Happily Ever After (Runaway Princess: Flicka, Book 5)

by Blair Babylon

  He needed Luca around. Luca kept him sane.

  Like Wulfram used to.

  Protecting Wulfram and Flicka had been Raphael’s mission for many years of his life, and now he wasn’t sure if Wulfram would ever speak to him again.

  As he walked, the long, black cassock swished around his legs, catching on the fabric of his pants and shirt underneath.

  Aiden had said that he’d found the formal, priestly garment in a set of unused rooms in the palace when he’d dropped it in the back of Raphael’s car, along with diagrams and maps.

  The cassock’s skirt was wide, even voluminous.

  A handgun in a holster was strapped to one of Raphael’s legs.

  He drew himself upright and walked, holding his head up straight with all the arrogance of a Swiss heir to a billion-dollar fortune or an untouchable man of God, as he strolled into the Prince’s Palace for the Winter Ball along with the other billionaires, royalty, and elites.

  The statue of François Grimaldi, Pierre Grimaldi’s ancestor, dressed as a monk and wielding a long knife, threw a long, black shadow over the courtyard as the glittering crowd passed it on their way into the ball.

  Raphael looked as if he belonged there, and no one looked twice at him as he merged into the crowd of tuxedos, ball gowns, diamonds, and gold.

  The Secret Service agents at the small security checkpoint waved him around the metal detector.

  Because no one ever suspects the priest.

  The Prince’s Winter Ball

  Flicka von Hannover

  I could not believe

  he disguised himself as a priest.

  Are you freaking kidding me?

  Despite the recent death and funeral of Prince Rainier IV just the day before, the Prince’s Winter Ball would proceed as planned. The theme was always black-and-white, but funereal black looked like it would predominate this year.

  The Prince’s Winter Ball was one of the highlights of Monaco’s winter social season, a glittering confabulation of celebrities, royalty, and billionaires that sent the paparazzi reeling, snapping some of the most dazzling pictures of the year. Where else did rock stars hobnob with princesses, and movie stars nosh with noblemen? The Prince’s Winter Ball was more metropolitan than the Met Gala and more exclusive than even Flicka’s Shooting Star Cotillion.

  Stylists and designers had been preparing the clothes for months.

  Pierre Grimaldi’s coronation would be scheduled a few days after the ball, after the Council of Nobles met to confirm him as the next sovereign Prince of Monaco.

  All day, the sky had been abuzz with helicopters ferrying guests to the helipad. The transports touched down on the long runways cantilevered over the water from a sheer cliff, disgorged their occupants, and swarmed into the air again to pick up more glitterati at the airport in Nice, France. Guests stayed in the Monte Carlo casino hotel, with friends, or at rented houses until the ball began that evening at the Prince’s Palace.

  Flicka remained in the Princess Grace suite, dressing and primping with her staff, until absolutely the last minute. Her hairdresser and stylist had fits when she’d gone in to lie down for a while before the ball, wearing her black, beaded evening gown with her hair carefully coiffed into a bun of ringlets at the back of her head.

  She was just so inexplicably tired.

  While she was in her bedroom, she pinned Dieter Schwarz’s alpine mountaineering pin to the seam inside her skirt.

  For luck.

  For presence of mind.

  For love.

  She also wore her wedding ring from that beautiful afternoon in Gibraltar when she’d married Dieter. She hadn’t taken it off in Monaco. Pierre had noticed it, his dark eyes tracking it when Flicka had been talking with her hands, but he hadn’t said anything.

  Probably because she might have told Pierre to stuff his wedding ring up his ass.

  Half an hour later, after she’d napped, her staff repaired the damage to her hair and steamed the wrinkles out of her dress, and she was ready to go.

  Her staff radioed each other and Pierre’s people as Flicka and her entourage approached the ballroom, where the dancing would be held before and after the supper.

  Pierre met her at the door to the ballroom, as planned, for their entrance. He was wearing a white-tie tuxedo and the highest princely Monegasque honor, a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Saint-Charles. A red and white ribbon crossed under his white tie, and the diamond-encrusted, eight-pointed star of the order blazed on the left side of his chest.

  His staff was holding radios, doubtlessly talking to her staff so she and Pierre wouldn’t have to converse more than necessary.

  He smiled and offered her his elbow. “The entrance and one waltz, then the reception line, and then you can retreat to the head table.”

  The reception line meant that Pierre and his minions would determine whom she could talk to, and they would be listening so they could intervene if she said anything wrong, which meant that Georgie, Christine, and any of her other friends who might be at the ball would be kept far away from her.

  The doors crept open.

  Flicka sucked in her stomach.

  Beside her, Pierre smiled his debonair and charming smile, looking like the cosmopolitan, elegant nobleman he was. He stepped forward, and Flicka walked with him.

  They entered the ballroom and paused at the top of the stairway for photos. Flicka turned on her megawatt smile, as the gossip columns called it, and beamed at the crowd. They were here for Monaco. She wasn’t angry at Monaco.

  Camera flashes sparkled around them and became a wave of white light that receded to flickers again. She smiled through it all, though her eyes watered from the multitude of flashing pinpricks. Blue and green afterimages floated over the ballroom like technicolor snow.

  A man in red and blue livery shouted, “Prince Pierre and Princess Friederike of Monaco!” because they were actually in Monaco. Anywhere else, they would have been introduced as “Prince Pierre and Princess Friederike of Hannover” because her royal title outranked his princely title. Her royal title was one of the reasons Pierre’s uncle had been so avid about Pierre marrying her.

  Or that’s what Pierre had told Flicka, anyway.

  Prince Rainier IV had never said such a gauche thing to Flicka, of course, but he had always been more than pleasant to her. If he’d been against the marriage, surely Flicka with her hypersensitive social antennae would have picked up on it.

  She was just paranoid. Rainier hadn’t ordered the gunman to shoot her. People can’t keep secrets like that. The whispers would have been all over the palace.

  At the top of the long staircase that curved to the dance floor below, Pierre offered Flicka his hand, and she placed her fingers in his as they descended the steps. Her skin wasn’t touching him because she was wearing opera-length black gloves that rose past her elbows. Not actually touching his hand was a good choice.

  The camera flashes intensified again, peppering them with white light.

  How many times had they made this appearance together? They hadn’t entered events together until they were engaged, so it had been just the last year and a half. More than a dozen times, including their three wedding receptions, she estimated.

  And, she swore to Heaven, this was the last time.

  At the foot of the staircase, the orchestra struck up a waltz, and Pierre led Flicka out to the ballroom floor to start the dancing.

  Christine Grimaldi wasn’t in her place as third violin chair for the Monaco Phil. She was standing at the nearest open bar with her brother, Alexandre, and his wife, Georgie. All three of them wore formal evening wear and watched Flicka closely, like they were angling for an opening. Alexandre was dressed almost identically to Pierre, wearing a white-tie tuxedo with his Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Saint-Charles honors.

  Flicka couldn’t imagine that Prince Rainier IV had willingly bestowed the Knight Grand Cross upon Alexandre Grimaldi. Some blackmail or coercion must have been involved.<
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  Men wearing dark suits stood at appropriate intervals around the ballroom, and several of them were eyeing Christine, Alexandre, and Georgie.

  More men moved into position around the dance floor.

  Surrounded.

  Pierre twirled Flicka into his arms, and he gently rested one hand at her waist and clasped the other, extending his arms to hold her as far away from his body as could be proper. He wasn’t the type to take advantage in public, and Flicka relaxed just a bit.

  More cameras flashed at them, of course. Bits of blue light floated through Flicka’s vision as they danced. Neon speckles drifted over the crowd surrounding the dance floor.

  Flicka scanned the other security men who would intervene if any of her friends tried to talk to her, looking for a friendly face, but Magnus Jensen didn’t seem to be in the ballroom.

  Aiden Grier wasn’t there, either.

  Flicka followed as Pierre led her in a careful waltz, spinning and covering the floor.

  Other guests joined them on the dance floor for the last chorus, whirling to the music.

  It would be perfectly natural for Flicka and Pierre to talk as they waltzed. The orchestra was playing rather loudly, so there was little chance of anyone overhearing them.

  She asked about Aiden Grier, “Did you find that redheaded man who had infiltrated your Secret Service, Tristan something?”

  Pierre continued to smile but lowered one eyebrow, lest anyone think Prince Pierre was frowning at the Winter Ball. “No. Do you know him?”

  “I’d never seen him before,” she lied, smiling pleasantly, “but his exit was quite memorable.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We know how they’re going to assault the castle. We’re prepared for their helicopters and ninjas scaling the side of the cliff from the yacht below. It was a stupid plan to begin with. I only regret that so many of them will die tonight.”

  Pierre didn’t stop smiling as he said all that. Indeed, the upward twitch of his eyebrows suggested that he might enjoy being a prince who could order a small skirmish that would result in deaths.

  Flicka looked over his shoulder as they waltzed, making sure they didn’t ram into anyone as they swooped and spun. They looked perfect while dancing, of course. Princes and princesses always do. She’d had ballroom dance lessons since she was a small child, and so had Pierre.

  Beyond Pierre, past the other dancers, Secret Service officers stood along the walls at parade rest and watched, keeping an eye on the dancers, the observers, and the balconies. Spiral wires ran from their collars to their ears.

  As she watched, one of the men standing at the corner flinched. He half-turned and stumbled, and he was yanked around the corner.

  A different man stepped into that position.

  The new man had dark hair, and even though they were twenty or so yards apart, she knew he would have ice-blue eyes.

  Magnus Jensen had slipped into the Monegasque man’s place.

  As she watched the Secret Service agents, several more of them were removed. Other men stepped into their positions, men that she knew from her brother’s Welfenlegion: Luca Wyss, Romain Belmont, and Julien Bodilsen.

  All over the Prince’s Winter Ball, Pierre’s security staff were being silently attacked, and the Welfenlegion and Rogue Security were taking over. One back wall was completely controlled by men she had known in Wulf’s house in the southwestern US. Those doors led to the corridors used more by the housekeeping staff than guests.

  As Sun Tzu had said in The Art of War, “Pretend inferiority and encourage your enemy’s arrogance.”

  Flicka said sweetly to Pierre, “I’m sure you have everything under control.”

  The smile slipped away from Pierre’s face just as the music ended. “Don’t try anything. Don’t make me angry.”

  “Of course not. The receiving line is next?”

  “After a few more dances. You can rest at the head table if you want. I need to confer with Quentin.”

  A man’s very familiar voice asked, “If the Princess would like, may I have this dance?”

  Flicka tried not to look.

  It didn’t work.

  She blinked, not believing what she was seeing.

  Pierre glanced at the man who stood beside him, noting the long, black cassock and Roman collar, and didn’t bother even scrutinizing the priest’s face and wondering whether he had seen him before. Of course, his blond hair was longer now, and the tidy, blond beard changed his appearance, too. Princes didn’t look at priests, either.

  Pierre said, “Of course, Monsignor. If it’s all right with you, Flicka?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Of course. I’ll see you later, Pierre.”

  And she fell into Raphael’s arms.

  The scarlet piping down the front of his long cassock and the red sash around his trim waist seemed like the only color in the black-and-white room.

  Her hand alighted on his broad shoulder, and his hand clasped hers. He smiled at her a little with his mouth but more with his storm-cloud gray eyes.

  The orchestra started up the next dance, another sedate waltz. Flicka held Raphael at a respectable arm’s length as they stepped through the dance.

  She said, “It’s nice to see you again, Monsignor.”

  Raphael’s hand stroked gently down to her hip before he placed it back on her waist. “Yes, my child. It’s good to see you, too.”

  She wanted to beg him to get her out of there. She desperately wanted to demand information about whatever rescue Rogue Security had planned. “Are you enjoying the ball?”

  His voice deepened. “I am now.”

  He stepped closer to her, sliding his hand around her back and dancing too close to her in a wholly inappropriate, unpriestlike manner. His strong arm held her close to his body, and her hand drifted around to the back of his neck to feel his smooth skin above his collar.

  Raphael guided her around the floor, smiling down at her. Heat seeped from his collar and warmed her fingertips around his neck. His thumb stroked her side, and his arm held hers firmly aloft as he led her. He held her tenderly but with utmost control as they danced.

  This was the second time they’d ever danced together. The first had been at her own wedding to Pierre in Paris.

  If they made it out of Monaco, she was going to insist on dancing with Raphael every night. She needed his strong body guiding her every minute, forever.

  She said, “My husband believes that the end of days is near, that it will be later tonight.” Just in case anyone was listening.

  “He’s not your husband,” Raphael said.

  “All right, then. Pierre believes it, and so do others.”

  “He’s wrong,” Raphael said. “It’s much earlier.”

  “How much earlier?”

  Raphael glanced to the side, his gaze directing her toward where Magnus Jensen was standing.

  She said, “I’ve been watching the changing of the guard.”

  He smiled. “Good girl. Situational awareness.”

  “You taught me well. How soon?”

  “Now.”

  “Now?”

  Raphael smiled. “Right now.”

  Covert Operation #3

  Flicka von Hannover

  Some covert operations are quiet.

  Some aren’t.

  Over at the side of the ballroom, past the swirling crowd, Magnus Jensen slid his hand into his pocket.

  Flicka felt the slightest buzz from what must have been Raphael’s phone in the pocket of his cassock, and she watched him.

  Raphael smiled. “Come on. We’re leaving now.”

  This was it. This was it.

  Raphael had waltzed them to the edge of the dance floor, her long skirt and his cassock swirling in the crowd.

  He twirled her, held her hand, and strode off the dance floor toward where Magnus Jensen stood against the wall, solemnly perusing the crowd.

  The two men who stood guard nearest to where they exited the dance floor didn’t even
look at them. Flicka stared straight ahead at the doors, a serene smile on her face that belied the excitement and terror at merely walking away from the Prince’s Winter Ball to freedom.

  Magnus touched his ear monitor as they passed and pressed the door open for them.

  Raphael led her through the door and into a brightly lit corridor.

  He said, “Keep walking.”

  She did. Oh, she surely did. She trotted beside him, holding up her black, beaded skirt with her other hand and making sure she kept up with his long strides.

  Raphael dropped her hand for a moment to untie the red sash and strip off the cassock, leaving him in a priest’s black shirt and black slacks. A holster was strapped to his leg, and he drew the small gun, holding it pointed down and in front of them.

  No wonder Pierre’s ancestor François Grimaldi had masqueraded as a priest to sneak into the Prince’s Palace. He could have hidden a machine gun under that thing, Flicka mused.

  Raphael balled up the cassock and threw it in a closet they passed. He looked back, walking faster.

  Flicka risked a look back, careful not to teeter on her stiletto heels.

  Oh, why hadn’t she worn shoes more suitable for a covert operation?

  Because her stylist would have never allowed it, that’s why.

  Behind them, men in suits filed into the hallway. She recognized Magnus leading them. All had drawn their weapons and were walking sideways, crablike, down the hallway, covering both behind Flicka and Raphael and ahead of them. Behind Magnus, several of the guys from Wulf’s security team followed—Luca Wyss, Julien Bodilsen, and Matthias Williams. All held their guns low and steadily, moving with the practiced grace of men accustomed to dangerous situations and weapons.

  She bustled through the palace with Raphael steadying her elbow, until they reached a sharp turn in the hallway.

  The white-walled, fluorescent-lit hallway was empty.

  No one stood ahead of them.

  Only the Welfenlegion trailed behind them.