by Winter James
A maid and a prince. The poor, dusty city and the fields of riches. The contrast threatens to pull my heart out of my chest. Those two worlds—they can’t ever combine. Not the city and the fields, and not the maid and the prince, either.
I should just slip away, get in the car, get on the plane...
But I can’t do that.
I won’t.
I step inside the office and close the door behind me. Sebastian turns away from the window. I can see by his expression that he’s expecting an advisor. A flash of surprise is there, then gone. He settles back into cold disinterest. “You again.”
“Don’t, please.” Should I be talking to him this way? No. No. But it’s this or the car, or the airport, or the prison. This is all I have left. “Don’t look at me that way.”
“I’ll have their heads for letting you back in here,” he says mildly.
“Nobody brought me here. I came here myself this time.”
Even the way he moves takes my breath away, and I didn’t have a lot of breath to begin with. My heartbeat thunders through me like racehorses set free. Like a jet engine about to take off. I want the fantasy, damn it—I want him to cross the room to me, take me in his arms, kiss me. But he stops short, the way you’d stop short if you knew a person was dangerous. He’s out of arm’s reach.
“Then you can leave by yourself, too.”
Pain arcs through the middle of my chest, a lightning bolt to the heart. “I don’t want to go back to the US.” Keep your chin up, Tessa. Don’t melt into a puddle just because he’s heart wrenchingly handsome and so distant that all you want in the world is to get close. “I want to stay here, in Belleza. With you.”
He freezes, and then his lips curve up in a smile that turns into a laugh. “You can’t stay on as a maid once you’ve come to the edge of treason. Surely you know that.”
“I didn’t want to spy on you.” An embarrassed flush takes over my skin, from cheeks to neck to shoulders. I can’t get away from it. “You believed me last night. What changed?” I take a big, bold step forward.
Sebastian lifts his chin. “Last night I wanted a quick fuck, and that’s what I got.”
Tears thicken my throat. “I don’t believe you.” We are not breaking up, because I am not dating a prince. That’s just what it feels like. It feels like the worst, most wretched breakup on the planet. “I saw it in your eyes, Sebastian.”
“Your highness.”
“What?”
He stares at me, impatient. “You’ll address me as your highness, like all the other staff. And former staff. Anyone who approaches me in the palace, really.”
There has to be some other reason he’s doing this—building a wall between us with his bare hands, brick by brick. How far does he mean to take this? Will he close me in until I can’t breathe and leave me to rot, or is he only planning to close me out? The thought of living without him shreds what’s left of my heart. I can’t explain it, but love doesn’t need explanation.
“Your highness,” I try again. His eyes meet mine. They’re so dark, but they have hints of sunlight. People aren’t one-dimensional. I’ve seen Sebastian’s other side. I want all of his sides. Not just this hardened ruler. “There was a connection between us, wasn’t there? I wasn’t imagining that. It was more than just…” My cheeks flush. “More than sex.”
“More than sex? Like what? Did you assume it was forever?”
“No.” My voice trembles. “But I need you right now. And you need me, too. I felt it in the way you touched me. There’s something between us, and you can’t deny it.”
He lets out another short laugh. “I absolutely can’t have you interfere.”
“Interfere with what? With—with trying people for treason? With sitting in your office? What? You think you can’t rule a country if I’m there, waiting for you in bed every night.”
Sebastian narrows his eyes. “I can’t get married. Not with a maid hanging off my arm, begging for my attention.”
“Married?” The world stops on its axis. I have a brief, powerful moment of vertigo while the planet swings in the middle of space, whipping us all around a million miles an hour. Married. He’s getting married. I’m going to be sick, which is stupid, so stupid. Princes can do whatever they want. They can fuck women while they’re engaged. Look at King Henry. Look at Sebastian. Look at me, trembling in front of him, wishing he’d tell me this was all a joke, that he is not getting married.
“Of course. That’s what princes do—they make strategically valuable connections for the public good.” He paces back toward his desk, as if this conversation has reached its end. It hasn’t fucking reached its end. “My wedding is in a month.”
“Your wedding?” My mind reels, protests, falls flat on its face and barely manages to get up again. “How long have you been engaged?”
“It was finalized this morning. The bride-to-be is one the eldest daughter of a Duke in Spain. She’ll know how to handle the publicity.” Sebastian reaches down to a neat stack of paper and flips one over to the side. Those dark eyes flick back up to mine. “Don’t worry. Our time last night did nothing to jeopardize it.” His gaze goes far away. “You’re free to go.”
Maybe he thinks he’s being kind, but it’s a knife to an already wounded gut. No matter how hard I try I can’t get it out, can’t stop the bleeding. No words come to mind, and then all of them do—too many to make sense of anything.
A man in a suit rushes in then at top speed, a portfolio in his hand. “Your highness,” he says. “The final contract for the engagement. Then we’ll need to sit down and discuss details. Spain would rather host the ceremony, but I told them that won’t be possible.”
“Absolutely not,” says Prince Sebastian. He takes the portfolio and opens it. He scans it. He reaches for a pen.
Stop, I want to scream. But another man comes in, then another, and they all step up to his desk.
Sebastian scrawls his signature across the document and closes the portfolio with a snap.
It’s done.
I’m done.
I’m worse than done—I’m invisible. The only thing that could possibly be worse would be for these men to notice that I’m still standing here, tears streaming down my cheeks. I blink them away, fast as I can, and drop a curtsy to no one. Then I’m as gone as Sebastian wants me to be.
Chapter Twelve
Sebastian
The moment the portfolio disappears through the door of my office, held in the hands of one of my advisors, I know—I can’t fucking do it.
“Wait,” I call. Every possible excuse tumbles through my head. None of them land. I did read the documents. I read them over and over again this morning, when they first hit my inbox.
I can’t fucking do it.
“Your highness?” This isn’t even an advisor. It’s a top-ranking assistant. I can’t remember his name. His name doesn’t matter. What matters is that he cannot take that portfolio anywhere. He cannot file it. He cannot have it entered into the official record.
“Give that back.” Fuck it. I don’t need an excuse. I’m the Prince of Belleza and as soon as my father dies I’ll be the king.
He bites his lip, eyebrows furrowing, but he’s not a stupid man. The portfolio is back on my desk in seconds.
The assistant, on the other hand, lingers. I put the portfolio pointedly to the side and rifle through some other papers on my desk.
“Your highness—”
“Tell them it’s off,” I snap at him. “Destroy the fucking contract.”
His eyes go wide and then he scurries out. It’s the best possible decision on his part. I’m not in the mood to see him any longer.
There is only one person on the planet I’m in the mood to see, and I’ve just sent her out of my office. By this time, she could be anywhere in the city. If the hired driver did his job, then she’ll be at the airport. Should I stop all the planes going out of Belleza? It’s a drastic measure, but I’m ready to do it if it means getting Tessa b
ack.
She came back here to fight with me. She cared enough to risk arrest and search me out in my office. And what did I do? I pushed her aside for some duke’s daughter from Spain who’d wrinkle her nose at the thought of being spanked and spend all her time in the old queen’s suite, talking to friends from home. Women raised in noble families aren’t interested in belonging to their husbands. Tessa needs to be mine.
And that means I need to find her. That means I have to shut down all of the capitol city. The phone on my desk begs me to do it. It spurs me on. I get the handset to my ear and look out the window at the city I’m about to freeze in place.
The pond doesn’t normally look blue like that.
I’m in such a hurry to look out the damn window that the phone clatters to the desk and falls off. At the edge of the palace’s Belleza field—the one belonging exclusively to the royal family—there is a pond.
It now features a curious splash of blue.
Like the blue housekeepers’ dresses.
A private exit lets me out into the field, into the heat. It smacks me in the face. Wake up, you fucking fool. If she’s a mirage, if I’m imagining her—
Flowers catch on my shoes, yanked out of the earth. I’m leaving a trail of destruction behind me, of money lost, and I don’t care. I’ll crush the country to the ground if it means I can have her. The closer I get to the pond, the clearer she gets. If this is a hallucination, it’s the best one I’ve ever seen. The sky's the color of her eyes, errant clouds crossing over the sun, and it’s so damn bright. Tessa’s shadow stretches out next to her. It’s where I should be sitting now. I should never have let her walk out of my office.
Five feet away, I let myself believe it—Tessa has come out to the field and sat down at the edge of the pond. Too close to the edge. The hem of her dress is a shade darker than the rest.
“You’re getting wet.”
She sniffs without turning around, raising a hand to her cheek and brushing her palm against her skin. I’m jealous of her hand. “I’ll get off palace grounds, okay? You don’t have to come out here and personally chase me away.”
“I don’t want to chase you away.” I hurl the portfolio out over her head and into the middle of the pond. Papers explode in a flurry of white and sink down in the middle.
“That’s littering,” Tessa says.
Dirt gives way under my knees—dirt and flower petals and green, green grass. Tessa doesn’t turn her head but she leans back an inch. Testing. Hoping.
She smells like rich, purple flowers and the heat from the sun. She smells like she’s mine. I bury my face into her shoulder from behind. It’s been a long time since I let myself get this close to anyone. I never thought I would. Not ever.
“I can’t marry another woman.” These words have their claws in deep and it hurts for them to come away, but they do. There’s no other way. “I called it off.”
“Well, that was stupid.” Tessa pushes back into my chest. “You’re going to need someone who can deal with the publicity.”
Publicity. How ridiculous is that? How...cutting. Tessa is an American woman who was bold enough to sneak into the palace to save her own life. A few camera flashes won’t bother her. I can teach her how to enter a room at my side. I can teach her lots of other things, too.
For now, I take her chin in my hand and turn her face toward mine. Hope brightens her eyes, and hurt, and at first I kiss her softly—an apology.
Apologies can only last so long. Long enough for her to take a deep, shuddering breath, and then I kiss her. I kiss her like we’re running out of time. I kiss her like a meteor is about to come down right on top of us and the last thing I want to do before I die is feel her mouth on mine. For all that I know, it is.
She moans, tipping her head back, and I take her down to the ground. Down to the half-soaked grass. Down to the crushed flowers. Fuck everyone in the palace with their noses pressed up against the windows. Fuck the rest of the world.
Belt. Zipper. Her dress, shoved up around her hips. I could be any king from history, tumbling with a maid out in a field. I’ve been in the palace for so long, with all its blank walls and hard lines. This is fucking filthy. This is life.
I lean over Tessa and press a hot kiss to the pulse at the side of her neck. Her flesh is so fucking willing that I bite her. The sound she makes is the prettiest thing I’ve ever heard.
She wraps her legs around my hips, pulling me close, and I’m an inch away from having her when she twists her hands into my shirt and makes us stop.
“You deserve to be punished for that,” I growl into her ear.
“Don’t do it if you don’t mean it,” she says, and I hear the hesitation in her voice. The fear that I’m going to change my mind again. If only she knew. “If you’re going to push me away again, then—”
I cut her off with another kiss and drive myself into her in one hot stroke. Let her feel this. Let her know that I’m not going to fucking leave her out here. I’m done with all that. She struggles against the ground and against me, hips rolling, and I slip a hand under her ass and grab a handful of her. If we weren’t outside in the field, I’d leave marks. I’d do so much more. But those are things better left for behind closed doors.
No—out here, for now, I’m going to remind her that she’s mine. That she has belonged to me since the very first moment I saw her bent over my bed, trying her hardest to straighten my sheets. Tessa arches toward me, panting. She’s so tight that she has to work to take me. Let her. Let her.
“Look at me.” Her eyes fly open, blue as the sky, blue as the water. She’s gorgeous like this, her cheeks pink and her lips parted. There’s a future in her eyes, and it involves a lot more than rutting in a field, it involves a lot more than making my bed. It’s everything. She’s everything. I slow down the pace so she can feel every movement, every thrust. I’m on the verge of coming apart at the seams, inside her like this, over her like this. “You’re mine. Do you hear me? You belong to me.”
“As—your—maid?” she pants.
“As my wife.” That makes her moan and I brush a thumb over her neck to feel the vibration. Feel it in my fingers, feel it down around my cock. “As my queen.”
Tessa’s mouth goes round, her hips working. Her orgasm grabs me by the collar and pulls me along with her. No condom. Nothing between us. I’m putting a baby in her, right now. I’ve never been so sure of anything. And this baby won’t be a bastard, he’ll be a prince of the realm. Borne by my queen.
When it’s over I push myself up onto my elbows and laugh. It’s the first real laugh in a long time. In years. In maybe my whole life. I finally feel free.
Tessa pouts. “Is it that bad?”
I bend down and kiss her again. She tastes salty and sweet and I could live on her. “You’re not bad. You’re the best thing to walk the earth, Tessa Boucher.”
“What’s funny, then?” The glint in her eyes is conspiratorial and familiar and the rightness of it echoes inside of me. “Did I do something funny?”
“I just fucked my fiancée in full view of the palace.”
Tessa turns her head and I can see the hulking building reflected in her eyes. I wait for the mortified gasp, the scramble to get up. Instead she lifts a hand to her mouth and blows a kiss.
“A queen already,” I tell her.
She slings her arms around my neck and pulls me in for another kiss. A long, deep kiss while I’m still inside her. It doesn’t seem to matter at all that she’s still half-naked and I look as irresponsible as I ever have. In the new future, I’m going to have to get us together and walk back into the palace in some fashion that demands respect.
But not yet.
Tessa pulls back, looking impish and beautiful. “There’s one thing.”
“Anything. Whatever you need, you can have it. You’ll have everything now.”
“I think we should get up. My dress is getting really wet.”
The future is here, then.
I help h
er up off the ground and she straightens the hem of her dress. We’ve left a flattened patch of grass.
“Oh,” Tessa says with a frown. “The flowers...”
“They’re resilient things.” I take her hand. “As long as the roots haven’t been pulled from the ground, they’ll spring back up again the next time it rains.”
She laughs. “That’s good. I was hoping you wouldn’t punish me for all those needless flower deaths.”
“Oh, I’ll definitely punish you, darling.”
Tessa hooks her arm through mine and leans her head on my shoulder. “You wouldn’t do that. I’m innocent.”
“Here’s what I’ll do, because I’m a good man.” She giggles. I could stand to hear more of that. “I’ll give you a head start.”
She takes a step back, eyes wide. “Are you serious?”
“One.”
“Oh my god. Stop. You can’t chase me. You’re the king.”
White clouds wheel over us, shadow and light streaming across her face, again and again. “I’m not the king yet. Two.”
“I don’t have any panties on.”
“Then just give up now. Three.”
Tessa sprints toward the palace faster than I thought possible, laughing, her hair wild and her dress flying. That poor dress. It’s going to be at the end of its life soon. She runs and runs. I keep my word—she gets a head start. But she’s never, ever getting away.
* * * * *
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And be sure to read my other book, Saved from the Cult:
Dove dreams of the world outside the cult, but the big strong construction worker on the road scares her. Jake is an ex-convict with a hard life. He knows he can’t have the pretty girl in the flowing white dress. The shy curiosity in her blue eyes drives him wild. But one touch could send him back to jail. Or worse.
