Page 55 of The Thing About My Prince

His focus is distant, on a woman riding a horse toward us, and not on the seriousness of the most important and panic-inducing time crunch I’ve ever been under.

“I do have the couple of hundred pages of your draft to work from. So I wouldn’t need to go over the things you talked about in there unless I have questions. But there are gaps I need to fill in, and you only got about half way through your life, so there’s a whole bunch of new material I need from scratch. And you’ll have to review what I write as I go to make sure all the details are correct, so I can keep on top of your edits. We don’t have time for me to finish the whole thing then have you check it afterward.”

“Could you type interview notes as we talk?”

Fucking seriously? Is he trying to make this even harder?

“My typing is fast, but it’s notthatfast. And I need to be able to relax and be fully engaged with you while we’re talking so I can focus on follow-up questions, not be distracted by concentrating on what I’m typing. And I certainly can’t type quickly and accurately on my phone while we walk along an uneven road where I might break an ankle if I don’t watch where I’m going.”

He sighs, eyes still fixed on the approaching horseback rider.

“And what difference does it make whether I record you telling me a story or I type it out? It’s the same thing. I’d still have stored it in a permanent way.”

“I don’t want audio of my voice out there saying these things.” He sounds different. No longer the happy-go-lucky tone I’ve come to know and…well, that I’ve come to know.

“You couldn’t possibly guarantee a recording would be secure,” he adds.

“How about if I promised to destroy it as soon as the book is out?”

“But you couldn’t be sure it would be wiped fromeverywhere. There could be a copy in the cloud or God knows where. And someone, somewhere, one day could dig it out.”

“Why does this worry you so much?”

Before I realize it, he’s stopped, and I have to turn back to face him.

“Lexi, things I say are historic records. Me stepping back from royal life, leaving the country, becoming financially independent, they’re not things thatwedo.”

His emphasis onweis a reminder that although to me he’s an ordinary guy—well, a special kind of ordinary—there’s a giant gulf in the reality of the lives we lead.

“There’ll probably be academic papers written on me a hundred years from now,” he adds.

Behind him, Dane and Cole have stopped, keeping their distance, allowing us some privacy for what must look like an intimate moment.

And it feels intimate. Like in this short week we’ve become bonded in a common cause. But each for our own, distinctly different, reasons.

The breeze tousles his hair and he has to brush it back off his smooth forehead. For the first time, I notice there are some faint freckles on that fair Scottish skin.

“I don’t want anything I say to be stored so that centuries from now it can be twisted or manipulated.”

“To make you look bad?”

“You meanworse. I already lookbad.” His mouth curls into a lopsided, rueful smile.

I reach across the gap between us and touch his arm. It’s a perfectly innocent gesture that people make in a non-romantic context all the time, but in this moment it feels weightier than that, like it has more meaning. And the shape of his bicep through his jacket sends a treacherous pulse of awareness up my arm.

He takes half a step closer and rests his hand on my shoulder.From a distance we must look like we’re about to waltz our way along the road.

“How about if I could find some sort of encrypted storage?” I offer. “And never put it in the cloud? Keep only one copy, store it on a hard drive, and give it to you to destroy once we’re done?” I’m desperately reaching now. “But I’m going to have to record your words somehow. There’s no time to do it any other way.”

He squeezes my shoulder, and the pressure of his fingers on the muscle that is tighter than I realized makes my eyelids heavy and my lungs snatch in a deep breath. I bet those hands would do a fine job massaging away the tension that’s racked my body ever since Julian told me I have to write this book.

The idea of Oliver giving me a full back massage has me involuntarily leaning into his grip. He responds by kneading my shoulder more.

“Does that feel good?” His question is soft and quiet.

I’m tempted to yell fuck yeah, rip off my coat, and turn my back to him so he can get to work. But instead, I nod.

My misty gaze rests on his lips as they now turn into a full smile—a genuinely satisfied and happy one.