After eating breakfast, I joined Adrian and Christian outside for some football. I had only ever played it once with Milo and Cooper, but I ended up falling and breaking my wrist. I avoided playing ever since.

    It was about noon when we decided to finish playing. It was a cold day and our hands were freezing off. We hurried to the kitchen and begged for some hot cocoa.

Today's lunch was my personal favorite: Italian Meat Sandwiches. The bread was stuffed with many different types of meat like salami, pepperoni, and more. There were plenty of jalapenos to spice it up, and to top it all off was a special Italian sauce made from olive oil. I dug into the sandwich; It was the best I'd ever tasted.

Soon enough, the boys' tutor came and I took the opportunity to head to my room and FaceTime Reeja.

". . . and then he came into my room and held me till I fell asleep! Can you believe it? He's an angel. No wonder the press doesn't talk about much Niall, they're trying to keep that gem to themselves!"

"Girl, you won the lottery of life!" Reeja squealed.

"I really didn't . . . Dad texted last night. I don't know what to say to him though, because I don't want Vic to find out where I am, but I don't want to lie to him,"

"Think about it. What's worse? One small lie to protect yourself or let Vic find out, and then you have to live in misery for the rest of your life? Just tell him you didn't get the job, then tell him you found another job a few cities away. That way, you'll lead Vic elsewhere."

"Okay, but what if he wants to visit me? What do I say? What if he finds out I'm here? What if he wants to meet up and he'll bring Vic? What if —"

"Grace! Calm down! If he asks, just tell him it's far away but you're available on FaceTime,"

"How do you come up with those lies so easily?"

    "It comes naturally when you're best friends with a girl whose stepmom is the devil herself!" She laughed and I let a giggle escape me.

    "Thanks, Reeja, I don't know what I'd do without you. And I'll have to ask Melody about visitors. Maybe we can have a sleepover!"

    "No problem! And yes please!" She squealed. "You can always count on me, Grace. Just call me if you need anything!"

    I hung up the phone, let out a shaky breath, and started to text my dad.

    "Hey dad, I didn't get the job. Luckily I found a job a few cities away. I'm sorry I never came back home, the home I nanny for is quite far away and they wanted me to start working immediately. We'll have to FaceTime! I miss and love you so so much."

    I sent the text, threw my phone onto my bed, and curled up on the couch in the small reading room. I decided to make most of my free time and read, 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' since it was one of my favorite books. Usually, Saturdays and Sundays are family days for the Royal family and I'd have the whole day to myself, however since it was my first week, they wanted to give me as much experience as they could. Hence why I was working on a Sunday.

    I seemed to get very lost in the book, as when my phone alarm went off, (telling me that Adrian and Christian's tutoring sessions were over), I swear I jumped 50 feet in the air.

    After meeting Adrian and Christian in the west wing, the boys requested to play a game of tag. Before I could object, they immediately ran away and left me no choice but to run after them. They were fast boys and I could barely keep up with them. I didn't even know my way around the palace yet and I was sure to get lost.

    Soon enough, I lost the boys. I eventually came to a fork in the hallway and didn't know which hall to take. Luckily enough, Melody walked towards me, gripping the two screaming boys' arms.

    "Don't ever let them play in the halls again. And if you're going to play tag of all things, how about you learn how to run faster?" Melody glared at me and pushed the boys towards me.

    "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today," I said quietly as we walked away.

The two boys giggled and Christian exclaimed, "Yeah, can you believe we had to deal with her for a month! We're glad you came and saved us from her," I smiled and took the boys to their bedrooms.

"Read this one! Read this one!" Adrian exclaimed. He handed me a book titled, "The Paper Bag Princess".

Memories came flooding back to me. That book was my favorite book as a kid. I would beg my mother to read it to me every night. Soon enough I memorized the whole book by heart. Every night when my mum would read it to me, she would try to skip pages so she could go back to sleep, but I knew when she skipped it. I knew each and every part of the book.

"Elizabeth was a beautiful princess. She lived in a castle and had expensive princess clothes. She was going to marry a prince named Ronald. . . ."

____________________________________________________________________________

a/n

The book Grace read to Adrian in this chapter is called "The Paper Bag Princess", by Robert Munsch btw, ya know, gotta give credit haha and yes, that was one of my favorite books growing up!

Fun fact, I did the same thing Grace did to her mom. I had these small Disney Princess books, and every night I would make my dad read every single one of them. I eventually memorized all of the books and would know every time my dad skipped a line or a page!

And Italian meat Sandwiches are my favorite food in the entire world lmao so I had to squeeze it in there obvi. Now I'm hungry- Good thing it's Thanksgiving today lmao

p.s I just wanna say thank you for all the reads, votes, comments, and endless support! you're the only reason I haven't given up yet haha I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCHHHHHH ❤️❤️✨