by Winter James
But unlike the Econo Lodge, I’m not here to lay around in bed.
I bolt upright in an empty room. The urge to lay down and pull the covers over my head has never been stronger, but fear strips away the last shreds of sleep. Where did Prince Sebastian go? I tug the sheet up over my naked breasts in case he comes back. But then he’s already seen everything, and if he comes back—
I can’t stay here, but I can’t leave. I definitely can’t stay here naked in his bed. Or maybe I should stay naked in his bed. Maybe I’m only waiting here for the guards to come and take me to the prison. One night of sex doesn’t mean I’m not going to prison.
Nightgown it is.
I find it at the edge of the bed, neatly laid out, and shrug it on. The panties seem like a bad idea. What if he does come back looking for more? I wouldn’t mind if he undressed me again, but I don’t want to make him do it if he doesn’t want to. The decision about whether or not to put on the panties again is made for me when I can’t find them. Where the hell did they go?
My laugh sounds small in the huge space of his room. I can’t find my underwear, and I can’t make him undress me. I can’t make him do anything.. I can’t even make him save me, if he’s decided to send me away.
How should you sit when you’re waiting for a prince to come back? Going out into the hall past the guards—and past the rest of the palace—doesn’t seem like a great idea given the fact that I’m wearing a nightgown. I can only imagine how pissed he’d be if anyone saw me coming out of his bedroom. But what if maids come out of his bedroom in their nightgowns all the time? Should I ask the guards?
“It’s an impossible situation,” I say to the empty room.
“No, it’s not,” Sebastian answers, scaring the last of my wits out of me. I leap up from the edge of the bed too fast and lose my balance, catching it at the last moment. “Get dressed.”
A bundle of clothing flies through the air a second later, hitting me square in the chest, and I clutch it to myself and try to regain some semblance of composure.
He was a masterpiece last night, naked in his own bed. And now, with his hair still wet from the shower and his clothes displaying every fine muscle from his sculpted shoulders to his lean hips, he’s like a god. A statue stays still. He’s crossing the room, his muscles flexing beneath tanned skin. I’m admiring his body, but he isn’t returning the favor. His gaze slips over me like he’s looking at a piece of furniture. I’m no one. I’m a part of the background. Sebastian checks his watch.
I shouldn’t be mortified about the fact that he’s done with me. It’s the most normal thing he’s done since all of this started—since I showed up at the palace. I’m like all the other women he’s had in his bed—there one night, gone the next.
“You don’t have to wait, your highness. I can begin my duties.”
He looks at me blankly. “Your duties?”
“Cleaning your suite.”
A harsh sound. “You’re not cleaning today.”
There’s nothing for it but to put on the clothes, which include another uniform dress, like the head housekeeper’s but blue. Palace-issue, undoubtedly. It’s a perfect fit but it doesn’t feel right, getting dressed in front of him. It feels completely wrong. A striptease would be better than this.
I let the hem fall and Sebastian nods something like approval. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“My courtroom.”
My heart stops, pinching down to the size of the plastic beads I used to covet as a kid. My heart beats so loud in my ears that I can’t hear my own thoughts, and then the pulse cuts out, leaving me with nothing but thoughts. Horrible, jagged thoughts. What was I thinking? How could I have possibly imagined that he would do anything but put me on trial for treason? The version of Prince Sebastian who fucked me last night was a fake. He didn’t really want me, he just wanted a warm body who didn’t put up too much of a fight.
I should have put up more of a fight. Way back in the hostel—that’s where I should have started. I could have kicked and screamed. I could have dragged that stupid chair toward the door and done something to get out.
Right now is the time to run, to flee, but I don’t, because clearly I still have not learned my lesson. I follow Prince Sebastian like I really am his maid all the way through the winding halls of the palace across a narrow walkway outside. He leads me into a courtroom just like the ones I’ve seen on TV, only better. This one doesn’t have any ratty furniture or stained linoleum. It’s like the rest of the palace. Marble and mahogany. All of it gleaming.
It is the nicest place I’ve ever been, behind Prince Sebastian’s bedroom and the parts of the palace I’ve seen.
Too bad it’s also where he’s going to try me for treason.
“What are you doing?” Sebastian hisses. “Keep walking.”
I’ve stopped just inside the door, my body rebelling. It doesn’t want to get tried for treason and dragged to prison or executed. Would he do it right now, right after the verdict? Is this beautiful courtroom the last place I’ll see before I’ll die? How did he turn on me so fast? Last night, when I was confessing everything, I thought I saw understanding in his eyes. Empathy. I have never been more wrong. Not since the hostel. Not since that fucking shower.
“Sit here,” Sebastian says, pointing to a chair in a sleek witness box. That’s not where the criminals usually go, is it? Not unless they’re being questioned. Oh, god. I’m going to have to confess everything again. Heat burns my face and tears sting the corners of my eyes. He’s going to make an example of me. He always was. This is as inevitable as the way the moon rises and the way people die and leave you on your own and the way life shoves you down, over and over again.
I take my seat in the witness box and wait for him to take his seat.
But he doesn’t.
Sebastian stands in front of me, separated from the witness box by a balustrade. The judge’s bench looms above us. Did he invite someone else to oversee my trial? Why? Why? I’m desperate to know how this is going to play out and desperate for all of it to stop at the same time. Please, let it stop.
“Bring the first one in.”
Sebastian’s voice rings over every inch of the room, filling it up as much as he fills the space where I can see. Then he turns and puts his hands on the balustrade. His eyes shine with rage. There’s no more cold reserve in his eyes. The rest of his body is performing how little he cares. His eyes say that he’d pull down the palace around us if it meant—
I don’t know what it means.
“Is that him?” he growls. “Tell the truth, Tessa.”
Enough people fill the courtroom that I don’t dare question him.
A pair of doors at the side of the room opens and two guards come in, both of them indistinguishable from the ones at Sebastian’s bedroom doors. They’ve got a man between them. A rich man, judging by the suit and the shine of his shoes. What is happening?
“Sebastian—” The guy has the balls to shout, face red, the echoes of his anger falling down on us from the high ceilings. “You don’t have the right to lay hands on—”
“I do and you know it,” Sebastian says smoothly. “As the ruler of Belleza I have unlimited powers to question those implicated in a criminal conspiracy.”
It would be very generous to describe what the guards are doing to the man as escorting, but eventually it ends with him standing a few feet in front of me on a slab of polished marble. My pulse beats against the side of my neck. A criminal conspiracy doesn’t sound good. It sounds like it includes me. I’m going out those double doors and into the back of a van just like the man standing in front of me.
Only I’ve never seen him before.
“Well?” Sebastian demands.
I study his face, just to be sure. It’s not him, but fear twists memories up and makes them jump back out at you from a shadowy corner. There are similarities in this man’s face, to be sure, but it’s not him.
“No.”
&nbs
p; “Take him away,” Sebastian says, and this time the guards don’t take the man by his arms. They stand close by while he walks to those doors, head held high. He’s denied the pleasure of slamming them. Sebastian gestures for the next person to be brought in.
“Who are these people?” I whisper urgently, despite the terror sloshing around at the pit of my gut. “How do you know—”
He’s in my face again, smelling like spice and soap and power and I want to be back in his bed. “These are members of the noble class, Tessa. They like to play games with me and with each other. They are constantly at each other’s throats and at the palace walls, and this time they even got inside. They sent me my own little game to play.”
It hurts—the insinuation that I’m one of them, though I’m not. I’m not. And what we did last night didn’t feel like a game.
They’re already bringing in another man. This one looks far more dangerous than the first. He’s not blustering, but his expression looks like a thundercloud. Hatred comes off him in waves, and it’s all focused on me. My heart kicks up and I push myself backward in the witness box. Sebastian looks at me pointedly and I shake my head. I can’t get the words out. No. Not him.
A third man, a fourth man, one of them in a suit and one of them in a crisp white shirt, his tie dangling down the front like they caught him in the middle of getting dressed. They probably did. No and no. The next person is a woman, sobbing theatrically, who clasps her hands to her chest and prays while I look at her. Sebastian knows there were no women. I told him the whole story.
“No, not her.” They take her away again, still crying, and my heart sinks. Sebastian is as noble as they come. He’s one of them, and he’s obviously going to use this to make a point. To teach a lesson. My throat aches, trying to hold back tears. Who’s the lesson for, me or them? Or all of us? I’m not going to escape what happens next.
The guards bring in another man, this one in an impeccable suit. They did not catch him off-guard.
His green eyes freeze me in place in my chair. The only thing that moves is my heart.
It’s him.
I remember those eyes.
How could I ever forget them?
I remember the way he wore jeans. It’s obvious now, painfully obvious, that he is not a man who belongs in jeans. Here, in the courtroom, in his suit, it’s clear that he’s at the very top of the upper class. Sebastian lifts his chin. A current of resentment tugs between the two of them.
It’s quiet enough to crush me. I wish it would, because then this would be over and I could move on to my life. Or, I guess, my death. Anything would be better than sitting still.
Sebastian turns his head, his jaw a knife in the air, and looks me in the eye.
My mouth has gone dry with two kinds of terror.
One, that it is him, and he is still the man who promised me I’d be sold for my body if I didn’t do his bidding. And two, that if I name him now, all of this will be over and I’ll have to face my fate. I was stupid, a second ago, when I thought I wanted this to be done. No, my body screams, every muscle tensing. If this is over then you are over. Don’t let it happen.
“Yes,” I say softly, and it doesn’t matter—my voice rolls over everyone in the room as clearly as if I’d spoken into a microphone. “That’s the man.”
He snarls, the guards leaping into position, and they both take one of his arms. But he’s too noble to fight them. Shadows loom over me. Shit—there are more guards.
“This way, Ms. Boucher,” one of them says, and I want to throw myself over the witness box and beg Sebastian for forgiveness. I stand up on wobbly legs. Are they going to take me out through those doors, behind that man? Is that my punishment for what I did—that I’ll be imprisoned with him? I wouldn’t survive that.
“Take her upstairs.” Sebastian doesn’t look at me. Not once. The flat command is the last thing I hear him say before I follow the guards out of the courtroom and back upstairs. Not to his rooms—to a guest suite that could be a hotel. I can’t focus on the furnishings.
One of the guards pulls the door shut behind him and I get there at the last second, holding it open with both hands. “Should I go to the prince’s rooms?” I sound panicked, but there’s nothing I can do about that—I am panicked. “I have cleaning to do.”
“No, miss.” His carefully blank expression reveals nothing. “Not today.”
And then I’m left alone in this room with a screeching fear and nothing to do but wait. When I shove open the curtains I’m greeted by a view of the palace gardens. It does nothing to calm my nerves. There’s a bed in here, at least. That means there’s a chance Prince Sebastian will come back to have his way with me. Deep breaths. He wouldn’t put me in a bedroom if he didn’t plan on using it, right? And this isn’t a prison cell. Last night wasn’t completely fake. Any minute now, he’ll come up to the bedroom and tell me that everything is all right, and he’s taken care of everything, and of course he’s not going to send me away—
A knock at the door steals my breath.
But when it opens, it’s just one of the guards.
With papers in his hands.
He holds them out to me. “Time to go.”
“Go where?” My brain doesn’t want to read the words on the papers. One of them flutters to the ground. It’s a plane ticket with my name on it. A one-way ticket back to the US. He’s sending me away. “Is this real?”
“We’re under orders to take you to the airport.”
Chapter Eleven
Tessa
The guards are in a rush to get rid of me. One of them walks slightly faster than the other, his jaw set. It’s the same expression the social worker wore when she dropped me off outside the first foster home, and I’d recognize it on anyone. It’s the way you look when you have to do a dirty job, an annoying job, and you just want it done.
They lead me through the palace to the doors in back. These are not the same doors I was dropped at before, and it’s disorienting. A car idles on the cobblestone. The driver looks up at me and sighs. He doesn’t straighten up from where he leans against the driver’s side door. “He’ll take you where you need to go,” one says gruffly, and then they’re gone, and I’m out in the heat with nothing but this blue dress and a confused, broken heart.
This just isn’t right.
I’m not going to get on some plane to America without at least talking to Sebastian. I can’t. There are too many loose ends. What’s happening to the people who kidnapped me, for one, and what’s going to happen to me? Is he going to follow me across the sea one day and bring me back to face justice?
Does he care?
The driver doesn’t. He takes out his phone and looks at the screen. He’s not one of the prince’s men, then. An outside hire. Prince Sebastian has essentially called me an Uber.
“I’ll be right back.” I give the guy a jaunty wave. “I forgot my luggage.”
He shrugs and looks back at his phone. “I’ll be here.”
Back inside the palace doors there’s no sign of the guards or anyone else. They’re not waiting for me. Who would ever come back in after they’d been sent out? Not some random spy-maid from the USA, that’s for sure. I wish I still had the right uniform. It would make it easier to do what I’m about to do.
Despite the blue dress nobody notices me.
They’re not expecting anyone from that courtroom to be wandering around in the palace, and anyway, I don’t wander. I stick close to the walls with my eyes lowered to the floor. If Sebastian isn’t in his downstairs office, which I’ve heard mentioned by a couple of the other maids, then once again I’ll be screwed. The bedroom isn’t going to be an option for me anymore, which is perhaps the greatest loss of my life after my parents. I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t care. If he never bends me over his bed and fucks me again, then life isn’t worth living. I need it.
In the end I only have to dodge the head housekeeper once, and she’s going in the opposite direction, not looking for
me. No reason to, right? I’ve been hauled off to prison or worse. She’ll be smug this afternoon. Smug people slip up. She doesn’t turn around, not once. I’m free to browse the hallway, passing alcoves and doorways in a quiet part of the palace. The public doesn’t come here. It’s not open to tours. It’s the Belleza equivalent of the West Wing. I wipe my hands on my dress. That means I’m looking for the Oval Office.
I find Prince Sebastian in the biggest office I’ve ever seen with the doors open to the world. Not the world—just the hall. I’ve slipped through all the various rings of security that make this a safe place.
The universe smiles on my plan, at least for a second, because suddenly the hallway is empty. It’s like the moment in a cafe when everyone who’s been talking and eating breathes at the same time and that strange silence blankets the hall.
I see him, in that silence.
Sebastian’s office, like his rooms, has been renovated to within an inch of its life. The walls are a white canvas for him to build his kingdom upon. They’re the kind of white you can only have if you’re very, very rich. In the real world, everything gets dirty. Not here. This is a cathedral to the gods of power and work. It’s a showcase for what you can do if you strip away everything that’s old and complicated and make it into something fresh and blameless. Crisp white paint. A modern black desk. He’s chosen furniture that looks functional and expensive rather than ornate, and he’s kept it simple. A meeting table. Six chairs. And a set of huge windows that stretch from floor to ceiling.
The prince of Belleza stands in front of those windows, his hands in his pockets, looking out over his kingdom. I’ve never seen this view before. It’s a stunner. A full half of the windows look over the ancient city. Out there, it’s all brick and dust and noise. But the other half—
The other half is a verdant field, a purple riot.
I’ve heard about the Belleza flower before. I didn’t plan on coming into the country with zero knowledge of the place, so I researched it. Those flowers are worth a fortune. They’re so expensive in part because you can’t just set up rows full of greenhouses. They die in captivity. So they have to be allowed space to roam free. If you want to make your money on Belleza flowers, you have to be willing to let them grow.