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Kate scrunches her nose as she tries to understand what I’m telling her.

“There’s no way my dad did that,” she finally says.

“Are you sure? Do you know what lengths he would go to be president? Power can do—”

She puts a finger on my lips, halting my words. “He’s not like them.”

“Kate, I don’t want to think that either, but Anna found some…well, interesting money transactions between an account opened under an IP address of a computer belonging to your father and an IP address of an off-shore account owned by the senator.”

“Get out,” Kate yells. She points toward the bathroom door. I sigh.

“Kate…”

“Get out,” she says again, her voice laced with anger and hurt. I know she needs time to process this. I step out and grab a towel, drying off before putting my clothes back on and leaving her to her thoughts.

I run into Anna in the hallway.

“I take it from the look on your face, things didn’t go well,” she says.

“No,” I huff. “Anna, are you sure? I mean…” I trail off, and she pulls me into a broom closet, yanking on the chain of the single lightbulb to illuminate the small space.

“Listen, give her a few minutes. You just dropped a major bomb on her. I still don’t completely understand how Jared’s family, the forty-four society, the anti-monarchists, Mom’s crown, and Kate’s dad all fit together, but we need Kate on board. Jack’s going to be here soon. He has multiple people working on this in addition to myself. We will figure it out,” she says confidently.

She leaves me in the hallway and instead of going back to my room, I head to the balcony off the library. I lean on the railing and look out at the fields surrounding the palace. I don’t fully understand how I got to this point. Yeah, trying to find that damned crown that plagues me in my sleep was how it started, but this…I feel like I’ve stumbled down a rabbit hole, and I can’t ever get back out of it.

The sun moves in the sky, but I stay still, listening to the birds in the distance. So many memories go through my mind. I’m deep in thought when a hand on my back startles me. I jump and turn to find Kate standing there.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, looking down at her feet.

“It’s OK…I was distracted,” I admit.

“Do you really believe my father could be involved in this?” she asks me. I can tell by the look on her face that she is hoping my answer will be no.

I shrug. “I don’t know what to believe at the moment.” I say it because it’s true, although I’m fairly certain her father is somehow involved.

She leans on the railing next to me. “You don’t have to sugarcoat it.”

“How did you meet Jared?” I ask her, changing our conversation. It’s something I’ve been wondering. How could someone like Kate be with a man like that?

She’s quiet for a moment, contemplating her words. “I was a teenager. It was Dad’s first term in office. I hadn’t been in D.C. for very long. My parents let us finish our school year at our other school before moving us. It was summer and my dad had a dinner party. It was a bunch of government people. I was bored to tears. Ash was younger and had already gone to bed. I was wandering around the building and ended up out in the rose garden. A few minutes later, Jared showed up and we started talking. He seemed nice and offered to introduce me to some other kids. We were friendly for a while before we started dating. It just sort of evolved. Eventually, he said he liked me, and we should date. My parents weren’t super happy about it, but I think they preferred I just stay celibate forever.”

“You didn’t know any kids in D.C. before you moved there?” I ask, a little surprised.

She shakes her head. “Not really, a few I’d met briefly at some parties, but my parents kept us pretty hidden. They wanted us to have a normal life.”

I do understand that. My parents did their best to let us have some normalcy in our lives too, as much as royalty can have.

“I feel like we’re missing something,” she says.

I nod. “I agree and so does Anna. Did you know the rest of his family?”

“No, not really. I met his uncle a few times and his cousin once, but he was younger like Ash and was away at school. They were both only children.”

My phone buzzes, alerting me to lunch. “Come on, time for food.”

Kate

The palace is quiet, eerily quiet. After lunch, an uneventful ride on the horses, and an early dinner, everyone is settling in for the night.