Page 116 of The Thing About My Prince

“Yeah, but the thing is, I wasn’t born to it. And I don’t have to tolerate a single second of it. Or a single moment with people like him.” She jabs her finger toward Giles.

An ironic laugh is out of me before I can stop it. Because it’s all entirely my own fault. I know better.

“This is exactly why I told you not to come here,” I tell her. “Everything around me is poison. I’m poison. I knew it would infect you. And look. It has. You are paying the price for being associated with me.”

Silence falls around us as I take a deep breath and try to calm my racing mind and think only of Lexi rather than my own selfish desire to be with her.

She deserves me to be a bigger person than that.

“Okay,” I say, on a long exhale. “It’s not right that you should be punished purely because you’re my girlfriend.” I lift her hand to my lips and kiss the back of it. “Go find thedriver who brought you here. Tell him to take you back to Glenwither. I’ll arrange a flight for you. And get Dane or Cole off their mountain bikes to take you to the airport.”

“So youwantme to go?” Her voice is quieter now, her brow furrowed.

Christ, no, I don’t want her to go. I want to fall asleep next to her tonight. Wake up beside her tomorrow morning. And I want to laugh and joke and maybe get naked with her on the flight home. I no more want her to go home than I’d want to have the sovereign’s scepter, the one with the big cross on top, rammed up my arse. But this isn’t about me.

“It would undoubtedly be better foryouif you left.” I’m so sick to my stomach I can barely force out the words. “So you go. Save yourself. I’ll sort things out here and be back in New York the day after tomorrow.” I stroke her warm cheek. “I’ll miss you. But it’s not long. We’ll pick upeverythingwhen I’m back.”

“Oliver?” My mother’s voice rattles off the stone walls as she totters toward us. “What are you doing in here? We need you for a couple more photos of the newlyweds with their siblings.”

She stops and looks from me to Giles to Lexi. “Giles? What’s going on?”

Giles stares at Lexi. “We’re finalizing some travel plans.”

Without looking at me, Lexi straightens her shoulders, walks past my mother toward the door, and disappears. I don’t doubt there’s a torrent of emotions bubbling up under those even, steady steps. But well done, Lexi, for keeping a lid on it till you get outside. She’s a far better and stronger person than me.

“Well, thank goodness,” Mum says with a look of disdain over her shoulder as if she’s saying good riddance to bad rubbish.

Then she turns back to me. “Come along, Oliver. You’re part of this family whether you like it or not.” She spinsaround and totters away. “And you might want to straighten your sporran.”

Every atom of me wants to run past her, chase after Lexi, tell her I’ll go back to New York with her right now and we can escape all this bullshit together.

But instead, I find myself moving slowly after my mother, something bred into my blood and my bones propelling me to do my duty.

Maybe there’s a limit to how far anyone can ever escape this family.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

LEXI

I slam my suitcase open on the bed next to my duffel bag, then scurry around the room, pulling my stuff from the dresser drawers and snatching things from hangers in the closet. All the while, silent tears flow down my face, my heart thuds in my chest, and the heat of humiliation burns through my veins.

Yes, I’m hurt that Oliver thinks I should leave, even though I suggested it first and even though he says it’s entirely for my benefit.

Some irrational part of me wanted him to stand up for me, to tell me that I was wrong, that I should stay. But he clearly doesn’t even stand up for himself as much as he needs to.

More than anything, I am staggeringly disappointed that I allowed myself to get into this position.

What the hell was wrong with me? What on earth made me think I could possibly get away with a fling with a British prince, for fuck’s sake? And why did I even want to? There’s a reason I’ve always known that someone from this kind oflife is the last person on the planet I should ever be interested in.

I grab my underwear from a drawer with one hand and rap my forehead with the heel of the other. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”

And although he said we’ll pick upeverythingwhen he gets back to New York, maybe I should save myself the pain of prolonging the agony and not pick up the romantic part of this arrangement.

I always knew what Oliver and I had was temporary, so it’s not like I have any right to be upset. But the fact that my heart, which was not supposed to get involved, is cracking like the lines in a mosaic tells me it will be even worse than this if I let it go on any longer. The inevitable end is, at most, only a couple of months off anyway.

My phone buzzes on the dresser.

BECCA