by Angel Payne
Ambyr blinked. Then again. The blast zone had finally stretched into her brain. “They also need to know we will not be this way forever. Seeing their monarchs happy and in love—”
“And pressured to propose by a public relations stunt?” Jayd volleyed.
Ambyr flattened a hand to the base of her throat. Blinked with huge, hurt eyes. “With all due respect, Your Highness…I did not think, for one moment—”
“No, Miss Stratiss.” Jayd stiffened, the opalescence of her own gaze glimmering with ire. “You did not think, and that is why—”
I stepped forward, damn near desperately. “With all due respect of my own,”—a peacekeeper was necessary, right this second—“Ambyr has some good points.” If only said diplomat didn’t feel like the gladiator thrown to the lionesses. “Seeing you and your brothers in fully shiny mode, making Arcadia look great to the world, will make everyone feel more secure and ready to move on from all this mess.” I turned from Jayd’s silent pout, to confront Ambyr’s preening one. “And if you want this thing to score a few more points on the citizens’ approval scale, invite a few of them up the hill for the night, to rub shoulders with the Cimarrons in person. Have Camellia give them a walking tour of the Palais. It’ll be like what Jackie O did for America in the 60’s, only a lot more fun.”
A blink-blink from Jayd.
Another set from Ambyr.
An excited spatter of applause—from the woman in the bed.
“Oh, Lucy. I love all those ideas!” Crista jabbed an awkward thumb in the air, wincing a little as all the medical tape pulled at her arm hair. “Kick ass!”
I openly laughed. The woman’s stabs at my slang were worth another round of blink-blinks from the others, though those never came. Apparently, the lionesses were still circling and hungry for blood.
Perhaps it was time to just get the hell out of the ring.
“Right now, it’s time to kick my little ass into the ladies room.” I stood, giving Crista an encouraging hand squeeze. “I’ll be right back. Maybe I’ll find that cute doctor and ask him where the hell your discharge papers are.”
Crista flashed a Christmas-is-coming grin. “Kicking ass yet again, Miss Fava.”
*
My excuse hadn’t been a lie. The morning’s coffee had caught up, so I was grateful to find the restroom down the hall and take care of business—
Only to finish up, and have my business given back to me.
More correctly, shoved so hard against the wall, my breath escaped in an astonished gust.
I was so stunned I looked down first, instead of up—
At the hand with the flawless manicure, still pinning me like a butterfly to a science board. Several feet below that, a pair of ice-blue flats were planted on the tile.
I jerked my head up, narrowing a what-the-fuck glare.
Ambyr didn’t give me the chance to utter a syllable of it.
“Follow. Me.” The seethe in her tone brooked no dissention—not that I would’ve allowed her to rip me apart here, less than ten feet from people recuperating from the various traumas courtesy of a six-feet-plus storm surge. When we were private, she could tear away. I shook my head, saddened that I already expected no less.
At the end of a short breezeway, the building opened up to a small courtyard. The major debris had been cleared from the benches and tables, but most of the planters would need to be dug up and repotted. The flowers and shrubs had been decimated. If I were picking out a new look, I’d think of installing an herb garden. The space looked like it’d get plenty of afternoon sunshine, and—
But that choice wasn’t mine. And never would be.
Filling me with even deeper sadness.
Which, maybe not so weirdly, I channeled into a fresh sense of peace as Ambyr led the way across the flagstones.
Finally, she spun back around. Clack. Clack. Planted her stance, ready for confrontation, just as she had back in the hallway. Her stare had bypassed lioness, going straight for she-dragon. Her lips were a twist of deep crimson. Her chest was a furious pump, up-and-down against the confines of her tailored blue linen.
“Miss Stratiss.” I spread my arms. “What can I do for you?”
“Do? For me?” For a second, I wondered if she’d go full catty-whomper bitch with it, splicing in a cackling laugh, but pushed the mental delete as soon as it occurred. Ambyr wasn’t a cackler. She took her shit seriously. It might only be glued onto construction paper pages, but every damn corner was sealed and secured. “What you can do is not do anything else, Miss Fava,” she finally added. “Most especially the man who will be proposing to me this Saturday night.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
‡
It didn’t completely shock me.
But my mouth popped open enough to make her happy. Or whatever Ambyr Stratiss’s version of “happy” was. As established, the woman took serious to a new level of dedication.
That being said, she tapped her foot—actually waiting for me to answer. Must’ve been pre-written in her mind’s eye for this scene. No way in hell did I risk taking her off-script now.
“Okay…Ambyr…listen—”
“Shut. Up.” Right on schedule, along with the acidic huff of punctuation. “Excuses are futile. I may dress like a fashion doll, but I assure you, I am not one.”
I lowered to a bench, hoping the motion would signify respect. “That’s been clear from the start, I assure you.”
“Good. So you must know that I know by now.” She moved only to raise up her spine, regarding me with a new infusion of haughty. “I have eleven years of history with Shiraz Cimarron, in which I have studied nearly every nuance of his moods, masks, and miens. The one he presented at breakfast the morning after the storm…”
The morning after he and I had finally fucked.
No.
Made love.
I forced myself to make the private confession, despite carefully hiding it from her. Yeah, I’d loved him, even that night. From the moment he’d exposed my darkest fantasies…then boldly accepted them…then made so many of them come true with such blinding, brilliant magic…
Goner. Me.
His goner.
“Was what?” I filled in Ambyr’s extended silence, forcing myself to go gently. Her hands were raised in front of her waist again, though now they were restless twists instead of choirgirl serenity.
“He was…different,” she finally murmured—only to jolt herself from the troubled trance, as if remembering she wasn’t confessing to a friend but confronting an adversary. “Yes,” she spat. “Different…in that way a man gets when he has been…slaked.”
“Slaked.” I dove at it like trying out an exotic food in a foreign land, because when would the opportunity ever roll around again? Had to admit, it wasn’t as gross as munching on crickets. Barely. “You mean…he was happy?”
She laughed then. An honest-to-God giggle. But instead of enhancing her natural beauty, it harshened the sharp angles of her face. “Go ahead and gloat, salpu. Even throw a parade that you had him all that night, then again in the dirt at Endigoh Beach, and Creator-knows-where after that. For all I know, Samsyn even covered for the two of you with that tale about rescuing horses out at Asuman.” She struck a pose, one hand raised and the opposite toe pointed, fashion plate haughty on bitch steroids. “For all of that, I am actually grateful. You broke him in, so I did not have to.”
Blink.
Blink.
Well…fuck.
I replayed the callous words and her carefree tone—still coming up with zilch on a definitive conclusion. What the hell had the woman just confessed? Did I really want to know? Was it really any of my business?
“I beg your pardon?”
Guess I did. Guess it was.
Because after everything was said, done, celebrated, and settled—this conversation, Saturday night’s party, the kingdom’s recovery, the weddings, the births, and years after that—the only damn thing that mattered to me was Shiraz Cimarr
on’s happiness.
Ultimately, that meant serving his people.
With a worthy woman by his side.
“Oh, you do not have to beg it of me,” Ambyr replied breezily. “You have my pardon, Lucina.” She hitched a penciled eyebrow. “Indeed, you have my thanks.”
I pushed to the edge of the bench seat. Balled both hands atop my pressed knees. Talk about the universe’s kick in the head. I’d sat just like this, on the edge of Shiraz’s office couch, less than a week ago—minus the fists. And the cosmic shift in my heart.
“I don’t understand.” No having to sugarcoat that one. Her thanks? For “breaking him in”? What was she saying? What the hell was Shiraz getting into? My heart thudded, spinning the possibilities to the realm of the bizarre. Was he going to end up the sex slave of some sado-crazy dominatrix? Or cuckold of a woman who really believed in adhering to the traditions of the old court—including playing musical beds with her courtiers? Like either of those would go over well with a man like Shiraz.
Ambyr acknowledge my move with another flighty hand wave. “Of course you don’t understand. You probably liked what he did to you.”
You mean what we did together? But I wasn’t about to point that out. Not here Not now. Not ever with her.
Ruminations that didn’t lead to any kind of a tactful reply, so I didn’t render one. Thankfully, didn’t need to. The ice princess rendered a rolling shiver that spoke volumes. “Yes, yes,” she muttered. “You American salpus…you all enjoy that sort of thing, don’t you?” Another delicate flinch. “The sweat. The strain. The…bodily fluids.”
My fists unraveled. I dipped my head quickly, so she didn’t catch my smirk. “Don’t knock it ’till you’ve tried it, sister.”
She stumbled backward by a step. Bobbed her head to the side, as if my words were a slap. “We are not ‘sisters’, Lucina Fava. Nowhere near it.” Her head came back up, stiffening until the cords were like cable ropes beneath her skin. “In that regard, I am going to be completely clear about your ‘help’ for my event on Saturday night. It is not needed or wanted—and neither are you. While it is my sincere hope Samsyn finds a way to get you completely off Arcadia by then, I must be realistic about the challenges we face in logistics, with getting the key members of the press over here for the festivities.”
I only nodded. The woman didn’t want to hear that I was likely on a first name basis with many of the celebrity beat reporters, and could coach them to live feed locales showing off the Palais at its best. She also didn’t want to hear that even before now, every additional hour I spent on this island was like another damn stake in my heart. She was running her own script, shooting her own movie, and I hoped it wouldn’t end up as everyone’s punchline in the next news cycle.
“To that end, Miss Fava, I must fiercely urge your absence from the celebration.” She adopted a new pose, hands joined together atop one of her hips, feet scooted into a ballet third position. “If you eschew my mandate, I will have no choice but to hail Arcadian security forces to assist you out of the ballroom.”
Screw the secret smirk. I was so tempted to. It’d be fun, just laughing in the priss’s face, but no way could I let her have even that satisfaction. If I was being openly blackballed, then she was truly scared—in itself a curious thing, if she really believed me to be Shiraz’s “trite little slake”—but I bypassed the snub in favor of the bigger picture. The much bigger picture.
And because of that, the much bigger fear I planned on throwing down.
Starting. This. Second.
Two steps took me back over the gap between her and me. Two more beats committed, just to be certain she saw the resolution in my gaze and felt the fire of my energy. Done and done—
And now, time to do this.
“I’ll honor your mandate, Miss Stratiss—but only because I have one of my own.”
Her lips twinged, spilling with a delicate chuff. “Oh? Is that so?”
One more step. One more moment of letting her see I wasn’t kidding about this. Not. One. Fucking. Bit.
“The universe is giving you a damn good man, Ambyr. A gift from the angels. He deserves the very best in return, including the woman on his arm, in his bed, and in his life.”
For a tiny moment, I took a huge risk. Let the walls drop, shedding all the shields of snarky, sarcastic, and cynical from my face…letting her see through to the woman beneath. The adversary now handing her the full victory—and the non-negotiable challenge.
“Vow to be that woman. Ambyr. Lift yourself higher…for him. Be better…for him. Because I’ll promise you this. I will be watching.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
‡
This was so not a great idea.
It was Saturday night. And I was not parked on the terrace of my suite, with a paperback in hand, where I’d vowed—and made very clear to everyone, down to the girl from food services who’d brought my dinner—that I’d be remaining. All night. As in, not moving. Butt on the mattress. Nose parked in the newest Steve Berry book. He was a great alternative to my normal steamy romances, which were not a wise choice for the night. No melty panties tonight. No thinking of melty panties tonight. I’d been good on every damn front.
Except that now…I wasn’t.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I rasped, while hurrying as fast as I could down the hallway in the Palais’ south wing. Yeah, that south wing. The one containing all the royal family’s apartments.
The apartments located directly over the Altor Ballroom.
I yanked off my flip-flops and attempted deep Zen breaths. Okay, attempted. That shit never worked for me even in yoga class, and this stress far outweighed whether I’d accomplish tree pose without falling over.
Fifteen minutes. That was all it’d taken for all my good to get scrapped in this pot of crazy. Fifteen damn minutes.
As the night had begun, with media helicopters circling the Palais for their aerial shots, I’d practically felt my spirit in the skies with them. It had been a damn good week, at least for staying busy and dodging two bullets named Shiraz and Crista. Not that I hadn’t been grazed, especially during an afternoon visit to Crista’s cottage. One minute the two of us were chatting, the next Shiraz’s advance security team had swept in, announcing the prince was on his way for a “quick stop” on his way to checking the repair progress at the tarmac. I’d successfully slipped free the second he’d arrived, climbing into the Mini Cooper on loan from the court auto pool as he’d climbed out of his royal Bentley.
Not before he’d gotten in a good, long, skewer of a stare across the road. A thunderstorm inside an instant…a look confirming exactly what my heart already dreaded and my soul already knew.
Our “goodbye” at Endigoh hadn’t been the finish. For either of us.
But looking for that ending was also useless.
The two of us would never be finished.
Meaning I really needed to do what I came over here to do, then get the freaking hell out.
The urgency needed no enforcement but got one anyway. From the ballroom below, the strains of an orchestra surged into the air. It wasn’t standard dancing fare. The Arcadian national anthem, majestic and official, swelled through the whole building.
Freaking great.
I wasn’t just going to get caught this close to the “forbidden” party, dressed in nothing but my sleep tank and a pair of drawstring shorts. That bombast of a song alone was going to turn my apprehending soldiers into bloody national heroes.
“What the hell. Go big or go home.”
Why had it sounded so much better in my head?
And how much further until I got to Jayd’s damn apartment?
I didn’t want to stop but did. My sense of direction in this small city of a building had already been established—at next-to-nil. Quickly, I keyed in a message at the bottom of the thread, fifteen minutes old, between Jayd and me.
:: I’m here. Where are you? ::
Thank God for her three bouncing dots, a
ppearing immediately.
:: Still in the ballroom. I cannot get free yet. This dress is going to pop any second! ::
As she’d already told me, in shouty-caps texts above.
With her seamstress on loan to Ambyr, as she’d also relayed above.
Meaning she needed someone to sew her back into the dress. Perhaps someone who’d done the same thing for half a dozen brides before…?
Hence, the reason I was here, trembling like an escaped convict from Alcatraz, fingers shaking as I managed to respond.
:: I’m directly over the ballroom. How much further to your rooms? ::
No comforting trio of dots now.
While waiting, I kept moving, keeping my back flattened to the wall. Like that was going to help for cover if a battalion of red-and-golds suddenly rushed up the hallway. I had the comfort factor, at least—and right now, I’d take what I could get.
“Come on, Jayd,” I gritted, now practically padding on the balls of my feet. “Come on.”
My screen remained blank.
Shit.
But around one more curve in the hallway: a set of broad double doors. Guarded, as Jayd had promised, by only one man in uniform. Jagger Fox. Behind him, carved into the left panel, was an ornate hawk. A dove dominated the other.
I’d seen those images before. In ink, across Shiraz’s biceps.
Yesssss.
Jagger spotted me. Urged me forward by lifting a hand and ninja-tapping his fingers. No further clarification needed. I sprinted for the doors and let him shut me in. Only then did I expel a huge breath of relief, my back still against the door.
The chance to breathe easy was too awesome to pass up. I did it again, letting my lungs fill, before finally checking out Jayd’s digs. Well, what I could see of them. With the lights dimmed in the whole apartment, I could only make out the stuff in the main living room—and even then, only basic shapes. I smelled leather, though. And fresh wood oil on the floor. And, dammit, a distinct hint of currant and bergamot cologne.
Or maybe I was just doomed to smell Shiraz on the air, no matter where I went from now on. Which wasn’t such a horrible thing…