Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
LEXI
What the hell in the name of hellishness was that?
That thing with his eyes.
What the fuck was it?
Is that what he does to everyone? Does he think it’s cute?
Is that what his gushing fans find adorable about him?
Like, oh, look at the cute British prince with his accent, artfully tousled hair, and dazzling bright eyes that instantly make you feel like you’re the most special person on earth. Isn’t he fun?
Well, that bullshit does not work with me.
One thing I’ve learned from interviewing famous and successful people is that they treat you like you’re the most important person in their world for the five minutes they’re talking to you.
The second you’re gone, they move on to making the next person in line feel like they’re the most important person.
However, the fake charm thing has never given me a wobble like that before. Never made me unable to walk in a straight line the way I’m not walking in a straight line toward Prince Oliver’s gargantuan living room.
I need to get a grip.
“What should I call you?” I spent ages looking up what do you call a prince?, how do you address a member of the British royal family?, is a prince called Your Royal Highness?, and the like, and the answer always seemed to be It’s complicated. So I might as well outright ask him.
It’s a conversation-starter at least. And helps me to stop thinking about his eyes. Which are kind of green-ish.
“As long as it’s none of the names the British tabloids have given me, I don’t care,” he says, following me.
Yeah, I found a whole host of their favorite monikers for him. The Party Prince. The Playboy Prince. His Royal HIGHness. That last one was alongside a long-distance, grainy picture of him holding something resembling a joint.
“You can call me Oliver.” He arrives beside me.
Taller than I expected, he towers over my five-foot-three frame. And he smiles that carefree smile I’ve seen in hundreds of news clips.
I’d thought it was an affectation for public consumption, but here, in private, it seems so effortlessly genuine that it brings an unexpected flutter to my chest. My hand flinches to move toward it, but I stop it in time and shove it into a pocket instead.
Can’t have Oliver catching me trying to quell heart flutters.
Maybe all royals naturally radiate this attractive heart-tremor-y charisma. I’ve never been around one before.
Whatever it is, I’m not about to be taken in by it. I’m here to get this job done as swiftly and as well as possible, so I can get on with my life and never have to spend another second with this man again.
Two more steps, and the view from the living room of this Fifth Avenue penthouse snaps me out of whatever the hell that fluttering thing was. “Fuck me.”
I immediately slam my hand over my mouth. “Shit, sorry. I mean, sorry.”
My face heats so quickly it almost burns my fingers.
Oliver’s full lips spread into a playful grin that puts a glint in his eye that does nothing to calm my blush.
“Yeah, the city view’s pretty amazing even though we’re only twelve floors up.
This building’s somehow escaped being hemmed in.
” He strolls past me into the wide-open corner room that’s lined with windows on two sides, and turns back to face me—the spire of the Empire State protruding from the top of his head.
“I’ve been here a while, but it never wears off. ”
His voice sounds exactly as it does in the interviews I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours bingeing as research. His accent has that cut-glass royal ring, the sound no other British people seem to have. But there’s also a more relaxed undertone to it, like it spans two worlds.
I’ve never been starstruck in my life, but looking at his face, which is even more attractive in person than in photos—more lived-in, more real—gives me a strange kind of nervous feeling in my belly.
So I let my eyes wander down to his chest instead.
Thankfully I find something to distract me from its broadness. “Is that blood?”
I point at a stain on the front of his pale blue hoodie.
“What?” He looks down. “Oh, no. Strawberry jam. Breakfast. Sorry. I was going to change before you got here but you were a little early, so this is what you get.”
He gestures from the top of his thick mess of sandy-brown hair to the white athletic socks poking out from the bottom of his distressed jeans.
Get a grip, Lexi. Don’t fall for this charming, I’m-so-ordinary ease. He was literally raised to be nice to people, to make people like him. It’s the job he was born into.
“Do you own this place?” I can’t imagine how much it’s worth. And the furniture must have cost a fortune—there’s a huge low, curved, cream sofa at one end of the room, a dark wood coffee table in front of it, a matching dresser on one wall, and bookshelves on another.
Sitting in the far corner is an egg-shaped chair that looks like it would be the most deliciously comfortable place to nap in the sunbeam that’s hitting it right now.
And centered on the window on the long side of the room is a grand piano. A grand fucking piano. How ostentatious can you get?
“You’re getting right down to the nitty-gritty, huh?” Oliver says.
He can stop with that eyebrow thing too. Bet he thinks it’s cute.
“Well, I have to turn in a first draft before Christmas. Which means I have three months to get this thing researched and written. In case you aren’t aware, that’s an almost impossible timeline.
So I have a lot to find out about you in a short time, then get it written up into something vaguely resembling a book. ”
“No, I didn’t buy this apartment,” he says. “It’s been lent to me.”
“Lent? As in, you’re living here for free?”
“Yup. I got lucky.”
Did he ever. And my least favorite type of lucky. The accident-of-birth kind.
Oh, the entitled brats I grew up with and the rich people who treat others like dirt who I’ve come across over and over in my years as a reporter. They’re all the same.
“I have a friend who has a lot of big property investment clients,” he says.
“Miller Malone? One of the guys you own the soccer team with?”
“Yeah. He builds luxury condos in Boston and—"
“I know. Research. Journalist, remember?” Oh no, did I just do the eyebrow thing right back at him? Jesus, Lexi.
“Right. Well, most of what you’ve researched about me will have been complete bollocks.
But it is true that I own the Boston Commoners with three other guys.
Anyway, Miller has a client who’d bought this place as a tax write-off or something, and it was sitting empty, so he suggested it would help its resale value if someone with a certain profile had lived in it for a while.
So here I am.” He throws his arms out to the sides.
“The irony of wealth,” I say.
“What is?”
“The richer someone is, the more they get for free.”
“Am I picking up some subtle vibes that you’re not enormously happy to be here?”
He’s observant.
I pull the strap of my bag over my head and loop it over my shoulder instead. “Let’s just say that writing a royal memoir wasn’t exactly on my bucket list.”
“But you’re still going to do a good job, right?” Now he sounds nervous. Always good to have the interviewee on the back foot. “Because I really need this book to be a success, and if your heart’s not in it, then maybe the publisher should look for someone else.”
“My heart doesn’t have to be in it for me to do a good job. I promise you that tween girl sugary pop music isn’t my thing either, but my Sabrina Summers book was a big hit. And it’s because of that that I’m here.”
“That’s why they picked you?” His brows knit.
“The publisher thought that because you wrote about someone who dances around dressed in bubble gum-pink while clutching giant multicolored lollipops that you were the perfect person to help me set straight years of shit about me in the press and help me claw back something vaguely resembling a decent reputation so I can rebuild a whole new life in a whole new country?”
Wow. Is that what this is about for him? When the editor briefed me yesterday, she gave the impression it was more about churning out something with cute stories and old photos and making a pile of cash—but maybe it is, for them.
“Don’t worry, I’m adaptable,” I tell him. “I can write anything.” Hopefully that sounds reassuring.
Maybe I’ve come across as a bit snippy about the whole situation.
The last thing I need is for him to get me thrown off the job that my war correspondent position depends on.
I should probably shut up, get on with it, and suck up having to write this thing for the sake of, well, the rest of my career.
“Let's get started then.” I open the flap of my bag and pull out my phone and a notebook with an old pen shoved into the spiral binding. “Where should I set up?”
“Set up?” he says. “I thought this was a little getting-to-know-each-other session.”
“Like I say, compressed timeline.” One that’s stressing me the hell out, but I can’t let him see that. Don’t want him to lose faith. “So we really should jump in and get started.”
“Well, I’m not the kind of guy who can go full life-story on a first date with a stranger. I need to warm up. Ease into it.” Is that smirk supposed to be flirtatious? “Guess I’m old-fashioned, and usually I need to at least have a cup of tea with someone first.”
Is this flirty charm how he gets all those women I’ve read about? Combine that with the whole accent and prince thing and, yeah, that would probably do it.
I pause for a second, making myself not say Does this usually work for you?
He walks away to the other side of the room while running his fingers through his hair—fingers that haven’t done a day’s hard work in their lives.
Instead I go with, “Any chance I could have coffee instead?”
“Can’t stand the stuff. Don’t keep it in.”
“Not even for guests?”