Royal Spin

Chapter 1

One

It had, Lauren quickly realized, been a spectacularly stupid idea to apply mascara in the back of an Uber on the way to a

job interview at Buckingham Palace, especially when said Uber driver seemed to favor the brakes more than the gas pedal.

In her defense, though, the lighting in her tiny hotel room had been terrible, and there was also the small problem of having

slept through her alarm, forcing her to get ready at lightning speed while puffy and jet-lagged.

As far as omens went, it wasn’t looking particularly great at the moment.

The picturesque sights of central London tinged with autumn colors flew past her as they drove down Park Lane, then stopped abruptly before disappearing once more.

The towering parade of sycamore trees along one side of the road were shedding their final leaves as the nation’s capital waved farewell to the final days of fall.

She knew little about the area other than it wrapped all the way around Hyde Park (thanks, Google Maps!), but the impeccably dressed men and women stepping out of luxury cars and into five-star hotels, including the world-famous Dorchester, made it clear this was a part of town that had a lot of money.

The private-jet dealership they briefly braked in front of confirmed her thoughts.

Ever since Lauren had received news of her in-person interview at Buckingham Palace, she’d been replaying the moment of her

grand arrival in her mind. She’d imagined gliding through its gates in a glossy black London taxi, sailing past curious tourists

with an air of reverence toward the institution—and of course humility for the opportunity—before gracefully stepping out

to ascend the . . . steps? Runway? She had only been to London one time before, on a poorly chaperoned high school trip in

which she spent most of her time hunting down One Direction merch instead of paying attention to the landmarks around her,

but she vaguely recalled a grand entrance flanked by serious-looking guards in scarlet uniforms and bearskin hats somewhere.

The reality, however, was that she was showing up in a dented Prius that smelled like wet dog, with her feet throbbing in

a pair of too-tight high heels (she had picked up some nude Prada pumps on sale at Nordstrom, but they had only been available

in a half size too small), and to top it off, she’d nearly been blinded by a mascara wand. The Palace had sent her a PDF map

of the drop-off point where she should go, but the driver had waved it off when Lauren offered it to him, muttering that he

knew the city like the back of his hand, and Lauren found herself envying his easy confidence.

She felt discombobulated and not like herself.

She hated it.

Her phone buzzed in her lap, and she picked it up without thinking of who it might be.

Or more specifically, who it might not be.

In the past six years that she had spent in DC working at the White House, her circle of friends had narrowed to just two people who also worked there: her boyfriend, Brian, and her best friend, Brooke.

She hadn’t noticed it at first, her days and nights so busy with work.

And then once she did realize how anemic her social life had become, it hadn’t seemed so bad.

She had her best friend and her boyfriend! Who else

could she possibly need?

A best friend and a boyfriend who didn’t hook up behind her back for months before Lauren finally found out. That was who.

She glanced at her notifications and sighed before swiping up on her screen. “Good luck!” the message read, accompanied by

a custom emoji image that looked just like her mom.

“Thanks??,” Lauren texted back without thinking, which proved to be a mistake because her mother took it as an opening for conversation.

“Are you in the car now?”

“Yes, heading to the Palace.”

“Is your driver being safe? I can see your location on my app. Is he going the speed limit?”

“Yes, very safe,” Lauren, who had no idea what the speed limit in London even was and didn’t have the brain space right then

to calculate kilometers to miles, texted back as they came to an aggressive halt at a red light. So safe. Safest ride ever.

“Rosie next door said that there’s a lot of crime and theft outside of Buckingham Palace so BE CAREFUL. Lots of tourists means

lots of pickpockets. And probably norovirus.”

Lauren suspected that her mom’s next-door neighbor, Rosie, most likely hadn’t left Atlanta in at least fifteen years, much

less owned a passport, but she tapped on the message to like it because it was just easier that way.

Lauren had been sitting on the couch in her studio apartment in DC when she was first contacted by a British-based recruitment agency about the deputy head of royal communications role at Buckingham Palace.

At the time, she’d been surrounded by a half-eaten pint of Ben a cute apartment in DC; Brooke, the bestest bestie who had ever bested; and Brian. Alex Cooper would have been so proud!

What an idiot she had been.

In an ideal world, after getting the invitation to interview, Lauren would have called Brian and then Brooke and screamed

for a bit about what to wear, but that hadn’t been an option anymore either. So instead, she had called her mom, and it was

nice, but it wasn’t the same. Afterward she showered for the first time in three days, put more than a few empty wine bottles

into the recycling bin, ordered sushi on Postmates, and sat on her couch in somewhat-clean sweats to research everything she

could about the job, the British royal family, and the Palace.

And fortunately, handling problems that took place in internationally famous landmark buildings was kind of her specialty.

Or at least it was, until she’d found out about Brooke and Brian. Until she couldn’t even step into the White House without

feeling like she was going to dry heave. She had prided herself on being able to think on her feet in any situation, her days

occupied by press releases, foreign dignitaries, global leaders, and relentless demands from reporters and TV news producers.

Sometimes it was glamorous and sometimes it was drinking cold leftover coffee with a Celsius energy drink chaser at three

in the morning, eyes all blurry and red, but Lauren had loved it. She had loved being able to control the narrative, being

able to handle anything that came her way.

And then the one thing that she couldn’t handle completely derailed her.

Lauren glanced at her phone again as the Uber driver made a sharp turn that was definitely not at the speed limit, kilometers or otherwise, and opened up her calendar, which now contained nothing but empty white squares.

She scrolled back a month to mid-September, when her boss had called her into her office and gently but firmly suggested a leave of absence, the tone in her voice making it clear that it wasn’t really a suggestion at all.

At first it had been a relief to leave her job, to cut off the limb rather than deal with the wound, but then Lauren’s days—and the wine bottles and takeout containers—started to stack up, all of them empty.

The night before she got the call about the Palace position, Lauren found herself crying over a movie that featured talking dogs.

Had it really been just three days ago that she got that call and managed to pull herself together, put on some Skims, and

fly across an ocean? Time really had no meaning sometimes.

Her phone buzzed again. Mom. Who else?

“Do you have hand sanitizer?”

Sometimes having a mom who worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was great and sometimes it was . . .

not. Time to engage Do Not Disturb mode, Lauren thought, and quickly swiped out of the app.

The Palace loomed ahead of her, surrounded by tourists (and criminals, according to Rosie, the world’s least traveled person),

and for a moment, Lauren felt the same rush that she often experienced whenever she’d arrived at the White House every morning

for six years. The feeling almost took her by surprise, the way that it was both familiar and unfamiliar. Could she maybe