Modern Fairy Tale: Twelve Books of Breathtaking Romance

by Kristen Proby

  Admiral Lamonte gets in my face. “Why did you suspect the Prince’s drink to be tainted? And I’d like you to be very specific. Tell me everything you can remember.”

  His attitude tells me that I was right about the champagne. But I have to keep playing dumb.

  I can’t blow my cover.

  “Uh, well, like I told Juan, the waiter came out of the door and headed straight toward us. He only had one glass on his tray, which I thought was both odd and kinda rude, because I would have taken another glass. Mine wasn’t actually empty, but it had gotten warm. When he presented it to the Prince, I thought maybe it was something special for him, but I didn’t remember him ordering anything. It’s like the first thing they teach girls of a certain age, never drink something you didn’t pour or order yourself. Which, obviously, only really relates to party and club drinks because I have been drinking champagne off silver platters since I got here. It’s just that the platters always come out full, and the waiters always wear white gloves, not black ones like this guy had. Really, it was the black gloves that gave me pause. And then when he walked straight out the other door. I’m sorry if I caused a scene. I didn’t mean to. I highly doubt anyone would want to roofie the Prince.” I laugh. “Well, except maybe for a few enthusiastic females who might want to bear a royal heir.”

  “Describe the man.”

  I try to make my description sound normal. Wordy. Not like a rap sheet. “Uh, he was shorter than me in heels, so like five-ten, maybe. He had short blond hair, light skin. There was a tattoo peeking out of his collar, but I couldn’t see the design. He looked like he could have been of Slavic descent, maybe.”

  “Your brother, Ari, chased a man of that description. He and your driver fought and managed to subdue the man until the authorities came and took him into custody.”

  “So what did you find out?” Lorenzo asks.

  “Nothing, other than that he is Russian,” the admiral replies.

  “Russian? First a German and a Moroccan, now a Russian? What, is the whole world out to get me?” the Prince asks. “Did you question him? Find out who he is working for?”

  “We did not. He killed himself with the same poison found in your glass, a cyanide salt compound. You would have been dead within minutes.” He turns to me. “You have done a great service to our country, Miss Von Allister. We cannot thank you enough.”

  Both the Prince’s and my eyes widen as the Admiral and Juan leave the room.

  The Prince gives my hand a squeeze. “It seems I owe you my life again. If you keep this up, I’m going to have to hire you as a bodyguard.”

  I press my free hand against his chest. “You do have a nice body, from what I’ve heard.”

  He leans in and gives me a steamy kiss, but we are interrupted by his mother, who bursts through the door.

  “Lorenzo, darling, I just heard.” She sees us kissing. “Oh, excuse me.”

  “It’s okay, Mother,” he says, pulling his lips away from mine. “I was just thanking Huntley for saving me yet again.”

  “I’ve made a decision. I’m cancelling the Queen’s Ball.”

  “You can’t. We cannot allow our nation’s activities to be dictated by fear.”

  “I know you are right, but there have been two attempts on your life in as many days. I don’t want you attending any more parties. We’ll say you are ill.”

  “I appreciate your concern, Mother, but I’ll be fine.” He gives her a hug.

  “What about the charity race tomorrow?” she asks.

  “I must,” Lorenzo firmly states.

  “You have nearly been gunned down and poisoned,” she argues.

  “This is my country. If I can’t feel safe and free to go about my business, neither will our countrymen. They will lose faith in the monarchy.”

  “So you’d rather they lose the future of their country? Lose you?”

  “This country is bigger than one man.”

  Although technically I agree with Lorenzo, I have to side with his mom on this one. “Um,” I interrupt. “I know nothing about security stuff, but I can think of a million ways the charity race could go wrong.”

  “Like what?” He smiles, patronizing me.

  “Another driver crashing into you, someone tampering with your car, tacks on the track to blow out your tires resulting in a fiery crash. The list could go on and on.”

  He hasn’t rolled his eyes yet, but I’m getting the feeling neither his mother nor I are going to be able to talk any sense into him. And since I can’t go in the car with him, I need to make sure he doesn’t compete, so I go with the only option I have left and pull out the emotional card.

  He’s still holding my hand, so I give it a squeeze then turn to face him. “I don’t want your mother, your country, or your father to watch you die.”

  “My father?”

  “A television is being brought in,” his mother confirms. It was a wild guess on my part, but I may have gotten lucky. “He wants to watch all the live footage. If he watched you die, it would kill him.”

  “He’s already close to death,” Lorenzo states sadly.

  “Fine,” I sputter out. “I don’t want to watch you die.”

  He sighs, slides his arm around my waist, and gazes into my eyes. I take his face in my hands and give him a single kiss.

  A kiss with more feeling than any kiss I’ve given him before. I keep my lips pressed against his for a long time. Our eyes are closed and our bodies still. It’s intimate—all we can hear is the sound of our own hearts beating. Our kiss reminds me of when I’m in yoga class searching for inner peace. For me, it’s illusive, because whenever I relax, I see my mother’s face.

  But in this moment, I know what it feels like—a strength and peace within yourself.

  I open my eyes and whisper, “I care for you deeply, Lorenzo.” I’m not pretending or manipulating. I truly mean every word.

  Surprise appears in his eyes. I’m sure a lot of women have expressed their feelings for him, but he seems surprised that I have. So is his mother, who I almost forgot was in the room.

  And, honestly, so am I.

  After he agrees not to participate in the charity race, I feign exhaustion and am driven home. He gives me a lengthy kiss when he walks me to my door. I rake my hands through the curls at the nape of his neck, deepening the kiss and enjoying the feel of his hands roaming across my backside.

  By the time I shut the door, it’s nearly three in the morning.

  I strip down, put on my robe, and go sit on the terrace for a moment while trying to assimilate today’s events. From what I’ve learned about the Terra Project to the attempts on the Prince’s life. The fact that, so far, I’ve managed to keep him alive. But at this rate, if we don’t figure out quickly who is behind the attempts, one will eventually succeed.

  And I don’t want that.

  For a lot of reasons.

  A glint in the corner of the balcony catches my eye. I investigate, finding an old-fashioned flip phone. I discover a note hidden inside that simply says, Call Me.

  I take the phone into my closet and grab one of the makeup wipes I was given by the Kates that tests for bomb residue, and glide it over the phone, just in case, then take it down to the basement lab and analyze it.

  Once I determine it’s clean, I go back on my terrace and call the only stored number.

  “Huntley?” a voice I immediately recognize as Terrance’s says.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to ask you a question, and I want your honest answer.”

  “Okay.”

  “Did you know your parents were spies before we talked the other day?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “So do you think your parents wanted you to find out eventually?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How did you get the watch? Did your dad give it to you?”

  “No. The Dean of Blackwood Academy gave it to me about a month after I got there. I’ve worn it every day since. It’s
all I have left of him.”

  “And the locket?”

  “No one knows about the locket. My mom gave it to me right before she died.”

  “What happened to your parents?”

  “My mother was shot in front of me. Dad died by a car bomb. I got out.”

  “Then what?”

  “I was sent to Blackwood.”

  “Immediately?”

  “A week later.”

  “What’s really on the memory card from the locket?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’ve been too busy trying to protect the Prince to find out.”

  “What were your parents’ names?”

  “Blake and Charlotte Cassleberry.”

  “And your real name?”

  “I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you.”

  “Funny.”

  “Fine. My name was Calliope Ann Cassleberry.”

  “I think they wanted you to know, eventually.”

  “Who wanted me to know what? And why?”

  He doesn’t reply, just says, “Can you sneak out tonight and meet me?”

  “You’re still in town?”

  “Of course, I am.”

  “Aren’t you glad you didn’t chip me now, Terrance?” I tease.

  “The fitness room at my hotel is open twenty-four seven. There will be a keycard sitting outside. Meet me there in ten minutes. And take off your watch.”

  “Why?”

  “It has a tracking device in it. I didn’t remove it.”

  “So someone has been keeping an eye on me all this time?”

  “I think they could be.”

  * * *

  I pull a jacket over a workout bra and yoga pants, leave my watch under my pillow, throw on a ball cap, and exit through my terrace door.

  The night is chilly, and you can practically taste the salt in the air.

  With the moon lighting my short jog to the hotel, I get there quickly.

  I use the key card to let myself in the hotel and am sure to tuck my head down so that my face is hidden from the security cameras in the hall, find the gym, and hop on an elliptical. My mind is going faster than the machine.

  Fifty-two minutes later, Terrance finally shows up. He takes off his jacket, revealing a tank top and surprisingly buff arms and then gets on the elliptical next to me.

  “You’re late.”

  “I wanted to make sure neither of us was being followed. And I did some digging, for your parents’ files and for yours.”

  “And?”

  “When I searched your name—have you ever done that?”

  “No.”

  “So you don’t know that the Cassleberry family—including their twelve-year-old daughter—were all killed in a car accident six years ago?”

  “What?” He shows me the article. “Did they fake my death to keep me safe?”

  “Maybe. What did your dad tell you after your mom was killed?”

  “That something bad happened with their company. That we were going to leave the country. When we got in the car, it wouldn’t start. He told me to get out of the car and run—and no matter what—not to stop running until I got to Uncle Sam’s apartment. That he would take care of me.”

  “Uncle Sam?”

  “He was a guy my dad was friends with. He wasn’t my real uncle, but he lived a few blocks from my dad’s office in a converted warehouse.”

  He stares at me. “As in the government, Uncle Sam?”

  “I never even thought of that,” I say, rubbing my temples. “Terrance, I’m on my first mission. I can’t deal with all of this now.”

  “Tell me about how your mother was killed.”

  “It was just after dusk on a Wednesday night. I had been outside sitting up in a tree I liked to climb when she called me inside—weird, I just remembered that. Anyway, we were getting ready for bed when she heard a noise coming from the living room. She told me to hide in the closet, took the locket from around her neck, told me it was top secret, and that no matter what I heard I was not to come out. But then she screamed and I somehow knew she was in danger, so I got a gun out of my father’s bedside table. I knew how to shoot, but I didn’t plan to. I guess I thought I could give her the gun. Or maybe use it to threaten whoever was there.” I close my eyes, reliving it. “When I got to the living room, there was a man holding a gun to her head. He was yelling at her. Telling her to give him something. She had her head down, but was completely calm when she said she didn’t have it. He slapped her. Told her she was going to die. She looked up and into the man’s eyes, and that’s when she noticed me standing behind him. She held my eyes and imperceptibly shook her head. I knew she wanted me to hide. I knew she didn’t want him to see me. Her eyes were pleading. The man threatened her again and his finger twitched. I screamed. Pulled the trigger. Shot him in the shoulder. But it was too late. He had fired and I watched as a little round hole formed in her forehead.”

  “Then what?” he asks, startling me and causing me to open my eyes.

  “He turned around and pointed his gun at me. I’ll never forget the shape of his gun. It was a suppressed Beretta Twenty-One Bobcat pistol—I learned that later at school. They had them at the shooting range.”

  “Keep going.”

  “Oh, yeah. Um, then the rest is sort of a blur. I shot at him again, hit his arm and caused him to drop the gun. He lunged at me and knocked the gun out of my hand. I grabbed a long bamboo pole out of a decorative pot, used it as a weapon. I was already well-trained in martial arts. I hit his shoulder, which was bleeding all over the place. Then hit him in the head. He fell down. I dropped the stick and ran. He grabbed my foot as I ran by and knocked me to the floor. I managed to kick him in the face and got out of the house. He followed me, yelled at me to stop, that he just wanted to talk. But I didn’t stop. I ran as fast as I could down the street. He fired at me. Missed. I think I ducked behind a car, because I remember glass from the window raining down. Then I ran into the neighbor’s yard, jumped the fence, ran down an alley and out to the main thoroughfare, where I stole a coat from a chair outside a cafe and calmly walked the two miles to my father’s office.”

  “Then what?”

  “I was bleeding. Someone patched me up. When my dad got there, I told him everything that had happened, minus the necklace part. He hugged me. We stayed at his office. I slept a lot and he worked a lot. We didn’t really talk about my mom. Didn’t have a funeral. Or a memorial. Forty-eight hours later, we got in his car. He told me we were leaving the country for a while. When he turned the ignition, the car made a weird sputtering sound. He looked scared, told me to get out. Go to Uncle Sam’s. I jumped out, the car exploded. I was knocked to the ground and dinged up, but I ran to Uncle Sam’s. The same person bandaged me up. I stayed there. A week later, I was at Blackwood.”

  “And you’ve never told anyone about the necklace?”

  “No.”

  “Did anyone ask you if your mom gave you anything?”

  “Both my dad and Uncle Sam did, but I told them no. I thought she wanted me to keep it a secret. Like it was meant just for me because it had our picture in it—never once did I think she literally meant top secret, as in classified.”

  “Let’s take a look.”

  “I’m not sure I should let you, Terrance. She may have died for this.”

  “You have to trust someone. I have more to show you.”

  “You show me yours, I’ll show you mine?” I tease.

  He grins at me and leads me into an empty relaxation room, grabbing a bottle of water out of the mini fridge along the way and tossing it to me.

  “I have a hacker friend who is here in Montrovia working on something top secret.”

  “Something related to the Prince?”

  “He couldn’t tell me. Anyway, he can get into anything—anytime, anywhere. He had never heard of Blackwood Academy either, but he was able to find it and then through a series of sophisticated techniques—”

  “Terrance, I need facts, no
t how you did it.”

  “Well, it was brilliant. Double back door, password, encryption. Anyway, we hacked into Blackwood and found your file. You’re a badass, by the way. And they definitely knew you were sneaking out. In fact, they kept making it harder for you. They were testing you.”

  “Obviously, I passed. And no offense, but I hacked into my own file. Actually, one of the guys I dated—”

  “Hooked up with?”

  “Whatever—hacked it for me.”

  “You only saw what they wanted you to see. Basic notes about your behavior. Your personality profile. Notes from your shrink and teachers. Your grades. Right?”

  “Yes. So what did you find out?”

  “That Blackwood didn’t exist before you. I believe it may have been created for you.”

  “That makes no sense. The school had been there forever. I was the new kid.”

  “It had only been there for a week. For years before that, Blackwood had been an elite boarding school, but the school was relocated suddenly due to toxic mold.” He studies me. “Have you ever thought that your parents were training you to be a spy? You speak how many languages? Your passport has more stamps than anyone I know.”

  “But why?”

  “That’s what I want to know. I also wanted to know about your partner—your brother, Ari—how was he chosen. And why. We were able to access his CIA file, no problem.”

  “What did you find out about him?”

  “Father was a big deal, stationed at the Pentagon. His son went to military school and then was sent to train with the CIA. That was unusual, but given his family background it makes sense that they would make an exception. What is surprising is that you have no file.”

  I shrug. “I probably don’t warrant one yet.”

  He shakes his head, disagreeing. “With the way your parents died, there should be something. The CIA is meticulous at recording information. We did find something interesting, though. An encrypted message. Just five words. Sent to an address we couldn’t trace.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Spy Girl is a go. It went out on Sunday morning at 11:12 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.”

  “The Dean called me into his office at 10:30 to give me my mission.”