Page 9 of The Thing About My Prince

He puts the kettle on the stove and sparks the gas under it with aclick-click-click. “Like I said, got lucky with this place. I’m not a top-line royal. I’m the king’s grandson. And the line of succession goes down my mum’s brother’s side, because he’s older than her. So I’m pretty much a nobody.”

“Anobody.” I stroll around the island to the windows that feel about twenty feet high and gaze out toward the river. “Sure.”

“Fair enough. Maybe that sounded silly. But, it’s relative to the wholeroyalsituation.” He makes air quotes aroundroyal.

“And you’re here, in the US, because you don’t want to beroyalanymore, right?” I repeat his air quotes.

“It’s not quite as straightforward as that.” He opens a cabinet, pulls out two mugs and puts them on the counter.

I can’t help but chuckle. “You useI heart New Yorkmugs?”

“There were no mugs at all when I got here. Only those obscenely tiny espresso cups. And I was desperate to make tea, so I ran outside, and these were in the first shop I found.”

“When was that? Four years ago? And you haven’t gotten yourself something better than tourist store mugs?”

“These are fine. They’re the perfect size.” He picks one up and holds it next to his face. “And I do, indeed, heart New York.”

Oh shit, there’s that fluttery thing in my chest again. I can not allow myself to be taken in by Prince fucking Charming.

“And you went to the store to get them?” I ask. “By yourself?”

“Who am I going to send?” He opens another cabinet, pulls two tea bags from a box, and drops one into each mug.

“Your assistant?”

“I don’t have an assistant.”

“What staff do you have?”

“Four security guys. Two full-time, two-part time. You met one of them at my door.”

“Yeah, he wasn’t very welcoming.”

“Only because it’s the first time he’s met you. It’s their job to be suspicious, but they’ll warm up. They’ll be seeing a lot of you when I get back.”

“Get back? From where?”

“Scotland. I have to go to my sister’s wedding.”

“When?”

“I leave the day after tomorrow.”

Now my chest has an entirely different type of flutter—one induced by panic. Why the fuck did no one tell me about this? “For how long?”

“Two weeks.”

Oh Jesus. That can’t happen. I’m already terrified I won’t be able to turn this thing around in three months. Fourteen days is a significantly large percentage of that, but my brain’s not capable of the math right now.

I miss the deadline, I don’t get the new job.

“You can’t go away for two weeks.”

The kettle whistles and Oliver turns off the stove, then pours steaming water onto the tea bags. “Of course I can. I have to.”

“I thought you were here to get away from your family.”

“It’s not as simple as that. And I’m not missing my sister’s wedding for anything. She’d be gutted.”