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

don’t even remember what it was for. The press spun the whole thing into making it seem as though she was a drunkard. They ended up nicknaming her Alcoholic Aimée, although that’s the English translation.”

“Holy shit.”

“I couldn’t even blame her for cheating on me. She was miserable. Although I wasn’t the one who wrote those things, it was being with me that caused it.”

“That still doesn’t give anyone the right to cheat. She could’ve just ended things instead of sneaking behind your back.” I wasn’t much for dissing somebody’s ex, but I had to admit, if Aimée were in front of me right then, I wouldn’t have offered her one of our pastries.

“Perhaps.” Olivier shrugged.

“You sound way too calm about the whole thing. Any guy who cheated on me would have a death wish. If not from me, from my brother.” I shuddered at the thought of Liam finding out I’d been cheated on. He’d go on a murderous rampage.

Olivier raised an eyebrow. “Yet you haven’t told your brother about us?”

“What’s there to tell?” I shot back.

“Now you’re being defensive.”

I growled, crossing my arms over my chest. “He just gets way too overprotective. He still treats me like I’m a little kid. I’m not six years old anymore, but it’s like he still sees me like that. It’s frustrating.”

“He cares about you.”

“Of course he does. That doesn’t mean he can try to control my life, either.” I gave Olivier a pointed look. “You can’t tell me you enjoy your parents controlling your life.”

“They don’t control my life,” he said dryly. “It’s more our way of life that does.”

“Have you ever had a say? In where you went to school, what you wore, what you said to the press?”

“As a child, no. As an adult, to some degree. But it’s important to present a united front to the public. One member of the royal family going rogue hurts everyone. It tarnishes the reputation we must uphold. As sovereigns, we don’t get to make choices like private individuals. It goes hand in hand with the job description.”

“What are your parents like? I don’t think you ever told me. You already know about my brother, who’s basically been a father to me.” I then told Olivier about being raised by my aunt Siobhan and uncle Henry, including the day that Liam left me with them. It had only been when I’d been much older that I’d understood why he’d done that. As a child, it had seemed like he’d not wanted me anymore.

“Do you remember your mother?” said Olivier.

I shook my head. “I was only two when she died. Liam has told me stories about her, though.” I pulled out my phone to show Olivier a photo of me, my mom, and Liam. It was taken a few months before Mam died, and despite her smile, you could see the dark circles under her eyes along with the scarf around her head that showed how sick she was.

“She’s beautiful,” said Olivier. He then said, “And you look exactly the same.”

“Minus the baby mullet, you mean.” My hair had grown in slowly after I’d been born. As a toddler, it had eventually grown into a cute little mullet that had stuck around until I was almost four.

“Liam always told me how happy Mam was when she discovered she was pregnant with me. She’d had cancer and had gone into remission, but her physicians had told her that most likely she wouldn’t be able to conceive again. She said that I was her miracle baby.” I smiled. “When I was born, she decided to name me Niamh because it means ‘radiant.’ I was her radiant one.”

I felt my throat clog with tears. Even though I hadn’t known her, I missed her. What would she say about Olivier and this adventure we were on? Would she have wanted me to find Da? She’d loved him, even after he’d abandoned his family, at least according to Liam.

Olivier took my hand, not saying anything. But I could feel that he cared through that simple touch. It was strange, I thought, how I was now able to be vulnerable with him when not too long ago, I would’ve rather swallowed my tongue than say these things in his presence.

“What about your parents?” I wrapped my arms around my knees.

Olivier’s gaze turned far away. “My parents were a love match, or at least my father has always claimed it was. My father says that the day he met my mother, he fell in love.

“He called her and left a voicemail to go on a date with him, neglecting to mention he was the next in line to the throne. It took three more phone calls before she agreed to a date. It was a month later that they were engaged.”

“Goodness, your father moves fast.”

“I don’t know if my mother reciprocated his feelings. She was much younger than him, only nineteen when they married.” He looked at me. “Not much younger than you, I think.”

“Is your mom Salasian?”

“Yes, from the lesser aristocracy. She’s the granddaughter of a marquis. My grandfather, Prince Louis, didn’t approve of the match, however. My mother brought little money or influence with her, and there’d been some kind of scandal surrounding the family a few years before she met my father. But they married anyway.”

“Sounds romantic. Like out of a fairy tale.”

“If it started out as a fairy tale, it didn’t last long. My parents stopped sharing a bed by the time I was five years old. The only reason they never divorced is because it would be a stain on the royal family. My mother is also deeply religious.” Olivier’s lips twisted. “Only a dispensation by the Pope himself would compel her to divorce. Even then, I don’t think it’d be enough.”

Olivier then told me that his parents had never fought. It was more that they’d transformed into platonic friends who happened to share a son and were married. They weren’t physically affectionate with one another,