The latest extract is all about H&M meeting and their first few dates:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/...reedom-book-extract-soho-blind-date-xm7lznkvm
Perhaps she sensed his nervousness, because the couple were somewhat bashful at first. However, it didn’t take long for them to start chatting easily. Very easily. On two individual velvet club chairs, the pair were “in their own little world”, a source said.
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Over drinks (beer for him, a martini for her), they asked each other questions about their work. Nibbles may have been out on the low table in front of their oversize chairs, but neither touched the food. They were also too engrossed in their conversation, and too involved with each other...
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Harry talked about his charity work, excitedly telling her stories from his extensive trips to Africa. Their “passions for wanting to make change for good”, as Harry described it, was, as Meghan said, “One of the first things we connected on.
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...Almost immediately they were almost obsessed with each other,” a friend said. “It was as if Harry was in a trance.” Meghan called one of her girlfriends. “Do I sound crazy when I say this could have legs?” she asked.
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...They returned to Dean Street Townhouse the next evening for a romantic dinner. No front entrance for the pair, they were given directions for how to get into the building using a discreet door away from prying eyes — and familiar only to staff and delivery trucks bringing in produce...
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Staff did all they could to keep details of the dinner private, allowing just one trusted waiter to serve them the entire evening.
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...Still, their chemistry had been electric throughout the meal as they both flirted. A touch of an arm here, direct eye contact there....
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...around the time of their first encounter, she began to follow a mysterious-looking Instagram account by the name of @SpikeyMau5. With no face visible in the profile photo, just a mouse-shaped helmet, it would have meant nothing to most people. But it was in fact Harry’s private account....
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...Much bolder was Meghan’s public Instagram post the same night of their first solo date: a photo of a Love Hearts candy with the inscription “Kiss Me” and the caption “Lovehearts in #London”.
Whether it had meaning to anyone else, Harry got the message.
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...Except as the cab wound through London’s dark winding streets, it had no ordinary destination: Kensington Palace. The car pulled off the main road and drove up the private Palace Avenue that took Meghan to an industrial-looking security gate and guard’s office that was a far cry from the palace gates she had imagined. But the humdrum entrance, often used by staff or those visiting the estate for meetings, was the most discreet way in. Meghan was then met by a protection officer. She was ushered down a cobbled path of small mews cottages, which she later commented looked so tiny and perfectly appointed with manicured flower boxes and pots that they hardly looked real. When Harry opened the door, the prince towered in the small hallway with lots of coats hung on hooks and his boots by the door, just like any regular home....
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Meghan had enough dating experience to know a charmer when she saw one, and Harry was obviously not at all that. If anything, he was unfiltered. While it was clear he wanted to impress her with details about his work, he spoke without overthinking...
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Ever since the couple’s trip to Africa, their romance had been on a fast track. “Technically the getaway was just their third date,” said a friend about Botswana, “but by then, they were each already dancing around the idea that this just may be a for ever thing.”
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Three months into their relationship, a Meghan friend said, they had already begun swapping the words “I love you”. It was Harry who said it first, but Meghan immediately replied, “I love you, too.” From there it didn’t take long for them to begin talking in non-oblique terms about their future.
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A tabloid was going to run with the story of their relationship. Their main worry was that her place would be besieged by photographers within 24 hours. They had a little time to think, because there were only a couple of paparazzi in Toronto. (One of them had already texted Meghan to ask if the news was true; she didn’t reply.) But it wouldn’t be long before photographers flew in from New York and LA, all hoping to get that first picture of the happy couple....
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Aides suggested it would be best for Harry to cut his trip short and quietly return to London, his minimal security now something of an issue. But the prince wasn’t having it. He wasn’t budging.
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When their relationship was revealed, some took to Meghan’s Twitter and Instagram accounts to express racist feelings that were anything but subtle, including calling her the n-word or a “mutt”. Members of the royal family had dated and married commoners, but no senior royal member, apart from Princess Diana post-divorce, had ever publicly dated anyone who was not white. This was a first.
Harry was incandescent with rage. For the prince, Meghan was his personal introduction to the ugliness of racism. While it might have been new territory for Harry, bias — both unconscious and intentional — had always been a part of Meghan’s life.
When he first started seeing her, Harry, sensitive to even the slightest hint of prejudice, had fallouts within his own circle. When some questioned his new relationship, and whether she was suitable, he would wonder, “Is this about race? Is it snobbery?” An old friend of Harry’s spent an afternoon gossiping about Meghan, making disparaging remarks about her Hollywood background. Word got back to Harry, and the prince immediately cut him off. If he was willing to confront those close to him, when it came to the media, Harry was poised for outright war.
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When Harry decided to make an official statement, the only stumbling block was Prince Charles. On a diplomatic tour in the Middle East, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall had just arrived in Bahrain to meet the country’s King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa. It was a critical moment that had been in the works for months. A statement from Kensington Palace condemning the press and, in the same breath, confirming Harry’s new girlfriend would all but eliminate coverage of Prince Charles’s tour of the Gulf.The Palace decided to go ahead with the statement nonetheless, much of which was drafted by Harry himself. Charles learnt of it just 20 minutes before it went out. Sure enough, as soon as Harry put out his declaration, the statement dominated the news cycle. The team at Clarence House, which had spent months putting together Prince Charles’s tour in the hopes that it would be covered significantly, was crushed. While disappointed that his son didn’t wait for him to come back, Charles also understood that the situation with Meghan had reached a tipping point. Harry had felt the need to prioritise the woman he loved over duty to the greater royal family.
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