Flicka spun her computer around. “Now, on to more important things, like your colors. Would you like peach and yellow, perhaps? Or red and purple, like at the civil ceremony? We simply must make some decisions.”
Text Me
Dieter Schwarz
I didn’t expect her
to show up in the US.
Dieter was walking through the long corridor of Schloss Southwestern, the Welfenlegion’s nickname for Wulfram von Hannover’s estate in the Apache Tears Ranch housing development, when a woman’s slim form flitted across the hallway ahead of him.
A few months ago, Dieter might have turned aside and taken himself to some other part of the house just out of sympathy, but this time he hurried after her. “Flicka?”
He found her waiting for him just around the corner.
This hallway hidden behind the staircase led to the first-floor offices. Wulfram’s locked and private office was farther down, and Rae had a study room past that. Sconces on the walls threw golden light up to the ceiling. Even though the walls of the entertaining room were entirely glass and the Southwestern sun lanced through at every hour of the day, these hallways were too far back for even that strong sunlight.
When Dieter caught up to her, she said, “Hi,” and was smiling.
Her smile was a little shy, a little hesitant, but she was smiling.
Dieter had many, many regrets about his affair with her, and her smile salved his conscience a little. “I didn’t know you were expected.”
“I’m planning Rae and Wulf’s wedding. You know about that, right?”
“He told me.”
Just standing with her in the hallway, having a polite and casual conversation, caused zings of energy to spike through him. Her presence—the air that she moved as she shifted from one foot to the other—brushed the skin on his bare arms, and he swore the hair on his arms lifted with the electricity of it.
“I’m—um—kind of surprised you’re here,” she said, fidgeting with a huge photo album in her arms. “I heard that you and Wulf had a falling out.”
Dieter sucked in some air. “I submitted my resignation as his chief of security.”
“Jeez. I’m shocked he accepted it.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Okay,” she said, looking at the ground. “I suppose I don’t need to know any more. And you’re around here because—”
He grinned. “There’s a soccer game on BBC Sports tonight.”
“Oh,” she laughed. “So it was just a professional falling-out, then.”
Dieter shrugged. “Mostly.”
Flicka glanced down the long hallway, but the doors were all closed. Even the staff was elsewhere. Dieter knew that Wulfram was still in his home office that housed the enormous computers from which he controlled a great deal of wealth and maybe the world. Rae was either studying or gestating somewhere else.
She asked, “Does he know about—”
Her arms wrapped the enormous binder that had papers and corners sticking out of it like an old cookbook, but her finger twitched between the two of them.
Ah. “No, that’s not what caused it. I’m still alive, as you can see, so he must not know.”
She giggled prettily. “He wouldn’t kill you.”
“I don’t know. You were his first-born.”
“I’ll bet he knows. He knows everything. He knew that I kissed Maxence that one time when we were fifteen.”
Dieter laughed. “I could tell you’d been necking with Maxence. You were a giggling mess with smeared lip gloss and I’ve-got-a-secret tattooed on your forehead.”
She ducked behind her photo album. “Maybe that wasn’t a good example.”
“I always got a weird vibe from that kid.”
“He’s always been intense and driven, even obsessive. You should meet him now. He’s doing some spectacular work in Africa and South America. I mean, he’s in there, hands-on, in addition to throwing all his wealth at problems. He’s really—” she thought about it for a minute, “—persuasive about some of the causes he’s into.”
“Sounds like you like him now.”
“I do like Maxence, a lot. We’re good friends.”
“He’s closer to your age than Pierre.” Maxence was Pierre’s younger brother. Pierre was the same age as Wulfram and a year younger than Dieter.
She looked straight at Dieter with her clear, dark green eyes. “Age has never bothered me. If the person is right, they’re right.”
Dieter glanced down the hall, looking for Wulfram or anyone else who might appear.
However, to anyone listening, they might have been talking about Pierre.
Flicka said, “Besides, Maxence never was right for me. We both knew it. We dabbled a little because people thought we should, but we both knew we wanted other things.”
Dieter nodded. Flicka should have ruled the world, or at least the sliver of it that was Monaco. Maxence was the second in line for that throne, but Pierre would inherit it.
“So, you’re just here to watch the soccer game with Wulf and the Welfenlegion?”
Dieter said, “Wulfram and I have been conferring about his wedding plans.”
“I thought you weren’t his head of security anymore.”
“I’ve started a private security firm, Rogue Security.”
“Ooo. Sounds dangerous and sexy.”
Dieter leaned back against his side of the corridor and folded his hands in front of him. Dieter was married. He should not be talking with Flicka, now also married, about sexy things.
“Not sexy,” he said. “Not particularly dangerous. We’re providing extra security for the wedding. I’ve hired some of the guys that I knew from my special forces days, both in ARD-10 and some of other countries’ groups that we trained with.”
“I always thought it was weird that you trained with other countries’ militaries,” Flicka said. “Swiss neutrality is sacrosanct.”
“Yeah, but there were only a few hundred of us in ARD-10 when I was there, including support,” Dieter said. “We trained with the US Navy’s SEAL Teams and FBI Hostage Rescue Team, the British SAS Forces, and the Israeli Special Forces, mostly. I employ over a hundred people with Rogue Security now, more people than are currently in ARD-10. Mostly personal protection, but we’ve done some black ops, too. Mostly kidnapping rescues.”
She was smiling broadly now. “That’s great, Dieter.”
Her smile at him was as bright and genuine as sunlight, he thought. He hoped. You never knew with the Hannovers. If they had been actors instead of kings and queens, they would have swept the Oscars every year. “Thanks.”
“You’ve been working toward it for so long. That’s what the M.B.A. was for, right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s why I got the M.B.A.”
“I’m happy for you,” she said. “And I’m sure the security for Wulfram’s wedding will be impeccable. You’ve always been so professional and so perfect at it.”
He warmed at her praise.
A line gathered between her eyes for just an instant. “I never worried about security at all when you were there.”
Oh, Dieter didn’t like that in the least. “Are the Monegasques still not providing you adequate security?”
“I think they will, now. After the first attack in Paris, Pierre fired about half of them, and he punched at least two of them while he did it.”
Yes, but it’s easy to punch security men when one is slated to be a sovereign prince. They can’t fight back. “And in Monaco?”
“Well, the Prince’s Palace is an actual fortress,” she said. “Inside, there won’t be a problem short of an ICBM coming across the Mediterranean, and I don’t think anyone cares enough about Monaco to lob a nuke at us. Once I arrived here, I let the Secret Service guys go home because the Welfenlegion is better.”
“How were they while you were scouting wedding sites?” he asked.
Flicka shrugged. “It’s a good thing you nagged me about operational security
my whole life.”
He frowned. “I don’t like that.”
“No one is after me anymore. I’m just a footnote, now, and happy to be a footnote.”
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“Oh, of course. That guy at the church was shooting at Wulf, right?”
The angle had been wrong, and Dieter had been hit when he was down on the ground, shielding Flicka. “It’s possible.”
“And the other guy, the one after the civil ceremony at the George V, he was some drug dealer who was after one of the guests, not us at all. It’s a little pompous to think that every bullet is meant for us, don’t you think?”
“It’s better to be paranoid and safe—”
“—than to be overconfident and dead. Yes, I remember, and that’s why I’m glad you’re running Wulfie’s and Rae’s wedding. It’ll be the third weekend in June in Montreux, Switzerland.”
“That’s what I heard.”
“At the Le Montreux Palace Hotel.”
“I hadn’t heard that, yet.”
“We just decided this morning. Rae is concerned about security. Can you secure it?”
“I remember that place. It overlooks the water, so one side will be easier to secure unless a lone gunman decides to become a lone frogman. It’s close to the city center, which I don’t like, but we’ll deal with it. The church?”
“Still under consideration. Wulf is dead-set on Lutheran, and finding a Lutheran church that’s big enough and near Montreux is insane. Finding a big Catholic cathedral in Paris was easy. I could have just thrown a dart at a map and been done with it. Luckily, Rae has totally ceased caring about denominations. I may have to put a bug in her ear that any church is a good church and get her to convince Wulf that bigger is better.”
“As soon as you figure it out, let me know.”
“Okay.”
“You could text me with any details about their wedding that firm up.”
Flicka bit her lip, and she didn’t speak.
“Just their wedding, you know.”
She breathed two breaths before she said, hesitantly, “I could do that.”
“Yeah, just text me. Just about the wedding.”
“Okay.”
“Have a good day, Flicka.”
“Yeah, um, before you go, how’s your arm?”
Dieter slapped his left biceps where he had been shot and immediately regretted it when pain shot up to his shoulder. “Fine. Totally healed up. No problem.”
“Good,” she said. “I’m glad. Again, I—um—thank you, again.”
Being on speaking terms with her assuaged his conscience a lot, even though the Prinzessin of Hannover had said um more in their conversation today than during all her teenage years put together.
He had been nervous, too.
It had been almost two years of sheer hell for him when she had been too angry to speak to him, though he’d deserved it.
He smiled gently. “Anytime, Flicka.”
And he walked away, down the corridor.
Dieter kept his head stiffly facing forward and did not look back.
Looking back would pressure her too much. If he did that, she would kick back at him.
He needed Flicka’s information about the wedding as soon as possible so he could prepare the security measures. That wasn’t a lie.
Dieter reached a small office in Wulf’s house that he had used as a staff office for the Welfenlegion. The bulletin boards above the wooden desks still displayed the schedules and tactical zones that divided the property.
The duty schedule for the week was written in Wulfram’s precise handwriting.
He needed to talk to Wulf about appointing someone else. Acting as one’s own head of security was suspiciously like being one’s own lawyer: both have a fool for their client.
His blood still raced through his veins.
He tried to read the schedules to see who was on duty. Hans Werner was scheduled for some off-campus scouting that afternoon, but it was written in someone else’s handwriting.
Odd. Dieter didn’t like that at all.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears like running horses, and sweat beaded near his short hair.
Being near Flicka always did this to him.
While they were standing in the hallway, no matter how he’d tried to ignore everything physical about her, vanilla and rose perfumes drifted from her silky skin, and her hair curled softly around her face and shoulders. If he had buried his face in her hair, she might still be using that same herbal and mint shampoo that had turned him on so much while they had been together.
One time in London, during a university vacation for them both, she had dined with some of her school friends, and Maxence Grimaldi had attended. He had seated himself next to Flicka and begun talking.
Dieter braced himself against a wall, watching the doors and evaluating the threat level of everyone who entered. Most people, he dismissed immediately as no threat at all. He stationed himself where he could see every time Maxence Grimaldi wiggled, though.
That man disturbed Dieter.
It couldn’t be jealousy. Dieter was never jealous of the dates that he told Flicka she must go on to maintain their cover. That wasn’t it at all.
Really.
There was something about that guy, though.
Something disturbing.
That word kept recurring to Dieter, disturbing.
Later in the evening, Maxence was discussing something with Flicka, and she was practically hanging over the table at him, reaching for him. When he took her fingers in his hands—a move that didn’t look sexual so much as religious, like a bishop might help a postulant to their feet—a jolt of energy surged through Flicka. Dieter could see it from where he stood across the room. Flicka lunged like she had almost crawled over the table to get to him, but she leaned back in her chair because a prinzessin would never make such a spectacle of herself.
At the end of the evening, when Dieter had brought her back to their apartment, she’d still been dazed.
He’d inspected her pupils by turning her toward the light, but she didn’t appear physically drugged.
Dieter asked, “What was he talking to you about?”
Flicka shook her head, her fairy blond hair spilling around her milky shoulders in that strapless dress. “His ideas. His thoughts. What I thought. What ideas I had.”
“And?”
“He’s just really persuasive,” Flicka said, chewing on her lower lip.
“What does he want you to do?”
“I’m not sure. Give up everything?”
Dieter crowded her back against a wall. He growled, “Give me up?”
With that, life entered Flicka’s crystal green eyes again. She settled her arms over his shoulders, a tiny amount of weight. “Never.”
He kissed her then, pressing her slight form back against the wall with his body, feeling her soft limbs move under his weight. He invaded her mouth with his tongue, and his hands roamed her body.
“Say it,” he said, crouching to run his teeth over her throat.
“In here, I’m yours.”
God, he loved it when she said that.
His heart jumped, revving as his blood pounded in his veins. A wild energy shot through him, a compulsion to touch her, carry her, and dive into her until she writhed under him mindlessly.
He grabbed her small body, lifted her in his arms, and held her to his heart as he took her to his bedroom. That strapless dress fell away from her skin as he grabbed handfuls of it, yanking it in his rush to get to her skin.
Flicka smiled while biting one corner of her lower lip and watched his hands nearly tearing the dress off of her.
In seconds, she was naked except for her silver high heels.
Dieter ripped off his own suit and grabbed her, rolling on his bed with her.
She laughed at the fun of it, but he was out of his mind for her.
Every time he’d seen that stunned look in her eyes, he’d wa
nted to punch Maxence Grimaldi.
He ended up on his back with Flicka lying on top of him.
Her slim waist and hips were like silk under his hands.
He couldn’t wait even a second more, and he’d spread his thighs under her.
Confusion creased her pretty eyebrows.
He wound his legs around her thighs, parting them just enough to nudge between them and inside her. He slipped inside easily. She was already wet for him.
Dieter thrust up harder with his hips, holding her thighs together as he took her with long, slow strokes that fell all the way between her thighs and re-entered her with every arc.
Her rose-colored lips made an O, and then she arched her back, lost in the way he pumped inside her, each stroke a new push inside her.
Her fingernails bit into his shoulders as she pushed back onto him, impaling herself, and he lifted her whole body with his hips as he pounded into her.
Flicka threw her head back, her muscles under her soft skin contracting as she threw herself backward. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she cried out.
Her body pulsed around him, and Dieter couldn’t hold back.
The world whited out as he blindly thrust up into her—nothing around him but her scent and her heat—and his balls pumped into her.
She collapsed on his chest. He could barely feel her slight weight lying on him, and he cradled her in his arms.
As he panted, trying to get enough oxygen to restart his brain, his balls flexed again, another throb.
Horror ran through him. “Flicka! We forgot a condom.”
“S’okay,” she muttered from under her tangled blond hair strewed across his chest and shoulders. “M’still on the pill.”
“It’s not okay. We shouldn’t have done that.” He pulled his hips back, falling out of her as if that made any difference at all.
She raised her head and glared at him. “Something you haven’t told me?”
“No. Just like I told you. I had a clean bill of health upon exiting the military and at my physical last year. No viruses. All the vaccines. I just can’t let you fall pregnant. I’m supposed to protect you, not let something like that happen to you, even by me.”
Once Upon a Time: Billionaires in Disguise: Flicka Page 11