Epigraph

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

—RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Epigraph

Prologue

Introduction

1. London Calling

2. When Harry Met Meghan

3. Courtship in the Wild

4. The World Gets Wind

5. A Prince’s Stand

6. Culture Shock

7. Tropical Storms

8. Voicing Disapproval

9. Boom!

10. Farewell Toronto

11. The Fab Four

12. A Problem Like Samantha

13. The Thomas Markle Situation

14. Stand by Me

15. Presenting the Sussexes

16. Mum’s the Word

17. Duchess Different

18. Brothers Divided

19. Nesting in Windsor

20. Welcoming Archie

21. @SussexRoyal

22. Half In, Half Out

23. The Family Meeting

24. Finding Freedom

Authors’ Note

Acknowledgments from Omid

Acknowledgments from Carolyn

Photo Section

About the Authors

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue

It was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. As we watched Meghan smooth the belt of her crisp white LINE the Label coat and brush a loose lock of hair out of her eyes, she looked over at a nervous Harry and put her hand on his back, rubbing the same spot several times. He was used to being in front of the press, but this time was different. He wasn’t advocating for one of his charities or urging leaders to take climate change seriously; he was sharing something personal: the news of his engagement to Meghan. Holding hands, they made their way to the throng of photographers waiting nearby.

“You’ve got this,” she whispered to the prince as they walked out of a small gate at the side of Kensington Palace and up the long, canopied path to the Sunken Garden, whose lily-covered water in the ornamental pond and colorful pansies, tulips, and begonias made it one of Princess Diana’s favorite spots on the estate she once called home.

This was the couple’s big engagement photo-call, at which I had arrived with only minutes to spare after a frantic highway dash from a long weekend break in Oxfordshire. Carolyn, ahead of me, was already in her place with the small huddle of royal correspondents who work directly with the royal households on a daily basis. As longtime members of this group, she and I receive intel as we shadow senior members of the British royal family at home and abroad.

The privilege of covering the royals so closely is that you are front and center for those landmark moments in their lives. We were on the steps of the Lindo Wing when George, Charlotte, and Louis each were born. It’s easy to take for granted these moments, which will one day be part of the history books. But as Harry grinned at Meghan, who held his hand between both of hers, and the cheers of well-wishers gathered in Kensington Gardens erupted in a “hip hip hooray!,” even the most hard-nosed reporters there smiled. The feeling of magic in that moment was undeniable.

Carolyn and I have closely followed the work of the Royal Family since long before Meghan joined what is known as the Firm. For years we have traveled with William, Kate, and Harry around the world. From Singapore to the Solomon Islands, Lesotho to India, the United States to New Zealand, we shared the same planes and dizzying itineraries as these young royals. I’ve always likened royal tours to a class field trip or camp, because you’re cramped together on big buses and clamoring to get the best rooms at the hotel. There’s also a sense of camaraderie, not just among the reporters, staff, and security guards but also with the royals themselves.

Take the time I lost my passport in São Paulo, Brazil. I was frantically searching my bag at the airport when I got a call from one of the palace aides. I could hear Harry’s distinctive laugh in the background. They had found my passport on the floor. Not wanting to leave me high and dry in Brazil, the prince sent over one of his protection officers, passport in hand, to my terminal so I could get to Chile on time. The next time I saw Harry, however, he forwent my name, instead calling me “Passport.” As we Brits say, he likes to take the mickey.

Being far from the scrutiny and pressures of home was also an opportunity for heart-to-hearts. On that same trip, Harry confessed to me at a small drinks gathering at our hotel that he really wished he were “just a normal guy” who could pack up and spend a year in Brazil pursuing his own passions. He said that he hated smartphones being constantly thrust in his face, that the thrum of professional camera shutters going off sometimes made him feel physically ill.

Carolyn and I always knew Harry dreamed of a life away from palace walls, but while traveling with the prince, particularly in the countryside, we noticed that his wish to be connected to everyday rural life was often accompanied by a sense of sadness. Although an impossibility, he wished to connect with the locals without the fuss his arrival always meant.

Then, as now, Harry deeply craves normalcy of the kind that his mother, Diana, tried to replicate for him on trips to amusement parks and McDonald’s. (How funny to know that the favorite part of a Happy Meal for this child, born of unimaginable wealth and privilege, was getting the cheap plastic toy inside.)

Harry is different from his brother, William, who takes after their orderly and pragmatic granny, the Queen. He’s emotional and clings to utopian ideals, yet in his way, admirably so. His desire to live outside of the Palace bubble—in everything from being a “hugger” at official engagements to insisting he serve on the front lines of war as a member of the armed forces—is a positive attribute, even if at times it causes problems for the rest of the royal family.

His wholeheartedness allowed him to start a new chapter in royal history when he fell in love with Meghan Markle.

Being a mixed-race Brit was one of the reasons that I, like a lot of the younger and more diverse demo the Duke and Duchess of Sussex turned into royal watchers, found the American actress marrying into the House of Windsor so fascinating. Funnily enough, I met Meghan before Harry did. Back in 2015, I chatted with her for the first time at a Fashion Week event in Toronto after she did press interviews on the carpet. No one was more amazed than me when just a year later, Meg (as her close friends and now husband call her) captured the heart of the most eligible bachelor this side of the pond.

Even in the early days of their relationship, it was clear that Harry had found a woman who awakened his sense of purpose with humanitarian passions that mirrored his own drive to support those on the margins of society. The world watched in amazement as the couple’s relationship rapidly developed. And Carolyn and I watched, too, as a number of tabloids went on to accuse Meghan of being a demanding and difficult social climber. Some of the British press did little to hide racial undertones in snarky commentary and headlines.

The narrative that emerged was most surprising to Meghan, who brought to her charitable interests and official engagements as the newest member of the royal family the same go-get-’em approach she’s taken from the time she was an eleven-year-old writing letters of protest to national leaders, including Hillary Clinton, over a sexist soap ad. It’s not unknown for her to stay up late into the night before events, doing her own research and preparing her own notes despite having a staff for just such work. “It’s the only way I know how to do it,” she confessed to me. That’s part of what made the prince declare he’d found the “teammate” he had always been looking for.

So, it was a surreal moment to be giving Meghan a big farewell hug in one of the state rooms at Buckingham Palace in March 2020 as she wrapped her last solo royal engagement. She and Harry had made the difficult decision to step back as senior working royals in a bid to protect their family. We had only been in the opulent 1844 Room for only happy occasions, such as engagements with the Queen or media receptions. Now even the malachite candelabras illuminating portrait paintings cast a gloomy light as the newest members of the royal family were saying goodbye not just to their staff but to an entire way of life.

Carolyn and I had been with Meghan for her final engagements but it was still hard to believe that this would be the last one. Staff who had been with the couple from day one were mourning the end of what was supposed to be a happy story: two people fall in love, get married, have a baby, serve the Queen, the end. Instead, they were leaving the country. As Meghan gave me a final hug goodbye, she said, “It didn’t have to be this way.”

Yes, Carolyn and I witnessed the many private and public struggles Harry and Meghan went through in the first two years of their marriage. Still, this was not the ending to the book that either of us expected to write—or that the couple expected to be living.

As a rule, no member of the British royal family is officially allowed to authorize a biography. However, Carolyn and I were able to gain extensive access to those closest to the couple: friends, trusted aides, senior courtiers, and many individuals in the Sussexes’ inner circle. We also accompanied Harry and Meghan on hundreds of their engagements, work trips, and tours, spanning from Ireland to Tonga, all in an effort to create an intimate and accurate portrait of a truly modern royal couple who, whether their decisions have won them praise or criticism, have always remained faithful to their own beliefs.

—Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, London, 2020

Introduction

With the last of their luggage arriving onto the four-acre Mille Fleurs estate in Victoria, Canada, where they would be staying for the next six weeks, Harry and Meghan breathed a collective sigh of relief. Most their belongings had already been placed in advance of their arrival in the grand his-and-hers walk-in closets of the 11,416-square-foot mansion they had rented from an acquaintance. They were worlds away from Frogmore Cottage, their home in Windsor—but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Though the smiles on their faces at public engagements had been consistent through their departure, the weeks leading up to their Air Canada flight from London’s Heathrow Airport in mid-November were anything but cheerful. Having recently launched lawsuits against three British tabloids for invasion of privacy and phone-hacking allegations, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex seemed more a target of the press than ever.

For Harry especially, it was all getting to be too much. “Doesn’t the Queen Deserve Better?” screamed a Daily Mail headline, which the prince read online. He couldn’t understand why the media were so hell-bent on tearing them down. “These people are just paid trolls,” he later told a friend. “Nothing but trolls . . . And it’s disgusting.”

Scrolling on his iPhone, he sometimes couldn’t stop himself from reading the comments on the article.

H&M disgust me.

They are a disgrace to the royal family.

The world would be a better place without Harry and Meghan in it.

The last comment had over 3,500 upvotes.

Harry instantly regretted opening the link. His stomach tied into the same knot every time he saw these sorts of comments. “It’s a sick part of the society we live in today, and no one is doing anything about it,” he continued. “Where’s the positivity? Why is everyone so miserable and angry?”

It wasn’t just the press or online trolls getting to Harry. It was also the institution of the monarchy. Barely a week went by without an aspect of their internal affairs or matters of private discussions being twisted and leaked to the press. They felt as though there were very few members of the Palace staff they could trust. Harry’s relationship with his brother, William, which had been strained for a while, was only getting worse.

If there was any silver lining, it was confirmation that their decision to take some time away from the public eye and the “noise,” as Meghan called it, was exactly what they needed. The outdoors and relative remoteness of the property in Vancouver Island’s North Saanich neighborhood would do them good—particularly after what had been a whirlwind six months since welcoming their first child in May. The new parents had worked nonstop, all while under the relentless spotlight that defines what it means to be part of the British royal family.

Even though Harry and Meghan were surrounded by pristine nature, they were anything but serene. “The ‘break’ was actually far from that,” said a source close to the couple. What appeared to the outside world like an idyllic getaway was actually an angst-ridden time, with Harry and Meghan spending hours mapping out various scenarios for their future. The prince had hit his boiling point over the ongoing arguments, rumors, and annoying back-and-forth with the Palace.

The year had seen a number of personal highs for the couple, of which the most significant was the birth of their son, Archie. The September issue of British Vogue, which Meghan guest edited, had become their fastest-selling issue ever, and the capsule clothing collection she created to raise money for the women’s unemployment charity Smart Works had been an instant sellout at Marks & Spencer and other retailers. Harry recently launched Travalyst, a new global sustainable travel initiative that he hoped would change the tourism industry for good.

Harry and Meghan planned to keep working during their stay in Canada. They had a lot on their to-do list, including finishing setting up their nonprofit organization and continuing to advocate for the charities that they were royal patrons of back home. But somehow it all felt easier to do in the Canadian estate’s wood-paneled study that looked out over the manicured grounds’ white spruce and birch trees (even if in reality they usually wound up working in the kitchen, leaving their MacBooks to make cups of tea or coffee).

Their decision to go abroad—and stay abroad for Christmas rather than return for the traditional festivities at Sandringham, the Queen’s country estate in Norfolk, with other senior members of the royal family—only reinforced the negative narrative about the couple in the UK. Newspapers were calling it a “major snub” to the Queen, even though in reality Harry had okayed his plans with his grandmother—and boss—before they left the country. The Queen, who saw Harry and Meghan regularly since they all lived on the Windsor estate, actually encouraged him to take the trip. After all, they had spent the past two Christmases at her Norfolk retreat, and other family members—including the Cambridges—had skipped festive visits here and there, too.

The Christmas decorations were not going up yet. They still had Thanksgiving to think about, and Meghan’s mother, Doria, was preparing at that moment to travel from her home in LA to the estate in Victoria. Meghan and her mother, who couldn’t wait to see her Archie, had been excitedly exchanging texts before the trip. Her grandson was growing fast and had gotten much taller since she last saw him in the summer. “He’s in the ninetieth percentile for height,” Meghan boasted to friends, before she eagerly offered to pull out her phone to show some of the many photos she had of her boy.

Though their Canadian home was temporary, Harry and Meghan had done everything they could to make sure it was baby-friendly. Sharp corners were proofed with discreet rubber pads and certain items of furniture moved out of harm’s way. With the six-month-old now standing and shuffling along the edges of furniture more than crawling, they didn’t want to take any risks. They also tried to paparazzi-proof the property. Additional fencing had been installed around the perimeter to prevent the long camera lenses they knew would eventually show up from interrupting their daily walks with Archie around the wooded landscape and sandy beachfronts.

Protecting Archie and maintaining his privacy was a top priority for the couple. It started when they chose not to give their son a royal title. Harry, who learned the dark side of growing up in the royal fish bowl early on in his life by watching his mother relentlessly chased by the paparazzi, and Meghan, quickly getting the same lesson, both wanted to ensure their son chose his own destiny rather than being forced into one by virtue of the family he had been born into.

Those first days at the waterfront home delivered the peace Harry and Meghan had been longing for. It was the first time in months that the couple—who started their days with yoga and making breakfast together—had felt any sense of calm. But despite the quiet that surrounded them, Harry and Meghan were in turmoil. A heavy decision weighed on them. After almost three years of regular attacks from the British press and a family they felt had not done enough to support them, things had to change. How and what that meant still needed sorting out, but they knew that they had to follow their hearts.

1

London Calling

Her first morning after landing in London in June 2016, Meghan headed straight to Selfridges. The young American actress was on a mission: shoe shopping.

In the Oxford Street department store, she roamed the thirty-five-thousand-square-foot shoe hall—the largest in the world—looking at her favorite designers, including Stella McCartney, Chloé, and Marc Jacobs, to see if she could find a pair worth the obscene price tags. Even though the hit cable drama Suits she starred in was now in its sixth season, Meghan was still a careful shopper. Having spent part of her childhood in a cramped converted-garage apartment in the heart of Los Angeles, the only child of divorced parents who had financial struggles, she didn’t like to waste money on trends that quickly went out of style. If she was going to invest in something, she wanted it to last, like her Sergio Rossi heels. A worrier as a kid, Meghan still harbored the feeling at times that when good things came her way, they could disappear in an instant.

But if Meghan was feeling a little expansive surrounded by the high-priced stilettos and sandals on that late June morning, she could be forgiven.

She was fresh off a luxurious girls’ weekend to the Greek island of Hydra—a trip she had organized to celebrate the upcoming wedding of Lindsay Roth, one of her best friends from college. As maid of honor, Meghan took her duties seriously, having arranged days filled with hiking, swimming, napping, and enjoying the local cuisine of the island, which, located two hours by boat from Athens, can be traveled only by bicycle or donkey.

The weekend was a far cry from the typical Vegas-style bachelorette party of climbing into limos and getting wasted in clubs, all while wearing what Meghan called “headbands of the phallic persuasion.” Instead, the group of women found more sophisticated pleasures in the Mediterranean sun and sea, fresh Greek salads and fish, lots of wine, and one another’s company.

The entire event was classic Meghan: simple yet indulgent, fun in a quiet and intimate way—and all meticulously planned. From the time she was a student, juggling school and jobs, through her years grinding out auditions for bit parts, to her becoming a successful TV star who continued to push the boundaries of her career by launching a popular lifestyle website, Meghan always had a plan. She worked hard not only crafting those plans but also seeing them through.

Her trip to London was no exception. Shoes were just the start of the itinerary she had filled completely before arriving in London. Meghan had a list of restaurants she wanted to eat in, bars that she wanted to go to, and people she wanted to meet.

It was an exciting time for the thirty-four-year-old. Her success in the competitive world of show business, which had started to open doors to opportunities of all kinds, was a product of the confidence, perseverance, and willingness to work harder than her peers that she had displayed since she was a little girl.

Meghan’s self-assurance was partly due to her parents’ devotion to their daughter. Her mother, Doria Ragland, and dad, Thomas—who met on the set of General Hospital, where he was a lighting director and she a temp in the makeup department—split up after two years of marriage. But they remained unified in the one child they shared—co-parenting Meghan without much friction, sharing custody, and celebrating holidays together.

There was no greater sign of Thomas and Doria’s dedication, however, than their commitment to Meghan’s education. Neither of Meghan’s parents went to college immediately following high school, even though Doria was in a club for gifted students at Fairfax High School in LA. After graduation, she went to work at the antiques store owned by her father, Alvin Ragland, and as a travel agent in the start of what would become a long string of jobs. Doria didn’t go to college until much later in her life because her family couldn’t afford for her to attend. And because of her own experience of struggling financially due to her lack of higher education, she always stressed to Meghan how important that was.

When it came to Meghan’s schooling, both Thomas and Doria wanted the best of the best—starting with the Little Red Schoolhouse, a small, prestigious private elementary school that had been educating Hollywood’s elite (including Johnny Depp and Scarlett Johansson) since the forties. From there, Meghan attended Immaculate Heart, an all-girls Catholic middle and high school in Los Feliz.

Keenly aware of how much her parents had sacrificed for her to attend such institutions, Meghan felt personal responsibility attached to her privilege. “Both my parents came from little, so they made a choice to give a lot . . . performing quiet acts of grace—be it a hug, a smile, or a pat on the back to show ones in need that they would be all right,” she wrote in 2016 on her lifestyle blog The Tig. “This is what I grew up seeing, so that is what I grew up being.”

Meghan was driven. Always first to raise her hand when the teacher wanted an answer or a volunteer to read out loud, she had stellar grades and attendance. Her sense of accountability extended beyond the school grounds. As a young girl coming face-to-face with a homeless man on the streets, she begged her mother, “Can we help him?” It’s not unusual for children who have come across people in need to want to help, but the difference with Meghan was that she didn’t forget once they had moved on. The rest of the day, and long after, she was left with a nagging question: “What can I do?”

At ten, Meghan first went abroad to Jamaica with her mother, who took her past the resorts that most visitors stick to and into the slums so she could get an education on how those less fortunate lived. At thirteen, Meghan volunteered in a soup kitchen on LA’s Skid Row. “The first day I felt really scared,” Meghan said. “I was young, and it was rough and raw down there, and though I was with a great volunteer group, I just felt overwhelmed.”

Wrestling with whether she should return to the soup kitchen, she turned to her theology teacher at Immaculate Heart, Maria Pollia. A Catholic Worker volunteer, Maria had a lot of experience in working with people living in the margins of society—and she wanted to inspire the young, earnest student before her to do the same.

“Life is about putting others’ needs above your own fears,” Maria told Meghan. The young student returned to the soup kitchen.

“That has always stayed with me,” Meghan said.

Meghan’s willingness to help others and her drive to excel meant she often was deemed “fake” by classmates at school who felt it was impossible for anyone to be that “perfect.” However, Meghan never thought she was perfect. In fact, she often felt she had more to prove. Being biracial and not always knowing where she fit in, there was a part of her that just wanted people to see she was great at whatever she did. She didn’t like the idea of being seen as an underdog.

In high school, Meghan’s drive continued to bloom. She joined every club, from the yearbook committee to the Genesian Players theater group. She was voted homecoming queen. A natural performer and someone who sought out praise, Meghan was coming into her own.

Gigi Perreau, who taught Meghan acting for several years, said, “She was incredibly hardworking. I was bowled over by the strong work ethic she had at such a young age.” Meghan threw herself into even the smallest of roles, like when she played a secretary in a production of Annie.

Thomas often helped out with set design for Meghan’s school plays and “came to as many of her presentations as possible,” Perreau said. “You would always see his face in the audience, beaming with pride for his little girl.”

He also played a critical role in Meghan’s development as a feminist and, as she called herself, a “female advocate.” When she was eleven years old, her class was watching a TV show when a dishwashing liquid commercial aired with the tagline “Women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans.” A boy sitting nearby shouted out, “Yeah, that’s where women belong, in the kitchen!”

Thomas encouraged Meghan, who was upset over the incident, to write letters of protest over the ad. She mailed off letters to “the most powerful people I could think of,” including First Lady Hillary Clinton, Nickelodeon news anchor Linda Ellerbee, and the dishwashing soap manufacturer—and they all responded. She received a letter from the White House; Nickelodeon aired an interview with Meghan; and the detergent manufacturer changed the commercial’s tagline to “People all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans.”

Meghan’s interest in acting turned into a career goal in high school, but her mother—always focused on the importance of higher education—advised her to get a college degree. And she wanted her daughter to have a career path in case acting didn’t fall into place for her. That wasn’t an issue for Meghan, who chose not to go on any professional auditions until she graduated high school and had already secured a place at Northwestern University.

She had enrolled in the private college located in a Chicago suburb, ranked one of the top schools in the nation, when she booked her first bit part in a Tori Amos’s music video of the song “1000 Oceans.” Blink and you might miss Meghan’s cameo as a passerby examining an enclosed glass box with the singer inside, but she earned $600 and, within weeks, auditioned for another role in a Shakira video. (She didn’t get the part in the video—and in fact didn’t get another acting gig until she appeared on General Hospital in her last year of college.)

At Northwestern, Meghan again found herself surrounded by mainly affluent students from affluent families. A work-study student, she juggled a full course load and part-time jobs to defray the cost of tuition and room and board. That was in addition to the babysitting she did to cover extra expenses, performing as a theater major, and volunteer work.

“I can’t imagine how the days are long enough for you,” said a good friend who went with Meghan to pick up her latest work-study assignments from the school office. She marveled at her friend’s ability to balance the pressure and rigor of her academics with everything else.

“How do you have time to do all this stuff?” her pal asked.

By not partying like most of her normal college kids. Her friends would never run into Meg, as they called her, at a bar in the middle of the week. Friday nights, when her sorority sisters were all going out to parties, Meg was headed out to professors’ houses to babysit. She rushed Kappa Kappa Gamma, eventually living in the sorority house and making some of her closest friends, including Genevieve Hillis and Lindsay. But even Meghan’s Greek life was less Animal House and more Elle Woods. As rush and recruitment chairman, she was in charge of bringing new people into the sorority and making them feel welcome. She also raised money for charity with events like a dance marathon she participated in with her other sorority sisters. The women danced for thirty hours to benefit Team Joseph, a nonprofit working on a cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. “It got so tiring,” Meghan admitted.

By her junior year, she had finished most of her credits, so with the help of her father’s older brother Mick, she secured an internship at the US embassy in Buenos Aires. No one in the family was quite sure what Uncle Mick did, whether his communications job in Buenos Aires was actually a cover for a job in the CIA. But regardless, his connections allowed a twenty-year-old Meghan to broaden her horizons beyond the stage.

“I had always been the theater nerd at Northwestern University. I knew I wanted to do acting, but I hated the idea of being this cliché—a girl from LA who decides to be an actress,” Meghan told Marie Claire. “I wanted more than that, and I had always loved politics, so I ended up changing my major completely, and double-majoring in theater and international relations.”

Meghan took the Foreign Service Officer Test, a prerequisite for a job as a State Department officer. When she didn’t pass the highly competitive test, she was extremely disappointed. She wasn’t used to failing. It was a major blow to the confidence she had always tried to protect.

And so, in 2003, after graduating from Northwestern, Meg found herself back in LA. She was a struggling actress who supported herself between auditions with odd jobs, including a stint as a calligrapher. In 2004, she was hired by the Paper Source, a high-end stationery store in Beverly Hills, where she received a two-hour-long training session in calligraphy, as well as gift wrapping and bookbinding. While working there, she did the wedding invitations for the actress Paula Patton’s 2005 wedding to the singer-songwriter Robin Thicke.

The first few years of her “hustling” for auditions, as she later described it, were marked with long periods without work. And when she did land parts—such as playing “hot girl” in the 2005 Ashton Kutcher romance A Lot Like Love—they weren’t exactly Academy Award–winning material.

In 2006, she became a Briefcase Model on Deal or No Deal, one of twenty-six women wearing matching outfits and each holding a case with anywhere between 1¢ and $1 million. The NBC game show was not only a steady paycheck but also a hot new property. After the premiere in December 2005, its first season averaged between a whopping ten and sixteen million viewers per episode. While following seasons dipped considerably in viewers, it maintained a strong appeal, spawning a syndicated series and a host of tie-in products, such as video and board games.

“Hello, ladies!” the host, Howie Mandel, said to the perfect rows of Briefcase Models on set.

“Hi, Howie!” they replied in unison.

That was the opening drill for the thirty-four episodes Meghan appeared in in 2006 and 2007. As Briefcase Model #24, she, like the rest of her fellow models, opened up her case whenever a contestant trying to win a million dollars called out her number.

Meghan and the other women recorded up to seven episodes in a day. Shooting so many in such a tight block meant long days. Afterward most of the other models liked to go out together, sometimes not even waiting to take off their show makeup before hitting happy hour. Not Meghan. While she was friendly enough, she didn’t go out with the other women. “She was popular with all the other girls,” said Leyla Milani, a fellow Briefcase Model. “But as soon as we were done, she would be off to something else.” Just as in college, Meghan was working when her peers were blowing off steam. She even kept busy during breaks on the set of Deal or No Deal. “When other girls were gossiping or chatting,” Leyla said, “she would be by herself reading scripts and preparing for auditions.”

After two seasons on the game show, Meghan was ready to put down her silver briefcase. Over the next three years, she kept up the auditions, booking a Tostitos commercial and small roles in a few films and TV shows, including Horrible Bosses, CSI: NY, Knight Rider, Without a Trace, and ’Til Death. In a two-episode arc on the CW reboot of 90210 in 2008, her character, Wendy, stirred up trouble when she was caught giving oral sex to playboy student Ethan Ward in a school parking lot. Meghan was hesitant to shoot the scene, but struggling actresses can’t be picky.

She never stopped pushing, even when she thought she blew her audition for the series-regular role of the gorgeous and confident paralegal Rachel Zane, in Suits, a new show for the USA Network. Meghan didn’t cry or go home to eat a pint of ice cream. Instead, she called her agent.

“I don’t think I did a good job in that room,” she told him. “I need to get back in there.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” he said. “Just focus on your next audition.”

2

When Harry Met Meghan

When Meghan arrived in London, it had been five years since she moved to Toronto to star in Suits, and her life was worlds away from that of the struggling LA actress driving to auditions in a run-down Ford Explorer that she didn’t have enough money to fix when the automatic locks stopped working (and so spent five months entering through the trunk).

While her role on the USA Network drama wouldn’t have put her on the A-list in cities like LA or New York, she was very quickly adopted as a Canadian celebrity. Even as her star rose, Meghan never stopped working to expand her opportunities. After hiring the London-based PR firm Kruger Cowne to promote her interests, she began commanding cash—upward of $10,000 an appearance—to turn up at red carpets, such as the September 2014 Marchesa Voyage for ShopStyle collection launch in New York City, or as a speaker, as she was for Toronto’s 2015 “Dove Self-Esteem Project” and the Women in Cable Telecommunications Signature Luncheon in Chicago that same year.

When she signed with Kruger Cowne, Meghan also linked up with APA, one of the world’s largest commercial talent agencies, to develop her career as a lifestyle influencer based on The Tig, the blog she launched in 2014. A place to curate of all her passions (food, fashion, and travel—as well as social issues such as gender equality) filtered through an “aspirational girl-next-door vibe,” the blog was named after Tignanello—the full-bodied red wine that won her heart after the first sip.

“It was my first moment of getting it—I finally understood what people meant by the body, structure, finish, legs of wine,” she wrote. “The Tig is my nickname for me getting it. Not just wine, but everything.”

The Tig wasn’t the first time that Meghan had taken to the Internet to not only express herself but also to reach out to others. From 2010 to 2012, she wrote The Working Actress, an anonymous blog that detailed the pitfalls and triumphs of struggling to make it in Hollywood. She had always enjoyed writing in school and even thought about becoming a journalist at one point, as it was an opportunity to channel her creativity and frustration. The blog captured the heartfelt moments of joy when she booked a job and the despair and rejection actors felt each time a role was lost in an industry often driven by appearance rather than by talent. While she never publicly acknowledged authorship of the popular blog, it was one of the industry’s worst-kept secrets that she was the face behind it—and she quickly became recognized for its clever advice and honest anecdotes.

Where The Working Actress was raw and candid, The Tig was polished and optimistic. Whether it was Meghan walking a rugged coastline in a perfectly belted camel coat or a “Tig Talk” with famous pals like the actress Priyanka Chopra or a recipe for “spicy broccoli and hempseed stew,” the website was curated eye candy that she hoped would be “the breeding ground for ideas and excitement—for an inspired lifestyle.”

The newest face in her working world was Violet von Westenholz, a PR executive from Ralph Lauren who had scheduled several events during Meghan’s summer trip to London, where the actress would be one of the many celebrity brand ambassadors for the label. In addition to the fashion world, Violet was also well-known in English society. Her father, Frederick Patrick Piers Baron von Westenholz, a former Olympic skier, was one of Prince Charles’s oldest and closest friends, so Violet and her siblings grew up skiing in Switzerland with Prince William and Prince Harry.

On the calendar for the actress was Wimbledon. With Ralph Lauren as the fashion sponsor in charge of the official merchandise, Violet arranged the tickets and passes. On day two of the tournament, Meghan sat in the stands to support her friend Serena Williams. Meghan first met the tennis champ at a Super Bowl party in Miami in 2010. Out of all the stars and athletes there, Meghan and Serena “hit it off immediately,” as Meghan later described. Connecting over “good old-fashioned girly stuff,” the women snapped photos of each other on their phones.

At Wimbledon, however, Meghan was serious while watching Serena battle it out against Amra Sadikovic. She was the first to pump her fist when her friend scored a point or stand to cheer when the tennis champ won a set. She hadn’t known much about tennis before becoming friendly with Serena, but now she was a fan.

Meghan did tear herself away from the action long enough to spot British actor Dominic Cooper in the VIP bar area, where she joked about having a small crush on the Preacher star and deliberated whether she should talk to him. She decided not to approach this nice English gentleman. She was too busy having fun with her girlfriends.

Violet wasn’t the only one setting up meetings for Meghan in London. A few months before she arrived in town, Jonathan Shalit—who has helped carve out television careers for Simon Cowell, Mel B, and other British household names—signed Meghan to his talent agency, Roar. The hope was for Meghan to enter a new space, perhaps hosting a food-centric TV show.

Jonathan’s interest in the American actress for some kind of food, travel, and culture show stemmed from The Tig, which was exactly the kind of future Meghan hoped would blossom out of her website.

“There is a vision, and it’s a big one,” Meghan said about The Tig, which she dreamed about spinning into a cookbook or a lifestyle brand. “The opportunities are endless.”

While the actress-turned-lifestyle-guru Gwyneth Paltrow, who turned her website Goop into a $250 million empire, was an obvious source of inspiration in marketing herself, Meghan had another one far closer to home in Jessica Mulroney—Canada’s most prominent lifestyle influencer and a very close friend.

Jessica and her husband, Ben—the eldest son of the former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney and the host of the entertainment show eTalk—were the city’s hottest young power couple. She parlayed the brand-name Canadian family she married into and her sense of style into a boutique career as an influencer, stylist, and wedding planner. Her Instagram feed was filled with pictures of domestic perfection—like Jessica with her long, blown-out brown hair, her blue eyes fringed in black lashes, reading a book on the floor with her adorable twin sons, Brian and John, her lean legs crossed and on her feet a pair of sky-high black stilettos.

After the women were introduced by a local fashion publicist, Jessica not only encouraged Meghan to follow the same path but also introduced her to an exciting, fizzy social scene filled with high-profile charity events, the openings of new hotspots, fabulous restaurants, and fancy friends like Michael Bublé. Jessica and Ben were good friends with the Canadian singer-songwriter and his wife, the Argentinian-born actress-model Luisana Lopilato, whose intimate parties at their home in Vancouver were a coveted invite. When Meghan snagged a seat at his dinner table in November 2015, it provided fodder for a blog post of the singer’s favorite holiday songs titled, “Tig Tunes with Michael Bublé.”

By 2016, The Tig and her Instagram account had gained a big enough following that she felt in a position to think about opportunities outside of Suits. Eager for a change, she had signed to a literary agency in the United States and was in talks to release a food-focused book to capitalize on her new platform. While Meghan was in London, Jonathan, in his uniform of black vest, white shirt, striped tie, and brightly colored socks, pitched a show where she would travel the world, discovering new foods with a focus on sustainability. Think Padma Lakshmi meets Anthony Bourdain.

Jonathan wasn’t the only well-known industry type Meghan networked with while in England’s capital. She also met up with Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan at his local pub in Kensington, the Scarsdale Tavern. “I’m in London for a week of meetings and Wimbledon,” Meghan had quietly direct messaged via Twitter to Piers after she arrived in the British capital. “Would love to say hi!” They had never met before, but she was keen to know the controversial and outspoken personality behind the outrageous tweets about Donald Trump, who he became frenemies with on the NBC reality series Celebrity Apprentice.

Meghan showed up to the cozy, dark pub looking “every inch the Hollywood superstar,” Piers described in the Daily Mail, “very slim, very leggy, very elegant, and impossibly glamorous. She was even wearing the obligatory big black shades beloved of LA thespians.”

During their two-hour drinks, Meghan sipped dirty martinis while the two discussed gun control, her career, her childhood dreams of becoming either president of the United States or a TV journalist, and her biracial upbringing. Piers was charmed.

Just before eight o’clock, Meghan bade Piers farewell, as she had to run to her dinner date at 5 Hertford Street with Misan Harriman, whose father, Chief Hope Harriman, was one of the founding fathers of modern Nigeria. Misan—the founder of the website whatweseee.com and the director of the global network of polo games called British Polo Day—could often be found at polo matches alongside Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Misan invited Meghan to the members-only club-restaurant in Mayfair, which was said to be one of the most prestigious clubs in the world. Members who have made their way through the unmarked maroon door on Hertford Street to dine by candlelight in the private rooms with silver service included George and Amal Clooney, Mick Jagger, and Harry’s cousin Princess Eugenie. While Meghan might have enjoyed sipping gin fizzes under the club’s hushed lighting, what she really looked forward to was a blind date she had planned for the following evening.

It was summer, and she was newly single. Although her two-year relationship (her first serious one since her divorce three years earlier) had only recently ended, Meghan still very much believed in finding lasting love. During her visit to London, however, Meghan joked to a pal that she’d settle for “a nice English gentleman to flirt with.”

Except this date was with no ordinary guy. Over lunch on July 1, Meghan revealed the mystery man’s identity to her London-based agent Gina Nelthorpe-Cowne. Gina and Meghan, who first met at the 2014 One Young World Summit, had traveled to numerous overseas jobs together and even took a side vacation during a work trip to Malta in March 2015. So the actress felt she could confide in the agent as a friend.

“I’m going on a blind date tonight,” Meghan said coyly, after finishing off her salad at the Delaunay restaurant, near London’s Covent Garden.

“Who is it?” Gina asked. “Do I know him?”

Meghan leaned in excitedly and whispered, “I’m sure you know him. It’s Prince Harry.”

Floored by the news, Gina asked her friend in a hushed tone, “Do you know what you’re letting yourself in for?”

“Well, it’s going to be an experience,” Meghan said, “and at least it will be a fun night.”

“This could be crazy,” Gina said, trying to impress upon the American the insane and unique culture of tabloid coverage in the UK that came with dating a royal. “You will be the most wanted woman.”

Meghan wasn’t thinking that far ahead of herself, particularly since the woman who had set her up with the prince said, “Let’s just get you in a room together and see what happens.”

Despite reports that Violet von Westenholz had set up the date, it was mostly Meghan’s pals Misha Nonoo and Markus Anderson who were in on the first meeting. (The couple themselves prefer to keep the story of their matchmaker a mystery, even to close friends. Meghan’s only clue to pals at the time was that her first encounter with Harry was “serendipitous.”)

Markus, a Canadian native and Soho House’s global membership director, always made sure Meghan was comfortable at the Toronto outpost of the private members-only club with locations all over the world. Behind the velvet roped-off doorway of the nineteenth-century Georgian building that the club spent $8 million to renovate into an exclusive oasis, Meghan, who would have her own booth reserved on the third floor when she went there for drinks, spent many an afternoon curled up on one of the library’s leather club chairs with her MacBook, working away on her blog, or hanging out with her Suits castmates.

Markus provided Meghan with introductions to many business and cultural elites—both in Canada and beyond. At a Soho House lunch in Miami, he was the one who sat the actress next to Misha, a budding fashion designer with a vivacious personality and impeccable pedigree. The occasion for the December 2014 Miami trip was Art Basel, a decadent art fair that brings the internationally rich and famous for a week of parties and events of all sorts and sizes. Markus invited Meghan, an art lover, to stay at the epicenter of the action, Soho Beach House, to get some sun, see some art, and have some fun.

A perfect place to make new friends and connections, the Soho House event saw Misha and Meghan hit it off immediately. Born in Bahrain but raised in England, the sunny blond designer, who split her time between New York and London, attended business school in Paris before entering the world of fashion. Her handsome and well-connected husband, Alexander Gilkes, was named to Art + Auction’s 100 Most Powerful People in the Art World list after founding Paddle8, an online auction house. An old Etonian pal of Prince William’s and Prince Harry’s, Alexander met Misha when she was seventeen, and they were married seven years later in Venice with no less than Lana Del Rey performing at their 2012 vows.

Meghan was instantly intrigued by Misha’s effortless glamour, and Misha felt similarly about the actress’s fresh-faced interest. “She’s an impressive woman and so much fun to be around,” said Misha.

Before lunch was over, the women exchanged information and tagged each other in photos on Instagram.

The smart and pretty fashion designer spoke about new business opportunities to Meghan, who was eager to expand her social and professional horizons. Meghan loved hanging out with Misha, described by a friend as “one of those undercover, cool, rich aristocratic girls.” Anytime that she was in New York, she would stay at Misha’s West Village duplex, where the designer and her husband constantly entertained a revolving group of interesting people.

The friendship wasn’t one-sided, though. When Misha was named a finalist of the prestigious CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Awards during New York Fashion Week in November 2015, Meghan made a huge splash on the red carpet when she wore one of her friend’s designs to the awards dinner. The image of Meghan posing in the silver liquid-metal mini dress with a deep plunging neckline was everywhere the next day—a great push for Misha’s burgeoning fashion line.

When the two women first met, Meghan was in a serious relationship, even though she was coming off a divorce only a year and a half earlier.

Meghan had been twenty-three years old when she fell for her first husband, Trevor Engelson, a brash, up-and-coming young producer whom The Hollywood Reporter named to its Top 35 Under 35 list in 2009. The pair dated for seven years before the thirty-year-old Meghan and thirty-four-year-old Trevor tied the knot on September 10, 2011, in a romantic beachside ceremony in Jamaica.

While they were still dating, Meghan wondered aloud to her closest friends why Trevor didn’t always act as if he supported her acting career. After all, he had plenty of connections in the industry. She felt that he liked her being dependent on him. That was the dynamic of their relationship; Trevor was the dominant character. “He was used to being the breadwinner, the one Meghan needed for introductions in the industry,” said a friend of their early courtship. But their marriage coincided with her landing a starring role on a hit cable drama. Just months after Trevor proposed to Meghan while on vacation in Belize in 2010, she got the part on Suits. “Suddenly the dynamic was changing,” the friend continued, “and he didn’t like that.”

Meghan living in Toronto for the greater part of the year accelerated the decline of their relationship. At first, they made every effort to spend time together. As the months went by, however, the visits became less frequent. When Trevor was invited to the Oscars in February 2013, he didn’t bring Meghan to the awards show. He explained that he had only one ticket, but Meghan wondered if he didn’t want to share the spotlight. Six months later, the couple, who had appeared deliriously in love on a Jamaican beach just twenty-three months earlier, were divorced. But Meghan never lost faith that she’d find the one—even if the first time she decided who he was, she’d been wrong.

When the actress decided to give love another chance, it came in the form of Toronto’s number one bachelor, Cory Vitiello, who the magazine Toronto Life described as, “known as much for his kitchen skills as for appearing on most-eligible lists.” The native of Brantford, Ontario, with the chiseled features always had a different beautiful woman on his arm. Having started his own catering business out of his family home when he was just fifteen, Cory was the owner of one of Meghan’s favorite restaurants, the Harbord Room, where the two first met in June 2014. Shortly after, Meghan wrote in The Tig about his eatery—and him. “The small-town charm and moral compass of someone who doesn’t come from the big city, but dreams big thoughts and makes them happen,” she wrote, “that makes his food so approachable yet inspired.”

At first, she was attracted to Cory’s good looks, but soon she was drawn to his sensitivity, kind demeanor, and entrepreneurial skills. And, of course, food was a huge connection. Although Meghan was already an avid cook and passionate foodie before meeting Cory, he “opened up her eyes to food on a whole different level,” according to a friend. By the end of the summer, she and Cory were a confirmed couple, and within a month of their dating, Meghan told friends she was falling in love. “She’s careful but does fall quickly when she likes someone,” a friend said. “It’s the old romantic in her.”

From the time she was in high school, through college, and post-divorce, Meghan was never interested in casual dating. She was always looking for commitment. Things with Cory were no different; she wanted to be in a healthy relationship, get married, and eventually have children. Cory’s family, with whom she spent Christmas 2015, couldn’t have been happier. The whole clan was fond of Meghan, including Cory’s mom, Joanne, and they were convinced the pair would soon be engaged.

In reality, though, her relationship with Cory had begun to deteriorate. By the start of 2016, Meghan was confessing to friends that she regretted how quickly things had progressed with him. That was already obvious to some of her closest pals by the fact that although she had moved in with the chef, Meghan had held on to her rental home. But it wasn’t until early that May that they officially ended their two-year romance. The problem, according to a source close to the couple, was Cory: he didn’t want to settle down. Meghan broke it off with him without any specific accusations, and he didn’t put up a fight. “It wasn’t a happy time for her,” the source said.

Sadness, however, quickly evolved into relief for the young actress. So much so that by the time summer arrived, she was looking forward to her travel plans abroad and ready to have fun. And her new friend Misha thought that summer was the perfect time to set her up on a date or two.

* * *

Prince Harry seemed like a fun guy, even if he was a member of a royal family steeped in protocol completely foreign to an American like Meghan. From the time he was three years old, photographed sticking out his tongue while in the arms of his mother, Princess Diana, who stood next to the Queen on the balcony of Buckingham Palace at the Trooping the Colour, he established himself as the cheeky one. Poking out his tongue at photographers, something he sometimes did as a child, was a particularly rebellious act, since before William and Harry, royal children were pictured only as perfect, quiet, and in the background.

His mother did little to dampen his high spirits. When the boys were in boarding school at the Ludgrove School in Berkshire—first William, then Harry—Diana smuggled Starbursts into their socks when she would visit to watch them play soccer. An avid letter writer, she also liked to send them off-color greeting cards. “You can be naughty,” Diana once told Harry. “Just don’t get caught.”

Harry took that message to heart. More interested in riding or playing sports than in school, he shared his mother’s penchant for humor and mischief. Once while playing with his mother’s personal protection officer Ken Wharfe, he got past security, snuck out of the palace gates, and radioed Ken on the walkie-talkies.

“Where are you?” Ken said over the radio when neither he nor the palace guards could find Harry.

“I’m outside Tower Records,” Harry radioed back to Ken, who ran as fast as he could to Kensington High Street, a half mile away, where he found the small royal in his tiny camouflaged army uniform.

Diana might have forgiven Harry’s indifference to the rules in part because the rules of their royal lineage dictated that his brother, William, had a more important title than he did. By the age of four, he was aware of their destinies as “heir and spare.” Knowing this, their mother regularly emphasized how she loved her sons equally. Equality was a constant theme in their family unit, because outside of it, that was not the case.

By the time the boys got older, the difference in their positions was clearer. William would have solo meetings with the Queen to learn about his future role, but Harry never did. Diana had tried to imbue in her younger son that he should never let anyone make him feel that he wasn’t special just because he would never be king. If anything, she reasoned, he was lucky, because Harry had the opportunity to find his purpose. Titles are both boon and burden.

Not surprisingly, he grew up into a young man most at ease around close friends and people not overly impressed with his royalty. Not one for pomp and circumstance, he never liked certain “stuffy” engagements, like state banquets at Buckingham Palace, or the overly formal attire they sometimes required. To this day, Harry doesn’t like wearing a tie. He once confessed to the authors of this book, “We need to liven these things up, make them more fun and interesting.”

Part of the reason he fell hard for his first serious girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, was that she loved adventure as much as he did, and she was not overly impressed with his royal pedigree. While he was on his gap year in 2004 after graduating high school, Harry met the smart, lively blonde, who was born in Zimbabwe to Charles Davy, a wealthy landowner and safari operator, and Beverley Donald Davy, a former Miss Rhodesia. Chelsy was just as comfortable riding horses bareback and enjoying the African plains as she was attending high-society events in London. For seven years she and Harry shared a complicated but undoubtedly passionate history. Chelsy was fun-loving but also devoted. Her genuine love for her boyfriend regardless of pedigree was one of the qualities that endeared Chelsy to both Harry and the royal family. Discreet and loyal, she was by Harry’s side for all the important moments of his young life, like his 2006 graduation from Britain’s elite Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the 2007 Concert for Diana, and his brother’s wedding to Kate Middleton in 2011. Ultimately, though, the constant public scrutiny of her private life proved too much for Chelsy to bear.

Paparazzi lurking in unexpected corners and unflattering tabloid articles also proved the death knell for Harry’s next serious relationship, with the actress Cressida Bonas, who his cousin Princess Eugenie introduced him to in the spring of 2012. The willowy blonde traveled in the same aristocratic circles as Harry; her mother, Lady Mary-Gaye Curzon, was one of the heirs to the Curzon banking fortune and her father, Jeffrey, was an entrepreneur.

By the summer of 2016, Harry felt he was ready to be in a relationship. Indeed, he and Chelsy reunited briefly again before he met Meghan—who some of the tabloids would later speculate had still been in a relationship with Cory when she first met Harry. Cory never spoke to the press about his ex, other than to refute the claim that Meghan overlapped boyfriends, stating: “I have too much respect for her and her privacy. She’s a wonderful girl.”

Misha thought Meghan could be a match for Harry. Her then husband, Alexander, knew him through the social circle of elite young men and women connected to the royal brothers that had been dubbed by the tabloids the Glosse Posse. Included in the circle of friends was also Alexander’s brother Charlie, who dated Kate Middleton’s sister, Pippa, in 2008 while both were students at the University of Edinburgh. Alexander was a guest at William’s 2011 wedding to Kate; Harry went to Charlie’s 2014 nuptials in Italy to Anneke von Trotha Taylor (Kate’s mother and siblings James and Pippa were also there, but the Duchess of Cambridge, pregnant at the time, had such a bad case of morning sickness she couldn’t go).

How would Meghan, a California girl, fit into that scene? “They both have an innocence in their eyes,” a mutual pal described of Harry and Meghan. Plus, friends felt it would be good for them both to just get out there and date.

Naturally both participants in this blind date did their homework with a thorough Google search. Harry, who scoped out Meghan on social media, was interested. A friend had shown him an Instagram photo of Meghan in the slinky silver mini dress at the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Awards. He liked what he saw but didn’t necessarily think of drinks as anything more than a chance to be introduced to a woman he found attractive. He certainly could not have foreseen that she would be the woman he would one day marry.

What Meghan may have seen online could have easily convinced her to call the whole thing off.

In his early twenties, Harry was a regular fixture on the London club scene. He had many wild nights out at trendy spots like Jak’s, Funky Buddha, and the Wellington Club. But his reputation as the “party prince” started while he was still a teenager who was known for his drunken antics reported by the tabloids (some true, some less so). There was story after story of Harry seemingly getting out of control. He was kicked out of a pub he frequented a couple of miles from Highgrove, the family residence in Gloucestershire, because of bad behavior. It seemed he took to heart the first part of his mother’s message about getting into trouble but couldn’t quite figure out how to pull off the second part about not getting caught.

Harry’s nadir came when he landed on the cover of The Sun in 2005 holding a drink and a cigarette—and wearing a swastika armband. The British tabloid’s headline was to the point: “Harry the Nazi.” Harry had been one of about 250 guests invited to a costume party at the home of Richard Meade, one of Britain’s most successful equestrians, for his son’s birthday. The prince’s choice of costume, for which he apologized, was unequivocally bad, but the party’s timing right before the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz made it even more egregious.

The other big scandal that pops up in all online searches of the prince was Harry’s 2012 Las Vegas trip with his longtime pals Tom “Skippy” Inskip and Arthur Landon. A few alcohol-fueled days (during which Harry challenged twelve-time Olympic medalist in swimming Ryan Lochte to a race at a pool party) abruptly ended when TMZ published grainy photos of Harry naked and cupping what the tabloid website called his “crown jewels” during a co-ed game of “strip pool” in his hotel suite. The pictures, which immediately went viral, had forced the Palace to question how this could have happened and who was to blame. “It was a bad moment,” said a former royal protection officer. “Everyone was in a lot of trouble.”

But the online tales of the “Wild Windsor” didn’t put a damper on Meghan’s date. Not only was the Las Vegas incident four years old, but the actress, who had her own small taste of tabloid interest during her divorce and relationship with Cory, knew better than most that the media didn’t always get the story right.

“She didn’t know much about him at all other than what had been written,” a friend said. “She knows how wrong the tabloids can be, and she wanted to know who the real Harry was, not what the likes of TMZ had said.”

The evening of her first date with Harry, Meghan was more preoccupied with what she would wear than his online reputation. She settled on an outfit and then got started on her makeup in her suite at the Soho House’s Dean Street Townhouse property. Meghan had been offered a heavily discounted stay at the five-star Dorchester Hotel but chose the luxurious room secured by Markus instead. As a celebrity and influencer, Meghan was regularly offered free holidays, travel discounts, and the like. But she turned down the Dorchester amid a Hollywood boycott after the hotel chain’s owner, the Sultan of Brunei, introduced Sharia law in his country, including death by stoning for those found guilty of gay sex.

In addition to the suite, Markus had a hand in some of the evening’s logistics as well. That included other friends being present at the informal gathering, “so it wouldn’t be awkward,” a source close to Meghan explained. “If that first meeting worked out, then they could plan a proper one-on-one date together.”

Soho House’s eighteenth-century Georgian building made for the perfect location for the meeting. Before the member’s club took over the premises in 2008, it had a history as a meeting place for artists and intellectuals—stretching as far back as the seventeenth century, when the actress and mistress of King Charles II, Nell Gwynn, spent time there. In the 1920s, it was christened the Gargoyle Club and frequented by the playwright Noël Coward, the dancer Fred Astaire, and the screen legend Tallulah Bankhead. By the 1950s, it had been transformed again, into a bar where luminaries such as Lucian Freud and other artists hung their hats.

The club in its current life afforded Harry the privacy necessary for a prince to unwind. The many rooms spread across four floors and two connected buildings made it easy to keep Harry out of sight and away from gawking guests. Markus chose a private dining area cordoned off behind floor-to-ceiling velvet drapes.

From one of the townhouse’s thirty-nine bedrooms (many with four-poster beds and Victorian claw-footed tubs), Meghan’s home away from home during her London excursion, she settled on a navy-blue sundress and heels for the evening.

Arriving downstairs, Meghan entered the warmly lit room filled with cozy banquettes and familiar faces. She sat down briefly until Harry—dressed in his signature white shirt and chinos—walked in and immediately introduced himself. Here we go.

A friend of Meghan’s had admitted that the actress was initially nervous about the introduction, as they came from two very different worlds. But Misha, according to a source, told Meghan not to worry—they both had “huge hearts.” And if all else failed, Markus would be nearby in case the entire evening was a dud.

Harry is admittedly tough to impress, but he almost froze when he walked into the room and saw Meghan. He knew she was beautiful—he had seen the photos on her Instagram account and online—but she was even more stunning in person. “Wow,” he later confessed to a friend. “The most beautiful woman I’ve seen in my life.”

Meghan wasn’t just beautiful. She was also different from women he was used to meeting, and Harry was intimidated by new situations. Because of his royal birth, he couldn’t do a lot of the everyday things most people do, like ride the London Underground or go anywhere without a protection officer. In fact, Harry lived within a bubble of sorts.

And that included the women he usually dated. They were mainly within his small world. Girls at Jak’s or Funky Buddha would only need to see that he was Prince Harry to be impressed. He didn’t even need to open his mouth.

Meghan, however, threw him off immediately.

It wasn’t just her charming freckles, perfect smile, or American accent. Meghan is someone who works a room very well. In social settings, all eyes are drawn to her. She laughs a little louder, glows a little bit brighter. She’s self-assured in a way that attracts attention.

Harry quickly realized that impressing Meghan was going to be tougher than just giving her one of his big smiles. “I am really going to have to up my game here,” he said of their first meeting. “Sit down and make sure I’ve got a good chat!”

Perhaps she sensed his nervousness, because the couple was 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.

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, to notice the rather rude wallpaper featuring photos of women’s private parts that adorned the walls.

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.” Meghan lit up when the subject turned to her two rescue dogs. In fact, it wasn’t long before she started swiping through photos on her phone like a proud mom.

At the end of the evening, which had lasted almost three hours, Harry and Meghan went their separate ways. Despite the palpable attraction between them, there was no goodbye kiss, no expectation, just a hint that something was there and they hoped to see each other again soon.

Harry wasted no time in texting Meghan, who was back in her hotel room.

His messages were often short and full of emojis, in particular the ghost emoji, which he often used instead of a smiley face. For what reason? Nobody knows. But Meghan found his texting etiquette funny and adorable, just like the prince.

“He definitely didn’t hide the fact he was keen,” said a friend of Meghan’s. “He wanted her to know he was very interested.”

3

Courtship in the Wild

While “everyone was hopeful” that Harry and Meghan would have a nice evening together, no one expected what happened next.

“Almost immediately they were almost obsessed with each other,” a friend said. “It was as if Harry was in a trance.”

Even Misha told friends she was surprised by the quick intensity of the attraction.

The day after her date with the prince, Meghan called one of her girlfriends. “Do I sound crazy when I say this could have legs?” she asked.

That night, Harry and Meghan made plans to meet up again. This time, no friends, no distractions—just the two of them. They returned to Dean Street Townhouse the next evening for a romantic dinner organized by Markus, who the venue staff playfully called “Lady A,” because of the way he fretted over making sure every detail was just so.

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 and fresh fish from Billingsgate Market. A glamorous start, it was not.

Staff did all they could to keep details of the dinner private, allowing just one trusted waiter to serve them the entire evening. As patrons of the members-only club like to say, “What goes on at Soho House stays at Soho House.”

According to a friend, Harry and Meghan “chatted a lot” that evening, which ended chastely with Harry returning to the palace. Still, their chemistry had been electric throughout the meal as they both flirted. A touch of an arm here, direct eye contact there.

“Harry knew they would be together at that point,” a friend shared. “She was ticking every box fast.”

Although she shared much of her London visit on social media, Meghan knew she had to keep her dates with the then fifth in line to the throne a secret. But the clues were there. 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. A big house music fan, he crafted the pseudonym by using part of the name of one of his favorite DJs, DeadMau5. Spikey came from a Facebook alias that Harry used for an account he had under the name of Spike Wells. “Spike” was a nickname sometimes used for the prince, particularly by Scotland Yard officers. Harry’s Facebook account (before he shut it down after the Las Vegas scandal) had a profile photo of three guys in panama hats taken from the back in an MGM Grand Las Vegas hotel suite. The account said he was from Maun, Botswana. Prior to that photo, Harry used the image of King Julien, the eccentric lemur from the Dreamworks movie Madagascar.

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.

The next night, July 3, Meghan left her hotel and got into a taxi like any ordinary citizen. 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 gilded 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 tipped the cabdriver like she always does and walked into the office and was met by a protection officer.

Meghan was quickly 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. She had no idea so many people lived on the grounds of Kensington Palace, but as a working residence, it houses about a dozen royals as well as several retired household courtiers.

“Cute!” Meghan later told a friend of Harry’s home, Nottingham Cottage.

Again, the sweet English house was nothing like the imposing stone palace that she had constructed in her mind, inspired by images from childhood fairy tales. When Harry opened the door, there was no large staircase or plush red carpet, no crystal chandeliers or double-height ceilings, no art hanging in heavy gold frames or butler service. Instead, 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.

Inside Harry’s very cozy house, any nerves Meghan had before her arrival would have dissolved. While Nottingham Cottage, or Nott Cott as regular visitors know it, is a nice place by anyone’s standards, it’s pretty humble surroundings for an heir to the throne. Clearly, he wasn’t materialistic. Plus, Harry had such a big, sweet smile.

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—and he never once mentioned anything about being a royal or a prince. The most he had admitted at that point was that his life was “sometimes a little mad.”

Harry was unusually candid for someone with his title, but he was also every bit the gentleman. Wherever they went, and to this day, he gestures for Meghan to go first. The short walk from the living room would have been no different.

With her visit to Nott Cott over, Meghan’s trip was sadly coming to an end. She spent her last day in the British capital cheering on her friend Serena Williams in the Players’ Box at Wimbledon (where photographers took little note of Meghan, focusing instead on Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour and Pippa Middleton, who were in the same box), she jetted back across the Atlantic to Toronto, leaving in her wake just a few words posted to Instagram: “Gutted to be leaving London.” Again, only a few people had any inkling what those words truly meant.

One person in that select group was Doria. Meghan shared the news of her budding romance with her mom almost immediately. There was probably no one more influential in Meghan’s life than her mother. “She helped shape Meghan into a strong, powerful, independent woman,” Doria’s half brother Joseph said of his sister. Their bond had been forged during Meghan’s childhood. Practicing yoga, jogging in their LA neighborhood, biking to the La Brea Tar Pits after school, spending time preparing home-cooked dinners with fresh, healthy ingredients, and traveling—Meghan learned to love many of the same things her mom did. Mother and daughter were always very open with each other, and that did not change once Meghan became an adult.

In the following weeks—as Meghan traveled to New York and Boston to publicize the upcoming season of Suits and then to Madrid for a quick trip with Misha and Markus, where they drank lots of wine at Taberna Carmencita, visited Museo Nacional del Prado, and danced in bars—it wasn’t uncommon to see Meghan typing away on her phone and smiling or giggling to herself. She was texting with her new crush. Harry and Meghan sent each other selfies—nothing untoward, just sweet pics of them going about their day. Meghan also sent pictures of meals she was cooking or when she was hair and makeup–ready for camera on set.

Harry and Meghan were falling for each other fast, despite the fact that trust was an issue for both of them—although for completely different reasons. Meghan was protective of herself. She preferred to play it cool and get to know a guy before committing. That said, when she was sure about someone, she dove headlong into the relationship. Meghan’s dream was always to be friends first, then fall in love.

With those he was close to, Harry wore his heart on his sleeve. That’s why he protected himself from getting hurt. It took a very long time to earn his trust, because he was never sure about people’s motivations when they wanted to be his friend. That concern was only exacerbated when it came to women. Were they interested in him because they wanted to make high-society connections? Did they just want to say they dated a prince? Or did they want to sell a story to the press? His radar was always up, calculating how many questions potential love interests asked about the Palace or the Queen. If Harry could have his way, he would have jumped right in—texting and calling every day—when he found a woman he clicked with. But being a prince, he was raised to be wary of the intentions of others.

The correspondence continued through early August, when Meghan traveled to New York for her college friend Lindsay’s wedding to the British businessman Gavin Jordan. From New York, Meghan jetted to the Amalfi Coast for a long-planned holiday with Jessica. Camped out at Le Sirenuse Hotel, a chic five-star hotel in Positano, Meghan and Jessica spent most of their trip poolside, sipping negronis, Bellinis, and champagne while sunbathing. They called it “cocktails o’clock” as the two girlfriends caught up on their lives. With the azure crystalline waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea and Capri visible in the distance, Meghan spoke about everything, including the prince. As Meghan documented every moment of her trip on social media, dubbing it the “Eat Pray Love” tour of the Amalfi Coast, in a cheeky nod to her new love interest, Meghan posted a photo of a red leather-bound volume titled Amore Eterno.

Jessica was one of the few people in the world who knew Meghan’s secret; she was soon meeting Harry again in his home city. Just six weeks after their first date in the city, the prince was taking her on a trip. Harry planned everything for the five-day adventure. He told her to just arrive in London, and he’d handle the rest.

Their destination was Africa—a continent that had great personal significance for him.

A few weeks before, Harry had told Meghan he was planning to go to Africa soon—as he did every summer—and asked her if she would like to come along. He said he’d love for her to join him, since it was the perfect chance to spend time together in a place he was confident they wouldn’t be followed.

When Meghan asked about plans, like finding a place to stay, the prince said, “Leave it with me.”

This wasn’t Meghan’s first trip to Africa. In January 2015, she traveled with UN representatives to Rwanda to visit the Gihembe refugee camp and spend time in Kigali with female parliamentarians.

The trip had its roots in a Tig post from July 4, 2014, where Meghan connected Independence Day and individual independence: “Raise a glass to yourself today—to the right to freedom, to the empowerment of the women (and men) who struggle to have it, and to knowing, embracing, honoring, educating, and loving yourself.”

Her Tig post caught the attention of an executive at HeForShe—the United Nations’ global campaign for gender equality—who reached out to enlist Meghan in their efforts. Her increasing profile as an actress meant more to Meghan than just red carpet invites or free clothes. She wanted to stretch herself intellectually and morally. She had seen how actresses such as Angelina Jolie had advanced humanitarian goals and similarly wanted “to use whatever status I have as an actress to make a tangible impact.” So, she agreed—even offering to intern for a week during her upcoming filming hiatus from Suits. It was very much in character for Meghan, who, before taking on a commitment, likes to be fully prepared.

Rwanda is the only country in the world with a 64 percent female majority in Parliament. This female empowerment grew out of the ashes of the country’s 1994 genocide, which killed between eight hundred thousand and one million and left the population 60 to 70 percent female. Passed in 2003, the country’s new constitution declared that women must hold 30 percent of the seats in Parliament. In the election, though, voters surpassed the quota, raising it to 48 percent of the seats, a number that went up to 64 percent in the following election.

Almost a year after her first trip, she returned to Rwanda in February 2016, this time with World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children. The purpose was to witness firsthand the importance of clean water. While visiting a school in the country, Meghan taught students to paint with watercolors, using water from a newly installed pipeline in their community. The students created pictures based on their hopes for the future. “It was an amazing experience, taking water from one of the water sources in the community and using it with the children to paint pictures of what they dream to be when they grow up,” Meghan said. “I saw that water is not just a life source for a community, but it can really be a source for creative imagination.”

It was an experience Meghan talked about with Harry on their first date. He also shared many of his own feelings about Africa—a place where he has said many times he feels “more like myself than anywhere else in the world.”

Harry fell for Africa following the tragic death of his mother, Princess Diana, in 1997—over the years it had quickly become his home away from home, but his first visit will always be as clear as day. Days after a fifteen-year-old William and twelve-year-old Harry followed their mother’s coffin from St. James’s Palace to Westminster Abbey, Prince Charles, due to make his first trip to South Africa, encouraged his sons to come along to escape the public mourning that surrounded them.

Diana’s death was a big turning point in Charles’s relationship with his sons. The Prince of Wales always tried to be the best father he knew how to be, but he had been raised with a strict sense of formality. While he showered affection on his sons when compared to what he experienced as heir to the throne, Charles was incredibly stiff and not at all used to the kind of world Diana created for the boys.

As a result of her parents’ divorce and difficult childhood, Diana was committed to creating a normal family home filled with love and laughter at Kensington Palace. Diana, one of the first royals to make the kitchen a place for the family and not just the staff, loved it when their chef, Carolyn Robb, cooked with the boys. Carolyn had a cake recipe that called for digestive biscuit crumbs, for which she enlisted Harry and William in pulverizing the cookies in Ziploc bags.

Charles was never going to fill the role of his sons’ mother, but after Diana’s death, he realized that he had to finish the job of raising his boys. That came before everything else, even his relationship with his longtime love, Camilla Parker-Bowles. Two weeks before they were set to make their public debut at an Osteoporosis Society function, Diana was tragically killed. They weren’t seen in public together for another two years, as Charles shifted his priorities to focus on his children.

On that trip with his father right after his mother’s death, Harry went on safari and was able to meet Nelson Mandela (as well as the Spice Girls). At a time in his life when he was most vulnerable, he made his very first visit to the countries of Lesotho and Botswana. The beauty of the animals and their natural habitat was something the thirteen-year-old would never forget.

As soon as Harry was old enough to travel by himself, he made sure to spend at least two to three weeks in Africa every summer. He also focused some of his charitable works on protecting the native wildlife and habitats that make the continent so special. “We need to look after them,” he said, “because otherwise our children will not have a chance to see what we have seen. And it’s a test. If we can’t save some animals in a wilderness area, what else can we do?”

Thanks to his dad, Harry was an environmentalist long before it became a mainstream movement. Prince Charles has been talking about climate change and plastic use since the seventies, noting he was considered “rather dotty” when he first brought up these issues. An advocate of sustainable farming, he manages his estate at Highgrove under “the strictest sustainable principles,” including a reed-bed sewage system and rainwater that’s collected in tanks for some of the toilets and watering the fields.

When Harry and William were growing up, the Prince of Wales was constantly on them to turn out the lights and also took them to pick up litter while on holiday. “I used to get taken the mickey out of at school for picking up rubbish,” Harry said in a documentary to mark his father’s seventieth birthday. Despite the teasing, the brothers both took up their father’s environmental activism, launching their own initiatives in that charitable space.

Harry’s conservation efforts, however, were not his only work in Africa. He was also inspired to continue his mother’s work fighting the AIDS epidemic. Just five months before her death, Princess Diana made a private visit to South Africa to visit her brother Charles Spencer, who was living there at the time. While in the country, she fulfilled a longtime wish to meet Nelson Mandela in Cape Town to discuss the threat of AIDS. “She went for the sort of charities and organizations that everybody was scared to go near, such as landmines in the Third World,” Harry said of his mother. “She got involved in things that nobody had done before, such as AIDS. She had more guts than anybody else.

“I want to carry on the things she didn’t quite finish,” said Harry, who spent part of his gap year in 2004 in Lesotho, which had the second-highest rate of HIV and AIDS in the world.

Harry’s mentor Captain Mark Dyer—who served formerly as an equerry for Prince Charles and had stepped in as a second father figure to William and Harry after their mother’s death—had suggested he visit the impoverished African country when the prince said he hoped to learn more about his mother’s work.

Lesotho’s statistics were bleak. Unemployment was at a staggering 50 percent, and life expectancy was less than forty years old for nearly 70 percent of the population. Nearly 25 percent of the adult population was infected with HIV—a number that rose to upward of 35 percent for childbearing women. Poverty, gender inequality, and the stigma associated with the disease all stood in the way of prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS.

Harry—who spent two months with the orphaned children of Lesotho experiencing firsthand the widespread effects of the AIDS crisis—made a connection with Prince Seeiso of the country’s royal family, who had recently lost his mother, Queen Mamohato. Together they came up with the concept of Sentebale, an organization they officially founded in 2006 to support “the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people affected by HIV in Lesotho and Botswana.” Both princes viewed Sentebale, which means “forget me not” in the country’s language of Sesotho, as a way to honor their late mothers. Forget-me-nots were Diana’s favorite flower.

Among all the subjects Harry and Meghan talked about that first night in Soho House, Africa was the one that they instantly bonded over. Meghan said that she’d love to go back and see more of the continent—and Harry had clearly been listening.

After Meghan said yes to the trip, a friend said she was “excited” but also wondering, “Is this crazy to go away like this?”

“It wasn’t something she had done before,” the friend continued. “But in the short time she had spent with him, and their daily phone conversations and text chats, she knew he was a good man. And a gentleman at that. Sometimes you just have to allow yourself to get swept up in these things—and that she did.”

Having flown in from Toronto, Meghan spent one night with Harry at Kensington Palace before boarding an eleven-hour flight from London to Johannesburg the next morning. That was followed by two hours on a private light plane to Maun International Airport. Then they jumped into a 4×4 sport utility vehicle for a seventy-five-mile drive along the A3 National Route deep into a place many refer to as Africa’s last Eden.

When it came to Africa’s natural beauty, in Harry’s mind nothing beat the Okavango Delta—the stunning 5,800-square-mile wetland at the center of Botswana’s safari country, one of the last remaining wildlife habitats, and where he was secretly taking Meghan. He had visited the same part of the world before with Chelsy—first traveling the waterway on the houseboat the Kubu Queen in 2005 and again in 2009 for three nights at the five-star Shakawe River Lodge. For his romantic getaway with Meghan, he chose Meno A Kwena (translated as “teeth of the crocodile”), a safari camp on the edge of Makgadikgadi Pans National Park.

Six miles from any other safari camp (rare for the area), Meno A Kwena provided the couple with maximum privacy, not only from press but also from other tourists. On the wall of the resort is a framed photo of Harry’s grandparents the Queen and Prince Philip from when they made a state visit to Botswana in 1979. Also on the wall: a portrait of Sir Seretse Khama, the first president of Botswana, and his white, English wife, Ruth Williams. The couple created a furor when they married in 1948. (Their story was made into a film, A United Kingdom, starring David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike, in 2016.)

Harry and Meghan spent much of their trip in one of the $1,957-a-night deluxe tents. The word “tent” might be somewhat of a misnomer for the fully serviced accommodation at Meno A Kwena. With teak king-size beds covered in cozy hand-woven comforters for when the temperature drops at night, the rooms at the campsite are far more akin to luxury cabins. Each tent has its own private terrace and a fully equipped en suite bathroom, featuring solar-powered hot water on tap, pressurized showers, and Egyptian cotton towels, making this a rather plush camping experience. The comfortable space always made for a welcome sight after a day out on safari for the couple.

A typical outing started with an early breakfast served on the deck outside their room—usually bacon and eggs for Harry, and fruit and yogurt for Meghan. They then packed up their essentials for the day ahead, including boxed lunches provided by the camp kitchen. Meghan made sure to pack sunscreen for both (especially handy for Harry, who burned easily and often forgot to use SPF protection).

The couple also spent nights away from the site on a specially organized safari of the Makgadikgadi Pans. Although Meghan is a well-traveled and an adventurous woman, a friend said she did find that sleeping outside took a bit of getting used to. Hearing random calls of birds or the grunt of a hippo or other animals in the middle of the night did not lend itself to a great night’s sleep. Harry was used to the sounds of the bush and so was the perfect person to have by her side.

Meghan could be forgiven if she didn’t find sleeping in the heart of a truly wild and remote part of Africa easy at first because she proved to be a versatile traveler, which Harry loved. In fact, she brought only one backpack on the trip (albeit a large one). Extremely organized, Meghan immediately impressed Harry with her packing skills. She has always taken pride in being a great packer—going as far as layering dryer sheets in between her clothes to keep them smelling fresh and no matter her destination always bringing tea-tree oil for bites, cuts, and pimples—and her skills were appreciated by the prince.

“The fact that Meghan has always been so comfortable with doing away with luxuries and embracing natural surroundings is something that Harry has always really loved about her,” a friend of the couple revealed. “I remember Meghan once joking that she can manage to pack even less than he does when they go away!”

If he worried that he was bringing along a high-maintenance Hollywood actress on safari, Harry was delightfully surprised by Meghan’s down-to-earth attitude. While camping, she cleaned her face with baby wipes and happily wandered into the woodlands if she needed a bathroom break. Spending five days of uninterrupted time together gave the new couple a chance to get to know each other and discover that they shared a curiosity about the world and a laid-back nature.

“It’s this love of adventure and sharing these exciting experiences that brought them so close together in the first place,” said a close friend of the couple. “The fact that they’re both as happy as just throwing on a backpack and going out to explore . . . I honestly think these experiences will never stop for them.”

After Harry and Meghan’s visit to Botswana, Meghan went home by herself and Harry moved on to Malawi to spend three weeks working with the organization African Parks, which manages an ecologically diverse portfolio of national parks in Africa.

After Meghan had departed for home, Harry worked alongside volunteers, veterinarians, and experts in one of the largest and most significant elephant relocations in history, moving five hundred elephants.

Harry helped safely move elephant herds from Majete and Liwonde to help replenish stocks in the Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve. “Elephants simply can’t roam freely like they used to, without coming into conflict with communities, or being threatened by poaching and persecution,” Harry said. “To allow the coexistence of people and animals, fences are increasingly having to be used to separate the two and try to keep the peace.”

The wildlife conservationist and veterinarian Dr. Andre Uys rode in a helicopter with Harry that flushed elephant families from woods onto a floodplain. Andre safely tranquilized them to move them almost two hundred miles away to a safer place, and Harry would tag the elephants using a nontoxic temporary spray paint. “Harry’s dedication to conservation is admirable. His passion for helping preserve wildlife clearly comes from the heart,” Andre said, adding that Harry “got involved like everyone else. One of the team.”

When Meghan returned from Africa, a friend said, “She came back smiling and just completely spellbound.” Her phone was full of photos—the nature they had seen, candid snaps of herself, and selfies with Harry. According to the friend, if Meghan didn’t have to return to Canada for work and Harry to his life in London, “they would have happily spent the entire summer there together.” It wasn’t just the beauty of the place that had made the trip so idyllic. Meghan said that she and Harry talked so much, about things she rarely shared with anyone.

“I’ve never felt that safe,” Meghan told her friend, “that close to someone in such a short amount of time.”

4

The World Gets Wind

Harry felt that familiar buzz of excitement when his flight from London touched down at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport on October 28. Once again, after another agonizingly month-long separation, he was just minutes from being reunited with his girlfriend.

With months of clandestine meet-ups under their respective belts, with no one the wiser, they had their undercover dating routine down pat. The prince took commercial flights, as he always did. (Although he was usually the last on the plane and the first off.) But in an effort to maintain a low profile, he flew into Toronto with just one plainclothes protection officer instead of his normal two. And he’d seen to it that a generic-looking sedan would be waiting just outside the terminal to whisk him the twelve miles to Meghan’s two-story wine-colored townhouse in the city’s Seaton Village neighborhood, their safe haven.

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 forever thing.”

For Meghan, she was all in. Nothing could get her to slow down, not even a friend who cautioned her about getting involved with Harry. The British pal warned her from the prince because of the tabloids. “They hate royal wives and girlfriends. They will come after you,” he said. “Look at Diana.” But so much had changed since the time of Diana, Meghan reasoned: “How bad could it be?”

Another friend warned her off because of the tabloids, but for a very different reason: Harry’s wild reputation as portrayed in the media. The British press, which had connected him with a different girl almost every month, made him appear as though he wasn’t settling down anytime soon. That was enough for the friend to tell Meghan to “be careful.” But Meghan couldn’t reconcile the tabloid persona with the earnest man she felt so close to now. “He’s a really nice guy,” she insisted. “Very sweet, very genuine.”

Even though Harry was a prince, he was just like any young adult in that he had gone through experiences that pushed him to face adulthood. By the time he met Meghan, Harry had undergone a huge evolution through his experience in the military.

Military service is a rite of passage for male members of the British royal family. Prince Charles served in the Royal Navy, as did his father, Prince Philip. Prince William completed more than seven years of military service. (He was an active Search and Rescue pilot when he married Kate.) For Harry, though, the military was much more than just a rite of passage—it was a chance for him to see the world as a normal human being, and it provided a source of great purpose.

Ever since he was a little boy riding atop a tank while accompanying his parents on an official engagement, Harry had wanted to serve his country. After completing his training at Sandhurst, there were debates both publicly and privately about whether Harry could serve in the war in Iraq, already several years old at that point. There was a need for forward air controllers like himself in the conflict zone, but his high profile presented a host of complications. Yet Harry was adamant he wouldn’t be “held back at home twiddling my thumbs.” And in February 2007, it looked as though he was headed to the front lines when the UK Ministry of Defence and the Palace issued a joint statement that Harry would be going to Iraq to take up a “normal troop commander’s role involving leading a group of twelve men in four Scimitar armored reconnaissance vehicles, each with a crew of three.” But Iraqi insurgents issued their own statement that quickly put the kibosh on Harry’s deployment.

“We are awaiting the arrival of the young, handsome, spoilt prince with bated breath and we confidently expect he will come out into the open on the battlefield,” said Abu Zaid, the commander of the Malik Ibn Al Ashtar Brigade. “We will be generous with him. For we will return him to his grandmother—but without ears.”

In public, Harry had put on a brave face. Privately his dreams had been dashed. Everything he worked for had been jeopardized because of his Royal birthright. Harry was devastated. His commanding officers knew something needed to be done.

The patriotic royal wouldn’t be sent to the Middle East as a soldier for another year. After a media blackout was negotiated so the Taliban wouldn’t be alerted to Harry’s whereabouts, it was none other than his grandmother the Queen and commander in chief of the British Armed Forces who delivered the news. “She told me I’m off to Afghanistan,” said Harry, who on December 14, 2007, boarded a C-17 military aircraft in Oxfordshire bound for Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Two days later he was aboard a Chinook helicopter with Special Forces headed to Forward Operating Base Dwyer in the Helmand province. Close to the Pakistan border, it was one of the most dangerous places on the planet. In the military, Harry was known as Second Lieutenant Wales. Once he hit the ground in Afghanistan, he was simply “Widow Six Seven.”

Like the rest of the soldiers, Harry could be called to duty at any moment, scrambling out of the makeshift canvas tent from which the British flag hung in the dead of night. “One minute you’re in bed asleep,” he said, “six and a half minutes later you’re speaking to someone on the ground who is being shot at.”

As Christmas approached and the media blackout continued, the rest of the world had no idea Harry was due to join the Gurkhas at Forward Operating Base Delhi, a military expeditionary base occupied by the United States Marine Corps, in Garmsir.

While Harry patrolled the dusty, bombed out terrain of Helmand—the camp had been repeatedly attacked by RPGs, mortars, and machine gun fire from the Taliban since the British took over the base—his grandmother gave her annual Christmas address praising the British troops in Afghanistan. “I want to draw attention to another group of people who deserve our thoughts this Christmas,” she said in the televised recording. “We have all been conscious of those who have given their lives, or who have been severely wounded, while serving with the Armed Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.” It was not a safe place for a British prince, and certainly not the third in line to the throne.

Ten weeks into his fourteen-week tour of duty, an Australian tabloid breached the news embargo by revealing that Harry was secretly serving in Afghanistan. Evacuated from the war zone within the hour, a deflated Harry was met by his father and brother when he touched down at RAF Brize Norton back in the UK.

While Harry described being “broken” by the experience of leaving his soldiers not of his own accord, he almost immediately started working on making his way back to the front lines—this time as an Apache helicopter pilot.

At the start of 2009, Harry enrolled in the Army Air Corps to begin training as a helicopter pilot at RAF Middle Wallop in Hampshire. The prince was committed to the grueling training and examinations required to get his pilot’s license. By mid-2009, Harry passed the first phase of his training, which he described as the “easiest way of getting back on the front line, maybe safer, maybe not safer, I don’t know.” In the summer of 2010, he enrolled in the second phase. The prince had impressed his commanding officers enough that he was afforded the opportunity to train as an Apache pilot, which only two percent of British pilots achieve. The attack helicopter, equipped with antitank missiles, rockets, and a chain gun, was used in thousands of battles and rescue operations in Afghanistan because of its lethal nature.

He flew to the United States in October 2011 to complete the final phase of his training. Harry spent the last days of his training at the Naval Air Facility in El Centro just north of San Diego (often referred to as the Top Gun school) and the Gila Bend Auxiliary Air Force Base in southern Arizona near the Mexican border. The desert training—which prepares pilots with air-to-ground bombing skills, rocket firing, and mobile land target practice—is as close as pilots get to actual air combat. NAF El Centro is the most rigorous training in the world and prepares Naval and Marine Corps military personnel as well as Army Green Berets and Allied pilots from Britain, France, Germany, and Italy. When it was over, Harry was cleared to return to Afghanistan.

Harry arrived back in the Islamic Republic in September 2012 as a copilot gunner with the 662 Squadron, 3 Regiment Army Air Corps. This time, it was with full knowledge of the public, and within a week of his arrival, nineteen members of the Taliban, armed with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, and automatic weapons stormed his fortified base camp. Inside the camp, the gunmen started firing their RPGs and Kalashnikov AK-47s in a gun battle that lasted for more than five hours.

A few days earlier, the Taliban had announced “Harry Operations,” which was just as its name sounded. Their goal was to kill or injure the prince. Under the cover of night, the insurgents, pretending to be farmers from a nearby maize plantation, got past the floodlights and armed guards keeping watch from towers to breach the thirty-foot wire fence topped with barbed wire. “We attacked that base because Prince Harry was also on it,” a Taliban spokesman said.

While it had been assumed that a plan for emergencies was in place to shuttle Harry to a “panic room,” a source close to the prince shared that there were zero special arrangements made for Harry on the base or anywhere in theater. Should he be attacked, his response would be the same as any other serviceman. After all, he was trained to fire a gun for a reason. “Harry was aware of the risks against him, and the blackout deal was brokered to try to ensure that the enemy had no idea where he was, so that he would not be specifically targeted,” said the source.

Despite the obvious danger, Harry was grateful to be allowed to finish his twenty-week tour of duty. The military provided Harry with much needed structure, camaraderie, and anonymity. In Afghanistan, Harry lived like every other soldier at Camp Bastion where he was stationed. In the confined space of a dusty VHR (Very High Readiness) tent, the prince made his own bed and passed the time by playing Uckers, a board game popular with Royal Navy personnel, and FIFA 07 on the Xbox. Harry tried his best to lie low, even going to the base’s canteen late, after most of the other soldiers had cleared out, so there were fewer people to gawk at him during mealtime.

“My father’s always trying to remind me about who I am and stuff like that,” Harry said when he returned home in January 2013, “but it’s very easy to forget about who I am when I am in the army.” Never a fan of the stuffier side of royal duties, Harry, better known as Captain Wales, was at home in the no-frills, hands-on world of a soldier.

It’s not surprising, then, that when he made the “tough decision” to end his ten-year career with the British Army in 2015, Harry found himself at loose ends. Anger and anxiety started to bubble to the surface, and neither emotion fit into the official persona of a prince. At royal engagements, he suffered panic attacks. In the most proper and officious of settings, such as a reception by MapAction to mark Harry’s new patronage of the humanitarian emergency response charity, the flight-or-fight instincts of an Apache helicopter pilot kicked in. A source remembered that when Harry left the event held at the Royal Society in London, “He just started taking in deep breaths.

“The people, the cameras, the attention,” the source said. “He had just let it get to him. He was on the edge.”

Harry described the phenomenon himself. “In my case, every single time I was in any room with loads of people, which is quite often, I was just pouring with sweat,” he told the UK army channel Forces TV, “my heart beating—boom, boom, boom, boom—literally, just like a washing machine.”

During both his tours, Harry saw the kind of action that doesn’t leave a soldier’s mind even long after he or she has come home. His first tour in Afghanistan, when he was serving as a joint terminal attack controller on the ground, he directed the support aircrafts in an emergency medical evacuation when the Afghanistan National Army came under fire from the Taliban and took heavy casualties.

The seriously injured were in the process of being airlifted back to camp by a Chinook when suddenly Harry’s position came under attack from the Taliban. Harry was ordered to dig in and take cover as the rockets rained down. One exploded to devastating effect a mere fifty meters from where the prince was.

The photographer John Stillwell, part of the Press Association team embedded with Harry in Afghanistan while he was on operational duties, initially thought Harry would be shielded from some of the more dangerous missions. But that notion was totally dispelled when he and everyone else in the prince’s tank found themselves to be sitting ducks for a sniper’s bullet as they waited for help in a riverbed.

Stillwell, riding in the prince’s tank, remembered coming around the outskirts of a town and about to cross the creek when the lead vehicle in their convoy spotted an IED in the road.

“Before I went to Afghanistan I thought, ‘Oh, Harry will be at Camp Bastion, thirty feet underground, miles away from danger,’ ” the photographer said. “I was totally wrong. He was in very real danger a lot of the time, but he took it all in his stride.

“When you think of him being a prince, the Queen’s grandson, he could have had a cushy office job,” Stillwell added. “But he chose to do the hard stuff, go out on the front line.”

While the prince’s heroism earned him accolades from the public and his fellow servicemen, it wasn’t without a price. After retiring from military service, when Harry wasn’t suffering from anxiety, he had bouts of rage. “I took up boxing, because everyone was saying boxing is good for you and it’s a really good way of letting out aggression,” he said. “That really saved me because I was on the verge of punching someone, so being able to punch someone who had pads was certainly easier.”

Boxing, however, wasn’t a sufficient bandage for the internal conflict raging within him. Harry was, as he put it, “very close to total breakdown on numerous occasions when all sorts of grief and lies and misconceptions are coming to you from every angle.”

While his experiences on the front lines contributed to his emotional state, it wasn’t the complete answer to his issues. And the worst part was, he didn’t know what exactly was happening. “I just couldn’t put my finger on it,” Harry said. “I just didn’t know what was wrong with me.”

If the struggle was hardest on anyone other than Harry, it was William. The brothers were bound not only by blood and royal titles but also by the unique tragedy of losing their mother at such a young age and in such a public way. “Every year we get closer,” Harry told reporters in 2005. “Ever since our mother died, obviously we were close. But he is the one person on this earth who I can actually really . . . we can talk about anything. We understand each other and give each other support.”

That mutual support between brothers took many forms—everything from renting a cottage together when both were training at a Shropshire flight school in 2009, to both becoming helicopter pilots, to setting up the Royal Foundation, the umbrella organization for all their philanthropic work, the same year. Even once William got married and started a family, the two still found time for fun. According to a source, the brothers enjoyed sneaking out for drinks and food at a place called Mari Vanna about a mile away from the Palace. The Russian restaurant is a favored locale for some the world’s wealthiest oligarchs, but it’s also a very private place. “Most of the look-at-me action takes place across the road at Mr. Chow,” said a staffer. Inside the restaurant, gaudily decorated with glass chandeliers, Russian dolls, looming bookcases full of antique tomes, and lounge chairs, the brothers were afforded a rare bit of privacy. One night in early 2016, they both got “totally drunk,” according to the source. But it wasn’t until Harry went outside to smoke that there was a problem. “He fell into a little bush. Someone tried to take a photo of him on their phone and Harry’s protection officer literally jumped to block them from taking it,” the source said. “Harry was none the wiser. He just went back in to William, so they could carry on drinking.”

Each brother wanted real happiness for the other. It was precisely because of this that William confronted his brother in 2015 about his mental health. As Harry later recounted in a podcast interview with the columnist and friend Bryony Gordon, who herself has obsessive-compulsive disorder, he said, “You really need to deal with this. It is not normal to think that nothing has affected you.”

Those words broke through to Harry and spurred him to begin the daunting process of true soul-searching, including therapy, which is no small thing for a member of the House of Windsor.

In his open, honest manner, the prince revealed how before he came to terms with his own pain he had felt completely overwhelmed by the demands of public life. For two years, Harry said, he was in “total chaos.”

It didn’t take many conversations about his feelings for Harry to realize that he had a lot of unprocessed grief from his mother’s death. It was a trauma that he never had the chance or ability to cope with before then. When he lost his mother at the age of twelve, his sorrow had been immediately subsumed by the grief of an entire country, which turned into conspiracies and other national obsessions. Meanwhile, Harry and William had to put on brave faces for all of England and the world. The first and only time he let himself cry over his mother was at her burial on September 6, 1997, on the island within the lake on the grounds of her family home, Althorp Park.

Harry described himself as having “shut down” all thoughts and feelings about his mother’s death for nearly two decades. “I thought that thinking of her was only going to make me sad and not going to bring her back,” he said, reasoning, “right, don’t ever let your emotions be part of anything.”

Talking about his feelings turned out to be the best medicine—and part of the inspiration for the single biggest project the princes had ever undertaken together.

In April 2016, William, Kate, and Harry launched Heads Together, a campaign to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health. The goal was to change the conversation about mental health so millions might feel safer getting the help they needed. William, Kate, and Harry hoped that if they opened up about mental health, others in the UK, where the British stiff upper lip prevailed, would feel they had permission to do the same.

William and Harry credited Kate for the initiative’s genesis, saying the original concept was scribbled on the back of a cigarette pack one night. With much of her humanitarian work focused on early-childhood development and addiction, the Duchess of Cambridge had become an outspoken proponent of mental health awareness. She believed the root of many unresolved adolescent problems could be traced to mental illness, which, if left untreated, often manifested as greater societal problems later in life.

While Heads Together, a flagship initiative for the Royal Foundation, might have been Kate’s brainchild, it was Harry’s radical public admission of his personal struggles during one of the darkest periods in his life that imbued the mental health initiative with real impact. A year after the launch of the charity, Harry stunned the world when he bravely shared his decades-long repression of grief over his mother’s death, his subsequent anger and anxiety issues, and the confusion he felt about the source of his problems on Bryony’s podcast, which brought a lot of publicity for his cause but also broke with convention.

William and Harry had never spoken so candidly about their mother, and certainly they had never shared in the press the immense pain they felt in the aftermath of her death. It was a watershed moment that defied the stereotype of the royal family.

It was a brave and bold decision for Harry to open up about the anguish he suffered over the years. He was helping untold millions with his candid confession. Yet some Palace courtiers privately questioned whether the “soul baring” had gone a step too far, setting the wrong precedent and exposing William and Harry in the future. After all, the royal family normally revealed very little and certainly never addressed such intimate struggles.

At the time, his father didn’t comment on his son’s confession, although in 2019, Prince Charles said he was “proud” of his son’s work to remove the stigma of mental health struggles. Though there was no public response from the Queen to his admission, the mere fact that Harry was launching a public mental health campaign with his brother and sister-in-law implied that he had the tacit approval of his grandmother. Harry’s personal revelations weren’t a break from protocol; they were a move forward for the monarchy within the confines of its rules.

Only Harry, however, could have gotten away with such an admission. It had nothing to do with playing favorites. There were stricter confines for his brother, because he was direct heir to the throne. The same dynamic was true for Prince Andrew, who had been continually given chances after making major missteps or lapses in judgment. Until his association with American financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Andrew got to keep going on as a working member of the royal family after behavior that would never have flown with Charles. There is a different level of protocol for direct heirs to the throne.

Harry was proud of the two and a half years in which he not only prioritized his royal duties but was “able to take my private life seriously as well.” Three months later, when he joined his brother at a private service at Althorp House to rededicate Diana’s grave on what would have been her 56th birthday, Harry could honestly say that he was a changed man. By his own admission he put “blood, sweat, and tears into the things that really make a difference,” both for himself and others.

But even as he hit his stride as a public figure, Harry still struggled to find a soul mate. His brother, William, had been lucky enough to settle down with a woman he first met at the age of nineteen, while Harry had two failed long-term relationships and a history of bad headlines. William and Kate’s successful courtship and marriage, however, was more than just luck. William went to university, which allowed him to meet new friends in a protected environment. At St. Andrews, in Fife, Scotland, he developed his social skills without intrusion from the press, because of an agreement with the British media, including tabloids, that he would be left alone while at university. In that safe space, he met Kate, who, except for a three-month split in 2007, has always been someone William could lean on and trust.

In a committed relationship, William didn’t always understand Harry’s interest in London nightlife. He checked out the scene with Kate now and then, but it was a very different experience as part of a couple.

During his 2013 tour of Afghanistan, Harry admitted being “very jealous of my brother . . . back home he gets to go home to his wife and dog.” Whether he was “stuck playing PlayStation in a tent full of men” while on active duty or playing Call of Duty and ordering pizzas from PizzaExpress (a favorite of the princes) to his modest Kensington Palace apartment that he moved into once he returned, Harry led a relatively solitary life. His longing for his own family only grew as William and Kate expanded theirs with a second child after the birth of Princess Charlotte on May 2, 2015.

All combined, Harry had changed, from the impulsive prince Meghan had been told about by the friend who cautioned against dating him, to the man, ready to find love, in front of her.

Bringing Meghan to Botswana, one of the most sacred and special places in his life, was a symbol of how he felt about her. She was smart, independent, adventurous, optimistic, and beautiful. But perhaps most important to Harry, Meghan came across as authentic. With Meghan, he knew she wasn’t trying to impress him. He felt as though he was getting the real Meghan from day one.

Just three months into their relationship, a Meghan pal said, they had already begun swapping the words “I love you.” It was Harry who said the three little but very loaded words 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.

In another display of affection, Meghan left inside jokes and references littered across her Instagram feed. There was her July reference to a “date night for one,” on the evening she spent alone in her hotel room during one of the first trips when she met Harry, and her posting a photo of two kissing matches with the caption “Sunday kind of love” on July 17. Then came the pretty displays of peonies that were presumably a gift from one Captain Wales. “Swooning over these,” she wrote on July 1. More flowers came two weeks later. “Because I’m spoiled rotten,” she said, alongside the hashtag #theynevergetold.

Harry also showed his feelings by traveling to Toronto three times between August and October. Fearing his famed ginger locks would be an easy spot, they had both largely avoided going out to her favorite haunts, such as Bar Isabel and Terroni, preferring to hunker down at the three-bedroom, two-bath house she began renting in the summer of 2013, right around the time of her divorce.

When Meghan moved in, it was the largest place she had ever had to herself—and to furnish. Meghan decorated like she dressed. She was a big fan of mixing high- and low-end products. While she may have had some decent art to hang on the walls (it was an occasional payday treat to pick up a small piece for her growing collection), for some of her furniture and home accessories she often turned to affordable places such as HomeSense, IKEA, and even Home Depot. “Money in the bank doesn’t mean money to spend” was the advice her father gave her as a teen, and she still took that to heart.

She eventually treated herself to the ceramic kamado-style Big Green Egg barbecue she had had in her Internet bookmarks for a year; the large patio space was perfect for entertaining. With its deck, beachy décor, and large open windows to the rear, the space reminded her a little of California. Friendly neighbors, mostly families, lived in the closely grouped houses centered around a good public school and dog park where Meghan’s rescue dog, Bogart, could frolic.

Although Meghan didn’t grow up with pets, Bogs, as she called him, became the object of her devotion and in heavy rotation on her Instagram feed. But she credits Ellen DeGeneres as the reason she adopted the Lab mix.

Meghan was cuddling with Bogart at the animal shelter that had rescued him and his brother in Los Angeles when the daytime talk show host walked in with her wife, actress Portia de Rossi.

“Is that your dog?” Ellen asked Meghan.

“No,” Meghan answered.

The two women had never met. And although Meghan, of course, knew Ellen, Ellen had no idea who she was. Still, the famous comedian said to her, “You have to take that dog.”

“Well, I’m deciding . . .”

“Rescue the dog!” Ellen ordered.

Ellen left the rescue center, but as soon as she walked outside, she tapped on the window and yelled to Meghan, “Take the dog!”

How could she refuse? “It’s sort of like if Oprah tells you to do something,” Meghan said. “I brought him home. Because Ellen told me to.”

She didn’t regret the decision. In fact, two years later, she adopted another rescue—a beagle she named Guy after meeting him at an adoption event organized by the Ontario-based charity A Dog’s Dream Rescue.

Now her sweet dogs ran underfoot as Meghan whipped up her signature roast chicken for the prince sitting in her sleek, all-white chef’s kitchen.

While Harry and Meghan kept a low profile, the prince’s presence could not go unnoticed in her neighborhood. It didn’t take long for Harry’s visits to become an open secret among the residents of Seaton Village. As one of Meghan’s neighbors said, “When a black SUV was parked with guys inside wearing headsets and eating burritos, we’d say, ‘Hey, Harry’s in town!’ ” But the news never went further than the Seaton Village community Facebook page, typically devoted to discussions about shoveling snow and dog poop. Toronto doesn’t have the kind of paparazzi presence of New York, LA, or London, because there is not a large Canadian celebrity media industry to serve.

But Harry and Meghan didn’t just spend time together in London and Canada. Letting their closest friends in on their secret had been key. Not worried that any of their dearest confidants would out them, they instead found themselves with a multitude of accomplices willing to help them hide.

One of Harry’s oldest friends, Arthur Landon, offered the couple the use of his LA home for a week. The son of the late brigadier Tim Landon—known as the White Sultan, or Landon of Arabia, because of the peaceful coup he is said to have helped organize in Oman and the fortune he made there—Arthur is one of the wealthiest young men in Britain. The onetime model and filmmaker, who had always tried to look out for Harry since the two became friends at Eton College, called the woman who sold the naked photos of the prince during the trip they took together to Las Vegas “despicable.”

Knowing firsthand what lengths people would go to in order to get a picture of Harry and his personal life, Arthur told the prince that the best place he could stay in LA while visiting with Meghan was his house. Arthur’s bohemian-style West Hollywood spread sits in the lowest part of the Hills, with a pool and views of Sunset Boulevard. It was a prime, and private, location from which Harry had his first chance to visit Meghan’s native city. The trip—during which they spent almost the entire time at the house in hiding—is also when Harry met Doria for the first time.

Unable to venture to Doria’s two-bedroom house in the neighborhood of Windsor Hills, Harry and Meghan invited her over to their temporary LA digs. (Although the couple was holed up, that didn’t stop Meghan from having Harry taste dishes from some of her favorite local restaurants, including Sushi Park, which she said has “the most delicious sashimi,” by using a delivery app.) While Meghan may have been nervous for her mom to meet Harry for the first time, Doria was as cool as ever. It takes a lot to faze the yoga instructor, although she later told a colleague at the mental health clinic where she worked that the experience of meeting a prince who also happened to be dating her daughter was “a little surreal.”

Although she talked with Doria about the guys she dated, Meghan didn’t make it a habit of introducing them to her mom until the relationship was further down the line. But she wanted to put Doria at ease and show her that even though Harry was a worldwide public figure, he was also a good man. “Meghan didn’t want her worrying about anything,” says a source. “She wanted her mom to see the real Harry. The man she was falling in love with.”

Harry also wanted to impress Meghan’s mother when he first met her. Not with gifts, but through his words and actions. Often one to worry what others think of him, he wanted to prove that he was different from the royals depicted in the British tabloids. And it worked. Doria came away impressed by his compassion, empathy, and level of activism. As a friend said, “She could see he was genuine.”

During those first months of their relationship, when their news was still a secret, Meghan went to the UK at least three times. Each time she arrived at the airport, Harry made sure a driver was waiting for her—no fancy Rolls-Royce or chauffeur in uniform, just someone from a local corporate taxi company that he and other members of the royal family used on occasion.

Markus, however, could always be counted on to find a cozy, luxurious, and hidden spot for the couple. He put them up at a private four-bedroom cottage tucked away from the main members’ Soho Farmhouse. In Oxfordshire, barely an hour and a half outside of London, it was the perfect retreat from the city. Although the stone house stood on one hundred acres of English countryside, they still enjoyed sashimi and other Japanese dishes delivered to their cottage from Pen Yen, one of the restaurants on the property.

During a fall visit Markus arranged for the couple to spend a weekend at Babington House, an eighteenth-century manor house in Somerset that Soho House had converted into one of their vacation properties. Harry and Meghan’s accommodations included a roaring open fire and a butler—another secret getaway the press never found out about.

It wasn’t long before Meghan was feeling so confident in their pairing, so emboldened by their ability to hide in plain sight, that she even had Harry join her as she walked her dogs along their favorite paths through Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods Park. A hoodie and a baseball cap were enough to obscure Harry’s famous face during his visit to the city. Most Canadians never looked twice anyway at the young couple wearing matching beaded blue bracelets they picked up in Botswana. (Bracelets are a signature item of the prince’s, and each has its own meaning and importance. A silver band with engravings that he’s worn religiously since 2001 came from his 1997 trip to Africa after his mother died. William has been photographed wearing a similar bracelet.)

They especially didn’t feel like spending Halloween weekend in hiding, as there was much to celebrate. Some four months into their relationship, they were madly in love and eager to take part in the fun of one of their favorite holidays. The evening of October 29, with Harry in town, the couple decided to go to a big costume party being thrown at Soho House in Toronto. Harry and Meghan both had on Venetian-style masks, hiding their true identities to other partygoers.

Surrounded by the establishment’s exclusive clientele and confident due to a rule that discouraged patrons from surreptitiously snapping pictures with their phones, Harry and Meghan felt at ease. It wasn’t their first time at the club. During a previous visit, they had stepped into the bar’s photo booth together, keeping the strip of snapshots as a souvenir.

They also weren’t alone. The pair turned up at the Halloween bash with Harry’s cousin Princess Eugenie and her longtime boyfriend, Jack Brooksbank, who was in Toronto for work as a brand ambassador for George Clooney and Rande Gerber’s tequila brand, Casamigos. Harry and Meghan had already been out on two double dates with them.

Eugenie had always been more than just a cousin to Harry. They were also the closest of friends. Out of all the Queen’s grandchildren, Harry and Eugenie have one of the most natural connections. Like Harry, Eugenie is loyal, honest, and great fun. The two had many nights out together in London, sneaking into back entrances of clubs, such as Mahiki, where Jack once was manager, or Tonteria, where in one of the VIP cave areas, they downed shots from Mexican skull-shaped glasses and a giant frozen margarita (with multiple straws). Harry had so much fun at the club co-owned by one of Harry’s close childhood pals, Guy Pelly, he partied there four nights in one week of July 2014.

Although they grew up in different places (she at Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, he at Kensington Palace in London), the close relationship between their mothers brought them together. Sarah Ferguson would often bring her daughters to tea with Diana, William, and Harry at Kensington Palace. After both women’s divorces were finalized in 1996, the single mothers took their kids on vacation together to the South of France. (It was Harry who later ensured that his aunt Sarah was invited to the wedding ceremony and first reception—quite the feat considering that Prince Philip reportedly once said he never wanted to be in the same room as her again.) Like Harry, Eugenie also struggled to carve out her own identity growing up. Not being in a senior role meant that she had to go out into the world and find her own path, which she had done, moving to New York in 2013 to work at Paddle8, the auction house run by Misha’s husband and Harry’s friend Alexander.

Harry had always confided in his cousin when it came to the women in his life. Not only did he trust her implicitly, but friends say that she gives great advice and has always been “beyond wise” for her years. It’s not surprising, then, that Eugenie was one of the first in the family to know about his relationship with Meghan. Although she was the one to introduce Harry to her good friend Cressida (they used to double-date as well), she was nothing but encouraging about his new relationship. In fact, Eugenie, who’d long wanted to see her cousin settle down and be happy, told friends she loved Meghan and that she was “just the tonic” for him.

On that late October night in Toronto, Harry was happy, and so was Meghan.

A cocktail or so into the party, they were both feeling relaxed, absorbing the Halloween spirit.

It was possibly the perfect night out—until they received a call from one of Harry’s aides at Kensington Palace. It wasn’t good news.

The Sunday Express was going to run with the story of their relationship—and the tabloid was rumored to have been tipped off by an employee of none other than Eugenie and her father, Prince Andrew.

With the news about to blast out to every corner of the Internet that everyone’s favorite bachelor was off the market, Harry and Meghan’s night of revelry threatened to turn into a melee.

Harry and Meghan left the party and returned to her house. Their main worry was that her place would be besieged by photographers within twenty-four 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. Another outlet, Us Weekly, had also confirmed their pairing and knew that they were together in Toronto but agreed with the Palace to hold off reporting the news until Harry had returned home.

Harry’s phone wouldn’t stop pinging with word from the Palace. 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. If things were going to get tricky, there was nowhere else he’d rather be than at Meghan’s side.

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