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“How are things otherwise?” Elizabeth asked.

“Well, as second in line, I have royal duties that take up a lot of my time. If I’m not second in line in two weeks, I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do with my life.”

“School?”

“I’m thinking about graduate school, yes, but if I’m not second in line, I might not go in St. Rais. I might see what else is out there for me.”

“Even if youaresecond in line, we can work out a schedule that allows you to go to school when and wherever you’d like to go, Vicky. You know that.”

“I can’t just leave you here if you’re still Queen; at least, not for a while. If you have kids and they start performing royal duties in a couple of decades, maybe I can take a break, but that’s not going to be for a while.”

“God, can you picture that?” Elizabeth stared off into the distance, seeing nothing in particular. “I could either not get married at all, and you or your kids would inherit the throne, or I could marry a woman, and our kids would take over after me.” At that thought, she pictured Palmer standing next to her, and that felt… well, it felt right.

“Wouldyouhave them?”

“Huh?” Elizabeth asked.

“Well, it wasn’t like you and Teagan were going to have kids, so we’ve never really talked about this. Would you be the one to have them? It wouldn’t matter either way, except for the whole crown thing.”

“I don’t know. I guess I’d want to have them myself. Truthfully, I haven’t allowed myself to plan or dream this stuff before. You’re right about Teagan: we wouldn’t have been able to have kids. And I was in school, planning on spending the next decade in academia, at least, so I wasn’t thinking about having kids. This is all a little new to me. I know Palmer wants kids, but I don’t get the impression she wants to have them herself.”

“Palmer, huh?”

“Yes, Palmer.”

“When you picture those future kids, they’re with her, aren’t they?”

Elizabeth shook her head and said, “I know that’s crazy; so much can happen between now and then.”

“Lizzy, it just means you’re in love, and you want a future with her. I think that’s a good thing.”

“I hope so,” Elizabeth replied.

CHAPTER 36

“Your output hasn’t been a lot lately, Palmer,” her editor said.

“I finished that last piece on time, and I’m on track with two more,” she replied.

“You let the big one go. We hardly got anything from your time in St. Rais. Where was the Pulitzer you promised the paper?”

“It would have beenmyPulitzer. And I stand by what I wrote. I went where the story took me.”

“And it took you away from the interesting stuff?” he asked. “You wrote what everyone else wrote, Palmer, andyouhad the inside scoop.”

“Maybe I can add to it. The whole country is voting on whether or not to keep the monarchy, and it was the Queen’s idea. I don’t think that’s ever happened before. I could do something on that.”

“I’ve got Lynch on that.”

“You put Lynch on St. Rais?” Palmer sat up in her chair.

“Yeah,he’llget me the story.”

Palmer tried not to let her ego get in the way. Lynch was a good enough writer. It was just that St. Rais was hers. Elizabeth was hers. If someone atThe Courierwas going to write about her or her country, Palmer wanted to be that person. Then again, she was in too deep now. She wouldn’t be able to be unbiased and write a piece about Elizabeth either remaining a Queen or being dethroned. Maybe this was for the best.

“Fine.” She shrugged a shoulder.

“Where’s your fire, Palmer? I expected an argument about me taking your story away.” He sat up and placed his elbows on his desk.