Making It Royal (Making It #11)

Prologue

Bryce

The man across from me was sweating through his suit. It was custom-tailored, Melbourne’s finest, but expensive wool still puckers when someone is both furious and terrified.

“Ambassador Lewis, how the hell am I supposed to run a business like this?” he snapped, his knuckles white against the polished edge of my conference table.

“Last week the tariff was ten percent. Yesterday, fifteen. This morning it’s twenty, and God knows what it’ll be tomorrow.

How do you plan an export strategy when the bloody rules change every time the President opens his mouth? ”

I folded my hands neatly on the blotter and leaned back, posture calm—because that’s what ambassadors do. Inside, I wanted to slam my head against the mahogany.

“I understand your frustration, Mr. Davenport,” I said, giving him my best measured sympathy tone, the one that kept people from storming out and calling us imperial overlords. “Unfortunately, trade policy comes directly from Washington. My role here is to maintain dialogue and—”

He cut me off, leaning forward, eyes flashing.

“Dialogue? That’s bureaucrat-speak for nothing you can do.

These tariffs don’t just hurt me—they hurt the American people buying my steel.

It’ll cost them more to build homes, more to repair cars, more for everything.

Your President is strangling his own people just to look tough on television. ”

My jaw ached from how tightly I was holding it.

He wasn’t wrong. Hell, he was painfully, excruciatingly right.

But there it was: the diplomatic cage. I could acknowledge his anger, empathize, maybe even slip in a promise to “carry his concerns back to Washington.” But I couldn’t say the thing I wanted to: Believe me, I think he’s an idiot too.

The first sharp pulse of a headache needled behind my left temple.

My right hand twitched toward the top drawer where the aspirin bottle lived, my constant companion since Inauguration Day.

Not yet. I couldn’t do it while he was watching me, cataloguing every gesture, waiting for a sign that his words had landed.

I clasped my hands tighter instead and kept my face neutral. “I’ll make sure your concerns are relayed to the Secretary of State, Mr. Davenport.”

He laughed bitterly. “Yeah, I’m sure he’ll lose sleep over that.”

Before I could respond, the intercom on my desk buzzed. My assistant’s voice crackled through, urgent, clipped. “Ambassador? You need to turn on the news. Right now.”

Her tone stopped me cold. I shot a quick glance at Davenport. His jaw clenched like he was ready to keep going.

“Mr. Davenport,” I said, rising, already moving him toward the door, “I need to cut this short. Something’s come up. My staff will be in touch to schedule a follow-up.”

He sputtered, caught between outrage and resignation, but I’d perfected the art of polite dismissal years ago. The man was halfway down the hall before I was back at my desk.

Drawer open. White bottle in my hand. Two chalky pills dry-swallowed before the cap even clicked shut again.

With the aspirin still bitter on my tongue, I reached for the remote and flicked on the massive screen across from me on the wall. The embassy’s quiet hum collapsed into breaking headlines, Sky News flashing red.

And just like that, the problem of tariffs evaporated.

“We are just receiving confirmation from the American Embassy in London that the United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, Ian Mitchell, has died suddenly of what officials are describing as a cardiac event.

He was sixty-one. Mitchell, who had served in the post for three years, is survived by his wife, Eleanor, and their two children.

Downing Street has issued a statement calling him ‘a trusted partner and a steadfast friend of the United Kingdom in turbulent times.’ The White House, in a separate release, praised his ‘dedication to American values abroad’ and noted that he ‘served with distinction during a pivotal chapter in U.S.–U.K. relations.’”

The chyron screamed AMBASSADOR TO UK DEAD AT 61.

I pressed my fingertips into my temple, but the pounding only grew sharper. Ian Mitchell, gone. Just like that.

I switched the monitor off, the sudden silence almost violent in its finality.

Ian had been my boss once—Deputy Secretary when I was still clawing my way up from mid-level posts.

He’d never made me feel like I had to claw at all.

Once, in a strategy session packed with men who thought volume equaled authority, Ian had stopped the meeting cold, pointed right at me, and said, “Let’s hear Lewis’s assessment.

He’s the only one in the room who’s actually been on the ground.

” He hadn’t just given me space—he’d demanded the others shut up and listen. I’d never forgotten that.

And now he was a headline, leaving a widow and two kids who’d have to sit in the front row at a state funeral while strangers talked about “legacy.” My throat tightened, but grief was a luxury I couldn’t afford at work.

The intercom buzzed again. My assistant’s voice, brisk and apologetic: “Ambassador, Secretary Kirk is waiting on a secure link.”

Perfect. Nothing like Kirk to turn grief into indigestion.

I exhaled, reached for the remote, and brought the monitor back to life. The embassy’s secure comms platform filled the screen with Kirk’s face, all angles and smugness, the picture of a man who’d never met a mirror he didn’t adore.

Here we go, I thought, squaring my shoulders. Ian Mitchell deserved a memorial. What he was about to get instead was Franklin Kirk.

Kirk’s face blinked onto the screen, framed by the mahogany-and-flag backdrop of his office in Washington. He didn’t even pretend to look somber.

“Ambassador Lewis,” he said, inclining his head with the air of a man bestowing knighthood, “difficult day, difficult news. A terrible loss, of course. Mitchell was… dependable.” He drew the word out like it tasted bland on his tongue.

“Solid fellow. Stuck around longer than I expected, truth be told. I’d been thinking for some time that a change was in order. ”

My jaw clenched. The man’s body isn’t even cold and you’re already being an ass.

Kirk leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “But fate has a way of moving things along, doesn’t it?”

I wanted to tell him fate had nothing to do with cardiac arrest, but my tongue stayed pressed firmly behind my teeth.

Then he actually smiled. “Which brings us to you.”

The words fell like a lead weight in my stomach. “Me?”

“Yes. The President and I have agreed you’re the natural choice to step in. We’ll be announcing shortly that you’re being appointed Ambassador to the Court of St. James.” He said it like he was offering me season tickets to the Kennedy Center.

I swallowed hard, pulse drumming in my ears.

London. Ian Mitchell’s seat. Just like that.

For a moment I couldn’t speak. The ambassadorship to the U.K.

wasn’t just a plum assignment—it was the assignment.

Presidents handed it out like favors, thank-you notes for obscenely large checks written during the election campaign.

It wasn’t given to career diplomats who had spent years grinding it out in foreign postings, like me.

My thoughts must have flickered across my face, because Kirk’s smile widened.

“I know what you’re thinking. Why you? Well, let’s be clear.

This isn’t about competence. It’s about optics.

Your family name carries weight on both sides of the Atlantic.

You’ll project the right image, and frankly, you can be counted on to take direction.

Which,” he added with the smug satisfaction of a man who never doubted his own brilliance, “is exactly what the Department needs right now.”

I bit the inside of my cheek so hard it hurt. A cruel man, I thought. A cruel, arrogant man, and I am trapped on his chessboard.

Before I could muster a diplomatic response, Kirk glanced off-screen, clearly done with me. “We’ll be in touch with details. Pack your bags, Bryce. London awaits.”

And just like that, the screen went black.

I sat in silence, the aspirin bottle still clutched in my hand, the pounding in my skull now a full symphony. Ian Mitchell was gone, Kirk had all but danced on his grave, and I—God help me—was his replacement.

My finger hovered over the intercom button a beat too long before I finally pressed it. My voice came out strange, thin, not like mine at all.

“Caroline, come in here, please.”

Seconds later, the door opened and my assistant slipped inside—Caroline Wright, an unflappable twenty-eight-year-old with a talent for managing crises with color-coded spreadsheets. She had her ever-present notepad clutched to her chest like a shield.

I could feel the words sticking in my throat. “Ambassador Ian Mitchell is dead. The Secretary just informed me I’ll be replacing him in London.”

Her mouth fell open. A little gasp escaped, then she snapped it shut and straightened her spine. “Oh. Ambassador—congratulations.”

Something inside me snapped. “Congratulations?” My tone was sharper than I intended, a whipcrack across the room. “Ian is gone, Caroline. His widow just lost a husband. His children just lost a father. This is hardly a time to celebrate.”

Color flushed her cheeks, and she ducked her head. “Of course. I—I didn’t mean—”

I squeezed my eyes shut, rubbed at my temples, the aspirin bottle still warm in my palm. “Cancel everything on my calendar. Appointments, receptions, ribbon cuttings—clear it all. Draft the appropriate condolences for the family. And for God’s sake, no statements until I approve them.”

“Yes, sir.” She scribbled furiously, then, subdued, slipped back out of my office.

As soon as the door closed, I sagged into my chair, guilt pressing down on me. Caroline didn’t deserve that. But what could I do? Kirk had yanked the ground out from beneath me and left me standing in the rubble. The words had come out before I could stop them.

I pushed myself up and began pacing the length of the office.

Once, twice, five times. Each stride sharper, angrier, my shoes striking the carpet like punctuation marks.

I hated myself for lashing out. I hated Kirk for smiling.

I hated Ian for leaving us too soon, though I knew that was cruel and unfair.

Mostly, I hated this pounding in my skull, the endless reminder that none of it could be undone.

Finally, I snatched up the phone and dialed my residence.

“Mrs. Ashcroft here,” came the warm, clipped voice of my house manager, a woman who had been with my family for nearly twenty years and had never once lost her composure.

“It’s Bryce.” My voice faltered. “The UK ambassador, Ian Mitchell, has died. Sudden cardiac event.”

A long pause. Then: “Oh, Ambassador. I’m so terribly sorry. He was a fine man. I remember when he visited for the Fourth of July—he insisted on carrying chairs into the garden himself, and said he didn’t want to sit around like dead weight while the staff did all the work.”

The knot in my throat tightened. Finally—finally—someone sounded like a decent human being.

“Thank you, Mrs. Ashcroft,” I whispered. “I need you to start packing up my things. Yours, too. I’ll be leaving for London soon. I’ll be… replacing him.”

There was the faintest sigh on the line. Not judgment, not pity—simply recognition of the absurd cruelty of it all. “Of course, Ambassador. I’ll see to it at once.”

When I hung up, the silence in my office pressed heavy against me. The screen where Kirk’s face had been now sat black and blank, reflecting only my own pale outline.

I pressed my fingers into the cool wood of my desk, steadying myself against the tide of dread rising inside me.

Was I walking into the honor of my career… or the greatest political trap of my life?