Page 46 of The Thing About My Prince

Oliver gets back on the bed and crawls toward me. “There’s a peat bog on the other side of the village. It has this muddy creek. And every year there’s a treasure hunt. Locals take silly items like a plastic fish, or an old boot, or anything really, and drop them in the bog the night before. Then on the day, the competitors have to jump in and find what they can against the clock.”

“Each item is worth a certain number of points,” Giles adds. I bet he’s a stickler for the rules. “The treasure-hunter with the most points wins.”

“And it’s hard to find anything.” Oliver settles back beside me. “Because the water is so muddy you can’t see and have to do it all by touch.”

“Hold on.” I put the mug down, haul back the world’s heaviest bed covers and jump out of bed.

Giles flinches as if he expected me to be totally bottomless rather than wearing full-length pajama pants.

“Are you saying you want me to go diving in a muddy pond for pieces of old garbage? Because that sounds deliberately designed to set me up for public humiliation.”

Perhaps I shouldn’t be standing up to a member of the British royal household like this. But also, fuck him, and fuck Oliver’s parents if they’re trying to turn me into a laughingstock because they think I’m not good enough to be associated with their family.

“Exactly my point,” Oliver says.

“Oh, no.” I had no clue it was possible for a laugh to sound as patronizing as Giles’s. “You wouldn’t be wading around in the bog. That would be very…unbecoming. You would be officiating. Keeping score.”

“Oh.” Now I feel kind of silly standing here barefoot in my pj’s with no underwear on, arguing with a fancy Scottish man in a suit with a tie that’s been knotted so neatly I wonder if it’s a clip-on.

“Still,” Oliver says, lunging for the slice of Nutella toast. “Let’s keep everything private. No need to parade Lexi in public for anything.”

But I was already planning to go into the village to try to get a handle on how regular Brits feel about Oliver and his move to the US, whether they support him or see it as a betrayal of the royal family.

And maybe this might be an even better opportunity for that type of research. Yes, I could definitely turn this around to work for me.

“You know what?” I turn to face Oliver, who looks ridiculously sexy sitting on the bed eating toast, his legs stretched out in front of him. “It might not be such a bad idea.”

“What? How could you possibly think that?”

I wink at him with the eye that Giles can’t see. “Trust me. It could be good.”

“Excellent.” Giles claps his hands before Oliver can object. “Princess Sofia has some wellies and a Barbour she keeps here that you can borrow. They might make you look a little more like you belong. I assume you brought your ownjeanswith you?”

He says “jeans” like it’s a dirty word. Presumably something only we revoltingAmericanswould wear.

I nod.

“Then it’s all arranged.” He spins on his shiny shoes and heads back toward the door. “Be downstairs in one hour and”—he looks at his watch again—“ten minutes.”

Oliver is glaring at me with those big, fascinating eyes of his while making a dramatic shrug that saysWhat the hell are you thinking?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

LEXI

The little boy who’s been staring at me for about ten minutes wanders across the grass in my direction.

He’s probably about six or seven and is freaking adorable in his too-big red jacket and Spider-Man rain boots.

“Are ye famous?” His Scottish accent ratchets up his cuteness even higher.

“I am not famous, no.” I make a sad face, despite the fact that famous is the last thing I’d ever want to be.

“Ah!” His eyebrows practically launch off his forehead. “Ye isAmerican.”

Man, are even sweet little kids appalled by us?

“I am,” I say.