Chap­ter 44: Brid­get

I’D LOST MY MIND, ASKING ALEX FOR HELP. HE MIGHT BE DATING AVA, and he might be less…sociopathic since they’d got­ten back togeth­er last year, but I still trust­ed the man as far as I could throw him.

Yet for all his faults, he tru­ly loved Ava, and he owed me for kick­ing his ass into gear before I left for New York. If I hadn’t, he’d still be mop­ing over her and ter­ror­iz­ing every­one around him.

Our call four days ago had been short and suc­cinct. I told him what I want­ed, and he con­firmed he could get it. I didn’t doubt his abil­i­ty to pull through, because this was Alex we were talk­ing about, but he hadn’t giv­en me a deliv­ery date and I’d been on pins and nee­dles since.

“Your High­ness.” Booth spoke at a low­er vol­ume than usu­al, and his body vibrat­ed with ner­vous ener­gy as we walked to my room. We’d just returned from an event at the Nation­al Opera House, and I’d been so dis­tract­ed by thoughts of my plan I hadn’t ques­tioned why Booth was accom­pa­ny­ing me to my suite when he usu­al­ly bid me good­bye at the palace entrance.

“Yes?” I arched an eye­brow at Booth’s furtive glances around the emp­ty hall. He was a good body­guard, but he would make a ter­ri­ble spy.

“Read it when you’re alone.” He slipped a piece of paper into my hands, his words almost inaudi­ble.

I frowned. “What—”

A maid turned the cor­ner, and Booth stepped back so fast he near­ly crashed into the porce­lain vase on a near­by side table.

“Well,” he said, his voice now so loud I flinched. “If that’s all, Your High­ness, I’ll be going.” He dropped to a whis­per again. “Don’t tell any­one else about it.”

He waved and speed-walked down the hall until he dis­ap­peared around the same cor­ner the maid had round­ed.

My frown deep­ened.

What in the world? It wasn’t like Booth to be so cryp­tic, but I did as he asked and wait­ed until I shut the door behind me before I unfold­ed the paper. Booth wasn’t a secret notes type of per­son. What had—

Time stopped. My blood rushed to my face, and my stom­ach swooped at the famil­iar, messy scrawl before me.

9 p.m. tonight, princess. Two chairs.

No name, but I didn’t need one.

Rhys was still in Eldor­ra.

A whoosh of relief dart­ed through me, fol­lowed by anx­i­ety and a twinge of pan­ic. We hadn’t talked since the hos­pi­tal, and we hadn’t exact­ly end­ed things on a good note. Why was he reach­ing out now, two-and-a-half weeks lat­er? How had he con­vinced Booth to sneak me a note? What—

“Brid­get!”

For a sec­ond, I thought the call of my name came from out­side my room, but then I looked up and saw the petite brunette stand­ing in my suite.

Anoth­er, whol­ly dif­fer­ent kind of dis­be­lief flood­ed me.

“Ava? What are you doing here?” I hasti­ly shoved Rhys’s note into my pock­et, where it seared through the silk and into my skin.

Her face broke into a wide smile. “Sur­prise! I’m here to see you, of course. And I’m not alone.”

On cue, Jules swanned into the sit­ting room dressed in a famil­iar-look­ing green coat. “Good after­noon, Your High­ness,” she sang.

I cocked my head. “Is that my coat?”
“Yes,” she said with zero shame. “I love it. It makes my hair pop.” The emer­ald col­or did, indeed, make her red hair pop. “Your clos­et is every­thing. I need an in-depth tour lat­er.”

“You already had an in-depth tour, cour­tesy of your­self.” Stel­la came up behind her, clad in a sleek white dress that made her olive skin glow. As the fash­ion blog­ger in our group, her clos­et rivaled mine, though her cloth­ing choic­es were more casu­al. “You spent half an hour exam­in­ing her shoe col­lec­tion.”

“It’s called research,” Jules said. “I’m going to be a lawyer. Pow­er heels are essen­tial for stomp­ing all over the oppo­si­tion.”

I let out a soft laugh as I hugged my friends, my shock grad­u­al­ly mor­ph­ing into excite­ment. I hadn’t seen them in per­son since I moved back to Eldor­ra, and I hadn’t real­ized how much I’d missed our face-to-face chats until now.

How­ev­er, I held off on greet­ing the last per­son in the group with a hug.

“Alex.” I nod­ded at Ava’s boyfriend, which seemed too tame a word to describe him. Boyfriends were sweet and kind. Alex, with his cold eyes and cold­er demeanor, was any­thing but, though his expres­sion did warm a degree when he looked at Ava.

“Brid­get.”

Nei­ther of us gave any sign we’d inter­act­ed beyond these types of group set­tings. I felt bad hid­ing my call from Ava, but the less she knew about what we were up to, the bet­ter. Plau­si­ble deni­a­bil­i­ty mat­tered.

“We saw what hap­pened on the news, with your grand­fa­ther and Rhys.” Ava’s brow knit with con­cern. “We would’ve come soon­er, but Jules had to wrap up her intern­ship and I couldn’t take time off until now. How are you hold­ing up?”

“I’m all right. My grandfather’s a lot bet­ter.” I pur­pose­ly didn’t men­tion Rhys.

“I knew some­thing was going on with you and your hot­tie body­guard. I’m nev­er wrong,” Jules joked before she, too, turned seri­ous. “Do you need any­thing from us, babe? Maybe some paparazzi ass you need kicked? A decoy while you sneak off to a mid­night ren­dezvous with your lover? I can dye my hair blonde.”

“J, you’re like three inch­es short­er than her,” Stel­la said.

Jules lift­ed one shoul­der. “Minor issue. Noth­ing heels won’t solve.”

I laughed again, even as Rhys’s note burned a hole in my pock­et. 9 p.m. Two chairs.

“How did you guys get in here?”

“We worked with Niko­lai on the sur­prise,” Jules said. “Too bad he’s tak­en. Your brother’s hot.”

“We’re here for the week­end,” Stel­la added, brush­ing a stray curl out of her face. With her green eyes, tanned skin, and leg­gy grace, she was the most gor­geous per­son I’d ever met, and while she was ful­ly aware of the effect her looks had on others—especially men—she nev­er flaunt­ed it. “I wish we could stay longer, but we can’t take that much time off from work.”

“It’s okay. I’m just glad you’re here.” The knot of lone­li­ness in my stom­ach loos­ened an inch. As much as I want­ed to reread Rhys’s note over and over again until I mem­o­rized every swoop and curve of the let­ters, I also want­ed to hang out with my friends. It had been far too long. “Tell me. What did I miss?”

Since I didn’t have any meet­ings for the rest of the day, I spent the after­noon catch­ing up with my friends while Alex took a series of busi­ness calls. I told them about my train­ing, good­will tour, and birth­day ball. They told me about their jobs, their dat­ing fails, and their road trip to Shenan­doah Nation­al Park.

Even­tu­al­ly, we passed the light top­ics and reached the ele­phant in the room.

“You and Rhys.” Ava squeezed my hand. “What hap­pened?”

I hes­i­tat­ed, debat­ing how much to tell them before I set­tled on a brief, san­i­tized ver­sion of the sto­ry, start­ing with when I learned about Nikolai’s abdi­ca­tion and end­ing with our breakup in the hos­pi­tal. I recount­ed every­thing with­out break­ing down, which I con­sid­ered a major win.

Once I fin­ished, my friends gaped at me, their expres­sions rang­ing from shock to sad­ness to sym­pa­thy.

“Holy shit,” Jules said. “Your life is a Hall­mark movie.”
“Not exact­ly.” Hall­mark movies had hap­py end­ings, and mine was still up in the air.

“Is there any­thing we can do?” Sym­pa­thy creased Stella’s face. For once, she wasn’t on her phone, which was a major feat, since she prac­ti­cal­ly lived on the inter­net.

I shook my head. “I’ll fig­ure it out.”

If Alex comes through. I glanced at where he stood by the win­dow, speak­ing rapid-fire Russ­ian into his phone.

“It’ll work out, babe.” Jules radi­at­ed con­fi­dence. “It always does. If it doesn’t, declare mar­tial law and tell them you’re keep­ing your crown and hot body­guard. What are they going to do, guil­lo­tine you?”

My lips inched up into a smile. I could always count on Jules to come up with the most out­ra­geous ideas. “It doesn’t work like that, and they might.”

“Fuck ‘em. I’d like to see them try. If they do, Alex will take care of it. Right, Alex?” Jules’s voice took on a teas­ing, singsong qual­i­ty.

Alex ignored her.

“Stop pro­vok­ing him,” Ava said. “I can’t always save you.”

“I’m not pro­vok­ing him. It’s a com­pli­ment. Your man can get any­thing done.” When Ava turned away, Jules leaned in and whis­pered, “He’s total­ly whipped. Watch.” She raised her voice to a pan­icked lev­el. “Oh my God! Ava, are you bleed­ing?”

Alex’s head snapped up. Less than five sec­onds lat­er, he end­ed his call and crossed the room to a con­fused-look­ing Ava, whose hand froze halfway to the scones on the table.

“I’m fine,” Ava said as Alex searched her for injuries. She glared at Jules. “What did I just say?”

“I can’t help it.” Jules’s eyes sparkled with mis­chief. “It’s so much fun. It’s like play­ing with a windup toy.”

“Until the toy comes alive and kills you,” Stel­la mur­mured loud enough for every­one to hear.

Alex stared at Jules with dis­plea­sure scrawled all over his face. His fea­tures were so per­fect it was a lit­tle unnerv­ing, like see­ing a care­ful­ly sculpt­ed stat­ue come to life. Some peo­ple were into that, but I pre­ferred men with a lit­tle more grit. Give me scars and a nose that was slight­ly crooked from being bro­ken too many times over per­fec­tion.

“Pray you and Ava stay friends for­ev­er,” Alex said, icy enough to elic­it a rash of goose­bumps on my arms.

Jules didn’t appear fazed by the implied threat. “First of all, Ava and I will be friends for­ev­er. Sec­ond of all, bring it on, Volkov.”

Ava sighed. “Do you see what you left me in D.C. with?” she mut­tered to me.

I made a sym­pa­thet­ic noise.

My friends stayed for anoth­er hour before they left for din­ner. I declined their invi­ta­tion to join, say­ing I had some offi­cial busi­ness to take care of before tomor­row, but I promised to give them a palace tour in the morn­ing.

I snuck a peek at the clock.

Three more hours until nine p.m.

Nerves cas­cad­ed through my stom­ach. What would I say once I saw Rhys? What would he say? I didn’t want to tell him about my plan until I was sure I had the pieces in place, and he might not approve, any­way. My meth­ods weren’t above­board by any means.

“I’ll be right out.” Alex kissed Ava on the fore­head. “I’m going to use the restroom first.”

After every­one filed out, I turned to Alex and crossed my arms over my chest. “It took you long enough. And you could’ve giv­en me a heads up you were com­ing.”

“I run a For­tune 500 com­pa­ny. I do have oth­er busi­ness to attend to besides your per­son­al life.” He straight­ened his shirt sleeve. “You might also want to look up the def­i­n­i­tion of ‘sur­prise.’ Ava insist­ed.”

I sighed, not want­i­ng to get into a drawn-out argu­ment with him. “Fine. Do you have what I need?”

Alex reached into his pock­et and retrieved a USB dri­ve. “Infor­ma­tion on all one hun­dred eighty mem­bers of Eldorra’s Par­lia­ment, as request­ed.” Infor­ma­tion, AKA black­mail mate­r­i­al. “Once I hand this over to you, my debt is paid.”

“I under­stand.”

He stud­ied me for a long moment before he dropped the dri­ve into my out­stretched hand.

My fin­gers closed around the tiny gad­get while my heart skit­tered like a fright­ened rab­bit. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I wasn’t a black­mail­er. But I need­ed lever­age, fast, and this was the only way I could think to get it.

I hoped I wouldn’t have to resort to using the infor­ma­tion. How­ev­er, with the clock tick­ing down and my pri­vate appeals to min­is­ters polite­ly but firm­ly rebuffed, I might need to.

“I have to say, I’m impressed,” Alex drawled. “I didn’t think you had it in you. Maybe you’ll make a good queen after all.”

Of course he thought good lead­er­ship rest­ed on manip­u­la­tion and deceit. His favorite philoso­pher was prob­a­bly Machi­avel­li.

“Alex,” I said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you are a com­plete dick.”

“One of the nicer things peo­ple have said about me.” He checked his watch. “I would say thank you, but I don’t care. I trust you can take it from here?” He nod­ded at the USB dri­ve.

“Yes.” Some­thing occurred to me. I shouldn’t ask because I had a feel­ing I wouldn’t like the answer, but… “You have a black­mail file on me too, don’t you?”