“Now, you wait just a minute there—”
He grabbed her and snuggled her to him, wrapping both his arms and one leg over her in a smothering display of affection. “At least as much as you’ve ever listened to me and done what I told you to.”
Which meant not at all, and they both knew it.
“M’okay,” she said, buried under his limbs. His arms weighed on her. Breathing was a little difficult. “Kind of claustrophobic in here.”
He said, “We can be married tomorrow in Gibraltar.”
“Wait—what?”
He let her up, and Flicka sucked in a deep breath of air, maybe exaggerating the not-breathing thing a little.
His grin turned rueful. “We can be married in Gibraltar immediately, just like I planned when we lived together in London.”
All the problems slammed into her. “I can’t go to Gibraltar. It’s part of the UK, sort of, not part of the Schengen area. I don’t have a passport unless I use Gretchen’s again. Heck, I can’t get married because I don’t have any identification with my real name on it. Friederike von Hannover doesn’t exist anymore.”
Raphael smiled at her. “I got a copy of your birth certificate a few days ago.”
“What?”
He whispered very quietly into her hair, “That night we used the burner phone for one text each, I contacted Magnus Jensen. He went to your father’s castle to get any identification they had for you. He found your original birth certificate. Magnus passed it to me on the street as a bump. I was hoping for a copy of your passport so we could put you on a plane to the States, but it didn’t happen. It is enough to marry, however. You already have the signed divorce decree from the judge in Las Vegas.”
She said, “That’s pretty sneaky. You managed to get documentation so that I could marry you but not the kind of documents where I could escape from you.”
“You’ll have to use Gretchen’s passport again to get to Gibraltar, but they might not even look at it if we use the bank’s private plane. We can be married tomorrow, if you want.”
“Tomorrow,” she said, feeling the word in her mouth.
“Tomorrow,” he said, sliding down to talk to her, nose to nose. “Give up being a princess and marry me.”
“That’s not really how it works, you know.”
“Tomorrow, you will become Mrs. Flicka Mirabaud, commoner, and spend your life with me.”
She leaned forward and kissed him, feeling his lips under hers as she said, “Yes.”
“I wish I had a ring,” he said. “If I had known, if I had suspected, I would have flown over to the diamond district in Antwerp and bought a ring, no matter what those jackasses standing by the door said.”
Flicka fumbled inside her bra and found the little alpine mountaineering ribbon pin he had given her for Christmas so many years ago. She’d pinned it to her bra strap every day as solace.
She held it out to him. “You could give me this again.”
Raphael looked at the piece of gold fluff as it landed in his palm. “You still have it.”
“Of course. I always keep it with me. I was wearing it at the courthouse in Las Vegas when your father grabbed us.”
He looked up. “You must have had it when you ran away from Pierre, the night of Wulfram’s wedding.”
She nodded. “It was pinned into the seam of my reception dress.”
“Why?” he asked.
Flicka dithered a bit. “I tend to wear it for luck, or when I need some extra strength, or just when I am upset and need some comfort. Sometimes, when something upsets me, I kind of press it against my skin, just so that I know it’s there.”
“How often?” he asked, staring at her.
“Just when I need it. You know, when I need a little bit of calm, or happiness, or safety, or mindfulness, or luck, or comfort, like I said. So, just stressful times.”
Against all logic, Flicka kept talking.
“And a lot of days have been stressful lately, you know, with Wulfram’s weddings, and my wedding, and planning for that for over a year, and all the charities’ needs all the time, and The Leeds piano competition and other performances before that. So, on stressful days. And a lot of days have been stressful. Almost all days were stressful. Pretty much every day since you gave it to me,” she admitted. “I took it off when I went swimming.”
Raphael studied the pin in his hand, turning it to catch the dim light. “When I joined the Swiss army, I left Raphael Mirabaud behind and became someone else, someone better. The alpine mountaineering course was a baptism in ice. Afterward, I was a Swiss man, a guardian of the Alps, sprung from alpine culture.” When he looked up at her, his snowstorm-cloud eyes were level and serious. “I gave it to you because it was the best of me. You deserved the best of me, not Raphael Mirabaud, but here we are. I’m Raphael Mirabaud again, and you deserve better.”
He closed his hand around the pin.
Horror swam through Flicka. What he had said sounded just like what he had said in that London flat in Kensington Palace, right before he walked out on her. “No. Don’t.”
He rolled away from her and touched his chest with his fist that held the pin. “I need to think. I need to organize this. I need to plan the operation.”
Flicka blurted out, “Are you going to leave again?”
She clapped her hand over her mouth, aghast that she had said it and terrified that he might say yes.
Raphael looked at her, and a storm raged inside the gray of his eyes. He reached for her and scrambled on top of her, kissing her hard. His tongue plunged into her mouth, and he grabbed her arms and pinned her wrists above her head.
He lifted away for a moment to toss the alpine mountaineering pin on the nightstand with a tiny clatter, and then he was upon her again, his mouth, his hands, his body possessing her as he stripped off her clothes and pushed his suit slacks down his long, muscular legs.
If she had meant to whisper anything else to him in the relative privacy of their bedroom, she forgot what it was.
He held her down while he raked his teeth down her neck and sucked at her breasts until she ached for him between her legs. She pushed up against him and gasped as his tip grazed her clit.
“Keep your hands where they are.” He released her wrists and crawled down her body, his mouth leaving a hot trail down her belly. He threw her thighs over his shoulders and held her hips with his big hands, holding her where he wanted her as he sucked and licked her.
Tension built inside her, and Flicka grabbed the top of the pillow with both hands and strained to lift her hips but he held her down.
“Do you want me to let you come?” he asked her, and then he ran his tongue through her folds again.
“Yes, please,” she said. “Yes, please.”
The next feathery stroke wasn’t enough to release her. “Are you sure?”
“God, please!”
He brushed her soft folds with his lips and mouth and barely flicked her clit again. “Beg.”
“Please, dear God, I’ll do anything!” she cried, trying to keep it at a whisper. “Dieter, please! I’ll do anything!”
His body covered hers, and he pressed into her. His huge size shoved into her, filling her hard as he slid inside and took her. Her body bucked off the bed, flying as he grabbed the headboard above her, kneeled, and used the leverage to take her harder.
Flicka shoved her hands against the headboard, too, pushing herself down to keep from sliding away from his hips digging into her.
Every thrust of his body into hers forced her to tighten, the pressure becoming unbearable, squeezing down until she couldn’t hear or see anything and could only feel him rubbing that tight, hard spot of impossible ache. The first wave rode through her body and spine to burst in her head, floating her as she lifted, and throbs blossomed as he took her.
She was in his arms, then, his body tightly around her as he shuddered, his warm breath panting against her shoulder as he spent himself inside her.
He
whispered into her hair, “Never. I will never leave you. You’re mine, now. No one else can touch you but me. We’ll be married tomorrow, and you’ll have our child soon. I will protect you with everything I am, everything that is Raphael Mirabaud, and everything that is Dieter Schwarz.”
Burn It Down
Flicka von Hannover
Morning.
Flicka burrowed more deeply into Raphael’s arms, her bare flesh twined around him, wishing the morning would dawn so he could take her to Gibraltar and wishing this night in his arms would never end.
Morning did come, eventually. Sunlight brightened the thick silk curtains draped over the three windows on the wall, and glowing squares touched the other wall and slid toward the floor.
She didn’t move for a few hours, not wanting to wake him. When she finally needed to shift because her arm was turning into pins and needles, she rose up, trying not to jar the bed.
Raphael’s gray eyes shone in the day’s first sunbeams.
That was odd. He usually slept lightly but quickly, resting whenever he could.
“What is it?” she asked him.
His words were slow and measured, like he’d been working on exactly what to say the whole time she’d been sleeping. “I was going to take over the bank, essentially stage a bloodless coup, but that’s not going to work anymore.”
“What are you going to do?”
Raphael blinked, but he kept staring straight up at the ceiling. “I’m going to burn it down.”
Flicka lifted herself up on her elbows. “You sound like I used to.”
He glanced at her. “You were right. We have to burn it down.”
Burning it down did sound like she used to, but it also sounded like Dieter Schwarz, who rescued the hostages, tossed a grenade, and walked away by the light of the flames.
Worse
Flicka von Hannover
Out of the frying pan . . .
Flicka paced in the suite-slash-prison cell for twenty minutes under the watchful eyes of the Russian guards. Alina trotted beside her, her little feet patting on the thick rug underfoot, thinking this was a cool game.
Raphael was asking his parents to borrow the plane to fly to Gibraltar so they could be married that afternoon.
It felt like they were silly teenagers asking to use the car for a date.
Not that Flicka had ever done that, but she’d heard about it.
She paced.
The door slammed open, and Raphael strode into the room. “Bad news.”
“They won’t let us go?” Flicka asked, trying to figure out what to do now. Commercial flights? But the Russian guards would not let them leave the house.
“Worse,” Raphael said, scowling.
His mother, Sophie, bustled in behind him, wearing a long, quilted housecoat of pale camel satin. As always, her dark rose lipstick was applied to her plumped lips, and gold earrings swung from her ears as she trotted in. “I’ve already called everyone I can think of to get you a proper dress, but no one is picking up because it’s so early. Do you know of anyone in Geneva who could outfit you and Alina?”
“I have contacts in most of the designers’ houses,” Flicka said. “I think all of them have stores here, but I can’t call them. I don’t have a phone.”
“Can you get their numbers?”
“Yes, if I had a phone.”
Sophie tossed her cell phone to Flicka. “I need to dress. Make the arrangements. We need proper dresses for yourself and Alina. I already have my attire. When you arrived, I made sure that I would be ready for a surprise wedding,” she glowered at Raphael, “because Raphael shirks on wedding invitations. I’ll send Kyllikki in to help with Alina. The plane leaves for Gibraltar at noon.”
She stormed out of the room, her satin housecoat flying behind her like a cape.
Raphael sighed. “As I said, the very worst of news. My mother has taken over the wedding.”
Flicka stared at the cell phone in her hand. “Raphael.”
“Yes, I know.” He held up a matching phone. “Some things are more important than keeping us hostage, and evidently, fashion is one of them. I have suit fittings in an hour with my father’s tailor.”
Flicka dialed the phone with her thumbs, calling her contact at Elie Saab Couture. She always wore Elie Saab at weddings, even her own. “I can call Armani if you like.”
“That’s who you got to do Wulfram’s, right?”
“Yes, Wulfie always wears Armani, and that’s who did all the groomsmen for him, including you. They’re good for you tall, athletic types. Or Dior Hommes is good, too. They’re very up-and-coming. Those suits you’ve been wearing are so conservative, suitable only for middlebrow bankers and politicians.” She made a face.
Raphael said, “If one of them can set up something, that would be great. It’s okay if you can’t, though. My father’s tailor does a good job.”
In her hand, the phone clicked through and began ringing. Flicka held it up to her ear but kept talking to Raphael. “Darling, think about who you’re talking to, here. Of course, they’ll take you.”
A woman answered the phone, speaking French into Flicka’s ear. “Bonjour, Your Highness. How can I help you?”
Flicka turned away from Raphael and looked out of the tall windows over Lake Geneva. “Maja, you’re not going to believe this, but I am in Geneva, and I need a wedding dress for myself and a flower girl dress for a two-year-old for a casual afternoon affair, this afternoon.”
Maja’s voice held notes of confusion and hysteria. “But you were just married last summer.”
“Yes, there have been some developments about that. I promise I’ll fill you in as soon as I can, but I need someone to meet me at the boutique in Geneva on the Quai de General Guisan in an hour or less to view and fit them. I need to be out of the boutique in less than two hours with the dresses. This is an emergency, and I appreciate your help.”
Maja’s soprano lilt was all business. “I’ll have someone there to open the shop for browsing in half an hour. Consultants and dress makers will arrive soon after that. You have my word. Luckily, we just had a couture show at the Four Seasons Geneva a few weeks ago, including bridal, and the dresses are still at the boutique. You should have a nice selection to pick from. Do please call with questions, or video-chat for another opinion. I wish I could be there to help you with this one, too.”
Half an hour later, Flicka and all the Mirabauds were in cars, whisking them to the center of Geneva. Sophie, Flicka, and Alina were deposited at the Elie Saab boutique along with four of the ubiquitous prison guards, while the car carrying the men drove on to the Armani shop a short distance away.
Flicka hurried through the cold, clear winter morning into the building, carrying Alina on her hip for speed. The toddler hung onto her neck and giggled in her ear as they trotted into the glass-fronted building.
Shop attendants and managers descended on them. Sophie wore an expression of smug approval at Flicka’s management of the situation. Coffee, champagne, and cookies were already on the tables, waiting for them.
Two hours later, they were back in the cars with overstuffed garment bags taking up half of the rear seat. Alina was overstimulated from trying on the pretty dresses and sneaking yet more cookies when Flicka or Sophie weren’t watching. She kept repeating, “Flower girl! Flower girl!” in three different languages while flipping around within the car seat.
Though Flicka had been vigilant the whole morning, watching for an opening, the Russian guards had never turned their gaze away from her and Alina.
An Armani Kidnapping
Raphael Mirabaud
It was just like being held hostage for ransom.
Just
like
that.
The operation reminded Raphael more of a covert kidnapping operation than a shopping excursion.
Four Russian guards flanked Raphael and his father closely as they walked from the parking garage to the Armani store. Raphael watched them out of the
corner of his eye as their group of six strode along the sidewalk, crowded with weekday pedestrians hurrying to work.
As soon as they entered the Armani shop, a spacious boutique near the Geneva Trust building, shop attendants swarmed them.
Grappling ensued.
They frog-marched him to the rear of the store, where he was shoved into a small cell with a door that locked. They interrogated him as to his preferred color—navy blue, midnight blue, charcoal gray, dove gray, or soft black. Harsh light from above glared in his eyes.
Once they had the information they wanted, they demanded he strip.
When he was naked enough to satisfy the store manager and anyone who might be looking for hidden microphones or weapons, someone shoved garments at him and told him to put them on.
As is best practice when kidnapped, he complied with their demands.
A platoon of tailors bearing sharp instruments descended upon him, yanking him around to their satisfaction while they laced him into what might have been a straitjacket or a midnight blue suit suitable for an impromptu afternoon wedding.
During all this, his father did not even try to help him escape from the mercenary fashionistas, but he sat on a small couch overseeing the torture, drinking coffee laced with what looked like whiskey from a silver flask he produced from his overcoat’s inside breast pocket.
As is usual in a hostage situation, after the initial frisking, interrogation, torture, and imprisonment, his captors attempted to ingratiate themselves to induce Stockholm syndrome. They plied him with small food items, coffee, and innocuous conversation as they attempted to explain their fashion manifesto and convert him to their cult.
Raphael thought he might die of boredom, but he had learned tact from Wulfram and Flicka. He was polite and asked questions about suit fabric and cut.
At Midnight Page 15
