‘It really is stunning,’ I said, holding my hands against my chest, away from the ring. ‘But I can’t.’

He was right, it was a forever piece, and seeing it brought my reality rushing back. This was not my forever. It wasn’t even my tomorrow.

‘At last,’ a voice said as the door creaked open behind me. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

I spun around, hoping against hope to see Evan’s dark hair and dark eyes, but instead I found a bleary-eyed mess of blond curls and crooked fedora glaring back at me and I was so disappointed I could taste it.

‘Perfect timing,’ I groaned as he stumbled into the room.

‘I said I’ve been looking for you,’ Andrew said, slurring his words. ‘And here you are.’

‘I haven’t been hiding,’ I replied, trying to work out how to get past him and out of the door without kicking him in the balls. Not that I wasn’t keeping that option in my back pocket, just in case.

‘Perhaps you should have been,’ he replied with an unpleasant leer. ‘Because I know your secret, I know who you are.’

The little room filled with sparkling jewels was far too small for the three of us.

‘I know who you are,’ he repeated gleefully. ‘So you can stop lying.’

‘No, you don’t,’ I replied, squeezing my cushion cover clutch.

‘I think the lady would like to leave,’ the jeweller offered, sidling around the counter to remove the necklace.

‘No!’ Andrew barked. ‘She’s not going anywhere until she admits it or I’m going to tell everyone.’

‘Tell whoever you want,’ I said. ‘I’m done with the ball so it doesn’t matter. Actually, it might get me out even quicker, I’ve still got no idea where the exit is. Please tell me, someone, I’m begging you.’

‘You,’ he replied, pointing at me with an unsteady finger, ‘are the secret princess.’

He stood in the middle of the room, wobbling like the world’s saddest Weeble with an angry, pathetic look on his face, and in spite of everything, I couldn’t help but laugh.

‘You think I’m a princess?’ I reached up to the tiara. ‘Thank you so much,’ I said to the jeweller, who calmly accepted it back as I pulled it out of my hair.

‘I know you are,’ Andrew declared. ‘No one’s heard of you, no one recognizes you, there’s no Francesca Anderson on the guest list, and no one else would dare speak to me the way you did earlier. No one ever has before.’

‘Honestly, I find that very hard to believe,’ I said, dancing around him to get closer to the exit. ‘You must have met at least one woman?’

‘Don’t go!’ he yelled as the jeweller pulled open the door and I darted outside. ‘Your Royal Highness, wait!’