Page 108 of The Thing About My Prince

“Doesn’t want to get it, more like.”

A twenty-something man walks past us and pats Oliver on the shoulder. “Good to see you back, bro,” he says without breaking his stride.

“It seems like other people understand why you left. The younger ones, anyway. You’re not exactly a pariah here.”

“The only thing that counts is what my parents and grandparents think.”

“Yes,” I say. “We haven’t even talked about your relationship with the king and queen yet. I need to get some notes about that tomorrow.”

“Sure. You’d like them more than my parents.”

We stop at the back of a line leading to the vicar, who’s standing in the arched porch of the church and greeting everyone as they enter. He’s resplendent in a long white robe, with a gold-and-purple sash around his neck.

“But we decided today is a day off, remember?” Oliver nudges me and half-winks.

I nod.

We might not be actively working on the book, but my mind can’t take a rest. Every day until I turn in this book to meet the deadline is a workday for me. Every day my mind is turning over, percolating on how I’ll write this and how I’ll phrase that. My phone is littered with ideas I’ve jotted down when they come to me, because experience has taught me that when I think I’ll remember something, I never do. Particularly those that come at three fifteen in the morning.

And ideas in the night have been even less likely to stay in my head since Oliver’s naked body has been beside me, pulling me temporarily back into this fantasy.

“Prince Oliver,” the vicar says when we reach him. “It’s been a while. How good to see you again.”

It’s hard to tell from his well-practiced smile whether the vicar is concerned about Oliver’s absence from a form of moral guidance or has genuinely missed him.

Once Oliver has said a polite hello and introduced me, we follow the slow-moving line inside the church.

The scent of the flowers hits me before we even step inside.

“Whoa.” I can’t help but give my outsider status away by being completely awed by how this small, beautiful, and freezing-cold church has been decorated.

“So this is why my mother hasn’t shut up about flowers for months,” Oliver says. “She must have been gathering every white bloom in the country.”

My gut reaction wasgood God, this is way over the top. But after only a couple of seconds, I see past that and realize it’s incredibly beautiful. Everything is green and white. There’s an arrangement sitting on the floor at the end of every pew, creating beautiful floral borders for the bride and groom to walk between. Flowers, pine sprigs, and vines spill from thetop of every pillar. And two huge arrangements that look like the spray from a fountain sit on a table at the front on the…whatever the raised area is called that’s like a stage. Churchy terms are not my strong point.

The combined perfume of flowers and pine fills the vaulted space, making this early fall day feel like a combination of spring and Christmas.

“So the bad news is”—Oliver stops when we reach the first pew at the rear of the church—“you’re right back here. There was no point even bothering to argue that you should be up at the front with me. Spouses only in the wedding party is a firm rule that I doubt will ever change.”

“Oh thank God.” I blow out a sigh of relief. “I was dreading having to try to fit in with all that.”

Oliver gives me a resigned, sad kind of smirk. “You think you’d never fit in, eh?”

“I’m just a girl from small-town Ohio who put herself through college, worked her ass off to get a job at her dream publication, then got this weird ghostwriting assignment that landed her at a castle in Scotland with a prince. Of course I’d never fit in.”

He picks something off my shoulder, then smooths down the fabric. “I don’t think it matters where you’re from. I was born to it, and I sure as hell don’t fit in.”

“Come along, Oliver.” His mother bustles past us. “The bride and her father are pulling up outside.”

He rolls his soulful moss-green eyes at me before following her up the aisle to the front of the church. Where he belongs and I don’t.

And no matter how much I know that shouldn’t bother me, or how much I know it’s unreasonable, or how much I know it makes me a ridiculously naive child who thinks fairy tales could be reality, it’s still like a fist clenching around my stomach.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

LEXI

I hadn’t expected to get emotional during the ceremony.