He turned on his elbow toward her and nodded.

“Rather strangely, I do.” And then the whole story spilled out of him—about how excited his nephew had been, how perplexed and then angry Malcolm had been, what Miles had said about passion and his father, what Malcolm had said about securing his future, how they’d both yelled, how Miles had stormed out.

“I’m sorry, Malcolm.” She took his hand.

He kissed hers, then smiled at her.

“Thanks. I’m sorry for taking all of this out on you yesterday. I’ve been in a foul mood since Christmas Day, trying to figure out what to do and how to fix it and if Miles is ruining his life, and if I’ve ruined our relationship forever. I thought spending time with you would help push it all out of my head, but instead your questions about Miles and your happy stories about your daughter just made me think about everything I did wrong. And plus . . .”

He opened his mouth to say something more, but instead just shook his head.

“Plus what? Really, you can tell me,” she said.

He let out a huge sigh.

“This is also why your thing about surprises caught me off guard yesterday, and I’m sorry I acted like such a boor about it. But the only thing I’ve done in the past few days, other than fret about the situation with Miles, was to plan a few small things for us, and I was looking forward to surprising you, so when you said that, I didn’t know what to do.” He laughed. “Which of course means everything you said about surprises is completely right—my desire to surprise you is all about me, and not you. Ouch. Right, here were my plans—”

This time, she stopped him.

“Wait. I said all of that off the cuff. I hadn’t realized you had actually planned surprises for me. Why don’t I tell you exactly what I hate about surprises, and we can see if we can figure out a way to make this work for both of us.”

He ran his fingers through her very tangled ponytail.

“You’re so good at problem-solving. I feel like Parliament could use you.” He shook his head. “No, they’d never listen to someone as logical as you. All right, tell me everything you hate.”

More people should ask her to do that.

“Okay, for starters, there’s so much managing someone else’s emotions along with your own. You have to monitor your facial expression so well, and make sure it’s reflecting what it’s supposed to reflect, and as you may have noticed about me, I have a pretty expressive face.” He laughed, and she grinned at him. “You’ve noticed, have you? Here’s an example of that: I was so relieved that my boss emailed me that he was going to retire and he wanted me to become director after him. I was so taken aback by the email, I almost dropped my tea. If he’d told me in person, and I didn’t manage to get ahold of myself quickly enough, he might have thought I was horrified by the idea of the job.”

Malcolm nodded.

“That makes sense. What else?”

“I hate that everything is out of my hands.” She ticked off her fingers. “Where I’m going, what I’m doing, even often who I’m with. There’s nothing I hate more than a surprise party, where you’re never in the clothes you would want to be wearing, someone always invited a person you hate, and you have to do the whole gasp, huge smile, ‘Oh my God!’ thing.”

She glanced at him and sighed.

“I can see what you’re thinking, and yes indeed, my ex did throw me surprise parties on more than one occasion, and yes, I hated them every single time, and yes, we did get in fights after every single one, because I didn’t appreciate everything he did to throw the parties. But those parties were about him, not me. It took me a long time to realize that.”

He kept running his fingers through her hair.

“Was this Maddie’s dad?”

She nodded.

“Yeah, Maddie’s dad. He and I broke up when Maddie was little, but we’d been together for a while before that. Granted, we broke up thirty years ago, but I guess there are some things that stick around.”

It felt ridiculous, but she’d never connected the dots before about her hatred of surprises and the way her ex always reacted when he threw her those surprise parties. She always had to apologize to him when she didn’t enjoy them, when he knew she hated them.

She looked back over at Malcolm to see how he was taking all of this decades-old baggage she’d just dumped on him.

He didn’t seem fazed at all.

“Well, I can promise a few things: There will be absolutely no surprise parties. I will tell you what to wear—within reason, to be clear! You can wear what you want, but I can give you . . . guidelines, how about that? And you are under no obligation to appreciate or thank me for any of this—remember, if we do it, it’s because you’re doing me a favor, not because I’m doing one for you.”

She laughed at that, but he looked serious.

“No, really, I mean it. Please feel free to tell me that actually, no, you want to approve everything, and I’ll be happy to tell you. But if you don’t, I know that it’s because you’ve taken pity on me and my dreadful week, and I appreciate it.”

She kissed his cheek.

“That’s not the only reason. It’s also because I trust you. You can have your surprises, but I’d better get those outfit guidelines!”

He laughed.

“Okay, I promise. Now”—he looked at his watch—“I scheduled a private tour of Buckingham Palace for us at ten thirty today. I’m happy to call to cancel if you—”

“Seriously? A private tour of Buckingham Palace?” Maddie was going to DIE when she told her. “They said they weren’t doing any tours right now!”

He grinned.

“I may or may not have some pull in that area. Is that a yes? Do you want to go?”

She jumped out of bed.

“What time is it? Are we running late? I take really fast showers.”

The smile on his face was so wide and warm she felt it down to her toes.

“It’s only nine, so we have plenty of time. We can toss your suitcase in the boot of my car and bring it to my flat afterward.”

She smiled back at him.

“Perfect.”

A little over an hour later, they drove down the wide street with parks on each side that led up to Buckingham Palace.

“This is called the Mall,” Malcolm said. “On days like Trooping the Colour—the Queen’s official birthday celebration—and other big royal events, people line it on all sides. It’s pretty stunning.”

Vivian looked around and smiled.

“We have a Mall in our nation’s capital, too.”

Malcolm glanced over at her with a grin on his face.

“Where do you think you got the idea?”

She continued, as if he hadn’t said anything.

“Though ours leads up to a center of democracy, not monarchy.”

Malcolm laughed out loud.

“Sometimes, progress isn’t all bad.”

They got closer to the palace, and Vivian looked up at the enormous stone building. She couldn’t believe she was actually going to get to go inside. Malcolm pointed to the top of it.

“No flag—that means, if we had any doubt, that the Queen is not in residence.”