Page 149 of The Thing About My Prince

“Your jokes are never as funny as you think they are,” she says. “You almost gave me a funny turn.”

“Anyway, Lexi hasn’t even met Granny and Grandpa yet,” Oliver says. “I was thinking our next trip should include us visiting them before we set a date and make actual plans. I don’t mean so I can call it off if they don’t like her. I’m sure they’ll love her. Just to do the right thing, you know. And we’ll take it one step at a time.”

Getting his grandparents’ blessing is a tradition Oliver wants to keep out of respect to them. They might not have stood up to the press to protect his mother, but Oliver says they didn’t know any better then. I would argue they should have learned that lesson and done more to protect him from similar treatment, but I’ve agreed to go along with it for his sake. Although, the mere idea of entering Buckingham Palace is enough to make my knees shake.

“Oh, right. Yes. That’s good that you’re going to do that.” His mother sounds shocked by his adherence to that royal custom. “Then maybe you’ll finally allow the formal engagement announcement.”

And that’s the exact media circus we’re trying to delay. I haven’t got an engagement ring yet for that very reason—in case someone snaps a picture of me wearing it.

“Maybe,” Oliver hedges. “Gotta go now, or we’ll miss the start of the match.”

“Oh, and I keep forgetting to tell you,” his mother pipes up. “We fired Giles. Anyway, let us know when you want to come.”

What?Oliver shoots me a look. Jesus, yes, that’s a big thing to toss in as an aside at the end of a conversation.

“Hold on, hold on,” Oliver says. “You fired Giles?”

“Yes. Just before Christmas. It wasn’t until after the holiday cards had all been mailed out that we realized he’d had them printed with the wrong year on them. We were mortified, weren’t we, Craig?”

Oliver’s father grunts the grunt of someone weary of hearing about the Christmas card debacle.

“Made us look ridiculous. I hear Lady Blatherwick suggested we must be going into mental decline if we didn’t spot it when we signed them. Intolerable for Giles to embarrass us like that,” she adds. “Anyway, must dash. Flora’s appeared with some tea. Oh, and digestives, excellent. Let us know when you’re ready to visit, and I’ll book Sofia’s wedding planner to help Lexi with the arrangements.”

Oh, hell no. That’s not happening. There will be no wedding plans with his mother’s “helpful” suggestions along the way. I lean close enough to be in Oliver’s peripheral vision but not close enough for the camera to see me, and shake my head with a pointed glare.

“Okay, Mum,” he says. “Thanks. We’ll let you know.”

“Bye, dear,” she says, then snaps, “Craig?”

“What? Oh, yes. Bye, Oliver.”

And they hang up.

Oliver looks from the phone to me, shell-shocked.

“In case you don’t realize,” he says, “that casually dropped in ‘oh, by the way, we fired the staff member who shafted you and your girlfriend’ is their emotionally crippled way of apologizing. But clearly they had to frame it as being for a completely different reason because they can’t admit that him secretly rummaging around in your past, buying those spring break photos and getting them published was wrong.”

“Or that the other awful things they actually instructedhim to do were also wrong.” I raise my eyebrows at Oliver’s startling omission.

“Yeah, that too.”

I’m learning that with his family, it’s often best to let things go. Fighting it achieves nothing other than getting sucked into a downward spiral that only ever generates stress and angst but never solves anything.

“Anyway”—I do my best to move on—“thank you for fending off any urgent need to plan the wedding.”

“No worries.” He kisses my cheek again. It’s one of my favorite things that he does, and it never fails to bring a smile to my lips and a ripple of pleasure to my neck.

“No way was I going to get into it with her about that right now,” he continues. “For the moment, it’s best to take the two giant wins of her accepting that we’re getting married and that Giles was a total shit.”

“You’re right.” The things this man puts up with and the balancing act he has to perform to live a life somewhere between normal and his royal obligations is exhausting. And I admire him all the more for it. “It’s a start.”

Oliver checks the time. “Twelve minutes to kickoff.” He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses the back of it. “Come on. Time to meet the other love of my life.”

“Well, shit,” Oliver says as the whistle blows on a two-one defeat for the Commoners.

“You realize he’ll be unbearable for the entire rest of the weekend, don’t you?” Chase says to me.

Chase Cooper.