Page 187 of The Royal Art of Revenge

The business is shattering.

And I’m going to be the Crown Princess.

I’m surrounded by love. I’m surrounded by kindness. Nobody around me considers me an inconvenience or a burden. I’m not a pest or a nuisance or somebody that needs to be hidden away.

For the first time since I was seven, I have a family. A real family. I love, and I am loved, in ways beyond my wildest dreams. None of this warmth was ever anything I considered when I returned to St Peters two years ago and planned to rip the Sinclairs to pieces.

I never believed I was worthy of it.

I still don’t, sometimes.

Sometimes, my mind gets the better of me. It tells me I’m not good enough, that I’m an imposter, that I should leave before everyone else realises it.

When that happens, Finn holds me close, counts to four until my ears bleed, and kisses my hair. Rowan brings me tea. Beatrix comes with a warm hug, and Louis appears with cake. Oscar fills me in on the local gossip courtesy of his sister, Alec distracts me with information nobody else knows, and Valentina smothers me with mood boards of clothes she wants to buy.

None of these people are normal.

But they’re my family.

They choose me just as much as I choose them.

I glance back over my shoulder. Sophia and the security team are close enough to get here in a few seconds, but far away enough that I have the privacy I need, and I lay out a small blanket at the foot of the grave.

I sit, crossing my legs, and set my mug of tea between me and the grave. My mother’s name stares back at me, followed by a simple line of who she was.

Mother. Wife. Beloved friend.

As if her whole life could be condensed down into those three things.

It doesn’t matter. Not now. Not to the people who love her. And I can say love, not loved, because now I know I’m not the only one who holds her memory as if it’s the most precious thing in the world.

In a life where people desperately tried to erase her memory, everyone now remembering her name is perhaps the greatest revenge I could have enacted.

“Hi, Mum. I’m sorry. It’s been a while.” I look up at the headstone and smile. “And boy, do I have a doozy of a story for you.”

EPILOGUE – HATTIE

6 MONTHS LATER

“Can I ask you a qwestion?”

I look down at the little girl, no more than six, tugging on my skirt, and crouch down in front of her. “Of course you can.”

She blinks at me with big, blue eyes that beam with innocence. “Are you weally a pwincess?”

I nod. “I am.”

She looks around, then leans in. “Do you weally get to wear ballgowns? Like Cindywella?”

“Let me tell you a secret.” I cup my hand around her ear and whisper, “I dance in them in my bedroom all the time!”

She presses her hand to her mouth and giggles, running back to the hospital bed. She clambers up on top of it with the help of her teenage sister, and she whispers something in her ear dramatically. Her sister gasps appropriately, then looks over at me with a beaming smile and mouths, “Thank you.”

I wink, making her blush, and hold my hand up in a gentle wave as I’m ushered out of her room.

“Your Royal Highness,” a woman says, hovering uncertainly to the side.

I turn to her with a warm smile. “Good afternoon,” I say, holding out my hand.