Liliana, the cheerful sixteen-year-old daughter of an earl, has no interest in attending the royal family's matchmaking ball. She dreams of marrying for love like her parents did, and her doting father and brothers do everything they can to help her blend into the wallpaper. They dress her in a drab, unfashionable gown and hope she will be completely overlooked. At the ball, Liliana worries less about captivating the feared Crown Prince William, known throughout the kingdom as the Ice Prince, and more about filling up on the palace's exceptional cuisine. Her scheme backfires spectacularly. The famously cold and disinterested prince chooses her precisely because of her efforts to seem dull, finding her a refreshing and genuine alternative to the other ambitious noblewomen.

Liliana is horrified. William is a master of the pen and sword but is notoriously terrible at understanding emotions, and he has long viewed women as untrustworthy nuisances. Desperate to break the engagement, Liliana agrees to a private meeting with him, hoping her unvarnished, unladylike true self will finally make him change his mind. Instead, her plan takes an unexpected turn when William catches her unabashedly devouring a plate of pastries. In that moment of pure gluttony, he stops seeing her as a scheming woman and begins to view her as something entirely different: a small, adorable animal, like a squirrel or a hamster. This shift in perspective completely changes his behavior. The aloof prince begins treating his new fiancée with an awkward tenderness, hand-feeding her cookies and patting her on the head, much to her confusion and the shock of the entire court.

Set in the European-style fantasy Kingdom of Zavanni, the story revolves around this odd and comical relationship. The more Liliana tries to put William off with talk of nose hair or by enlisting the help of his younger brother José, the more intrigued and attached the prince becomes. A major narrative arc begins with the arrival of Princess Marianne from the Kingdom of Belluno. Marianne's hidden agenda is to monopolize William's time and become his new fiancée, leading to a painful misunderstanding when Liliana sees them together. However, in a mature twist on typical shojo drama, the conflict is resolved not with jealous outbursts but through William's guard and even Marianne herself insisting the couple communicate. William and Liliana sit down, explain their perspectives, apologize, and reaffirm their commitment to one another, even working together to open a school for underprivileged children.