THE PRINCE I LOVE TO HATE (Heir Affair #1)

Chapter One “You have got to be kidding me,” I said as the taxi driver stopped in front of the house. No, it wasn’t a house. It was a mansion. More accurately, it was an entire estate. The driver gave me a strange look. “You touring this place?” “Yeah, kinda.” I handed him a few Euros and opened the car door, rather wishing I could ask him to go with me. But he’d already driven off by the time I’d been tempted to turn around and ask him to tour the place with me. Okay, tour wasn’t the right word. Wrap my head around what I was seeing would be more accurate. I mean, I’d known that Grandda Gallagher had been rich—he’d left me a rather large inheritance, after all—but this rich? I’d somehow missed that memo. “He probably buried gold bars in the backyard,” my older brother Liam had said darkly before I’d flown from Seattle all the way to Ireland. “Along with all of the bodies.” As far as I knew, our grandda hadn’t been a murderer—just a judgmental arsehole, as Liam liked to call him. Or when Liam was feeling polite, he called Grandda by the moniker Old Man Gallagher. Liam never called him Grandda or Grandfather or Grandpa. Liam had hated our grandda for how he’d treated our mam, and even when he’d died, Liam hadn’t forgiven him. I swallowed, my throat dry. Why had I wanted to come to Dublin again? I should’ve stayed in Seattle making lattes for tech nerds with terrible social skills. Having some guy named Chad get passive aggressive with me because I’d forgotten to leave room in his Americano for cream would be preferable to whatever it was I was doing now. The ocean behind me was the only noise besides my heart pounding in my ears. There were stairs down to the harbor; above, stairs to the house. Or mansion. Was that a f*****g turret? Geez, this was straight out of a fairy tale. When a real life, actual butler answered the door, I almost started laughing. Instead, I wished that I’d changed out of my ratty t-shirt and even rattier sneakers at the airport. The only person who I thought would be here was Grandda’s lawyer, Mr. McDonnell. “Um,” I said, as the butler stared down his nose at me. “I’m Niamh Gallagher.” The butler didn’t even blink, but his lip curled ever so slightly, most likely from hearing my flat, American accent. “Right this way, miss,” he said blandly. As he turned, I was surprised I didn’t hear creaking noises, like a mannequin being repositioned in a store window. The butler led me upstairs to what could only be described as a parlor. Or was it a sitting room? The room itself faced the ocean, and I was drawn to the large bay windows. I could smell the sea salt in the air, the windows wide open and curtains dancing lightly in the breeze. A telescope sat nearby, and I couldn’t help but lean down and peer into it. I could make out some boats in the water, along with some gulls circling. One dove into the water and came up with a wiggling fish. As I was waiting for Grandda’s lawyer, Mr. McDonnell, to arrive, I began to explore the room: with the white walls and the similarly white and oak furniture, I had a feeling no one ever ate anything like lasagna in this place. I wondered if Grandda had decorated this place himself, but given what Liam had always told me about him, I doubted it. He’d seemed too focused on controlling Liam and me from afar, or earning gobs of money, to care what kind of furniture was in his palatial mansion. I looked at my phone. Had the butler forgotten to tell Mr. McDonnell I was here? Maybe the butler hadn’t been oiled enough this morning and had frozen in place as he’d gone in search of this mysterious lawyer, like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. I poked my head out of the sitting room: the hallway was deserted. Well, I was the previous owner’s granddaughter, and currently no one technically lived here, so I could explore without getting in trouble, right? I began to wander, taking in the view of the ocean from various windows, enjoying the artwork on the walls. Liam, a photographer, would certainly enjoy the various collections of photographs in this place. As I rounded the corner in the opposite direction from where I’d come with the butler, I found a door that led to an outdoor terrace that was filled with a variety of potted plants. It was a beautifully sunny day, and I shaded my eyes against the bright sunlight. When Mr. McDonnell had sent me that infamous letter asking me to come to Dublin for some business regarding Grandda’s estate, I hadn’t thought much of it. Grandda had died five years ago, leaving me a sizable inheritance that had paid for my college tuition at Harvard the following fall. Liam, having fallen out with Grandda ages ago, had gotten only a small amount of money when he’d turned eighteen many years ago. So it had made sense that I would inherit anything else. I’d initially balked at having to travel so far just to sign a few papers, though. Email was a thing in Ireland, too. It was when Mr. McDonnell had informed me that he had information on the whereabouts of my da, Connor Gallagher, that I’d changed my mind. Da had run out on me, Liam, and our mam before I’d even been born. I’d never known him. As far as Liam was concerned, he was dead to us, and that was that. (Liam really liked to hold grudges against the men in our family.) But I’d always wanted to know more about Da: why he’d left, if he was even still alive. It had been something that had niggled at me for years. When Mr. McDonnell’s letter had landed in my mailbox, it had felt like destiny. I heard someone swear, breaking through my reverie. Rounding the corner, I found a man holding his thumb to his mouth. In the sunlight, all I could make out was that he was young and had what could only be described as golden hair. It literally sparkled in the light. When he turned his face toward me, I nearly choked on my own spit. He was ridiculously good-looking; there was no other way to describe it. Lean, chiseled jaw; tanned skin; golden hair; tall, muscular, but not bulky. He had that perfect, symmetrical face that was either the result of amazing genetics or a very talented plastic surgeon. I was leaning against some kind of fruit tree, too enthralled by this golden man to notice that I was leaning too much of my weight on the tree. A branch snapped, and Golden Man swiveled his head in my direction to see me staring like an i***t. “Good morning,” he said to me, surprisingly calm given the whole staring thing. “Why are you hiding in a fruit tree?” A pause, then he added, “Miss?” I pushed away from the tree, blushing harder when the broken branch fell to the ground. Mortified, I picked it up, like I could somehow put it back onto the tree. I eventually just dropped into the pot and hoped I hadn’t completely ruined the poor plant. Golden Man clucked his tongue at me. “You’ll have to pay for that, you know. Do you know how expensive these trees are?” His accent was definitely not Irish, or English for that matter. It sounded closest to a French accent. As my brain took in that interesting fact, he’d gotten closer to me. I could then make out that he had lovely gray eyes. Of course he did, I thought in annoyance. Nothing banal like brown eyes for this golden man. He probably never farted or got pimples, either. “Um,” was all I could manage. Why was I acting like a thirteen-year-old girl at a One Direction concert? I fixed cars for fun and had been around all kinds of men at my local car shop. They were men who’d try their best either to rile me or get into my pants, often both. But I was already out of sorts in a country I’d never really known, at a place I hadn’t known existed, and apparently that was enough to render me tongue-tied. Golden Man was peering at me expectantly, a similarly golden eyebrow raised in question. “Who are you, miss?” he said finally. “I’m Niamh Gallagher.” “Neev,” Golden Man repeated. “That’s an interesting name. Yet you sound like an American, yes?” “It’s Irish. I’m Irish-American. And my grandda owns—owned—this place.” I gestured around me. Both of golden man’s eyebrows shot straight up. “Gallagher—of course. You’re his granddaughter? I didn’t know he had a granddaughter.” Golden Man sounded almost confounded, like he’d searched Grandda’s f*******: already and hadn’t found any random grandchildren in his friends list. (Okay, Grandda definitely hadn’t been on f*******:. I’d checked years ago.) “Why are you here?” Golden Man’s gray eyes narrowed. Now I was annoyed. What was it to him? Frowning, I said, “Yeah, I’m his granddaughter. And I’m here to see his lawyer. Not that it’s any of your business.” “Ah,” was all he said. He said it with a slight shrug, which felt so dismissive that my annoyance only grew. I suddenly wished I hadn’t said anything. I didn’t need to explain myself to some random gardener. It didn’t matter how pretty he was. The spell he’d cast on me broke, dousing me in figurative cold water. “Okay, well, I’m going to go,” I said, rather lamely. I turned to leave, but Golden Man said, “Be careful, Miss Gallagher.” That was it. Be careful. I marveled at how confidently he said those words. “That’s it? You’re not going to tell me why?” I crossed my arms under my breasts, my nose wrinkled. “How helpful of you.” Golden Man’s gaze flicked to my cleavage as quickly as it returned to my face. He smiled when he noticed that I’d seen him, but it wasn’t a friendly smile. “You seem intelligent enough to understand what I meant,” he said. Before I could demand to know Golden Man’s name and why he felt the need to be rude to his deceased employer’s granddaughter, I heard the robot-butler say behind me, “Miss Gallagher? There you are. Mr. McDonnell has been looking for you for the past twenty minutes.” Golden Man had returned to his post, and I watched him for a moment longer as he pruned some fancy-looking bush full of red flowers. Golden Man’s identity would have to wait—for now.