Page 98 of The Thing About My Prince
When I figure it out, my hands shake around the phone.
BECCA
Whoever the asshole is who sold you out, tell me, and I will fucking destroy him.
Sold me out? Does she mean someone knows I’m not Oliver’s real girlfriend? Or knows I’m writing his book? Who the hell has found out what? And who have they sold it to?
I sit up and pull my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them as I flick through the stack of messages.
The next one down makes my stomach churn so much I’m genuinely afraid I might puke.
JULIAN
Can you really continue with this assignment now?
“What the fuck is going on?”
“What’s that?” Oliver rolls onto his side to face me, wraps his arm around my back, and kisses my naked hip.
I ignore him and click on the link that Julian included.
Oh, no. No. My whole future career flashes before my eyes like this is its dying moment.
“Hey.” Oliver’s voice sounds like a sexy morning. But I doubt very much I’ll be having another one of those with him.
He sits up beside me, kissing my shoulder. “What's wrong? You’re all tense and muttering ‘fuck.’”
I rest the screen against my leg to prevent him from seeing it and, my pulse racing, cheeks burning, heart full of dread and remorse, cup his gorgeous half-awake face in my hand. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m glad you woke me.” He manages a sleepy eyebrow wiggle.
He leans in to kiss me, but I hold him back. “That’s not what I meant. You’re going to hate me.” And that’s the first thing it occurs to me to tell him. Not that what’s on my phone might get me taken off the book. Not that I might have lost my new job before I even start it. But that it might change the way he feels about me. And that it will reflect badly on him. “This will probably undo all your efforts to tryto shake off your old image, and oh my God, I’m so fucking sor?—”
“Sir!” Giles’s voice is accompanied by sharp, impatient thumps on the door. “Sir. We need to talk.” More thumps. “Urgently.” His snarl is audible even through the panel of thick, centuries-old wood.
Panic floods my body like fire chasing ice that’s chasing fire.
“What the fuck is going on?” Oliver rubs his eyes, bewildered by all the fuss.
He pulls back the covers to get out of bed.
“No.” I wrap an arm around his back to stop him.
“Well, hello.” He gives me a sexy smirk and reaches for my breasts. “Let me get rid of Giles, then we can?—”
“No, Oliver. I need you to see this from me first, before you open that door and Giles gets the fucked-up pleasure of shaming me in front of you.”
His brow furrows. “Shaming you? What are you talking about?”
“Look.” I turn my phone to face him.
His eyes flit across the screen for a moment before he scrolls through the rest of the article and the pictures.
Pictures of me on spring break in Florida my junior year of college. Photos of me in a barely there bikini drinking from a beer bong surrounded by my drunk, cheering friends. Me in only bikini bottoms laughing with my guy friends on a “clothing optional” beach. And a series of images of me doing very suggestive things involving my mouth and a hot dog.
The headline is absolutely fucking awful: Prince Harming—Oliver Brings More Shame on the Royal Family with His Choice of Party Princess.
I don’t even want to know what the article says.
