Courting Royal

Chapter Twenty-Three

The next few days, I do my best to bury myself with work.

I'd love to say this is because I'm feeling incredibly motivated, but in fact, it's because I'm doing everything I can to avoid the PR meetings Natalie keeps trying to schedule for me and Liam.

Because it is no secret in the palace that the Oxfords have voiced their opposition to me.

Liam and I are united in that we aren't going to let that ruin us—it's not like I'm the first girlfriend that's ever been faced with disapproval from her boyfriend's parents—but we have very different ideas in how to play this.

His immediate reaction was to go public as soon as possible, which was immediately since he left for Kenya the next day. He was going on about tipping off photographers, a grand tour of PDA around London, having me write up an official announcement about us on my site.

I, on the other hand, think we should do absolutely nothing. We shouldn't let this change a thing.

I told Natalie as much over the phone the third time she called to try to get me to Kensington Palace (I told her I was on deadline for US HuffPo and couldn't possibly break my creative concentration). The fact that everyone seems shocked that I'm not immediately embraced by the senior royals is something that actually baffles me. I expected everyone to be opposed, while it seems that everyone else thought I'd be part of the family in no time.

I suppose that since Emilia handpicked me, the rest of the royal team expected me to have no roadblocks within the family.

Besides, they have bigger issues at hand right now than the still-private relationship between me and Liam: The Daily Mail I Know broke the story about the Queen pressuring Ben and Emilia to start a family and it has—unsurprisingly—spread like wildfire. The spin on it differs from publication to publication, but it's been pretty nasty because either you blame the Queen for dictating her family's very important private decisions (which....I mean, she kind of does) or you call Emilia selfish for her reluctance to produce an heir (which...I mean, you could argue is her job, in a very medieval way). I know that the truth is that the Queen has let it be known within the family that she thinks Ben and Emilia should have a baby soon, but that she isn't, like, keeping track of Em's ovulation schedule or anything.

In any case, I know my readers expect me to weigh in, and I'm having a hard time bringing myself to do it.

I've distracted myself from this task by 1) calling Oliver and bothering him as he gets ready for work, 2) updating the Emitate section of my website with the newest outfit information and where to buy it, and 3) creating a Facebook event for my London reader meetup that's coming up soon and obsessively checking to see how many people have marked themselves as "going". It's only been up for 20 minutes, and the count is already at 28, which both delights me and raises my blood pressure.

My phone rings and I see that it's Natalie once again.

"Hi, Natalie," I say, sounding exactly the way I feel.

"Maggie, this is Emilia."

"Oh. Hi!"

"Listen," she says, sounding resolved to tell me something. "I know you've been reluctant to come to a PR meeting since you met my lovely in-laws—"

I can't help but snort at the fact that she actually used sarcasm.

"But," she continues, "you should know that we have discussed Ascot."

"Okay," I say, wondering if she's about to tell me that Liam and I have been forbidden from going together.

"There was a cancelation for the royal enclosure," she says. "And we think you should go with Liam to fill those spots."