Page 99 of The Thing About My Prince

Oliver’s expression awakens as he takes it all in.

He’s going to have to fire me from the book. And if he doesn’t, the publishers will.

My career dreams are circling the drain.

Giles bangs on the door again. “Sir. I need to come in.”

“Hold your fucking horses.” Oliver’s sharp yell makes me jump.

When his eyes finally leave the article and meet mine, he takes my face in both hands and, in only the second most-shocking thing that’s happened since I woke up two minutes ago, plants a full, gentle, lingering kiss on my lips.

“You,” he says, “are amazing. And they”—he tips his head toward the phone still in my hand—“are a bunch of cocksucking cockroaches.”

Then he slides away, pulls on his jeans, which still have his boxers inside them from last night, and, without bothering to zip them up, strides toward the door, shoulders back, purpose on his face.

I grab my sweater from the floor and fling it on in the race to get dressed before Giles inevitably storms in to throw me out. My jeans are halfway up my thighs when Oliver puts his hand on the doorknob and turns back to look at me.

“Don’t worry.” His smile is reassuring.

But that’s easy for him to say—the press has trashed him so many times he’s used to it. And he hasn’t spent the last eleven years working his ass off to climb the ladder to the job he’s always dreamed of and might now have to start all over again. Under a new name. In a new country. Possibly on a new planet.

Plus, I’ve already learned he’s not the decision-maker around here.

He waits for a moment while I stand to button my jeans, then give him the nod to open the door.

Predictably, Giles doesn’t wait to be invited in and strides right past him.

“Have you seen this?” He’s flapping printouts of my breasts and me sucking a sausage.

Printouts.He literally took the time to create full-pageimages of these pictures and print them out. What kind of top-level turd does that?

“Yes, Giles. We’ve seen it,” Oliver snaps.

“What doyouhave to say about it?” He flaps the photos at me, his voice burning with outrage.

“I was twenty. It was spring break. And my best guess would be that it’s the asshole who was my boyfriend at the time who’s sold them.”

“What are you going to do about this, sir?” He spins to face Oliver, who walks past him in silence and stands next to me.

“Absolutely nothing.” He puts his arm around me and draws me to his side. “Is there something you are planning to do about it?”

Oh my God, I could absolutely kiss him. The tightness in my chest loosens enough for me to take a full breath.

I loop both arms around his bare waist and look up at him. “Thank you.”

He winks at me, then kisses my forehead in an I’ve-got-your-back kind of way. And, holy shit, it floods me with a sense of warmth and protection that’s entirely new to me.

But I don’t recall ever wanting anyone to protect me before. If anyone had even tried, I certainly wouldn’t have allowed them.

Giles opens his mouth to speak, but before he can, Oliver’s mother appears in the open doorway.

“What we’re going to do about it,” she snaps, “is thatshehas to leave.”

“Lexi’s going nowhere,” Oliver says and holds me tighter.

“Honest to God, Oliver.” She bustles into the room like she has to clean up a mess everyone else is ignoring.

“We can’t have this sort of thing going on.” She points at the papers Giles is, for some reason, still holding in the air. “It’s bad enough when it’syou. But we can’t do anythingabout that. At least when it’s someone you’re associated with, we can get rid of them.”