The walls are thin. I can hear the neighbour’s television, muffled arguments two doors down, someone dragging furniture overhead. It’s not exactly Buckingham, but it’s freedom—and her.

I bury my face in the crook of her neck, sighing like I’ve never exhaled before. Her skin smells like orange blossom and soap, faint but warm. She shifts slightly, arm tightening around me, her fingers slipping under the hem of my shirt.

“Comfy?” she mumbles, half-asleep, voice a little hoarse from laughter earlier.

“Ecstatic,” I whisper back, voice dripping with exaggeration. “Just how I pictured my grand escape from royalty. A secondhand sofa and wallpaper that might actually be a fungus.”

She chuckles, and I feel it vibrate against me. “Better than marrying that count.”

“Ugh,” I groan into her shoulder. “That man owned seven poodles. And called them his ‘emotional entourage.’”

“Don’t lie, you loved the poodles.”

I grin despite myself. “Only the grumpy one. He reminded me of my father.”

She laughs—loud, real, unapologetic—and it echoes off our pathetic walls like a promise. I shift so I can look at her properly, cheek pressed against her chest, gaze tilted up.

“I’d do it again, you know,” I say softly. “All of it. Abdicating. Running. Everything.”

She brushes a strand of hair from my face. “Even with the fungus wallpaper?”

“Especially with the fungus wallpaper.”

She rolls her eyes but kisses me anyway, slow and certain. I don’t need a crown, I decide, not when I’ve got this.

Not when I’ve got her.