The Prince I Love to Hate: A Steamy Romantic Comedy (The Heir Affair Book 1) by Iris Morland (book club recommendations txt) 📕

Two hours later, Olivier came outside to where I was waiting for him. “I got it,” he said, triumphant. “He’s dead.”

“You’re happy that this guy is dead? Geez, Olivier, how gauche of you.”

He ignored me. “No, I meant that I received information about where his widow is located.” He showed me a piece of paper with crabbed writing on it.

“Somebody just gave up her location?”

“It’s a phone number, not an address.”

I peered more closely at the handwriting. It looked like Greek to me. “Okay, so you’re just going to call this woman and say…what?”

Olivier shrugged. “A version of what I’ve been telling everyone today, that I’m on the quest to find my dying mother’s beloved antique clock and that if they can provide me with any information it would be of the greatest importance.”

“Your mother is dying?” Now I felt badly for needling him.

At that, he looked away. “Um, well. Not exactly.”

“You’re guilting people into helping you by saying your mom is dying?” I gaped at him, and then I made the sign of the cross across my chest. “You need Jesus. There’s a church down the street. You should go in there and confess your sins.”

“It will only result in me telling the priest all about how I saw your naked breasts yesterday—”

I slapped a hand over his mouth. He retaliated by licking my palm. I squawked like an enraged chicken.

“I hope you get eaten by a flock of rabid pigeons!” was my intelligent rejoinder as I stalked off.

“We don’t have rabies here in Europe.”

Oh my God, who fucking cared! Beyond irritated, I kept walking with no destination in mind. We were too far from the hotel to walk back, though, so I eventually had to either give up my huffing and puffing or call a taxi for myself.

“You seem particularly enraged that I saw you naked,” he said when he’d caught up with me. “You Americans are so strange about nudity.”

I tossed my latte in the trash, but I missed and nearly hit an actual pigeon instead. The flock of them burst into flight, yelling at the indignity.

“Try not to murder any wildlife while we’re here.” Olivier picked up my latte and threw it into the bin.

I sighed. “Thank you,” I said grudgingly.

“Mademoiselle.” He sketched me a bow.

We continued walking. “You never answered my question,” he said.

“Was there a question?”

“Perhaps not. But why are you so embarrassed?”

God, he was like a dog with a bone. “Because I don’t know you, and it was awkward, and I don’t go around flashing my boobs at people, okay?”

“You really should. They’re lovely.”

I blushed scarlet. “Oh my God—”

“You should go to a nude beach someday.” He winked at me. “I think you’d enjoy it after you overcame your initial awkwardness.”

With any other guy, I would’ve told him to go to hell. With Olivier, I was stupidly flattered. Yeah, I was self-conscious about my small boobs, so sue me. Having him tell me he liked them was an ego boost I hadn’t realized I’d wanted or needed.

Have a prince compliment my tits—check.

“Um, thanks? Again?” I tucked a stray tendril of hair behind my ear. “It’s not that I’m embarrassed by nudity in general. I just don’t feel the need to show everybody the goods, you know? And yeah, maybe it is some American prudishness in there, too. It’s just not something that’s common.”

I wrinkled my nose in memory. “Well, except for the nude bicyclist that rides around in Seattle. Which just sounds like a great way to get your balls smashed against the seat, yikes.”

“What a lovely mental image.”

“Hey, you were the one who brought up the whole nudity subject.” Silence fell between us. For a moment, I considered letting it continue, but pettiness overruled logic. “Are you showing off your goods to anyone recently?”

Olivier gave me an amused look. “Are you inquiring if I’m sleeping with someone?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I had no idea you cared.” That came out like a purr.

I nearly tripped over a sidewalk crack again. Geez, I was seriously pathetic. “Turnabout is fair play. You have to tell me something embarrassing about yourself since you saw my tits.”

“Is that a rule somewhere?”

“It is. It’s my rule.”

He chuckled. Tilting his head back, he basked in the warm sunlight. He looked like a cat that had found a sunbeam to absorb. And because he was apparently inhuman, he had managed to avoid getting any kind of sunburn. I could make out a light tan deepening his skin color, whereas I’d slathered myself with sunscreen this morning and just prayed that it held up. Such was the downside to my half-Irishness.

“The last woman I dated left me for another man,” he said. At my wide-eyed look of surprise, he said rather cuttingly, “Surprised?”

“Surprised that a woman would cheat on a prince? Yeah, kinda.”

“The prince part attracts women—and men. That’s the simple part. It’s all of the baggage that comes with the title that makes women run away in the end.”

I hadn’t even considered that, if I was being honest. As the heir to a literal throne, Olivier had more responsibility and scrutiny than I could ever imagine.

“That sucks,” I said, rather lamely.

He shrugged. “It’s expected. Besides, my parents want me to marry the right kind of girl within the next year. Now that I’m twenty-five, my mother especially wants me to settle down with a good girl and make heirs.”

“Twenty-five is hardly old.”

He slanted me a look. “I realize that.”

I kicked a pebble across the road. “So are you going to marry some princess?”

“Given that Europe’s royal families have allowed royals to marry commoners, especially within the last twenty years, no. A princess isn’t a requirement. She must be suitable, though. From a good family, with good standing. She must be beautiful, of course.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course. Can’t have an ugly princess.”

“I sense your sarcasm, but I’m choosing to ignore it.” Despite the lightness of his words, I could feel something weighing on him.

And because I’m an idiot, I