by Alyssa Day
“I went to talk to my caterer about any last minute preparations, problems, or persnicketies—that’s what I call it, the three Ps—and he was gone. Worse, he has apparently been gone for more than an hour and nobody called me,” Jaime explained, her voice rising to just short of hysterical. “I’ve worked with him for more than a year. He’s very reliable; he’d never just disappear. I have to find him right now or the party will be ruined. His assistant says she has things under control, but she’s new and not anywhere near ready to take on a gathering of this size.”
Liam put a hand on her shoulder, and she tried not to notice it. She was an independent business owner, not somebody who needed reassuring.
Except…right at this moment, with a thousand guests already here, who would find no food to eat, yeah. She’d take whatever reassurance she could get.
“Alaric and I will take the palace. We’ll find out—discreetly—if any other jewels are missing. I can get into Riley’s room with nobody suspecting anything, since she’s my sister,” Quinn said. “Alaric, you come with me.”
“And do what? The queen won’t want me in her room when she’s dressing,” Alaric pointed out.
“Just glower at somebody, then. You’re awesome at that,” Quinn said, grinning up at him.
Jaime watched the byplay between them with something that felt a lot like envy, her throat suddenly tight.
When do I get to be the one with somebody crazy about me?
Ven cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention. “Okay. I’ll go tell Conlan what’s going on. Don’t want to have to listen to him whining about how ‘the king should be in on things’ later.”
“Let. Me. Down,” Denal gritted out, from up near the ceiling, where Jaime had almost forgotten about him. Alaric twirled a single finger—and not a very nice finger—and Denal floated down in sort of a contained crash. He scowled at everyone, especially Alaric, and then pinned Liam with a dark stare. There seemed to be some unpleasant history between the two of them, but Jaime didn’t have time to worry about it.
“I’ll just go check in with your brother,” Denal said, in a nasty tone that surprised Jaime.
Liam shrugged. “Fine. But he would not do this. He’d do many things, but not this. Everyone—even lowlifes and thieves—loves our new queen.”
“Apparently not everyone.” Denal pointed to the crown in Ven’s hand.
“My brothers do,” Liam said with finality. “Jaime, the two of us will go search for the caterer.”
Jaime, all but dancing in impatience—now just D minus one hour till the party, if D Equaled Disaster—just nodded and rushed out the door, with Liam following her.
“Where should we look? Oh, crap, oh, crap, I so don’t have time for this. How are we going to search all of Atlantis? Where could he even be? Why would he do this to me? What can I do--”
Liam caught up to her at the end of the hallway and ended her stream of words by pinning her against a wall and taking her mouth in a fierce, deep kiss. By the time he lifted his head, Jaime was no longer sure that she needed a caterer, or cared about a caterer, or, in fact, even remembered what the word caterer meant.
Really, she only wanted to drag Liam off to her guest room in the palace, lock the door, and strip him out of his clothes.
With her teeth.
She had to clench her thighs together at the thought, which made her moan, and that in turn made Liam’s eyes darken. He bent his head to kiss her again, but she pushed him away with what remained of her willpower.
“No. No, no, no. Caterer. Now. We feed these people, or I’m ruined. The party is ruined. Life as we know it is ruined.”
Liam laughed, but he let her go. “Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but I understand your point. Now. Is he a slacker? Would he be off taking a nap somewhere? Is it possible he’d be getting more supplies or food or something?”
“No, not a slacker, definitely. Not a nap. He loaded in all the supplies yesterday,” she said, trying not to bite her fingernails or clutch her head or any of the other “oh, my goodness, the world is falling in” nervous habits she’d picked up over the course of running a party planning business.
“Is he a drinker? Would he be off getting drunk?”
Jaime bristled. “No! Would I hire a drunk? Would I work with a drunk on any event, not to mention the biggest event of my career? What do you take me for? Robert is perfectly reliable.”
“Got it. Not a drunk. Would he--”
“Wait,” Jaime interrupted, feeling a tiny tendril of hope. “Drink. The wines. Riley told me that the palace would provide the wines. Maybe he got caught up in the wine cellar, picking out bottles? Do you even have a wine cellar, since it’s an island? How did that work when you were underwater? I guess the cold ocean would keep the chilled wines cold, but what about the others?”
Liam’s eyes widened, and she realized she was babbling again. “Sorry. Nervous habit. Wine cellar—yes or no?”
“Yes, but no,” he told her, taking her arm and starting off down one marble hallway at a fast pace. “Wine room, not cellar. It’s the size of one of your football fields. It’s possible he could have gotten lost in there. Let’s go check it out.”
She practically had to run to keep up with him, but that was fine. As long as Robert was in the wine cellar/room/stadium, everything was going to be perfectly fine.
Wrong again.
6
Liam watched Jaime skid to a stop just inside the oversized wooden doors to the wine room, her mouth falling open.
“This—this is the wine room?” She looked around the enormous space, filled with rows and rows of rack upon rack of bottles of wine. He guessed he’d understated things. It wasn’t the size of a football field, so much. More the size of a football stadium.
“Yes.” He inhaled deeply. “I’ve always loved the smell in here. Oak and earth and fruit and happiness.”
She tilted her head and looked at him, and he suddenly felt like an idiot. Her biggest job was on the line, her caterer was missing, and he was making stupid comments about smells and happiness.
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “So. Let’s just start looking.”
Jaime put a hand on his arm. “I think...I mean, if you want to…I’d like to spend some time with you—get to know you more—when the party is over. Before I have to go home, I mean.”
She was blushing furiously the entire time she was talking, and he found himself leaning toward her, wanting to touch her. Comfort her. Hold her.
Not wanting to think about the day she’d leave Atlantis and go back to Chicago.
“I’d like that, too. A lot. A whole helluva lot. So let’s find this guy,” he said with ramped-up enthusiasm. “What’s his name, anyway?”
“Robert. Bob. Bob McGinty.” Her eyes widened. “Ack. Bob. We need to find Bob. Stop distracting me with your gorgeousness!”
Before he could pursue that interesting line of conversation, she took off at a jog down the middle aisle. “Bob! Bob, are you in here? Bob!”
“I’ll take this other aisle,” Liam told her, still a little smug from that ‘gorgeousness’ comment.
They split up and started marching up and down the aisles of the wine room, calling out for the missing caterer. This hadn’t seemed to be all that urgent before, because the man was probably just busy elsewhere or taking a break, but the stolen crown, combined with the missing man, was just too big of a coincidence to dismiss.
And Liam hated coincidence.
From a few aisles to his right, Jaime suddenly shrieked. “Oh, no. Bob! Liam, help!”
Liam took off running. When he rounded the corner of the Cabernet aisle he almost ran into the man squirming and grunting in a tied-up heap on the floor.
Jaime kneeled down and started tentatively pulling at the tape across the man’s mouth, but by the way Bob’s eyes were bulging he didn’t appreciate her efforts. Liam gently nudged her aside, reached down, and ripped the tape off in one quick motion.
“Ouc
h!” Bob yelled, glaring at Liam. “You couldn’t have gotten some olive oil and worked it off slowly?”
“Man up,” Liam advised. “You might want to thank Jaime for coming to find your unappreciative ass, while you’re at it.”
Bob stopped squirming and cast a guilty glance at Jaime. “I do appreciate it. Thanks, Jaime. But get me out of these ropes, please. I have food to prepare--”
“We’re past preparing, Bob. Your assistant has been on that. The party people are already here,” Jaime said, tugging at the ropes around her caterer’s wrists. “Liam, help?”
Liam drew his dagger and started slicing the ropes, taking care to avoid cutting the man wearing them. But speaking of ropes…
“Why exactly are you tied up in the wine room, Bob?” He gave the man a relatively mild look, but Bob—who was fairly short and looked like he enjoyed eating the fruits of his labor a little more than he should—suddenly found the floor so fascinating that he had to stare at it.
“I didn’t mean to cause trouble,” he said, a dark red flush creeping up his face. “I might have, ah, I might have, well--”
“Just spit it out, Bob, we’re on a deadline here,” Liam told him. “There. That’s the last rope. A damn good job of tying knots, I’ve gotta admit. Whoever tied you up was either a sailor or an Atlantean.”
“Or a Girl Scout,” Jaime said. “I was a Girl Scout.”
“A what?” He couldn’t think of any explanation that made sense for the term. She scouted for missing girls, maybe?
“We dressed up in cute uniforms and did community service projects. We sold cookies, too,” she said. “I was top salesperson in my troop three years in a row. The trouble, Bob?”
“I just, well, I was boasting a little bit, maybe, to the palace chef about my food.”
Jaime stood up, frowning, and put her hands on her hips. “Oh, Bob, you didn’t. You know better. What’s the rule?”
Liam grasped Bob’s hand and pulled the man up off the floor. “There’s a rule?”
“We don’t insult the establishment’s regular cooks or chefs,” Bob mumbled, looking at his shoes.
The top of the man’s head came up to Liam’s shoulder, and Liam knew the palace chef. She was a large, strapping woman who topped six feet, who’d scared the pants off him and his brothers when they were was small. She’d wipe the floor with this one.
Or, more to the point, tie him up and dump him in the wine room.
Liam had to clench his jaw shut to keep from bursting into laughter. “I’m guessing that Brigheda took exception to your comments?”
“She said she’d be damned to the nine hells if a popinjay of a human upstart was going to cook for HER guests,” Bob muttered. “And then she punched me in the stomach, and everything went kind of dark. When I woke up, I was here, with the ropes and the tape, and she was gone.”
“Now we need to be gone,” Jaime snapped, tapping her foot. “We’re out of time, out of time, out of time.”
She started down the aisle toward the door, leaving Liam and Bob to follow after her.
“But it’s my job. And she’s doing the entire dinner for the special guests, so I don’t get why she was so mad. I’m only doing the appetizers for the ordinary party guests,” Bob whined. “I don’t think I can finish, Jaime. I really need to head home and rest from this ordeal. In fact, I might need to go to the hospital. You have insurance, don’t you?”
Liam’s budding dislike for the man increased by a factor of ten thousand when he caught sight of Jaime’s panicked face.
“Bob, you can’t do this to me. We’ve got to get through this day. You’re fine. You’re really completely fine, just a little blow to your pride, and--”
But now that the puffed-up little man saw Jaime’s desperation, he dug in his heels even more. “No. I’m sure I need medical attention. Right now. And not your woo woo healers,” he said, shooting a suspicious glare at Liam. “A real doctor.”
Liam took a moment to enjoy the thought of what Alaric would do to someone who called him a woo woo healer, and then he grabbed Bob by the neck.
Jaime yelped. “What are you doing? I’ll never get him to work now!”
“Shh,” Liam said. “I’ll just be a moment, and then it will all be fine, won’t it, Bob?”
Bob, whose face was turning purple even though Liam’s grasp on his neck was fairly gentle, shook his head wildly and made bizarre grunting noises.
“Look in my eyes, Bob,” Liam said calmly.
Bob did.
Then Bob stopped struggling.
Bob was toast.
“You came down here to find a special bottle of wine,” Liam said, the push silken in his voice and in Bob’s mind.
“I came down here to find a special bottle of wine,” Bob agreed, his eyes gone vague and unfocused.
Liam nodded, let go of the man’s neck, and put a little extra oomph into his mental push. “You bumped your head on the edge of a rack, but it’s nothing.”
“Nothing.”
Liam could tell Jaime was about to yell at him, so he shot a look at her. She glared at him, but she stayed quiet.
“Bob, you’re going to put on the best spread you’ve ever done in your life.”
Bob nodded. “Best ever.”
“And if Brigheda shows up again, you’ll compliment her profusely,” Liam concluded, still holding Bob’s mind.
“Lovely Brigheda,” Bob said, with a huge goofy smile.
“Now go,” Liam commanded, and the caterer immediately snapped out of the trance.
“Jaime? What are you doing down here? We have to get to work right now.” Bob grabbed Jaime’s arm and towed her toward the doors. “I was just getting a special bottle of wine.”
Jaime’s head whipped around and she glared at Liam. “We’re going to talk, and don’t you forget it.”
Liam nodded. He’d expected she’d be angry, but he didn’t mind so much if his interference could help take some of the stress off her shoulders.
Bob called out a rushed goodbye and hurried off in a determined stride, his bald head shining.
“He should be fine now,” Liam said. “Good as new. Better, even. At least for today.”
“I hope so.” Jaime said, sighing. “And Liam?”
He squared his shoulders. Time to take it like a man. People hated it when he messed with memories.
But those big dark eyes of hers were sparkling. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he managed. She’d thanked him? She wasn’t yelling at him about how his gift was dangerous or even evil? About how he was evil?
She raised up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “You’re amazing. And scary. You did that for me, though, and I know it, and, so, I know it’s selfish, but I’m going with amazing.”
She turned around, but he caught her arm and pulled her into his arms. “Oh, no. You don’t get to call a man amazing and then run.”
“But--”
Liam knew she was busy, and frantic, and stressed. He knew she was late, late, late. So he took her lips in a quick, hard kiss—a claiming kiss—and then he let her go. She touched her lips with her finger, smiled at him, and then she was off, practically running.
He grinned like an idiot all the way back down the hall.
7
Jaime ran all the way to the giant tent they’d set up and compartmented to serve as dressing rooms for those guests who didn’t wear their own costumes. There were already people milling around outside, looking confused and a little annoyed, and the entrance to the tent was still tied closed.
That didn’t make sense, because she’d hired two temporary staff people to open the tent and work the costumes. She managed not to scream with frustration, even though she was throwing a big-ass tantrum on the inside. On the outside, though, she strode calmly over to the tent, projecting the air of confidence that she’d found was half the battle with party planning.
“I’ll just be a moment, everyone,” she called out, smiling at the crowd.
Then she ducked inside the tent, and all calm and all confidence immediately vanished from existence—just like her prospects for a future career after this nightmare of a day—because nobody was there.
“Where are you? Sanchez? Williams? I need you up front right now.”
Nobody answered, but she saw that one of the fitting room doors was hanging half-shut and askew. She automatically headed across the room to straighten it out, but then she saw her third horrifying sight of the day: Sanchez and Williams, lying crumpled on the ground half in and half out of the fitting room.
She snapped out of her shock, ran over, and knelt down to check her people. They were both still breathing, thankfully, and she gave a deep sigh of relief at that. Sanchez had a horrible bruise on one side of his face, though, and there was a little blood in Williams’s hair. Neither of them roused when she tried gently shaking them, so she stopped in case the shaking caused further injury.
She fumbled for the communications device on her belt. The queen had given it to Jaime when she first came to stay.
“I need help right now, please. Someone has attacked my staff. We’re in the costumes tent. Please hurry!”
To her surprise, Liam answered. “Get out right now. The attackers might still be there.”
She jumped up and whirled around, belatedly realizing that she may have been in danger, but there really wasn’t anywhere for anyone to hide. The fitting room doors were all tied open. The rack of costumes along the wall nearest them had been ransacked, though. Costumes had been ripped off hangers and hurled on the floor, which was not the way she’d left them.
“No, it’s empty except for us. We need help, though. Sanchez and Williams are injured. Please hurry.”
“I’m on the way,” Liam said, and it sounded like he was running while talking.
“Bring a medical team or healer, please. Woo woo or otherwise. And, Liam?”
He burst in to the tent, still holding the communicator. “What? Are you hurt?”