The Prince I Love to Hate: A Steamy Romantic Comedy (The Heir Affair Book 1)

by Iris Morland

  I was listening to the water run as I considered my options. Mostly, though, I was just tired. Even though it was early afternoon, I felt like I could sleep for an entire day. What was it about flying and traveling that was so exhausting when you were just sitting for hours upon end? I slipped off my tennis shoes and curled up on the bed, falling asleep before Olivier had even finished his shower.

  I awoke at around five PM to find a note left on the table next to me.

  I went for a walk. Text me if you need to.

  - O

  I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I felt even sleepier than before I’d closed my eyes. Ugh, this was why I didn’t take naps. I sniffed my armpits, only to grimace when I inhaled. Yeesh, I needed to take a shower.

  Standing under the hot water, I sighed happily. I scrubbed the grit of the plane and the sweat that had dried from my body. I was mostly awake by the time I got out of the shower. I wiped the condensation from the mirror and considered my reflection, thinking about that Frenchwoman at the cafe who thought it so strange that Olivier would want to date me.

  I wasn’t the type of girl to think of myself as super uggo. I’d had my fair share of men who’d been interested in me. Not that my beauty was based on how men saw me, but I wasn’t a girl who just had no idea how she looked to other people. I’d always liked my hair—dark and full—and my nose was nice. My lips were full.

  My eyes were a nice color, but despite my dark hair, my eyelashes were rather pale. I had a bunch of new freckles on my nose and chest, and seeing them, I smiled. I didn’t wear makeup very often, and I always preferred to make sure my freckles were visible if I did. I never understood why people wanted to cover them up. They were cute, like sprinkles tossed across my skin.

  But I was hardly a supermodel. It had never bothered me. I’d always preferred wearing jeans and tennis shoes and working on cars. I’d never cared much about my appearance. What had it gotten me? Not much. I preferred people to want me around for my brain or my skills, anyway.

  Yet those words from earlier prickled across my skin like little needles. I suddenly felt self-conscious about being on the itty-bitty titty committee (I’d pretty much been its president my entire life) or the fact that my teeth weren’t perfectly straight. My teenage self had balked at how nerdy braces looked, but now my adult self hated that I’d been so self-conscious.

  I shook my head. I finished toweling off, feeling extremely silly. Even if Olivier was interested in me, it wasn’t like anything could come of it. He was a prince, for God’s sake. He was going to inherit a literal throne. Did I want the scrutiny that came with that life?

  The mere thought of that sort of life made me chuckle under my breath. Yeah, that was about as likely as my boobs turning in to DDDs. Not gonna happen.

  I emerged from the bathroom in a robe, only to see that Olivier still hadn’t returned. But since I was still hot from my shower, the robe made me even warmer. I tossed it back into the bathroom and walked nude to my suitcase, my back to the hotel room door.

  I was digging around for a fresh pair of panties when I heard the click of the lock. I stood up straight the moment Olivier came inside to see me holding a too-short t-shirt to my naked body.

  “Well, this is a pleasant sight,” he said in amusement.

  I squawked. I threw my shirt at him, which was stupid because I was now completely uncovered. “Get out of here!” I grabbed the comforter from the bed, but it was tucked in so tightly that I could only get a corner of it free. I wrapped it around my waist, my arm across my breasts. “What are you still doing here?” I demanded.

  “Just enjoying the spectacle.” He sat down in a chair. “You Americans are so finnicky about nudity.”

  “This isn’t the time to talk about our cultural differences. Get. Out!”

  He instead covered his eyes with his hand, sighing heavily. “My eyes are closed. Go about your business.”

  I waved a hand in front of his face: no reaction. Scowling, I dressed quickly, my face on fire.

  Honestly, I wasn’t that much of a prude or that self-conscious. But having Olivier peruse my body like that had been just beyond embarrassing, especially if he hadn’t been impressed at what he’d seen. Oh God, I wanted to die.

  I grabbed my key card and wallet, putting on my shoes. “I’m done,” I said. “I’m going to go get something to eat.”

  Before I could run to the ends of the earth, Olivier rose and gently pushed a tendril of damp hair behind my ear. “You’re red as a beet.”

  That made me even redder. “Thanks for pointing that out,” I said acidly.

  He let his fingers brush against my cheek. He was smiling. “So prickly. Don’t be embarrassed.”

  “I’m not,” I lied.

  He took my chin in between his fingers, the touch electric. I froze in his grasp. “Shame you hide that body of yours under those clothes,” he mused.

  At that lovely non-compliment, I reared backward. “Wow, thanks. Anyone ever tell you that you’re the least charming prince ever?”

  He didn’t seem the least bit ruffled. “Oh no, Niamh, believe me, you’re the first and only. For so many reasons.”

  I fled from the room before I could ask him what, exactly, that even met.

  Chapter Nine

  “I think it might be closed,” I said.

  “The windows are boarded up. Of course it’s closed.” Olivier, for his part, kept trying to peer through the small spaces between the wooden boards hammered to the windows. Like he’d be able to see someone inside. But he was so agitated, I wasn’t about to tell him as much.

  “Shit,” said Olivier. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  I yawned. “Yeah, pretty much.”

  We’d taken a taxi across Paris to find this antiques shop, the address of which Olivier had on a small piece of paper in his pocket. Despite both of our attempts to find the address on Google Maps, Google kept trying to redirect us to some random spot that turned out to be a broken-down bridge on the Seine.

  So we’d had to wander around on foot. Olivier had stopped to ask for directions—which made me grateful that he spoke French, but I wouldn’t tell him that, no way—but we got a lot of confused expressions. One man told us we were in the wrong part of Paris entirely. Another woman said that we were in the right area but the wrong street.

  “Why are the streets here so confusing?” I’d said multiple times.

  “Paris is an old city.” He gave me a look that screamed duh.

  “Well, yeah. But that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t have made it slightly less confusing in the last century.”

  Olivier snorted. “Have you ever met a Frenchman?”

  I’d always thought that was Seattle, with its five-way intersections and random one-way streets was stressful. Paris, though, was a billion times worse.

  And by the time we’d found this antiques shop, luck would have it that the shop was no longer a shop. It was just a boarded-up building with some graffiti sprayed across it.

  “Are you sure this is the right place?” I asked.

  “Yes. Look.” He pointed to a torn awning. He pulled away the cloth to reveal a sign that was barely legible, it was so covered in graffiti. But under the paint, I could make out the store name, Antiquités Durand.

  We stood there for a long moment, both of us silently wondering what the hell we were going to do next.

  “I’d ask you what we should do next,” I said, “but based on the constipated look on your face, you have no idea.”

  Olivier gave me a look of disgust. “I do not have a constipated face.”

  I sipped my latte. “If you say so.”

  Okay, I was needling him, because I was still embarrassed by him seeing me naked yesterday evening. He hadn’t stopped ribbing me about it until we’d gone to sleep. At that point, I’d threatened to murder him by strangulation with the shower curtain if he wouldn’t shut up.

  Oh, and he’d slept on the rollaway bed. I’d forced him after I’d guilt-tripped him fo
r walking in on me naked. He’d whined and moaned about it all morning, accusing me of breaking his back, the big baby.

  “We could ask people who work around here. Maybe they know where the guy went,” I said.

  “That’s the smartest idea I’ve heard from you since we arrived.”

  I flipped him the bird. He just laughed at me.

  Despite my smart idea, I couldn’t be of much use in talking to people. Although most people spoke English, Olivier seemed to get more information easily by speaking French. It made sense. Besides, having some random American girl ask you questions about where some antiques owner had gone would seem extra weird. Not that every single French person hated Americans. It was more the overall oddness of it that made people less likely to give out information.

  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 couldn’t help but pry. “Do your parents have someone picked out already?”

  “Oh, they have a few.” Olivier waved a hand. “One is going to inherit her father’s fortune; the other is the daughter of a grand duke of Luxembourg or something as small as Salasia. All very nice women.”

  “Why do they sound like they’re the literal worst, then?”

  He grimaced. “They’re fine.”

  “‘Fine’ is a four-letter word, my dude.”

  “A marriage with either of them would be acceptable.” He stopped to pluck a wildflower from a tiny garden alongside the street. He twirled it between his fingers.

  “Acceptable? Don’t you want to marry for love?”

  The flower stopped twirling. “People like me don’t marry for love.” He let the flower fall to the ground, but when he turned away, I picked it back up and placed it in my pocket.

&n
bsp; What? I was sentimental, okay?

  On our way back to our hotel, I stewed over what Olivier had told me. Although a part of me struggled to feel too much sympathy for a man who was rich and handsome and was born into privilege, the other part of me pitied him. He was born into this life, but he hadn’t chosen it, either. If he’d been born a regular person, what would he have become? Would he have married for love, gotten a decent job, traveled when they had money, and had lived a normal, boring life?

  Most of all, it reminded me that my blossoming infatuation for him could go nowhere. His parents would never approve of me, a nobody Irish-American who hadn’t worn a dress since junior high homecoming. I wasn’t ashamed of any of those facets of my life, either.

  It merely meant that I would be unsuitable for Olivier, and vice versa.

  Even as I told myself that, it still stung. Maybe because I was stubborn, but I almost wanted to prove his parents wrong. Which was stupid, because Olivier only liked my boobs and not much else. Hardly a great start to a legitimate relationship.

  Who said anything about marriage? my brain said coyly. Sleep with the guy and get him out of your system. He’s clearly attracted to you. And you can go back to America and tell everyone you had sex with an actual prince.

  I hadn’t had sex in way too long. Clearly, I was just horny and desperate. But then my mind decided to fill it with all kinds of lurid images—Olivier cupping my breasts, Olivier pulling my jeans down to my ankles as he parted my legs, Olivier pressing a finger inside my pussy—and I had to squeeze my legs together to keep from getting seriously aroused.

  I considered seeing if I could get Olivier into bed tonight, but I realized early on that he was too distracted with getting ahold of the antiques dealer’s widow. He called her in the taxi on the way back to our hotel, but no one had picked up, and there’d been no voicemail. Throughout the evening, Olivier had kept calling, despite me telling him that his constant calls would only deter someone from calling him back.