming with unshed tears. For about a week this summer, I thought I was going to die, but I never came to terms with it; I wasn't ready then, and I'm even less ready now.

He squeezes my hand, and I squeeze back, all my flimsy resolve about keeping my distance vanished in an instant. Our knees are pressed together, and I've made a liar of myself. It's just a little turbulence, but we're conditioned to reach for each other as if the world is ending.

"Do you remember when we jumped off a ferry because we thought it was capsizing?" I ask as fear prickles along my spine.

"Is now a good time to be reminiscing, Wheeler?"

"This is just like that. It feels like the plane is crashing, but it's not. I'm sure we'll be laughing about this in a—"

The lights go out, and the plane plummets. Oxygen masks fall. A strong tug behind my belly button nearly yanks me out of my seat. For a heartbeat or two, our luggage hovers in midair.

All I hear is screaming, pierced through by Comet's scared whimper. I picture him hiding under his paws, and I might throw up. Theo's fingers are bruising on the back of my hand. I close my eyes and brace for an impact that doesn't come.

Disaster is slower than I thought.

The plane evens out, and I'm stunned. Theo and I stare at each other in pure disbelief. His eyelashes are wet with tears and my entire body is shaking.

"Are we dead?" I'm only half joking.

The speaker turns on. "Ladies and gentlemen, we've lost both engines."

We look out the window and see flames. I can't breathe. I bend in half and place my head between my knees. My vision goes fuzzy. Theo yanks my shoulders back and clamps an oxygen mask over my face. I turn to see him putting on his own.

"Life preservers are under the seats. Brace for impact," the pilot shouts. "MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY."

Winston throws a life preserver at Theo. My hands shake violently as I find mine and loop it over my neck. Someone in the back of the cabin is sobbing hysterically.

On second thought, that might be me.

I move the oxygen mask. "I love you, Brooke. I love you, Naomi," I scream.

"I love you, too," Brooke yells back. Naomi doesn't respond.

Theo's face is deathly white. "I can't remember the last time I said that to anyone, even my siblings."

"Now might be a good time." My fists are clenched, my nails digging crescent moons into my skin.

"We don't do that. It… it's not natural for me. But I should have said it." He screws his eyes shut tight and forces the next words through gritted teeth. "When we were in Greece, I should have told you that I loved you."

Loved. Past tense.

It's absurd that my brain picks this to focus on, but I take comfort in knowing nothing would have changed if he'd said it.

I close my eyes and concentrate on breathing in and out as the plane spirals through the air. I'm covered in tears and snot, shaking so badly it's painful.

"Time to face the facts, Theo." I shout to be heard over the sound of our personal apocalypse.

"What's that, Wheeler?"

"Every time we're together, the universe tries to kill us. It was never going to work."