by Hazel Parker
What I hadn’t expected was to find him in a rundown apartment that was in desperate need of repair and an exterminator I am sure. I forget people live like this.
The woman looked like she received the shock of her life when she walked in, now visibly taking a step back as my words registered. I expected her to apologize, to be extra nice to Benjamin and to me after she realized her mistake of treating us rather poorly.
Instead, she turned slightly widened, slightly accusing eyes in Benjamin’s direction.
“Prince?” she echoed.
I watched as Benjamin winced. “Yes, about that…I’m sorry for not telling you, Liz.”
“It’s okay,” the woman said.
“Don’t apologize,” I said at the same time.
We stared at each other, eyes clashing. I felt her shock disappear, to be replaced by wariness of me. I had a feeling she used that expression a lot.
She wasn’t what I expected, especially with the rundown home and the rather gangly kid in the kitchen. The woman named Liz was petite, but with enough meat about her that made her look curvy as hell under her thin gray coat. Her curly brown hair was pulled back from her face in a loose bun, tendrils framing pale skin, pink lips and the lightest brown eyes I’d seen. They were almost golden in their lightness and lent to her rather exotic look.
It was a look that I knew was exactly Benjamin’s type.
This really was an inconvenience of the highest accord, especially after knowing that my brother had almost gotten himself killed. Deciding to simply ignore her, I turned to Benjamin.
“We have to go. You’ve wasted three days as it is.” Five days a month was our leeway to be normal—a glitch in the system, as I liked to call it. The fact that he used three of those five days at the start of the month irked me so much that I could punch him square in the face.
But instead of nodding, Benjamin shook his head. A stubborn look crossed his face, one that hardened it.
“I’m not leaving unless Liz and Kyle come with me.”
A choked sound came out of Liz’s throat. I glared at her, then my brother. “What are you going on about?” I growled.
“She saved my life. I promised her a job in return.”
“I thought you were kidding,” she protested rather weakly.
“You don’t belong in a place like this,” I intoned to Benjamin.
“Are you insulting my home?”
Tired of her interruptions, I turned my full gaze on her again, this time giving her a warning look. She didn’t heed it, instead stepping forward and boldly looking me in the eye. It wasn’t outwardly rude, per se, but it was a statement.
And no one had made a statement like that to me before.
“I wasn’t insulting anything or anyone unless you took it personally,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “Ben…”
“I’m not going until she gets a job in the palace,” Ben replied.
Damn it.
A gleam came in the woman’s eyes, and she tilted her head. It was my first warning sign. “This job…is it decent?”
“You’ll be working as a maid,” I said scathingly. “Cleaning rooms and dusting furniture. Serving us.”
It was a very decent job, but you wouldn’t know it from my tone. That was deliberate, and I expected it to turn her off and make her decline the job herself—which, in turn, would make Benjamin forget about this ridiculous promise he had made and just come home with me. The queen is furious at his running away again, especially at a crucial time like this.
The woman ignored me, of course.
“Ben—I mean, Prince…are you sure?” she asked. “You don’t have to feel indebted to me.”
Benjamin sidestepped me to get to her, and the way he took her hands in his had me frowning. Her cheeks heated, a light pink, and I could tell she was torn between being flustered and being frantic as she tried tugging her hands away. But he didn’t let her.
“I’m sure, Liz,” he said softly. “No one has been as kind as you, and that was before you knew who I was. Will you come with me? I’ll make sure your job will be great, and Kyle will have access to our massive library for his studies. I know he loves reading.”
From the kitchen, a squeak came, and I watched out of the corner of my eye as the young boy’s eyes widened. That, in turn, had the woman’s eyes softening.
Dread filled my stomach.
“Then I accept,” she said. “Will you give us time to pack?”
And I knew, at that moment, that something was bound to go wrong with this ridiculous agreement.
* * *
Standing outside the apartment and waiting for two strangers to pack up…well, it was bloody annoying. I’d never waited on anyone my whole life—weird, I knew, considering I was the bastard son of a king who barely gave me the time of the day. But Laverna had always made up for his lack of care, and in doing so, it had gotten me so used to a life of privilege that I would probably never stop being grateful. I had a hard life before I was taken in: a couple of brief years on the streets.
Liz reminded me so much of that life and the greed for more that came with it.
Because the bad feeling wasn’t going to go away anytime soon, I eyed my brother standing beside me with his arms folded and the calmest expression on his face. He was wearing ragged jeans and a worn-out shirt, and he didn’t seem to mind at all.
“What are you up to, Ben?”
He turned to glance at me, then leaned against the brick wall. “Whatever do you mean?”
“You want someone you just met to be a servant in our palace? You know the queen’s not going to like this.”
He shrugged. “She can protest it all she wants. I’m going to protest back.”
“Why?”
“Have I not been clear? Liz saved my life. I was mugged, and—”
“You were mugged?” I returned sharply. “Did you bring some ID with you?”
“Passport and a credit card.”
Not good. I frowned at him, and he frowned back as realization sunk in. Benjamin uttered a curse.
“I didn’t think about it,” he admitted.
“Looks like you didn’t think at all,” I muttered, unable to help it.
He glared at me, but I didn’t care as my mind already started working. Realizing I couldn’t just leave it alone, I turned to him, all the sarcasm gone. “There’s a private jet waiting at the airport. Willis is on standby,” I said, referring to his bodyguard. “Go ahead and take that. I’ll catch up.”
“What are you doing?”
“Something,” I said. I still had plenty to say about that Liz woman and her kid brother, but there was plenty of time for that later.
For now, I left them alone and started on my next destination: tracking that mugger down before he put two and two together and caused more trouble than it was worth.
* * *
The tracking took longer than usual, particularly because I needed to tap my sources to get to Benjamin’s credit card first—one that the mugger apparently had been enjoying as freely as he could. The list of purchases was staggering, from a television to fancy watches whose prices had my blood boiling.
The purchases ceased last night, which had me figuring the mugger threw the card away so he wouldn’t get caught. But it didn’t matter, because I got my hands on the video monitors at a few of the stores he made purchases at. With a clear image of this guy it wasn’t that hard to find where he frequented.
It didn’t take me long to get to his place, which was an apartment not much different from the one I found Benjamin in. I slipped inside the unlocked door, where I found the scrawny, dirty man lying on the floor with several alcohol bottles at his side. The sight reminded me of my own lack of alcohol intake for today, which made me cranky and felt the headache lingering.
Without thought, I yanked him off the ground and woke him up in an instant. A startled protest came out of his mouth, and his eyes widened when he took note of me.
“You took something f
rom a friend of mine. Where did you throw his wallet?”
He sputtered and tried to fight, but I held him in an iron grip and didn’t let go.
“Where?” I repeated, keeping my voice cold but calm.
The man cursed and tried to kick. I snarled and shook him. “Where?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I found what I was looking for. Benjamin’s signature leather wallet had a specialized logo with his initials at the front, and currently it was sitting on top of a pile of other wallets. I let go of the man and strode over, checking the contents and finding that nothing was thrown after all.
This man was more careless than I thought—plus points for me because it didn’t look like I needed to bribe some reporters to get Benjamin’s latest antics out of the news. His last one was sensationalized too much for everyone’s liking, causing some negative backlash that took Benjamin almost a year to recuperate from and get back in his people’s good graces.
Because I was so preoccupied, it took me a while to see the knife. I felt a swipe attempt at my side that missed. With a curse, I dropped to the ground and rolled to the side as the man tried to get a second swipe in.
He missed again. I stood up and tackled him to the ground, where we grappled until I knocked the weapon out of his hand and got him on his back. He snarled at me, eyes mean and spitting fire even in his drunken state. I would have threatened him some more, except something happened that I didn’t anticipate at all.
Awareness set in, sharp and precise. A throbbing started in my head, and the cajoling words were as clear as crystal.
Eat him. Destroy him.
I growled.
Then I threw one punch and staggered back, watching his unconscious form and feeling my body respond with a hunger that told me to stop resisting. But I resisted, taking one backward step after another until I was out of the apartment and he was out of my sight.
When I got back to the streets, my stomach heaved, and I felt like I was going to faint from the pain of it. Belatedly, I realized my nails were scratching my arms and wounds were starting to form. I fisted them and gritted my teeth, trying to call on every ounce of control I had left—enough to call the local police and give them an anonymous tip of this mugger’s whereabouts.
Then I was running out of there before I could do something I would regret.
Chapter 5
LIZ
It was like a vivid dream I had in the middle of a particularly good night’s sleep, one that was filled with happiness and things that would never, ever happen to me in real life.
Except they were happening, and I was living it.
With Kyle.
“Welcome to my humble home,” Benjamin said, his voice soft but proud.
“Humble?” I echoed. Then I shut my mouth when I realized the bodyguard who had been on the plane with us—a bald, muscular guy named Willis—gave me a disapproving look. Right. No talking to royal men that way. I focused on staring at the front lawn instead, where the limousine dropped us off.
It was huge. It was also so perfectly manicured that it somehow didn’t look real. We’d arrived from London to this charming little place in Northern Europe called Osmerol just around dawn, but even then, there were already gardeners outside trimming bush edges and watering the colorful flowers, which meant everything here, was indeed real. My gaze then zoned in on the palace in front of me, the one Benjamin referred to as his humble home.
It was made of marble and gold—a white thing with large columns, stone staircases, and a grand balcony in front filled with tall marble vases and even more gorgeous flowers. I supposed that was where the royal family stood for photo shoots and such, and I couldn’t help glancing at Benjamin again, who looked…well, bored. On my other side, Kyle was speechless, his eyes wide with awe.
I couldn’t exactly blame him because I was pretty sure I had the same expression.
“I can’t believe you ran away from this,” I muttered.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing, Your Highness,” I said pleasantly. “I do thank you for taking me and my brother back here.”
“Quit with the formalities,” he admonished, then shot a warning look at Willis. “And tell my brother she can keep calling me Ben for all I care.”
So that unpleasant, rude man really was his brother. A part of me wondered where he was and why he didn’t come with us, while the other part of me was just relieved.
Before I knew it, we were ushered in, with Benjamin walking down the front doors and Willis directing Kyle and me to the side—for propriety, they said, because some people were apparently really big on formalities. Willis eased up on me once we got inside, allowing us to gawk at our surroundings before he politely advised me that the head housekeeper would be briefing me about the job.
Nerves simmered, but I didn’t allow it to show as I flashed the bodyguard a smile. This was a once-in-a-lifetime offer, one I almost didn’t take because Benjamin’s brother’s words cut to the core and had me wanting to hold on to my pride more than anything. But the look on Kyle’s face…it was everything, and I realized I would gladly lose any pride for him.
The area Willis left us in was a room that had many doors, with a grand door to the side. Unable to resist, Kyle and I peeked out that door and found a large foyer that had vases of flowers everywhere, wide, lush carpeting and marble tiles polished to perfection. There were crystal chandeliers that glinted with gold, and everything was so staggeringly understated with elegance.
“Miss Liz?”
Kyle jumped away first, then hid behind me. I closed the large door as quietly as I could and turned to face the speaker, who was a middle-aged woman wearing slacks and a white blouse. She carried a clipboard in one hand and looked at me expectantly.
I smiled and held out a hand. “It’s Elizabeth Pippins. Are you the head housekeeper?”
There was a moment of silence while she looked at my hand as if examining it thoroughly. Her nose wrinkled a bit before she turned to give me a cool stare. “Miss Pippins, I’d like to speak with you about your new job and responsibilities before you get settled in. Follow me. And please don’t go peeking without permission next time. There might be guests on the main hall, and it’s quite disrespectful.”
Then she opened one of the smaller doors, slipped in and kept it open for us to follow—well, for me to follow.
I already had a strike two, and I hadn’t even gotten to working yet.
I didn’t know if it was just me, but I was pretty sure I felt the housekeeper’s dislike for me radiating in waves. It should have discouraged me.
Instead, I straightened my back and followed, determined to think positive and push through.
For Kyle.
* * *
Everyone disliked me.
Well, not everyone, but certainly a lot of people did. One week in and I managed to spill tea only once—except it was on the queen, and Benjamin had to defend me from facing her wrath and getting fired. It was special treatment at its finest, one that the head housekeeper witnessed with her sharp eyes, and one that the queen watched with her lips pursed.
It spread throughout the palace, especially when Benjamin waited for the queen to leave before pulling me aside and telling me to take it easy…right in front of the same disapproving housekeeper. My cheeks flooded with heat, even while I admired the way the prince looked handsome in his crisp suit. Then I was telling him that it was fine, and I didn’t want any special treatment from him or anyone else.
But it was too late.
By the time my second week in the palace had arrived, everyone was either avoiding me like the plague, gossiping about my special connection to Benjamin, or openly being derisive and being flat out rude. It was harrowing, to say the least—and by the time I received my nth lecture from Mrs. Bing, the head housekeeper, I was already clued into all the possible insults floating behind my back.
Do not think that your connections will get you anywhere but where you are.
We do not tolerate slacking off from a lowly maid when hundreds could replace you.
You are a liability we don’t need.
I let them all wash over me and just did my work, shielding Kyle from the situation as much as I could. But there was really no big shielding involved, because, for some reason, no one disliked my brother. In fact, his quiet ways seemed to intimidate them at first, enough to leave him alone. Then he used his quiet, polite ways to talk to them and volunteer to help around, and by the end of the second week, everyone raved about what a great boy he was and people took him under their wing.
It made me feel relieved because Kyle never really had company other than me. He’d been very nervous at first coming here, but as the days went by, he began to explore around and found his most favorite spot in the world: the library, where he would spend hours reading, then cleaning up. Because no one bothered him and the royals didn’t really go in that area, I let him be and tried to find ways to keep myself preoccupied, of which there were plenty.
Like cleaning.
Cleaning the palace was different from cleaning the diner or offices—another one of my side gigs—mostly because while the palace was so big, it wasn’t necessarily dirty, and there were so many servants and cleaners that it was a wonder why they even let me stay. Still, I did my best to prove myself, especially with my assigned tasks: cleaning guest rooms, some bathrooms and delivering tea to her majesty every afternoon. For someone who was so graceful-looking, the queen was intimidating as hell, and I tried not to make the same mistake that I did before.
“Hey, new girl. Want some tea with those deep thoughts of yours?”
The words startled me from scrubbing the floor in one of the guestrooms. I looked up and found a familiar face—one of the young maids who was blond and didn’t glare at me like the others. Or at all for that matter. I stood up and eyed her warily, wiping the sweat from my brow and trying to look professional.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t see you. I’ve been trying to get a stain out.”
