by R. S. Lively
“I am your only son. Nice try,” I say with a half-smile.
My mother stares at me with concern. Her brows are drawn into a frown, and her big blue eyes are round with worry. I lean down and kiss her forehead. “I promise. I’m okay.”
“Is it a girl?” she asks as I walk away, stopping me in my tracks.
“What?”
“Is it a girl? It’s the only other thing I can think of. You were only there for a day, but a lot can happen in a day. Is there someone your heart yearns for, Mon Amour?” She clutches my hand, begging me to answer.
The desperation in her voice makes me turn around. I didn’t realize I had been acting different, but maybe I am more bothered by not knowing more about the woman who stole my heart, like a thief in the night. I take a deep breath and nod, saying,“Oui, mother. I met a woman. A beautiful woman, but I only know her first name. All I have are the memories of her beauty.”
“Oh, my boy,” my mother says to me as if her heart breaks for me, too.
I take her hands from my face and hold them. “I’m okay. It is a silly thing to be bothered by. I don’t really know her. We shared a few laughs and a few dances, but then she disappeared, running into the night after getting a phone call about her father. I never got to ask for more information.”
“Luca,” my mother says, her voice heavy with a French accent. “There is nothing silly about the matters of the heart.” She places her hand over my chest. “Your heart yearns for the one that made it beat stronger, louder and better.” I adore my mother. I love how she sees romance in everything because she helps me see it, too.
I cover her hand with mine, feeling a bit lighter as I tell her what has been weighing on me. “Oui, Mother. It yearns.” And once I have Rosie again, because I will have her again, I’m never letting her go. She is going to be mine. She is meant to be mine.
“She will come back to you when the time is right. Je t’aime,” my mom says. She wraps her arms around me and squeezes me so tight; I feel her love right away.
“Je t’aime aussi,” I reply to her before placing a kiss on her cheek. “I’m going to go. I have a few phone calls to make.” I need to leave because the memory of Rosie is too much.
My expensive shoes pound on the floor as I stride down the archway of the hall. My mom always knows how to make me feel like a little boy again. I’m a thirty-year-old man, and she single-handedly just turned me into a pile of goo. I’m a tough man like my father—a bit cold, and possessive of the ones I love.
But put my mom in front of me? I'm turning into a mama’s boy. Everyone in the castle knows it, too. I’m not ashamed of it. My mom is my world. If anything ever happened to her, I’d lose my sanity.
I remember what she said about ‘when the time is right, she will come to you,’ but a part of me doesn’t believe it. It has already been three months. Rosie has probably moved on by now. The thought of her with another man makes me see red. I don’t have a right to say that, seeing as we only shared a kiss together. No promises were made, but that kiss twisted my reality of love.
I need to forget about her, because I know I won’t see her again. The chances are too slim. She is in some small town in Montana, and I’m in Belgium. That’s the reality. Love has no expectations in this situation.
Letting out a deep breath, I take my time going down the swirling staircase, rubbing the pearl bracelet between my fingers as I shove my hand into my right pocket. I’ve obsessed over this bracelet, and it is time to let it go.
“Prince Luca!” Marcel calls for me. He’s our assistant. Assistants to the royal family are almost like royalty themselves. They get treated with the same respect. It’s an honor to be the assistant, and Marcel is excellent at his job.
Pausing, I look over my shoulder to see him briskly walking towards me. He pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabs his forehead. “Bonjour, Prince Luca,” he greets me as he bows.
“Bonjour, Marcel. Is everything okay?” I ask. Marcel doesn’t usually seem so out of sorts, but today he is all over the place.
“We have guests coming tomorrow, and we have a problem with the gate.”
“The main gate?” The main gate is the one that lowers from the castle and over the creek. It is through there that we get our goods, food, drinks, and clothes, but most importantly, it’s the point where guests enter. “What’s wrong with it? Walk with me.” I take an immediate left down the corridor to hear more about the problem.
“Yes, Prince. I’m not sure. We are trying to lower it, but it’s jammed, and we can’t seem to find what is wrong with it.”
“Well, it cannot be the chains. We just replaced them.” This stupid draw bridge has been a pain in my ass my entire life. Father refuses to replace it with an actual door because of all the work it will take to build the road to connect one side to the other. But what he isn’t considering is that in the long run, it will be better, and we can hire people of our community to do it. We will be helping and adding to their lives. It’s something so simple, yet he says he doesn’t have time for it because of all the relations he’s busy building with other countries.
I disagree with him on that. When I’m the king, my sole focus will be on my country and what my people need. Starting with the damn bridge. My father is a great king and an even better leader, but over the years, he has lost sight of what is most important.
“I think the issue is just the age of it, Prince.”
Our footsteps echo in the hall until we get to the bridge. I pinch the bridge of my nose when I see it's halfway open. The guards on the other side are yelling at each other in French, not getting anything done. Placing my hands on my hips, I sigh in frustration and look at the mechanism that lets the bridge go up and down. I trail my eyes over the chains, but everything seems fine. “Okay, I’m going outside,” I say as I reach for the door handle next to the bridge, but Marcel stops me.
“Sire, without protection?” he says with wide eyes, like it is absolutely horrific that I would go outside on my own. He takes his job seriously—I’ll give him that.
“Marcel, I’ll be fine. How many guards are out there?”
“Right, Your Highness. Of course. I apologize.”
“Stop being so formal, Marcel. You’ve been the assistant for ten years now.”
“I’m the assistant because I am formal, Prince. I do not wish to jeopardize that by becoming too comfortable, if I say so myself.”
I let out a small laugh and nod. “Okay, Marcel. Do as you wish.” I turn the handle, bending down so I don’t hit my head on the cement trim as I step outside. The sun is shining, beaming down warmth onto my skin. I close my eyes, basking in the yellow rays of the ball of fire.
Armor clinks together, and it makes me open my eyes. The guards haven’t seen me yet, and I haven’t determined if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. They are acting like a bunch of misfits. One is gripping onto the bridge, feet dangling in the air as she tries to pull it down. How are they trained as royal guard?
The sound of slashing diverts my attention to the water, and I see one of my guards crawling onto land. “You have got to be kidding me.” What an embarrassment. “What is the reason for this?” I spit, making sure authority oozes from my words.
“Prince!” they shout, standing at attention. The one dangling off the bridge isn’t able to, though, since he is in the air. Another is dripping with water, and the others are red-faced from yelling at one another. “We weren’t expecting you, Prince.”
“It’s a good thing I made a surprise visit then. Is this how you act when we are not around?”
Their eyes bug out. “No, Prince. We were trying to fix the bridge before Mr. Marcel got to you, Sire.” They bow, and I notice they are worried about being royally fucked. I internally chuckle at my own pun. I really need to get out more.
“I do not appreciate this kind of behavior in front of my home. You are at work. I trust you to keep me, my family, and the kingdom safe. How can I count on you when you are
hopping around and dangling off bridges? Get down from there, will you? I don’t care that you might fall into the water. You knew that chance when you jumped up there.”
“Yes, Prince,” he says. He doesn’t hesitate to let go. His heavy, armored body falls into the body of water beneath us.
He lands in the lake with a big splash, and I redirect my attention to the other guards. “You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
“Yes, Sire,” they say in unison, backs straight and chins held high.
“I won’t have the guards make my family look like idiots. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Sire,” they say again.
“Good. Now, call Julian. He’s the one that fixed the damn thing last time. It better be fixed by tomorrow. We have guests coming.” I turn my back on them and almost forget to duck my head as I walk through the doorway.
Once back inside, I pat my pocket to make sure the bracelet is still there. It’s days like today where I wonder how I don’t lose my mind.
Chapter Six
Rosie
“Thank you for calling Kimmel. This is Rosie. How can I help you today?” I try to say it in the happiest tone I can muster, but it’s hard. Today has been a hard day.
“Rosie?”
I sit up straighter and look around to make sure my boss isn’t near. “Alice? Alice, is that really you?” Tears prickle my eyes when I hear my best friend’s voice. I haven’t spoken to her in months, and the last time, it was through a letter. I honestly didn’t think I’d ever speak to her again. “Please tell me that’s you.”
“It’s me. It’s so good to hear your voice. I’m sorry I’ve been gone for so long,” she whispers.
Alice has been gone for six years. She's been away at some military camp. Her parents aren’t the most supportive people, and when they found out she was friends with me, they sent her away. After a year of being at the camp, she ran away, and she has been hiding away in Europe ever since. At least, that’s what her last postcard said. She knows what happened to my father and she knows where I work because in the last postcard I sent her, I gave her the number to reach me if she needed me, along with my new address.
“Where are you? Are you home?” Home meaning in the general sense of America.
“No. I’m in Australia. I really love it here. I might stay.”
A part of me knows I might not ever see her again but hearing her confirm it hurts more than I thought. It doesn’t matter that I’ve prepared myself over the years. No amount of time can prepare for truth.
“You’re okay, though... right? You’re safe?” I ask, looking to see if my boss is around. I will get in trouble if he finds me on my phone.
“Yes, I promise. I have a new number. It's a burner phone,” she explains as she rattles off the number, and I write it down. I hate that she is going through this. I told her she didn’t have to do this, that if it meant having a life instead of being friends with me, then we shouldn’t be friends.
She refused, saying that me being part of her life wasn’t the only problem. She came from an abusive household, and when they didn’t want her anymore, they shipped her away. I’ve only been keeping in contact with her through handwritten letters and postcards.
“You swear you’re okay? Who are you staying with?”
Someone mutters something in the background, and she agrees with them. “Listen, I need to go. I’ll call you, okay?”
“Alice—” I start to say, but she hangs up on me, and I’m not able to ask her any more questions.
I stare at the receiver, wondering if that conversation just happened. The door opens to the office, and Graham Kimmel walks through the door. “I hope that isn’t a personal phone call, Ms. Caldwell.”
“No, sir. Wrong number is all. It threw me off. They said something kind of off-putting.” I put the phone down with a soft click. Graham Kimmel is a very powerful man, one who makes me nervous. Authority in general makes me skittish, not because I don’t want to listen, but because I’m afraid. I just want people of authority to glance over me like an afterthought. I guess a part of me wonders if they can really be trusted.
Mr. Kimmel is very young for running such an empire. He is handsome in a devilish sense. He has olive skin, dark eyes, dark hair, high cheekbones, and a pointed chin. He reminds me of Joker from Batman. His features are very menacing, like he is always up to something and his face is just giving it away. It makes my skin crawl.
“Ah, another threat? Don’t worry. They aren’t toward you. Remember that.”
It wasn’t a threat, but he doesn’t need to know that. “Yes, Mr. Kimmel.”
“You know you can call me Graham, right?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t feel right about that, sir.”
“Why? Too personal for the business world?” he asks, sauntering around the desk until he’s behind me. I gulp, wondering what he will do. “I want us to be friends, Rosie. We work in close proximity. There’s no need for us to be so formal.” He places his hands on my shoulders and starts to rub them.
My anxiety makes me freeze, and I stay still in a panic. I don’t show my nervousness though. He is a touchy-feely type of guy. Maybe this is how he communicates. What right do I have to judge someone I don’t know?
My gut screams that this guy is bad news, but I need a job. I have Jesse to take care of now. “I don’t know if that is smart, Mr.—” I clear my throat, saying, “Graham. Your clients might hear me and think it is inappropriate. I don’t want to be the reason you lose clients, and what if you fire me? I need this job, sir.”
He pats my shoulders, and I feel him move, and before I know it, his lips are next to my ear. “You’re the best secretary I’ve ever had. You aren’t going anywhere.” At the very end of the sentence, there is the slightest hint of a growl. It’s a promise, maybe a threat. He removes his hands from my body and makes his way around the desk, standing in front of me again. “I have a proposition for you.”
I twirl a piece of my hair around my finger, which is a nervous habit of mine, and I meet his eyes. “Sir?”
“I do like it when you call me that,” he says with a wink.
I try to smile, hiding how uncomfortable he makes me. “How can I assist you?” My voice dips and cracks with nerves, but he doesn’t notice.
“I have a trip tomorrow.”
“Yes, you are going to Belgium. How exciting!” I say earnestly. I’ve never been out of the States. Traveling is the dream. What I would give to go somewhere that isn’t here.
“I am,” he says as he thumps his hands in rhythm on the counter and bites his bottom lip into his mouth before he speaks. “I want you to come with me.”
An equal amount of fear and excitement take over. I want to go, but being alone with him on a plane? My gut screams no. “Oh, I don’t know. I have my little brother to look after. You know, it’s just me and him. I have to be here.”
“Right. I know. I know. I find that very admirable of you by the way. I would make it worth your while. I’ll give you five thousand upfront before we go, and that should help your brother, right? We will only be gone for a couple of weeks. He can make it on his own for two weeks.”
Wow, five thousand dollars? The look of shock on my face must show because he tosses his head back and laughs. “I know. It’s a lot, but it is a big trip. I would have to pay for your time and skills. I really need you out there. It’s a very important trip, and I don’t trust anyone else to take on the task.” He knows he has me. He had me at five grand.
Jesse and I can really use that money. He needs new clothes. I’m behind on electric, if only by a few weeks, and I can get him a new bed since his mattress has bed bugs. He’s old enough where he can take care of himself, but I don’t want him to think I’m abandoning him. I glance at the clock to see it’s four in the afternoon. I have time to talk to Jesse and let Mr. Kimmel know. “I would love to go. I just need to talk to my brother to make sure he can handle it on his own. Can I let you know by six this evening? He actually has
the night off from work, so it would be a good time to catch him.”
His eyes don’t give anything away. They are dark and ominous, swirling with something evil. I can’t put my finger on why, though. After a few seconds, he gives me a big grin. “Absolutely. No later than six. I really need to know.”
“Of course, I will let you know as soon as possible. Right when I get off work, I’ll go straight home and talk to him.”
“How about you go now?” he moves his body, twisting it to the side, supporting his weight on his elbow.
“I have another hour left, Mr.— Uh, Graham. Sorry, that will take some getting used to.” I laugh off the slip.
He waves his hand like it isn’t a big deal, acting calm and collected. “It’s fine. It’s only an hour. The sooner I know the answer, the better.”
I grab my purse from the floor and get up. It’s impossible not to feel his gaze on me. “Thank you. I appreciate it. I’ll call you soon. He should be home.”
“I look forward to it, Rosie,” he says as I walk by him. “I can’t wait for this trip.” He says it low and deep, like he’s holding back his self−control.
“Yeah, it should be good,” I don’t look back. If I do, I know the look on his face will bother me. I press the button the elevator. When it dings, I step on and turn around, pressing the button to the lobby floor. I keep my head down, and when the elevator doors start to close, I tilt my head up and Graham is right in front of the door, staring at me with a hungry glare as the metal slides closed.
A gust of air leaves my lungs, and I steady myself on the wall. My instincts scream at me not to go with him on this trip, but five thousand dollars is too much to pass up. I can deal with him for a few days to get that money.
I think about everything we need as I walk the seven blocks home. The streets smell like car exhaust and gasoline. Homeless people come up to me and ask for money, and I wish I could give them some, but I can’t. I need every dime too. I cross my arms and keep my head down, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone because if I do, people will talk to me.
