Brock whistled. “She’s going to kick your ass when she finds out you’ve kept her father a secret for all this time. Actually, I’m surprised Patty hasn’t figured it out.”
“Me too.” I knew she would figure it out soon. If I told her everything when her friends were near, that might help. But she was still going to be pissed at me.
“So, what do you need help with?” Brock asked.
“Patty’s transfer of powers. Also, I need deep background checks run on everyone. We should start with people who work closest with Patty and me.”
“Really?” He sounded surprised. “Patty is finally becoming queen? That’s strange that Jessica didn’t tell me about that.”
I couldn’t help but wince. But her safety was the most important thing. Patty spent most of her days in meetings, cleaning up the mess left from her father’s lack of leadership.
“She doesn’t know.” I ran a hand through my hair. “King Beckett came back last week and thinks it would be better for her to be crowned before we get married.”
“Dude, like I said earlier, she is going to kill you. Maybe you should call Antonio and tell him not to get on the plane because Kat might bring the alligator to bury the evidence.”
I ignored that comment. “She’s had enough to worry about for the past few years. Knowing her dad was connecting with his kids isn’t something she should have to deal with.”
“I haven’t looked at the file in a while. How many did you find?”
“Five. I’m sure King Beckett has kept a few key people from me also. I’m not sure why and haven’t had the time to dig into it deeper. My one concern was him inviting her siblings to the wedding. Patty doesn’t need to find out about them that way. But he promised that wouldn’t happen. When or if Patty and Jessica want to meet them, they can.”
“Are you going to tell Patty about them before the wedding so she can make the decision if she wants them there?”
“I haven’t decided when I’m going to tell Patty.”
My future wife used that exact moment to walk into the office, her gray eyes glaring in my direction. I was fucked and not in the way I wanted to be—even though the second she walked in the door, my dick hardened.
“Fuck,” I grumbled into the phone.
“She walked in?”
“Yes.”
Deep, rich laughter floated through the phone. “See you soon. Don’t worry about calling Antonio. I’ll take care of everything.”
Patty sat down in the chair in front of my desk. She wore a light-pink fitted dress. Her blond hair hung over her shoulders. Patty hadn’t dyed it a funky color since giving birth to our precious little girl.
“Haven’t told me what?” she asked.
I dodged the question. “How’s my little girl?” I asked, knowing Patty would have stopped by the nanny before coming to my office.
“Don’t distract me with our little girl.”
“How was your meeting?” I asked, knowing she had just finished a meeting with the chair of the environmental community, a group she’d put together to oversee the mines.
She narrowed her eyes. “Fine. Who were you talking to?”
“Brock. Everyone is going to come a week early.”
“Why won’t you tell me what’s going on, Sam? If you and my father expect me to run this country, I need to know everything. These meetings behind closed doors need to stop.”
“I’m not trying to keep you out of the loop.”
“Then when were you going to tell me about the missing women and girls?” She pushed up her black-rimmed glasses. The fact that she hadn’t given me a kiss told me she’d been pissed before she even walked in. But it was more than anger directed at me—she was hurt.
Because I’m fucking hiding things.
“Come here, Pixie,” I said.
She studied me for a second before walking across my office. I pulled her onto my lap and pressed a kiss to her lips. “That’s more like it.”
“I’m still mad at you,” she murmured against my lips.
“You have enough to worry about. I’m taking care of it. Brock and Antonio are coming early along with your sister.”
I never wanted to hurt Patty. She was the star in my dark world. Given what she’d been through the last five years, I knew the kidnappings would weigh heavily on her shoulders, and I didn’t want her to have to deal with more stress. I had a feeling she was also keeping a secret from me, but I didn’t press her about it. I was waiting for her to tell me. I rested my hand on her flat belly, which wouldn’t be flat much longer.
“When are they getting in?” she asked.
“Friday night. Maybe we can take a few days to ourselves before everyone gets here.”
“I’d like that.” She was opening her mouth to say something else when a loud knock sounded on my office door. Patty tried to stand, but I kept my arm wrapped around her waist so she couldn’t. She didn’t fight me.
Wes stepped into the office, and he looked at Patty. “Sorry, there’s an issue with Kinley.”
I glanced at the screen. The playroom was empty. My heart beat a million miles a minute. I needed to find my daughter.
2
Patty
“Explain how Kinley got hold of the glitter again,” Sam said.
I winced, knowing her latest infraction was totally my fault. I’d bought Kinley a mixture of glitter bottles when we went to the craft store after watching a YouTube video on how to make a glitter bomb. But she wasn’t supposed to take them to daycare.
The nanny glared back at Sam. I bit my cheeks, trying to stop myself from laughing. Cara had glitter falling from her hair and on her cheek. I really wanted to know how one of the kids had put a perfect a pink glitter handprint on her face.
Cara cleared her throat. “The glitter isn’t the only—”
“I would watch the next words that come out of your mouth,” Sam growled.
Our daughter had a mischievous side, but she was Sam’s little girl and could do no wrong. Even when she pushed her doll down the toilet and flooded the bathroom. Or the time she tied her babysitter to the chair using Sam’s bondage rope. This also wasn’t the first time we’d been called to the head nanny's office and more than likely wouldn’t be the last.
Cara ignored Sam’s growl and continued. “Kinley needs discipline. It’s unacceptable, what she did today.”
Dealing with my daughter’s mischievousness was so much easier than running Shialia. I missed living in Fort Lauderdale, where nobody required me every second of the day. And the media didn’t report on every little thing I did wrong. The previous week, the press had been up in arms because I wore four-inch heels—one inch over the royal standard.
Change needed to happen, but it didn’t happen with the wave of a sparkly scepter. Nope, I had to go through the royal council, which was made up of men not wanting any type of change. They demanded that my father come back.
“Did you listen to a word I said?” Cara yelled, running a hand over her face. The action did nothing to decrease the amount of glitter stuck to her. Nope. She’d added another layer, and the handprint was still intact.
Fortunately, Kathy, my right-hand person in Shialia, had taken over my engagements for the day. I initially asked her to step in so I could deal with the fact that Sam was keeping valuable information from me. But instead of figuring out what we need to do next, I was talking to this woman about glitter. There was no way I could hold my laughter much longer.
“How exactly did the glitter get everywhere again?” I asked as our little girl walked into the room, covered in pink glitter.
She climbed up onto Sam’s lap, and the big guy just smiled down at her as she planted a kiss on his cheek. “Mommy, I made the glitter bomb from your tube.”
Sam glanced at me and raised an eyebrow. “Why did you plug the sink, dear?” he asked our daughter.
“Because I was trying to feed the fish we dumped down the drain yesterday,” she said as if her explanation made a
ll the sense in the world.
“Can we get back to the fact that your daughter made a glitter bomb?” the nanny grumbled.
“Sweetie, you can’t make things like that in daycare.”
“Why, Mom? It’s so much funnier than painting,” Kinley pouted.
“You know this isn’t the first time we’ve had issues like this. How is Kinley supposed to be queen one day when she doesn’t listen?” Cara was new to the staff. The previous head nanny had retired after working for the palace for fifty years.
“Let’s get one thing straight. You are here to watch the kids, make sure they are getting an education, and provide any help they need. Deciding if my daughter is following royal protocol is not part of your job. So if you ever make another comment about Kinley and her future as queen, we will be having a different conversation.”
“You can’t sit here and think this is acceptable,” Cara said to Sam.
I wasn’t sure if it was from the morning meeting, during which the cabinet of men had ignored me, or the fact that my husband was keeping valuable information from me, but I was sick of people not listening to me.
“Let’s get one thing straight. My husband and I work as a team. So what I think, he thinks. You had a chance to keep your job, but the second you decided to try to set Sam and me against each other, it was over. Wes, please make sure to escort Cara out of the palace and remove her access.”
Wes chuckled. “At this rate we’re going to need a whole new staff.”
Sam shook his head and mouthed, “I’ll tell you later.”
My mind was on the current staff member disrespecting me in front of my daughter. What Kinley had done was wrong, but it was also creative. My daughter had built her own glitter bomb.
My little girl was the most important thing in the world to me, and soon, she wouldn’t be the only one running around the palace. My hand went to my stomach. But now wasn’t the time to think about how our lives would change again.
Cara’s shriek took me out of my thoughts. Her lip turned. “You can’t fire me. I have an iron-clad contract. The palace has to keep me employed for four years.”
I knew the contract she was talking about. It also had an additional clause that worked in my favor. This might be the first time a rule had worked for me. “See, this is where you are wrong. In that same contract, it says that at any time, if you disrespect the queen or her kin, the contract becomes void. Since you disrespected me by addressing Sam instead of both of us, your contract is void.”
“You think you won, but you didn’t. My lawyers will be contacting you.”
Wes walked over, grabbed Cara by the arm, and pushed her out of the room.
Seeing Kinley in Sam’s arms brought peace to my hectic world. My sexy husband's black suit was covered in pink glitter, and his eyes were on me with the hungry look he’d get before pulling me into a bedroom. But those weren’t feelings we could deal with at the moment. We had to talk to Kinley about what she’d done wrong.
“Okay, Kinley. Let’s talk about what you did today,” I said.
She scrunched her nose. “I fed the fish in the sink. I painted a picture of a dog I want, and I played with glitter.”
I glanced at Sam, who was laughing. “Sweetie, I meant we need to talk about what you did wrong.”
“But, Mom, I didn’t do anything wrong. I also made a second one for Chris. You keep telling me I have to share.” Her big brown eyes were staring me down.
I reached over and wiped a few pieces of glitter off her face. “Sweetie, we want you to share toys. And play nice with others in your class. Building a glitter bomb is not something you should do alone.”
“I wasn’t alone. Cara was in the room the whole time. While she was on her phone, Chris and I built it.”
Sam’s growl brought my attention from my daughter to her overprotective dad. “Did she leave you alone often to use the phone?” he asked.
“Sometimes.” Kinley shrugged her little shoulders. “But she said not to talk about it or the man.”
I held back my anger. Cara had been recommended by the last family she’d worked for. She also had recommendations from other prominent families. She’d even passed the royal background check. Now I worried about anyone we found to replace her.
Kathy, the previous head nanny, had worked at the palace for years. She’d been nanny to Jessica and me when we came to Shialia during the summer months. We considered her a second mother, and I was ecstatic that she helped take care of Kinley in the beginning. But her husband became ill, and she’d retired to take care of him.
We would figure out another alternative. But until then, Sam and I would have to take turns watching our girl. Many of the palace staff would help. Life would be so much easier if we packed up and headed back to Florida, where my sister and close friends lived. Over the years, I’d tried making friends with many people in Shialia, but everyone treated me like I was the boss and they couldn’t speak to me. Nobody joked around or played pranks on each other. Everything felt off, and Sam had started keeping things from me.
I held back a sigh. Most people would die for the opportunity I had, but some days, I felt ungrateful and wished for another life. At times, I wanted my father to come back and run Shialia, but he’d done such a shitty job that I’d spent the last few years cleaning up his messes. I worried that if he did come back, he would do what he’d done before, letting everyone else make decisions for him.
“Am I in trouble?” Kinley asked, her little bottom lip trembling.
I pushed away all my issues and concentrated on my daughter. “You know what you did today was wrong. When I bought the glitter, I told you we were going to work on the project together.”
“You promised me we would build it last week.” Kinley remembered every little thing I said and would use it against me.
I closed my eyes, holding back the tears. Is running Shialia causing me to be a bad mother? Is that the reason Mom wants us to live in the states, far away from my Shialia? I would do anything for Kinley and Sam. I needed to sit down and really decide if all of this was worth what my family had to go through. No matter how much I tried, I kept letting someone down.
My hand went to my stomach. How am I going to raise two kids? Hell, I haven’t even told Sam, because we’ve barely had any time together.
Sam reached over and pulled my hand away and pressed it to his lips. The minor gesture did nothing to help with the tears in my eyes. He was my strength, but we hadn’t been on the same page for the last year. Something was missing, and we weren’t trying to fix it. We spent our time fixing everyone else’s problems. Life was running me over like a freight train, and I hadn’t figured out how to get out of its path.
“Sweetie, we will talk about this tonight over dinner. For now, you need to go with Wes and clean up the mess you made in the classroom. You will also need to apologize to the other nannies.”
Kinley’s bottom lipped trembled. “I’m sorry, Mommy.”
“I know, but you still need to help clean up.” I turned to Wes as he walked back into the room. I trusted Sam’s second-in-command, but the way he looked at me was strange sometimes—not as a love interest but more like he was trying to figure me out and was listening to every word.
“Can you watch Kinley for the rest of the day?” I asked him.
Wes was just over six feet tall, and his blond hair was trimmed short. That day, he wore a black suit. He was built—I’d seen him in the gym with Sam over the years—but the strong, deadly SEAL melted at the hands of my daughter.
His face lit up as he pulled Kinley off Sam’s lap, not caring about the glitter sticking to her. “Let’s go clean up your mess,” he joked as they walked out of the room.
In the last few years, I’d spent a considerable chunk of my time fixing everything in Shialia. In the beginning, the gem mines weren’t running, and most people in the country were unemployed. Poverty and people living on the streets were at an all-time high. It took me a few months to get th
e mines back open and operating, and then the number of unemployed decreased.
I loved Shialia. For years, I’d stayed away, knowing that one day I might have to take over. If I’d come around more, maybe things wouldn’t have gotten this bad.
Sam stood from his chair and pulled me up with him. My head rested against his chest. Instead of facing the issues between us, I wanted to curl up in bed with him and forget about everything except us. But the vibrating in my pocket was a reminder that there were no breaks for me.
“Hey, Pixie.” Sam ran his hand down my back. “Let’s head out to the gardens and talk.”
My mind went back to my cellphone and the many times I’d felt it vibrate and ding with incoming emails. But everything could wait. I needed time with Sam. This would be an excellent opportunity to tell him about my secret. We’d both promised not to keep things from each other, and now we were both keeping secrets. It was time to talk.
I nodded. Sam smiled at me before he leaned down and flipped me over his shoulder. The position gave him the perfect opportunity to smack my ass—another thing we hadn’t done in a while. Sam had outfitted a dungeon close to our room, but we hadn’t used it in over a year. Maybe that was the connection I missed.
I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t hear what Sam said. “Sorry, what?” I asked, brushing my hands on his rock hard ass. Sam was even sexier than he’d been the day we met.
“You’re mine for the rest of the day.” His hand landed on my ass.
God, I missed him. That simple action sent a wave of need through my body.
Sam exited through the side door into the gardens, one of my favorite places to think. Nobody had access to this section of the palace grounds but me and my immediate family. Monday’s staff would mow and clean the area, but nobody could come back here any other time.
He flipped me back onto my feet, and we sat down in the grass. Sam peeled off his black suit jacket and rolled up his white sleeves. My eyes went to the tattoo on his arm with our daughter's name. In a matter of months, another name would be there under Kinley’s.
Hacker Wedding Page 2
