Royally Screwed

Usually, I’m not lucky. Because usually, Bosco is hungry when he finds his way into my room, and I’m the feeder. So he wants to wake me up. But he doesn’t lick my face or bark to wake me up.

He stares at me.

With those black, beady little eyes he stares hard and long—and though it sounds weird, loudly.

And that’s the exact same sensation I get later that night while I’m asleep next to Nicholas. Like someone or something is staring at us so intently, it’s deafening.

I feel it before I open my eyes. But when I do, I see a woman in white standing at the foot of the bed, gazing down at us.

My lungs scrape to inhale shocked, terrified air. It’s more than a gasp—it’s a prelude to a scream.

But then I feel Nicholas’s hand on my chest, under the covers. Steady, strong—pressing just enough to be meaningful. To tell me he sees her too and that I need to hold it in, hold it together.

The moonlight from the window casts the huge room in a bluish light, making the woman’s skin shimmer in a milky glow. Her hair is dark, chopped in a bob to her shoulders, her face bony, with points at her chin and nose, but not unpretty. Her eyes are fixed on Nicholas, dark and shiny—and fucking loony-tunes crazy.

“You’re awake.” She sighs. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”

Nicholas’s throat works reflexively, but his voice—that captivating voice—is smooth and reassuring. “Have you?”

“Yes. It’s so good to see you again.”

His fingers move just slightly against my sternum, saying it’s okay—everything’s okay.

“It’s good to see you as well,” Nicholas replies. “How did you get in, again?”

She smiles, and goose bumps rise all over my skin.

“It was just like we agreed. Work at the hotel, pretend to be a maid until you give me the signal. You always have those boys with you, so I knew, when you started sending them away at night, that was my sign.”

Crap.

Her eyes jump to me, as if I said it out loud—but I didn’t.

“Who is she?” she asks, sounding the same level of insane but not nearly as happy.

“No one,” Nicholas says.

So coldly. So sure. It stops my heartbeat for half a second.

“She’s no one.”

Nicholas reaches down, grabbing his pants from the floor then slides into them as he stands up. “I want to hear about you. Let’s go out to the living room and chat.”

“But I want to stay here.” She pouts. “In the bedroom.”

“There’s a bottle of Krug Vintage Brut chilling. And this occasion definitely calls for Champagne.” Nicholas smiles easily.

He’s really good. If the prince thing doesn’t work out, he could totally be an actor.

“All right.” The woman giggles, mesmerized.

Once they leave the room, I throw on the first thing my hands touch—Nicholas’s button-down shirt—and dive for the phone on the nightstand to call for help.

But then there’s a shattered scream from the living room—piercing and heartbroken.

“What are you doing? Let me go!”

I’ve never run so fast, or been so afraid.

In the living room, Nicholas has the woman pinned on her stomach on the couch, her hands behind her back.

When he sees me he says, “My mobile’s on the bedside table. Dial seven—it’ll put you through to security.”

The woman cries and screeches like a wraith. “You’re ruining it! You’re ruining everything!”

And when she pulls against his hold on her hands, Nicholas tries to calm her. “There now, shhh. Don’t do that—you’ll hurt yourself. It’s going to be all right.”

I don’t know why I don’t move. It’s like my brain’s been disconnected from my feet.

“Olivia.” The sharpness in his tone makes me blink. “Mobile.”

“Right. Right.” And then I sprint down the hall and do exactly as he says.

What seems like hours later, the woman is taken away and in addition to the regular security guys, there are policemen and hotel staff in the suite. Nicholas, dressed in a soft gray T-shirt and running pants, talks to them in the living room.

I, feeling more put-together in my own clothes—jeans and an old peasant top—wait in the bedroom. With Logan.

Logan St. James, the head of Nicholas’s personal security team, is the strong, silent type. But in this moment he doesn’t really need to say anything—his eyes do all the talking for him.

They’re deep brown, almost black, and they glare at me with the withering heat of a thousand dark suns.

I swallow nervously. Where’s a trapdoor in the floor when you need one?

“This is my fault, isn’t it?” I find the nerve to ask.

“You can’t put ideas in his head about not needing security.”

Well, that answers that.

“He’s an important man, Olivia.”

“I know.”

“He has to have his wits about him. If anything happened…”

“I know that—”

“You don’t know! You never would’ve pulled the shit you did today if you knew.” Logan closes his eyes, breathing quick—like he’s trying to rein in what I suspect is an explosive temper. “He can’t afford to be screwed stupid by some New York gash.”

Before the nasty words have time to register, Logan is hauled back by his collar and slammed up against the wall—hard enough to make the light fixtures rattle.

Because suddenly Nicholas is there, pressing his forearm right against Logan’s throat.