by Winter James
“Yes, I’m here.” The phone line crackles. I wonder if it’s being recorded. They’re probably collecting evidence against me to take to the prince. No, they’re definitely collecting it. Shit. Dread rears up and chokes me and I fight it off.
“Time’s up. Get the file by tonight, or someone will come get you in the morning to sell you off to the highest bidder. Or someone will be by to visit with the prince, let him know you’re a traitor, and recommend that you’ll be executed.”
“You—you said I had three days.”
“That’s no longer possible. Tonight, or face the consequences.”
“I—”
The call clicks off and I shove the phone quickly back into its pocket, my hands shaking. Tonight. Tonight. How the hell am I going to get on his laptop tonight? It’s ten feet from his bed. This bed. The one I’m standing next to right now.
The closed laptop seems transformed into one of those creepy paintings, its eyes following me while I make up the prince’s bed. If I have to do it now, then I have to do it now. My face heats and my heartbeat drowns out everything else. There’s no telling who might walk in here, but the room is quiet for the moment. I just have to open the laptop, search for the file, and send it to that email. If I hurry, I can be done in two minutes and nobody will be the wiser.
If I hurry, I can send the email and be out the back entrance of the palace before anybody notices I’m gone, least of all the prince.
I buy myself a few more precious seconds fluffing his pillows, then walk back into the hall to make sure there are no other maids and no other staff moving through his rooms. The silence presses in on me until it becomes a sound. It’s too hard to tell, damn it. My brain makes up the click of the door opening, of footsteps in the foyer, but nobody comes in. It’s just the noise my body makes when it’s on edge—the pounding heart, the racing thoughts. That’s all, that’s all.
It’s silly, darting back into the room on light feet, but I do it anyway, my heart in my throat. My fingertips slip and I don’t get the laptop open on the first try. If this thing isn’t on, if it takes several minutes to boot up, then I am fucked. I’ve never been the praying kind of girl but I concentrate all my thoughts on sending goodwill toward the sky. If there’s ever been a time when I need divine intervention it’s right now. Please, God, help me be a good spy for just this one moment.
The screen blinks on and I let out a huge breath that I’ve been holding. Prayer answered. Okay. File name. Email. My phone takes its sweet time loading the text message onto the screen. The messaging app crashes a couple times, and then it’s steady. I have everything I need. Half my attention is locked on the door, searching for any indication of movement. I need all my focus on the screen, so I can get this damn file and get back to my life. I’ve been using all kinds of rundown computers at internet cafés on this trip. This one is new. Too new. I don’t know how to search for a file. Figuring it out eats up a precious thirty seconds and the filename that’s on my phone is a nonsensical string of letters and numbers.
What other choice do I have? I type in the first five, glancing back and forth between keyboard and phone to make sure I’ve got it right. The search window on the computer shows a long list of files. Shit. Of course the Prince of Belleza has access to thousands of files. Maybe millions. If they all use this weird naming convention then I have zero room for a typo. Sweat beads at my hairline on the back of my neck. I’ve been in sketchy situations before, but I never thought that my life would come down to my ability to type in the name of some random file on a royal computer. Even searching for this is probably treason. At the very least it could earn me another punishment from Prince Sebastian and I doubt he would care that my ass still smarts from the first one.
My heart won’t stop pounding no matter how much I try to pretend this is just a run-of-the-mill data entry task at one of the numerous temp jobs I’ve held over the years. Accuracy is important in a temp job, since the less noticeable you are, the easier it is to keep the temp job. This is the equivalent of one order for a starter pack of essential oils.
I get the number typed in.
The file is right there, in the search bar.
Okay. Think.
I need to open it up, attach it to an email, and send it. And then I’m going to have to erase the evidence of that email. View file. The folder that contains the file pops up, a field of similar files on the screen. Right click. Attach to email. Another window takes over the screen. Prince Sebastian’s email account. Oh my god. Obviously I can’t send it from my personal gmail account, obviously, obviously. But I can’t leave my tracks here in his email for him to find anyway. My stomach lurches. Whoever it was in that basement didn’t just plan for me to commit treason—they planned for me to get caught, too. If I rush through this, if I don’t think—
No time to think. Only time for action. I type in the email address in the TO field and hit send. Are you sure you want to send this email without a header? Yes, god, I’m sure. Whoever receives this won’t need a header. I hit send again. This message does not contain any text. Are you sure you want to proceed without text in the body of the email? Yes yes yes yes—
Footsteps.
Approaching.
Here.
Now.
I slam the laptop shut on instinct and turn wildly toward the big windows behind Prince Sebastian’s desk. Once again, I don’t have anything to clean them with. I’m just here, empty-handed. I lunge toward the curtains and pull down hard. Sure. Straightening curtains.
“The curtains are professionally cleaned,” snaps the head housekeeper, appearing in the door like a jailer. “What are you doing?”
“Just shaking them out a little bit.” And trying not to throw up. “Sorry, ma’am. Was there something you needed?”
She glares at me, obviously suspicious. “A delegation is arriving from France sooner than expected. I need you on guest rooms.”
“I’ll finish up in here and be there in a minute.”
It’s a Hail Mary toss, and like most Hail Mary tosses I get to have a brief second of hope where I think it’ll land and all this will be over and done.
The head housekeeper’s eyes flick toward the bathroom. Too late, I realize I’ve already done it all. She can smell the fresh cleanliness in the air. I can smell it. There’s no getting around the fact that I have done my job too well. I cast around for something else to do—anything else to do—and come up with nothing.
“You’ll come now,” she snaps, and turns away.
Right now is the last moment I’m going to have and I take one step toward the laptop, my entire body a nervous pulse. All I have to do is hit send on that damn thing, and I’ll be free. It’ll only take a second.
The head housekeeper looms back in through the doorway. “Now, Miss Boucher.”
I follow her, beaten, my head ringing with the sound of everything crumbling down around me. This is so bad. This is so, so bad. If Prince Sebastian touches his laptop, it’s over for me. I have to go back into his room tonight—sneak back in—and hope that he hasn’t found it yet. My heart beats harder, which I didn’t think was possible. I might not make it out of this. For the first time, I let myself know it completely. I might already be a dead woman.
Chapter Eight
Sebastian
The only thing I can do at the end of the day to try and get her out of my head is to fall asleep. My body fights me on it, not wanting to give up this obsession, and as soon as I’m asleep it assaults me with dreams.
Tessa, red-faced and questioning whether she should really bend over my desk—as if she had any choice.
Tessa, hastily wiping tears from her cheeks and rushing from the room barely covered up.
Tessa, Tessa, Tessa.
No matter how many times she leaves from the dream, she always returns again. Light footsteps, whisper soft, almost nothing on the soft rugs of my office. Please, she says in my dreams. You can’t. I can. I can do whatever the fuck I want to her, an
d in the dream there are no repercussions. There is no father razing the country to the ground. There’s only me and her body and that’s all I want out of this. To hurt her like she wants.
There’s a low rustle as she straightens up from the desk in my dream, but this time she puts her arms around my neck and leans her forehead into my skin and cries a little, begging. Something falls from the desk behind her. A cord hits the carpet. Every sound is magnified by a hundred but all of them are drowned out by the feel of her body against mine.
Someone is watching.
In my dream I turn to find out whose gaze is burning into my back and at the same time I sit up in my bed, heart racing. The dream falls away in fragments. The hair on the backs of my arms pulls up. There can’t be anyone in the room, because there are guards—there are people here at all hours of the day to make sure I’m not murdered in my bed for the crime of leading the country.
There’s no one there. My room is as still as it always is in the middle of the night, unless some national emergency has happened. On those nights my chief of staff knocks on the door at a volume loud enough to wake me but not so loud that it startles me. If we were under attack, if the weather had turned against us in some violent and unpredictable way, then he’d be here now, reading the details from the latest report in a voice that’s unfailingly calm and steady.
The door to the hall stands half-open. I’m sure I closed it when I came inside.
How sure, though? I’ve slept in this room every night for the last six years, except when I’m traveling for diplomatic ventures. I’ve been thinking of Tessa all damn day and now that I’m fully awake again it’s like I didn’t leave the dream. Or the dream has turned into a relentless replay of my memories, all of them tinged with an added layer of wanting.
Fuck, I can’t stand it. I get up from the bed and go into the bathroom, flicking on the light to the dimmest setting. No one would imagine a prince this way—feet planted in front of the toilet, hard cock in his fist. I pump it fast and hard because that’s what I need. No—I need Tessa, but I can’t have her. I cannot haul her out of her bed, shove her up against the wall, and fuck her. I cannot punish her again for stealing from me, knowing that what she’s stolen isn’t bread or apples. It’s a part of me I never intended to give up. Not to anyone. But what I wouldn’t give to see her ass reddening under my palm and her knuckles gripping the desk and that sweet, sweet—
I come in huge spurts, muscles clenching, the tension spilling out of me. It’s not enough. It will have to do for now.
Back in bed I settle on the pillows and dismiss the memories of her like I dismiss all of the other things and people that stand in the way of ruling the country. Except she won’t fucking go. And she brings so many questions with her. I want to fuck her, yes. I want to spank her, yes again. I want her to be a panting wreck on my sheets. And when I’ve sated myself I want to know where the hell she came from. I’ve never cared about the lives of my staff before—all of that is background, inessential to the job I need to do.
With Tessa, I want to know everything. How did an American end up working as a maid in my palace? Why does she smell like she’s never been touched in her life? What about being punished makes her come hard enough to cry?
And why did she steal my laptop?
The empty space on my desk is only evident after I turn on my side and stare blankly at the desk. Desk. Window. No laptop. The familiar hard ridge of it isn’t there. Moonlight shines on the empty stretch of desk.
I get out of bed and go over to touch it. It’s not fucking here. The memory of Tessa standing by the window, staring up at it like her life depended on it, hits me full force. Liar, liar. Who else would have taken it? Not the guards. Not anyone else who has access to this room. She’s the only piece that doesn’t fit, the only new person assigned to my quarters. The only one I’ve seen in here, hovering around, a suspicious lack of cleaning products in her hands.
I lean over the desk and take a deep breath. How? Nobody has been in here. There are two guards outside the door twenty-four hours a day. They wouldn’t have let someone in here unless they were a very convincing liar. Unless they had the perfect story. Pinpricks move up the back of my neck despite the empty room. I resist the urge to check again. There is no possible fucking way she’s hidden herself under the bed. Or that anyone has hidden themselves under the bed.
So it makes no sense that I pull on a pair of pants and stalk down the hall to the main entrance. I’ve always thought it was overkill to have guards inside the foyer. A leader can make his own decisions without a bodyguard sleeping at the end of his bed.
I pull open the door with more force than is technically necessary and both the guards jump.
“Your highness,” one says quickly. “Is everything—”
“Did you let someone in here?”
They exchange a glance that tells me everything I need to know. My fingertips are inches away from a concealed button on the inner door frame of the foyer. It’s the one that will send a backup guard running. Those men won’t ask questions. They’ll shoot and keep shooting until everyone but me is safely dead. I want to call them now and watch these two stupid fucks answer for their mistake. But I don’t. God help me, I don’t.
“How could you possibly think that breaking protocol would be an intelligent thing to do?” My blood boils, simmering under my skin until it’s too hot for my veins. “What do you think happens to people who commit treason by opening my own door to god knows what fucking threat?”
The second guard has gone ashen. “There was no threat, your highness. We had a specific request from the head housekeeper.”
I’m ready to take his head off. “Who did you let into my room.”
“A maid.” The first one’s voice sounds steadier, like he’s already accepted his imminent death. “She had linens with her.”
These two fools deserve worse than a hasty death for being so fucking careless, but something stops me at the outer edge of my rage. No one could refuse Tessa. I have more to lose than anyone when it comes to her, and I couldn’t keep myself from touching her. I take a deep breath and refrain from having them sent to prison for looking at her, for giving in to her. “A maid came to my room in the middle of the night carrying linens.”
They’re trying so hard not to look at each other, and a wave of disgust moves over me. These two men are old enough to have served in my father’s household. They were probably taught to look the other way when women came in and out of his rooms at all hours of the night. Never mind that Tessa had sheets with her as an excuse. Once again, my father’s idiotic legacy has made me and the rest of the country less secure.
“Move from your places, and I’ll have you tried for treason.”
The second one opens his mouth and earns himself a withering glare from the first. “Yes, your highness.” His voice trails after me. They’re supposed to follow me in the event I need to leave my quarters at night, but it seems as though they value their lives.
At this hour, the palace is quiet. My footsteps are nearly soundless under the vaulted ceilings. The ceilings themselves are one of the few reminders of the old ways in the palace. I’ve made it modern here. I’ve made it new and wiped away all the indiscretions of the past. No more corridors stuffed with ancient artifacts. No more wall hangings collecting dust. You can finally see the architecture laid bare. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
The door downstairs, to the staff sections of the building, blends in with the walls around it just as it’s meant to. It’s been years since I went down the wide set of stairs. Decades. I was a child then, following a different housekeeper. She’d promised me cookies, but she was really trying to keep me out of my father’s way. He was busy waiting for news on the birth of one of his bastards and didn’t want me underfoot. The tiled floors here don’t disguise that I’m coming, but as I reach the bottom of the stairs it’s clear that nobody’s noticed. If they had, they’d be rushing to do something, anything, to prepare
for my arrival.
Instead I face down an empty hallway, some of the doors labeled with neatly printed plates. The doors get closer together on the far end of the hallway, the rooms narrower.
A dim light sneaks from beneath the frame of one single door. The rest are dark.
Anger uncurls itself and adds another layer to the old fury that’s already been living in my bones. She fucking tricked me. She cried pretty tears and made me think she was sorry for what she’d done in the kitchen. I felt her come on my fingers. I felt her soak my fingers. And after all that, after everything, she still found it within her to conspire against me with my own guards.
And for what?
I want to stomp down the hall, wake them all up, let everyone know what she’s done, but I don’t. I quiet my footfalls on the way down to the spill of light on the floor. Shadows break the light up like clouds over the sun—she’s pacing back and forth. What is there to think about now? She’s already committed the crime.
I burst through the door like I own every bit of what’s inside because I do own every bit of what’s inside, down to the bolts on the bed and the clothes Tessa wears as she gasps. Her hands fly up to her mouth to cover a scream. I wrench her hand down and press in close to her. That mouth is mine, and it will answer to me.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice, you treasonous thief?”
She looks at my hand around her delicate wrist and back to my eyes. All I can think about is her skin against mine and how much I want to push her back onto the narrow bed and fuck her right now for all her disobedience.
“No,” she says, voice shaking. “I knew you would notice. And you’d despise me. I had to do it anyway.” The laptop watches us from the slim bedside table.
It’s the only light in the room and Tessa’s face is white as the moon.
She bows her head, shoulders sagging. “Just do it,” she whispers.
