How Prince Harry and Meghan Markle First Said "I Love You," Revealed

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle fell fast for one another, according to royal reporters Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand in their new book about the couple, Finding Freedom. How fast? Well, they were saying "I love you" just three months after meeting for the first time.

An excerpt from the book published in the Times lays out how the Sussexes' relationship started, and apparently they hit it off right off the bat. After just two dates at Soho House's Dean Street Townhouse, they knew something was there. A friend is quoted in the excerpt, saying, "Almost immediately they were almost obsessed with each other. It was as if Harry was in a trance."

Meghan called a friend after their first date, asking, "Do I sound crazy when I say this could have legs?"; by the end of their second date, "Harry knew they would be together at that point," a friend told Scobie and Durand. "She was ticking every box fast."

Six weeks after a third date—dinner at Kensington Palace—they took a trip together to Botswana, and got even closer. Meghan reportedly told her friend, "I’ve never felt that safe... that close to someone in such a short amount of time." A friend of the couple's said, "by then, they were each already dancing around the idea that this just may be a for ever thing."

Given how well things were going, it's not all that surprising that it only took them three months to tell each other "I love you." The excerpt reads, "Three months into their relationship, a Meghan friend said, they had already begun swapping the words 'I love you.' It was Harry who said it first, but Meghan immediately replied, 'I love you, too.' From there it didn’t take long for them to begin talking in non-oblique terms about their future."