“It is fine. Please, can you speak to Judd about the current situation then Beta team will likely want to take the rest of the day off. We brought Ian and Jack back with us, so you’ll need to brief them as well.”
Caleb nodded and left. By then, his mother had turned to Tavi and Aric, fussing over them both. Kassim put his hand lightly on Pippa’s back as she turned to them.
“Kassim,” his mother said.
Leaning in, he kissed her cheek, breathing in her scent. It brought back memories of his childhood. Happy memories, even if his childhood had been shorter than most. Knowing you would one day run the country came with a lot of responsibilities and lessons that a child so young wouldn’t normally need.
When he had children, he was determined to make sure their childhoods lasted as long as possible.
“Mother, it’s been too long.”
“It has, but you know what your fathers are like. They prefer the freedom on the island.”
“What brings you here now?” he asked carefully.
“A friend called and asked us to pay a visit.”
Friend, huh? He looked over at Adele. He could guess who.
His mother turned to Pippa. “Hello, you must be Pippa. Is that your full name?”
“Hello, Your Majesty. Yes, it is.”
“Interesting.”
His mother was guarded around anyone who wasn’t family. She’d learned to be, but she wasn’t a bad person.
“Mother, I’m very glad to see you but we’ve just arrived home and we all have some things to attend to—”
“Yes, of course you do,” his mother replied. “Which is why I have arranged for us to have a family dinner tonight. So we can talk about everything that has happened.”
“That sounds acceptable.” Kassim turned to Adele. “I told you not to come back until you were given permission.”
Adele sucked in a breath, looking shocked. As though she had no idea what he was talking about. He was prepared to escort her out himself, if necessary.
“Kassim! That is rude,” his mother said. “I invited Adele here. She is a close family friend.”
Adele sent Pippa a superior smile. Kassim had to rein in his temper. He glanced over to find that Matek was about to explode. But he knew he couldn’t go against his mother’s wishes without a good reason. His fathers would have his head for upsetting her.
And Adele knew that.
Then Pippa slipped her hand into his. He glanced down at her and she gave him a reassuring smile. “Fine, but you cause any issues or harm to Pippa and you’re out of here. For good.”
His mother went to speak again, but he turned away. “If you’ll excuse us.”
“Oh, I thought Pippa might like to stay and have tea with us,” his mother said, making him pause and turn back.
Kassim eyed his mother then Adele. “Pippa is tired after her flight.”
“That’s okay,” Pippa said cheerfully. “I could use a cup of tea.”
He studied her, watching for any hint that she wasn’t up to this. But she just smiled up at him. He leaned in to whisper in her ear. “If Adele steps out of line, then tell me.”
“Don’t worry, I can handle Satan’s bride.”
* * *
Okay, she might have been confident in her ability to handle Satan’s bride, but nothing had prepared her for the princes’ mother. She was a force to be reckoned with. Not that she wasn’t nice. She was. But she was also very guarded, smart, and fiercely protective of her family.
Not that Pippa could hate her for that. In fact, she thought that under other circumstances they would get along well. But she’d obviously been alerted to what the tabloids had printed about Pippa and the princes. And she was here to make sure that Pippa was the right sort of woman to be with her sons. Or maybe she was here to chase her away from her sons. It was hard to tell.
It didn’t help that Adele was here, speaking poison in her ear. They’d only been sitting here for ten minutes and already she was exhausted.
“So, dear, you’re from New Zealand?” Isobelle asked her. Her name was as beautiful as she was. Hard to see how she was old enough to have given birth to four fully-grown men. “This is terrible to admit, but I don’t know much about the country.”
“That’s not your fault, Isobelle,” Adele said with a simper. “The country is small and not known for much.”
This. Bitch.
It was one thing to insult her. But no one insulted her country. But Pippa knew she had to walk a fine line. If she pointed out everything New Zealand was famous for, she might be insulting Isobelle who had just stated she didn’t know much.
“There’s a lot of sheep,” she said.
Adele snorted.
Okay, maybe that wasn’t the smartest thing to say.
“It’s actually an amazing place to grow up. Very beautiful. I was raised to be resilient and resourceful.”
“I suppose that helped when your fiance cheated on you,” Adele said snidely.
“I suppose it did,” Pippa replied cheerfully.
Do not kill her. Do not kill her.
“I suppose at least there are higher learning institutions,” Adele said. “Which one did you go to?”
This. Bitch. Was. Dead.
“I thought you’d be working today, Adele. Or were you fired?”
Adele flushed red.
“I wasn’t fired.”
“Sorry, I must have been misinformed. I am very tired after the long flight.”
“Yes, so sad you had to come back in a hurry,” Adele said snidely. “Scandals will do that.”
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to go rest before dinner.” And to leave before she strangled Adele.
“Of course, I best go get ready for dinner,” Isobelle said.
“Isobelle, might I borrow a dress so I don’t have to go back home and get changed?” Adele asked, making her pause.
Slime balls. Adele was coming to dinner? What had she done to the universe to deserve this kind of hell?
33
“Pippa, these are my fathers, Serin, Baler, and Frost,” Kassim introduced her. She was wearing a dress that Aric picked out. It was beautiful turquoise color that molded to her curves.
Frost?
“It’s a nickname,” Serin told her. “He won’t answer to his real name.”
Frost was big like Matek. Quiet as well. And she guessed that Matek’s blue eyes came from Isobelle who moved around her men. They all watched her intently, barely taking their gazes off her. It was clear that they were all still deeply in love.
It would be sweet. Under different circumstances.
Just then Adele laughed at something Isobelle said and Pippa ground her teeth together.
“What is she doing here?” Tavi muttered from her other side.
“Adele?” Serin asked. “I think your mother invited her. Why?”
“No reason,” Pippa said cheerfully, wanting this night over with.
Kassim’s cousins walked in next, she didn’t know them very well but liked them all. Except Jeric. But then no one liked the youngest cousin. She never trusted the way he looked at her.
Slimy.
Soon they were all seated at a long table and she stared down at her cutlery.
“If you don’t know which knife and fork to use, Pippa, just follow what I do,” Adele said from across the table.
“Why are you here?” Matek asked rudely as Pippa clenched her hands into fists.
“Matek,” Isobelle said, looking shocked.
Adele let out a nervous laugh that had several people wincing since it resembled a donkey’s bray. “Oh, Matek likes to joke around with me.”
Pippa snorted. Then realized that wasn’t a very sophisticated noise to make. She stiffened, worried she’d embarrassed her men. But Aric grinned at her and Tavi sent her a wink. Kassim placed his hand on her thigh.
“I never joke,” Matek said. “Why are you here?”
“I invited her,” Isobelle said coolly. “A
nd you’re being rude.”
“She’s rude to Pippa,” Matek pointed out.
“I was just trying to help,” Adele replied. She sounded so hurt. Yeah, right.
Pippa managed to hold back another snort. She made it through three awful courses, seriously how many courses could one dinner have, before talk turned to the tabloids.
“What do you intend to do about this mess with the British tabloids, Kassim?” Serin asked. All of his fathers had been polite but distant with her. Now everyone turned to stare at her and Kassim.
The princes’ fathers were all frowning.
“You need to take a strong stance,” Baler advised.
“I am,” Kassim reassured them. “I have my lawyers working on getting all the articles taken down and I intend to punish every person that printed a bad word about Pippa.”
“You can’t do that, Kassim,” Isobelle said.
“It seems like a lot of work,” Adele added. “Maybe you should just let it run its course.”
Right. Let them continue to fling mud at her, she meant.
“Actually,” Kassim said coldly. “I can do what I like, to protect our intended bride.”
“Intended bride?” Isobelle looked over at Kassim sharply. “So this is not just a fling?”
“Do you think I would introduce you to Pippa if she was just temporary in our life, mother?” Kassim asked.
“Or have her live with us?” Tavi asked.
“It seemed I was misinformed,” Isobelle said, staring over at Adele.
“How can you want to marry her!” Adele screeched, standing up. Her chair fell behind her. The staff, who had been setting down the next course, froze. “You can’t possibly want her! She’s nobody. Look at her! With that loud hair and her uncouth manners. She doesn’t know anything about being royalty. She is . . . she is ordinary.”
Everyone stared at Adele in shock for a long moment. Except for Frost, who had started eating.
“Enough.” To Pippa’s surprise, it was Isobelle who spoke up. “It is time for you to leave, Adele.”
“B-but—”Adele stared at the other woman in shock. “But you . . . I am much better suited to being their wife. I have manners. I know how to dress, what to say. She doesn’t even know what fork to eat with!”
“As if we care about that,” Tavi said to her with a sneer.
“If you think that’s what is important to us then you don’t know us at all,” Aric added.
“Pippa is everything we could want in a bride,” Kassim told her. “Kind, sweet, intelligent.”
“Yes, luckily, nothing like you,” Aric said coldly.
“Do I need to call security?” Tavi asked, standing.
“No, I’m leaving. But you will regret this!” She stormed out of the room.
“I’ll go make sure she has gone,” Jeric said, following her.
That was oddly helpful of him.
There was a long moment of silence.
“Well,” Serin said. “That was interesting.”
Isobelle turned a warm smile on Pippa. “I’m sorry for the earlier inquisition, Pippa. If you are my sons’ intended, well, that makes all the difference.”
“Inquisition?” Kassim asked quietly, in a low voice.
Pippa leaned in to soothe him. “It’s all right. It was just a chat.”
“But I don’t understand why you didn’t steal her? Like your fathers did with me.” Isobelle smiled fondly at her men.
Pippa couldn’t help but think how odd that would sound to someone who didn’t know and understand their traditions.
“Of course it’s not too late. When will you be entering your Marjarsom?” Isobelle asked
“We aren’t going to have one, mother,” Kassim replied calmly.
His mother gasped, even his fathers looked shocked.
“You have to.”
“Now isn’t a good time,” Tavi pointed out. “There is a lot going on and we’re needed here.”
“Nonsense, your fathers and I can take over matters here.”
Pippa noticed that her husbands didn’t seem too happy at that idea but they all nodded.
“I am also happy to continue to help,” Ryiad, his oldest cousin, said.
“Yes, but there are other factors.” Kassim frowned.
“No, no, you have to have a Marjarsom. It is tradition, even if you haven’t really stolen your bride. We’ll organize this and you can head to one of the islands. Yes, that’s what you’ll do.” Isobelle nodded and Pippa had a feeling that her word was law.
Yeah, Pippa thought the two of them would get on fine.
34
Pippa stepped into her bedroom suite in the palace.
Isobelle insisted that she had to use this room now that she was the princes’ intended bride. But Tavi and Aric had promised to join her soon after helping Matek to get ready for bed. Kassim was going to do some work in his office. He really was determined to make anyone who said a bad word about her suffer.
She was halfway into the room before a feeling of danger raced through her. She turned as someone stepped out of the shadows. Her eyes widened, fear making her heart race.
“Adele, what do you think you are doing in here?”
The other woman was a mess. Her dress was wrinkled, her hair was half out of the fancy hair-do she’d worn earlier and there was a crazed look in her eyes.
But worse than all that was the gun in her hand.
“This should have been mine. I was going to be Queen. But first I had to get rid of you. You were always around, weren’t you? They were meant to be mine! Instead, Kassim was always talking about you and Matek watched you. You and Aric were always laughing together and Tavi was fucking you in the copier room.”
“That was you? You put the camera in the copier room? You sent those photos to me?”
“Of course,” Adele said proudly. “I had to get you away from them. I didn’t like the way they looked at you or spoke about you. I was fucking one of the council members and they let it slip that the council was pressuring them into getting married and I was going to ensure that the person they wanted was me. They’re mine!”
Okay, she’d totally lost it. And Pippa didn’t like the way that gun was pointed at her middle. Even if Adele was a lousy shot, there was a high probability of Pippa getting shot.
“And did you knock me out in that alleyway?”
“Would have finished you off but I thought I heard someone coming. It was too risky, he said. Doing it myself. That’s why I hired someone to follow you in London and take you out. But the incompetent idiot hit Matek instead.”
“Who told you that? Who said it was too risky to hurt me yourself?”
“Jeric,” she spat out. “How do you think I got this?” Adele waved the gun around.
“Jeric gave you the gun?” she whispered, shocked. “Why?”
“He hates his cousins. Kassim gives him a tiny allowance. So he said he’d help me get rid of you.”
Because he didn’t get enough money he had helped Adele attempt to kill her? He’d given her the gun?
Holy. Hell.
She swallowed nervously.
It was obvious Adele wasn’t all there. Pippa thought it probably wasn’t a good idea to point that out to her while she held a gun.
But what to do? Tavi and Aric would be here soon and Adele might shoot them as they came through the door, unsuspecting.
She needed a distraction. Wait. The wardrobe. All she had to do was make her way to the wardrobe and she could lock the door and get in contact with security.
“Um, Adele, you seem really stressed,” she said with false sympathy.
“I’m fine.”
“Really? Because you’ve got a bit of something here.” Pippa pointed at her cheek. Adele rubbed at her own cheek and Pippa slid closer to the wardrobe. “And here.” The other cheek. Another step over as Adele rubbed at her face. “And here.” Her chin.
“Stop it! I look perfect as always! You’re the one who always looks
like a mess. Look at you. Frumpy and ugly. You’ll never make a good princess. They can dress a frog up but it will still be a frog.”
Pippa pushed down her own self-doubts. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t thought about herself. However, that no longer mattered. Her men wanted her for who she was. Not because she was perfect.
Which was just as well since she wasn’t.
“That’s an interesting analogy. I mean, I’m not sure why you’d want to dress a frog up or even touch one. And then you’d have to find tiny clothes for them. Maybe you’d need them custom-made—”
“Shut-up! Shut-up! Shut-up!” Adele screeched, running her fingers through her hair, the gun tilting up towards the ceiling. This was her chance. Pippa dived for the closet, slamming the button which quickly shut the door. She sat there, shaking as something pinged against the steel-enforced wood. A loud, crazed screech reached her. Her breathing came in short gasps and she felt close to passing out.
Calm down. Contact security.
Trembling, she pressed the button for the intercom that connected to the security room.
Thank Christ for Matek’s paranoia in turning each wardrobe in the private wing into its own form of panic room.
“Security room.”
“It’s Pippa. I’m in my wardrobe. Adele, she has a gun. She’s in my room. She might get Tavi and Aric, tell them not to come in.”
She heard a craze-filled wail from the other room then something bashed against the door.
“Got it, Pip,” the man replied and she realized it was Aleki.
“Don’t let her hurt them.”
“Let me in! Let me in!” Adele screeched.
“Remain where you are, Pippa,” the voice said calmly. “Everyone is on their way. They aren’t far out. If you stay where you are, you’re safe.”
She knew that, it was her men she was worried about. A sob worked its way from her lips.
“Talk to me, Pip. Tell me what sort of cupcake you’re planning on making tomorrow. We’ve missed your cupcakes, sweetheart. Oh, I got a new package in yesterday. Three bags of pineapple lumps with your name on it.”
She knew he was trying to keep her calm, but she just wanted to know that her men were all right.
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