by Mia Carson
“Princess Daphne, happy birthday, my dear,” he said and bowed his head.
She held out her hand, and he kissed the back of it. “Ambrose, thank you. I’m happy to see you doing well, as always.”
“I do my best, princess, which is all a man can ask for,” Ambrose replied. “I would like to introduce you to your new personal bodyguard. He will shadow you as Ralph did. Matthias Georgios, may I introduce Princess Daphne Eridian of Apostolos.”
He stepped to the side, and Daphne held out her hand, ready to greet Matthias, but the second her eyes met his, she froze. Her breath caught in her chest when his hand touched hers, and he bowed his head before his hot lips pressed against her knuckles.
“Princess Daphne,” he greeted her in a deep voice that bordered on a growl. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Daphne nodded, her hand remaining in his for a moment longer than was appropriate before she managed to pull it free and slid it down her skirt. “Pleasure is mine, Matthias.”
“Matt is fine, princess.”
“Matt then, right,” she said breathily, her eyes locked on his. He was tall, and beneath his black suit jacket she saw his flexed muscles, bulging at his arms and shoulders as he took a step back to stand beside Ambrose. “The king and queen will be here shortly to meet you as well,” she said, forcing a smile onto her face.
Smiling was the last thing on her mind. He had yet to look away, and those slate eyes of his captured Daphne in a way she couldn’t begin to describe. He couldn’t be more than five years older than her, but in the depths of those eyes was so much emotion, a swirling storm that drew her in the longer she stared. His gaze was intense, and for some reason, her feet moved towards him without her consciously deciding to do so. When her mother called out a greeting behind her, she stopped, shaking her head and mentally cursing herself. Maybe he hadn’t noticed her strange behavior.
He leered, and she glared. He’d noticed.
“Welcome, Matthias,” Alexandria said as she held out her hand. Calix stood beside her. “I was so happy when Ambrose found you to replace Ralph.”
“Thank you, my queen. It is an honor to protect the royal family.” He bowed his head again when Calix nodded. “My king.”
“Matthias, I hear you have quite the background,” Calix said.
Daphne’s eyes narrowed when Matthias’ hands shook at his sides before he curled them into tight fists. “Just a few honors, my king, nothing too exciting.”
“Exciting enough, dear boy.” Calix tugged at his beard, revealing a grin. “One night, you and I will have to compare war stories with Ambrose.” He patted the older man on the shoulder with a wink.
“I knew it,” Daphne mused. “Ambrose, I still don’t know why you insist on lying to me.”
“Certain stories are not for a young lady’s ears,” Calix chided.
Daphne refused to let her grin fall, but her father’s words prickled at her as his offhand comments always did. Even on her birthday, when she was eligible to take the throne, he insisted on treating her like a child. Trying to think of a way to remove herself from the conversation, her eyes roamed the large hall and landed on another pair. Matt’s eyes narrowed subtly, and she swore they shifted down her body and his jaw tightened.
Her annoyance rising even more, she politely told her mother she would be in her rooms preparing for the ball that evening and turned on her heel to leave.
“Oh, Daphne, let Matthias escort you,” Calix called out. “He will need to know your daily routine and will be accompanying you to the ball this evening.”
“I wouldn’t want to keep him from his other duties of learning the layout of the palace,” she commented as she turned, knowing every new guard began with a tour. She begged her father with her eyes to listen to her, but he waved her worries away.
“Nonsense, this is just as important. I will not have my daughter’s safety put at risk if he is not told something of import. You have been without Ralph for two days,” her father insisted. “That is quite long enough.”
Calix motioned for Matthias to follow her, and Daphne brightened her smile. “Right then, I guess I will show you to my rooms since you’ll be near them the most.”
Without waiting for him to reach her, she turned and walked up the stone steps, her heels clicking loudly. Matt’s footsteps were nearly silent behind her. She glanced over her shoulder at one point to make sure he was actually following her. His eyes met hers immediately, and she quickly whipped back around.
Her fingers tugged at her jacket as she told herself it was nothing. He was just another guard. His handsome face with sharp cheek bones and shadow of scruff were nothing. Not attractive at all.
Then why the hell do you want to catch another glimpse of him and that body?
Usually, her personal guards were not young and certainly not this drop-dead handsome. Add that to the fact of how rarely she saw anyone outside the palace walls, and Daphne quickly pushed away her sudden attraction to him, which was simply hormones and nothing more. Not that it could ever be more than a simple attraction, anyway.
“These are my rooms,” she announced, hating how flustered she sounded by the time they reached her doors.
“Yes, princess. I have studied the map,” he said quietly.
“Right, of course you have.” She avoided his gaze as she pushed open the heavy, wooden doors and stepped inside. “Marie? Are you here?”
A happy blonde girl bounced out of the bedroom and curtsied to Daphne. “Princess, I’m glad you have returned early. We have so much to do to get you ready for tonight! Ah,” she said, and her brow shot up when she glanced past Daphne. “And who is this?”
“Marie, this is Matthias Georgios, my new personal bodyguard,” Daphne introduced, stepping aside so they could greet each other. “And we have plenty of time before the ball to get ready. What I could use, however, is a cup of coffee.”
Marie pursed her lips. “Princess, it’s nearly lunch time. You should eat instead.”
“Just the coffee for now, please,” Daphne insisted. “I fear I will need it to last through the endless round of dancing.”
“If you insist. Anything for you, Matthias?”
Hands clasped behind his back, he shook his head once but didn’t speak. Marie eyed him and shot Daphne another curious look before she hurried from the room, her skirt bustling about her legs. When the door closed firmly, Daphne let out a sigh and laughed quietly.
“She’s a bit overzealous some days.”
“Is that right,” Matt mused as he walked slowly about her rooms. When he shifted, Daphne noticed the bulge under his side where his jacket pressed against his side in the holster, reminding her he was not here for small talk.
“Right… Well then, these are, of course, my rooms. My bedroom is through that door if there is ever an issue, though I assure you this palace hasn’t been broken into in decades. No one has targeted my family that I’m aware of,” she added with a shrug.
He wandered towards her bedroom door and peered inside. “Still,” he said after a long moment of staring into her private chamber, “can’t be too careful.”
The flare of heat in his look had Daphne struggling to breathe, her chest tightening as she turned away from him. How dare he look at her like that? She was the princess. His eyes took in more than they should, regardless that he was her personal bodyguard. Her hand tugged hard on her earlobe, and she plastered a smile on her face as she walked around her rooms. Polite, she must remain polite.
“My days are fairly simple,” she informed him, returning to the task at hand. “Marie wakes me at seven. Breakfast is served in my rooms unless my parents request otherwise. I do not leave my rooms until eleven when I visit with the heads of our parliament and spend the day in meetings.” Her smile sagged as the sad reality of the dullness of her days hit her. “I…uh, I then join my parents for dinner and afterwards retire to my rooms.”
When she received no reply, she glanced over. Matt was studying h
er closely, his gaze lingering over her chest and lower to her legs. Daphne bit her lip. She should tell him to get out and report the incident to her father, but for some reason, the words stuck in her throat.
“Very well,” he finally replied. “I will be here by seven o’clock each morning.”
“That’s not necessary. Ralph was never here until nine.”
“I am not Ralph,” he said quickly. “If you are my charge, then when you wake, I will be here, and I do not end my day until you do. That is my job, princess.”
She tugged harder on her earlobe but stopped immediately when his lips thinned at the action. “I don’t expect you to shadow me for so long during the day. The other guards will be nearby for the meetings and such.”
“Princess Daphne, when I was given a job in the military, I was expected to carry it out word for word,” he explained with a tinge of bitterness in his words. “I was given the task of protecting the princess of the royal family who rules my home. I will take it very seriously, as I do all things.”
His words weren’t loud, but the promise in them was, and Daphne was so startled by it, she nearly missed his next words.
“I have several other things to take care of with Ambrose, my lady, before the ball.”
“Yes, of course,” she muttered a quick reply to his question about leaving her for the moment. “Please, do what you must. I will be here until the ball starts this evening.”
He bowed his head, backed towards the door, and left the room. Daphne stared at it, her heart pounding. She barely had time to run through their very brief and very strange conversation when a knock echoed through her room.
“Yes?”
“Cousin! Happy birthday!”
Daphne grinned as Dion, her cousin—also recently twenty-one—hurried across the room and wrapped her into a bear hug. “Dion! I was wondering if you’d show up.” She tried not to look so surprised by his good mood, but lately, he’d been sour and cranky anytime they were together.
“Why would I miss your birthday?” He kissed her on the cheek and set her back on her feet. “Supposed to be quite the spectacle tonight. Quite a few hot single ladies as well.”
“Your mother still harping at you to find a suitable wife?” she teased.
“You know how she is. Suitable enough to marry her son.” Dion sighed. “I will never find that woman.” He shoved a lock of blond hair from his forehead as he plopped down on her couch. “But lately, I just use that as an excuse to go out.”
She laughed with him and kicked off her heels, sitting down on the opposite end after she shoved his legs aside. “Must be nice to get out and see the whole island.”
He smirked. “You can see the island from your balcony.”
She kicked him as he laughed. “That’s not what I mean and you know it.”
Daphne tried to tame her envy of her cousin, but it was hard when he was allowed to explore the island and beyond, sailing across the open waters of the Mediterranean, while she was trapped behind the palace walls. Her parents were overprotective of her. The reason was simple, everyone knew it, and it had been years since her older sister died in a tragic accident. Yet it was that very accident that had doomed Daphne to live a cloistered life.
When it happened, Daphne had just turned six. She didn’t remember her sister well but knew she looked like their father and was strong and full of life. The death hit the family and the whole kingdom hard, but it was Daphne who suffered because of it now.
“They won’t let up now that you’re about to inherit the throne?” Dion asked, nudging her leg.
“No, probably not. That just makes it worse.” Dion was also in line for the throne—after her, of course—but since he was not in the direct line, he wasn’t kept under lock and key, nor always under guard. “I thought all night, hoping to find an excuse to get out of the ball.”
Dion shook his head. “It won’t be that bad. I’ll be there.”
“And you’ll be swarmed by ladies and watched by your mother all night long,” she teased. “I would hate to get in the way of Dion the lady killer.”
“Speaking of lady killers,” he changed the subject, “I saw your new body guard. He’s a piece of work.”
“You know him?” she asked, confused, trying to forget the heat in Matt’s eyes when they had gazed at every inch of her body.
“Not personally, but I know of him. Used to work security at the nightclubs in the city,” Dion told her. “He’s got a reputation as being a hard-ass while on the job, but when he’s not working, he’s quite the womanizer.”
Daphne pushed herself off the couch and paced around her room. “Really?”
Dion nodded. “Many of the ladies speak very highly of him, but as far as I know, he’s never had a relationship. Just one night stands. They say he’s pretty intense, too.”
That she could tell after only being around him for a few minutes. Warmth spread between her legs as her mind wondered about how good he must be as a lover for all those girls to spend just one night with him and not care. Her mind drifted, picturing him in her bed…
“Daphne?”
“What? I’m listening.”
“Sure you are,” he laughed. “What were you thinking about? Your face is red.”
She turned away quickly, her cheeks burning hotter, and shook her head. “Nothing at all. So I’ll see you tonight, then? At the ball?”
“Course. I’ll save you a dance,” he said, and she heard his steps. “Daphne, you sure you’re alright? Your mom said she thought you might be coming down with something.”
“Nope, I’m perfectly fine,” she assured him, hoping her face wasn’t as flushed as it felt.
His scrunched face said he didn’t believe her, but he shrugged and waved over his shoulder. Daphne wanted to hear what else her cousin knew about her new bodyguard, but that would’ve been highly inappropriate. That, and Dion had a big mouth. He would relay it all to his mother without even thinking what she would say to the queen. Her Aunt Agnes was not a woman Daphne enjoyed dealing with on a regular basis. Agnes was a spiteful woman, only tolerated because of her relationship to the late prince and her husband. Dion wasn’t so bad when he was by himself, but the second the two were in a room together, Daphne wanted to smack him upside the head.
Daphne knew what her aunt was really after, though she would never say it out loud. It was the other reason she was in no mood to celebrate her birthday, knowing her aunt was after the throne for Dion and would keep pushing to find a way to make it happen.
When Marie returned with a steaming cup of coffee, Daphne was seated at her large, ornate desk, shuffling through the terms for the new educational reforms she was trying to establish on the island.
“If you continue to frown like that, you’ll get wrinkles,” Marie warned.
“If I could get anyone to listen to me, I wouldn’t have to frown,” Daphne mused. “Thanks, Marie.”
“Of course, but you do not have all day for that. We’ll start getting you ready soon.”
Absently, she nodded and tried to picture herself anywhere but stuck in this damn palace for another stupid ball she did not want to attend.
Chapter 2
The afternoon went by in a flurry of maps and plans Matt had to learn for his new job, but maps and plans were second-nature for him. In the military, he hadn’t dealt much with protection details. He simply treated this as any other mission, and everything fell into place.
When he’d first arrived, Ambrose went over most of what his job would entail, but little information was given to him concerning Princess Daphne. Matt tried not to judge a person until he met him or her, but when he’d fought overseas, he’d seen firsthand how certain royals acted around those of the lower classes, and he’d waited for the haughty attitude. Add that to the rumors spreading around the city of Daphne being a shut-in, too damaged by her sister’s death to step out into the city and possibly not all there in the head, a forced image had appeared in his mind that morning on hi
s way here. Instead, he’d been greeted by a woman he wasn’t quite sure what to do with. She certainly wasn’t on happy pills, but the way she smiled was completely fake.
Her eyes pulled him in, though, eyes filled with such passion, but for what, he had no idea.
“Time for the ball,” Ambrose said nearby, and Matt nodded, checking his watch.
“Of course. I’m assuming all invited have been cleared?”
Ambrose chuckled and slapped him on the back. “Thorough, man, that’s what I like to see. Yes, all the guests have been cleared and six men will greet them at the door to ensure there are no unwanted persons. Bring Princess Daphne to the ballroom. From there, all you have to do is stand in the shadows and watch.”
The night was going to be boring compared to the crazy pulsing of the nightclubs, but Matt figured it’d be good for him in the long run. He adjusted his tie and jacket before heading out of the surveillance room in the lower level of the palace. The halls buzzed with servants moving about, directions being given, and the other guards moving to their designated posts for the night. Each step brought him closer to Daphne’s rooms, and his hands twitched at his sides. His nerves were raw from the surrounding noise, and when he found himself alone in a hall, he leaned against the wall and gritted his teeth.
Pull it together, he yelled silently at himself. You cannot fall apart on the first day of the job.
He sucked in a few deep breaths through his nose, straightened, and strode off towards Daphne’s rooms. When he knocked a few moments later, his heart stopped pounding as hard, but his right hand twitched against his leg.
“Princess Daphne, I’m here to escort you downstairs,” he called through the door.
“One minute!” she yelled back.
Matt frowned, glancing down at his watch. “We will be late, princess.”
“A princess cannot be late to her own ball,” was the response he received, and his neck flushed with heat.
The door opened when he was ready to call through it again, and Marie motioned him inside. “Thank you, Marie,” he said roughly and stepped inside. “Princess Daphne, are you ready?”
