Flicka von Hannover
I’m smiling up here,
smiling as perfectly as I can.
No one can tell I’m dying inside.
Flicka winched the corners of her mouth up so that she appeared to be smiling and strolled down the long aisle of the church.
Fresh incense smoke wafted through the sunbeams, scenting the church with fresh, smoky herbs.
She tried not to grind her teeth behind her smile.
The bouquet of white jasmine and lily of the valley flowers drooped over her knuckles, cooling her hands as she strangled the flowers. Sap oozed from the bruised stems, bleeding through the ribbons tying it and squishing between her fingers. Her fingers cramped.
The church was packed—from its arches seven stories above her, to the stained-glass windows and the white-columned walls—with nobles and royals who were important enough to be invited to the main event. She’d wanted a larger church, but this one was Lutheran. Wulf had demanded Lutheran, and so her relatives’ upper-crust butts were all packed tightly into the golden wood pews.
As Flicka passed the front row, she nodded to her Aunt Elizabeth on her left. The mature woman’s silver curls bobbed under her pink hat as she acknowledged Flicka.
At the top of the aisle, Wulfram stood ramrod straight. Sunlight streamed through the windows and touched his silvery-gold hair.
There shouldn’t have been direct sunlight lasering in the windows at the congregation at all, but the wedding had started an hour late. Thus, the sun was out of the position that Flicka had scheduled for it. Some of the guests were squinting from the glare.
Damn it, she had planned better than this.
Yes, she needed to think about the stupid little imperfections. That would keep her mad enough so she wouldn’t do something regrettable, like cry.
The sunlight—damn sun—glinted off Wulf’s golden hair, and Flicka had to admit that her brother cleaned up well.
When he made an effort.
And someone with fashion sense picked out his suit for him.
His dark blue eyes almost dazzled even her.
Beside Wulf, Dieter watched her approach.
He wore a designer suit like Wulf’s and was just as tall, which was very, very tall. If anything, Dieter’s shoulders were broader, contrasting his narrow waist, and his hair a more golden blond. His gray eyes followed her, and his smile became more real as their eyes met.
For just a moment, Flicka’s old daydreams rose in her mind.
Just a few years ago, she used to dream about walking down a church aisle, wearing a white dress, toward Dieter Schwarz.
Because nothing else in the world could make Flicka happy just then, she let herself believe that the last two years had fallen away. She and Dieter were still living together in their cozy apartment in Kensington Palace, but somewhere, Dieter had stopped guarding her and begun escorting her to dances. They’d danced together all these years—at balls, at charity cotillions, and out on dates—and Dieter had stopped looking around her and begun looking at her.
Dieter was looking at Flicka now, his gray eyes turning smoky and warm, and his smile was gentle.
She wished the last two years of her life had been like that, and that now she was walking down the aisle to marry him.
Instead, she had made the biggest mistake of her life.
And that list included some significant mistakes in high school.
At the top of the aisle, Flicka veered left and stood near the altar, waiting for Lizzy and Rae.
Georgie Johnson had never arrived. Flicka had suggested to Rae that maybe Georgie would make it to the reception, but Georgie hadn’t answered her phone when Flicka tried to reach her.
Flicka worried about Georgie, but she smiled at the congregation and at tiny, blond Lizzy, who was stepping down the aisle in her white bridesmaid’s dress and holding her bouquet of white flowers.
Flicka dreamed about a life with Dieter that had never existed, letting the gauzy happiness of the fantasy carry her through the ceremony. She thought that they must have hired someone else for security because Dieter needed to be with her. Maybe Luca Wyss. Flicka liked him. He laughed at her jokes.
Old memories drifted through her head, memories of all the times that he had touched her.
The moments when he caged her hands over her head as he kissed her, his tongue tangling with hers.
The times when he had held her in his arms while he made love to her, his strong body moving over her, and he stared into her eyes as if the whole world had disappeared.
The evenings they sat on the couch, watching television together, and then he carried her to his bed and brought her down, pressing her onto him, holding her hips as he thrust up into her.
The way his muscles flowed under his skin when she stroked him.
The nights when she lay in his arms, warm, as he breathed slowly in his sleep.
Rae joined them at the altar, and she and Wulfram looked at each other like they were gazing into one another’s souls. He reached for Rae’s hand, and they faced the priest together.
When Flicka had married Pierre, she had been too busy being perfect to feel anything, which had probably been for the best.
If she had been dreamily in love with Pierre, she might be a rotted-out husk right now, unable to leave a dark room. It was better that she was able to get through today, to be present for Wulfie’s wedding and make sure that the day was good for him.
To get through this ceremony and not think, she watched Dieter, who stood right behind Wulfram. He met her gaze over Wulf’s shoulder, a kind smile playing on his lips.
It was like he was trying to help her.
So she let herself drift in the thought of what her life with Dieter would have been like if they had been gazing at each other while the priest spoke over them, and she wafted through the minutes.
Flicka was still daydreaming and pretty much missing the wedding that she had poured her heart’s blood into when the door at the back of the church slammed open, and a slim woman wearing jeans and a red shirt marched in.
Flicka shaded her eyes, trying to see who it was and if she needed to jump for safety. When she glanced over at Dieter and Wulf, they both had their hands inside their jackets, and Rae was clutching her thigh.
Dieter stepped in front of Wulf and Rae, and his arm stretched toward Flicka.
She tensed, ready to jump to him.
Tiny, blond Lizzy started laughing. The peal rang from the church’s arches, seven stories above them.
Rae called out, her voice ringing over the spectators and echoing from the vaulted ceiling and antique plaster walls, “Georgie?”
Oh, good Lord. Georgie Johnson had arrived.
Even though the wedding had begun an hour late, Georgiana Johnson still hadn’t been able to get her butt to the church on time, and she wasn’t wearing appropriate clothes, either.
Damn it.
Flicka would have to take care of that, too.
Irritation and anger pushed down her grief, and Flicka concentrated on the wedding.
On Duty, Sort Of
Dieter Schwarz
Anything, always.
Dieter sat at the head table.
Below the small dais and table, the huge ballroom buzzed as people straggled in. A curving staircase descended from the second story, where an announcer bellowed nobles’ names and titles as they entered. So far, only the minor nobility—counts and earls with their countesses—had made their entrances. Dukes and higher would enter later, when the reception had truly begun.
All the earls and counts wanted their privilege acknowledged, though. Dieter knew their minor-nobility arrogance all too well. Dukes and princes might skip the introductions, but the minor ones were all over it, every time they were allowed.
The plebeians were not presented on the staircase, of course, but walked straight in through the doors on the ground level. Thus, the little people already had their appetizers and drinks and were starting the party,
while the hungry nobles waited in a long line and tired their feet.
Dieter ate his plate of shrimp at the exposed, obtrusive head table. He always kept watch at big events like this that Wulfram attended, looking for the glimmer of recognition that might ruffle someone’s eyes. His appearance had changed substantially in the fifteen years since he had disappeared himself and become Dieter Schwarz, though.
Still, he watched.
Wulfram moved in rarefied circles, and they were in Switzerland. Some of these people might be related to the Swiss banking families or their clients, and someone might recognize him.
The shrimp were good, though, very fresh and cold. When he bit into the melon, it released juice into his mouth. Flicka had done well with the food, he easily admitted.
There were lots of flowers around the cavernous ballroom, too. White ones. Some must be roses because they smelled like the perfume Flicka wore. Fairy lights sparkled among the huge bouquets. He assumed Flicka had authorized white flowers and sparkly lights. Otherwise—Dieter smiled—he might be called upon to take out a florist.
The Bluetooth device in his ear whispered the communications of his captains who were guarding the wedding, from the snipers wearing night-vision goggles on the roof and in the hotel bushes outside, to the sharpshooters wearing tuxedoes who pretended to lounge on the balconies around the room while drinking water from their wine goblets, to the plainclothes security mingling with the guests.
All seemed to be fine.
Probably.
He didn’t like it.
Rae and Wulfram were still in their suite while Rogue Security and the Welfenlegion secured the reception.
The cake had been under guard, lest someone poison it. Discreet metal detectors had been built into every doorway to and from the ballroom over the last few days. Some of the waiters, the ones walking around without trays nor collecting dirty glassware, were his men that walked among the guests, listening.
More men, obviously security personnel, stood at parade rest around the perimeter of the room, leaning against the walls, including behind him at the head table. The area where Wulfram and Rae would spend most of their time had been swept for devices and under guard since that morning.
The reception was as safe as Dieter could have made it, and now he was supposed to relax and enjoy himself.
How the hell was he supposed to do that?
Instead, he listened to his earpiece, where his captains calmly whispered their positions, observations, and tactics, without him.
Dieter sat alone on one side of the long head table, picking at his plate of hors d’oeuvres and fiddling with his napkin that had been folded into a graceful swan.
As visible as the head table was, the raised dais made it the high ground. He had an excellent view of the entire reception, past the many round tables where people were eating appetizers, to the sides of the room where the buffets and bars attracted hungry wedding guests, back to the wide dance floor in the back, where a covered piano stood and the string quartet played chamber music.
In his fingers, the napkin did not feel like a cheap, polyester suit. The material caught on the calluses on his fingertips like when he had run his hands over one of Flicka’s cocktail dresses when they had lived in London together.
She must have gotten her unbleached, ivory, raw silk napkins, and they had been origamied into swans, as specified.
Good for her.
Dieter wasn’t surprised in the slightest. That woman would have made an admirable general.
Carl von Clausewitz, the military strategist whom Dieter read compulsively, would have been impressed by Flicka’s planning acumen. Her war plans would have been so perfect that they would have survived first contact with the enemy, like no one else’s ever did.
The reception grew more crowded over the hours. Georgie Johnson, the latecomer to the wedding, and Alexandre Grimaldi sat on the other end of the head table and talked. Georgie had smiled at Dieter, which he had returned, but he was far too busy mumbling into his jaw mic and micromanaging Rogue Security and the Welfenlegion for chit-chat.
Alexandre’s several security guys, including Paul Chevalier, whom Dieter had liaised with at Flicka’s wedding, took up standing guard behind the table, too. Dieter wondered where Alexandre’s man Adrien Roche was. Adrien was an excellent professional.
Wulf’s old school friend Yoshi sat beside Dieter, munching from a plate of sushi. He had just walked in with the riff-raff instead of doing the presentation thing. Dieter had always thought Yoshi was smart. They talked and ate. Yoshi ordered whiskey.
Yoshi had three security men with him, who squeezed in among the Welfenlegion and Rogue Security behind the head table to keep watch.
At the top of a long staircase that descended from the balcony to one side of the ballroom, the presenter standing on the stairs announced, “Their Serene Highnesses Pierre Grimaldi and Friederike von Hannover, Prince and Princess of Hannover and Cumberland.”
Finally. Dieter didn’t like it when she was out of his sight, guarded only by Quentin Sault’s Monegasque Secret Service personnel.
Dieter watched Flicka gracefully descend the stairs with her husband, her crystal-encrusted pink dress flowing behind her on the steps. Her blond hair twisted around her head in a sophisticated knot, securing a glittering tiara. She was holding Pierre Grimaldi’s arm.
Despite Dieter’s best attempt at producing magic psychic powers, Pierre Grimaldi did not mysteriously fall and break his ugly neck but safely reached the base of the staircase.
Dieter went back to eating his shrimp.
Since Flicka and Pierre had entered the reception, Rae and Wulfram must be readying themselves up at the top for their presentation and grand entrance. Presentations were in reverse order of social prominence and royal status, so Dieter had walked in the main ballroom doors without anyone shouting his name at the very start of the reception.
And thus, he had gotten first crack at the perfectly chilled shrimp.
Sometimes, being nothing and the son of no one had distinct advantages. He bit the head off of another shrimp while he listened to the Welfenlegion security guys fuss over Wulfram and Rae up there. They must be hungry by now.
Flicka and Pierre arrived at the head table with laden plates. Flicka set her food down next to Georgie Johnson, but Pierre wandered off to mix and mingle. Quentin Sault followed Pierre, hovering unobtrusively. Jordan Defrancesco stood behind Flicka, holding up the wall behind them both.
Dieter shoved his earpiece deeper into his ear.
As Pierre walked into the crowd, Flicka watched him, her face as still as ice.
Dieter watched Flicka out of the corner of his eye because he’d never seen that particular expression on her face before.
She stared at Pierre’s back until black tuxedos and gemstone gowns of the crowd swallowed him.
Then, she turned to Georgie Johnson and Alexandre Grimaldi, Pierre’s cousin, to chat.
Wulf’s other groomsman, William, and his wife Kate were duly presented and joined Dieter at the head table, laughing and shaking hands with both him and Yoshi before they sat. They came with their own black-suited security people, of course. The area behind the table was beginning to get very crowded by large, burly men wearing earpieces and restlessly scanning the swarming wedding guests.
When a cocktail waiter came by, Flicka grabbed fistfuls of wine glasses and ordered liquor.
When the waiter approached him, Dieter waved the woman away. Dieter was working, or he might be working if anything happened.
Flicka was still talking to Alexandre Grimaldi and Georgie, becoming more animated as the glasses in front of her changed from full to empty.
Dieter would need to keep an eye on Flicka if she intended to get smashed tonight.
He couldn’t blame her, though, not after being kidnapped and told God-only-knew-what by her father right before she had to go to battle, or at least finish arranging the wedding.
When Georgie walked over to
the buffet to refill their appetizer plates, Flicka staggered behind the table toward Dieter.
He kicked the chair beside him out for her.
She sat heavily and thumped her tumbler of whiskey on the table. “I have something for you.”
“All right.” Dieter surveyed the room to make sure no one approached the head table.
Flicka’s hand alighted on his thigh.
Electricity raced under his skin at her touch, and his body tightened. He didn’t allow anything to show on his face, but his heart hammered.
He’d been dying for her to touch him for years, ever since that night when he had done absolutely the right thing and walked away from her. Even when he had been married to Gretchen, he’d silently, shamefully, longed for Flicka.
And now, with her fingers clutching his thigh, he didn’t know what to say. She was still married to Pierre and probably out-of-her-mind drunk as well. At best, this was a revenge screw, and she might not be competent to make a decision. He didn’t sleep with drunk women, not even her.
He swallowed hard, trying to figure out what to do, trying to control his pulse that galloped like a thousand horses in his veins.
Dieter covered her delicate hand with his, feeling the silk of her skin under his palm.
He couldn’t resist her. He never could.
Flicka said, “I’m handing off a flash drive.”
Oh. “I knew that.”
“What did you think I was doing?”
“Nothing. Just didn’t know that was the hand-off.” His heart slowed.
She withdrew her hand, and sure enough, a small square was pressed between his hand and trouser leg.
Dieter palmed it and dropped it in his pocket. “What is it?”
“I was wondering if I could ask you the most significant of favors.”
“Of course.”
“There are PDFs of several official French documents on that drive. Is there any way you could validate their authenticity?”
“You want me to hack the French government in just a few hours?” he asked, toying with his water glass.
Once Upon a Time: Billionaires in Disguise: Flicka Page 20
