The minutes crawl by while I wait for Claire to return, every moment expanding into what seems like an hour.

The breakfast tray arrives after twenty minutes. I don’t feel like eating. I feel sick to my stomach over what happened and what’s likely going to happen, but I need to do something to stifle my urgent need to get out of here. I need to leave the palace, get away, I need to go, go, go. So I force myself to eat what I can on the tray, taking small bites, eating deliberately.

I try to enjoy it.

Even what’s considered a simple breakfast at Sainthall Palace is of superior quality and presented magnificently. You think you know all there is to know about English muffins, for example—I mean an English muffin is an English muffin, right? —and then you find out that there’s a “royal” version that makes any English muffin you’ve ever tasted before taste like cardboard toast.

I know the food served here is excellent, unbelievably good, but it’s tasteless and bland to me right now.

When I’ve finally eaten about half the food on the tray, I push it away from me and stare out the window.

I have no desire to flick through social media profiles on my phone like I usually do in the morning. The book I’ve been reading in the evenings while I wait for Alec has no appeal to me either. I’m hollow and numb.

It’s not that I want to dwell on the fight Alec and I had, the way he turned and stomped out of the room without looking back, the horrible, and aching pain that is crushing me beneath its veneer of numbness. I can’t force myself to do anything else.

Alec was the one.

It sounds stupid, doesn’t it? But he was.

I squeeze my eyes shut to keep from crying.

I wish none of this had happened—coming to Saintland, meeting Alec, deciding to open that dating app in the first place.

If none of this had happened, I’d still be in New York with my friends and my job and my independence, and not sitting here in Saintland waiting for Claire to book an escape route for me that won’t cause an embarrassing ruckus for the royal family.

I wonder if she can pull it off.

I’m still staring out the window, lost in thought, when she returns some time later—it may have been minutes or hours, I’m not sure.

“Jessica,” she says, startling me from my thoughts. “I have a plane ticket and a plan.”

The plan involves getting me to the airport using something other than a vehicle from the royal fleet. It involves me leaving via the palace’s private back exit and meeting a taxi three blocks away.

She hands me an envelope containing my airplane ticket and a pair of dark sunglasses. She puts her hand on top of mine and looks me straight in the eye. “Do you need anything else? Truly, Jessica, is there anything else I can do for you?”

I’m going to miss Claire. She’s the only friend I have in Saintland, and how she has helped me so selflessly today has proven this is more than a job for her.

I shake my head. “No. You’ve done so much.” Her kindness is making me a little choked up.

She gives my hand a brisk pat and stands up from where she’s been sitting beside me. “Let’s be on our way, then. The flight leaves in an hour and a half. It’s a small airport, so you should still have plenty of time for customs.”

Claire accompanies me to the back entrance, then surprises me by giving me a quick hug. “Three blocks that way,” she says, pointing in the correct direction, and I nod in understanding.

“It’s been really nice knowing you, Claire,” I say as I slip on the sunglasses. “And thank you…for everything.”

A small smile flashes across her face. “You know where to find me if you ever want to chat,” she answers, a hitch catching in her usual perky voice, and then she quickly disappears back into the palace.

I probably won’t see her—or Saintland, for that matter—ever again.

My heart heavy, I set off at a brisk pace in the direction Claire pointed.

As I near the end of the second block, my heart starts to race.

Not one but two photographers are heading in my direction down the block on the other side of the street. They look like they’re heading toward the palace to cover some event or another, but I know photographers—they’ll stop if they recognize me.

I adjust my dark glasses and keep my gaze looking forward. I don’t want to appear to be in hurry either and possibly attract their attention.

Crossing the street, I steal another glance in their direction. The taxi is only half a block away. My heart is pounding and it’s not easy to keep my pace purposeful and not rushed. “You’re an everyday citizen walking down the street in Saintland,” I think to myself. “There’s no need for them to notice you.”

I’m only ten feet away from the taxi when one of them stops in their tracks across the street, staring in my direction.

The photographer he’s walking with comes to a halt beside him. I notice the one saying something to his colleague and he points discreetly in my direction. My instinct is to stop, to freeze, but I keep moving toward the taxi, my heart pounding so hard against my rib cage that I’m worried it might burst out of my chest.

There. I’m there. My hand closes around the door handle to the taxi as prickles of sweat bead on the back of my neck. I open the door and slide into the back seat, struggling to catch my breath.

I want this to be an uneventful escape.

I don’t want another media frenzy about me and Alec.

The gossip sites, after all, exploit their stories internationally, and I don’t want anything more to do with this whole thing once I’m back in New York.

Safe in the taxi, I whip my head around to look out at the photographers, my eyes locked in panic on their faces.

“Miss?” says the driver.

“What?” I say, my voice sharp. I cut my eyes toward him and see that he’s looking at me cautiously. I probably seem like a crazy lady.

Maybe I am.

I smile at him and take in a deep breath.

“Where to?”

“I’m sorry,” I answer, trying my best to cover up the awkwardness that’s fallen over the car.

“Airport, please. I have a flight to catch.”

“We’re on our way.”

He returns his attention to driving, and shifting the car into gear and signals to pull out from his parking spot.

As he pulls away from the curb, I look back one more time at the photographers, dreading what I might see. If they have their cameras…

But they don’t. The one who was staring at me from across the street is now rifling through his bag, a worried look on his face. The other man comes around to his side and peers into the bag, too. They’re clearly missing a piece of equipment or experiencing some other difficulty.

They didn’t notice me.

I sit back against the seat and breathe a sigh of relief. But every breath still hurts.

It might hurt for a long time.

I remind myself that I have a plane to catch.

I let that thought fill my mind. I don’t look back at the palace.