Page 37 of Royally Tempted

“He polygraphed me.”

The grin came to my lips before I could stop it, and I arched a brow at our head of security.

“You put a lie detector on her?”

“Yup.”

I turned back to Emma to see her holding my gaze unflinchingly, her eyes fierce.

Damn.

There was no way I could hold onto whatever anger I had, not with her. Not with that defiant, fierce, fiery passion she had behind her eyes.

“Ididn’tknow,” she said evenly, looking at each of us in turn.

None of us said a thing, but you could practically see the anger fizzling away.

“There’s still your paper,” Joaquin finally said, his voice tight. “When that story breaks, we’re going to befucked.”

Slowly, Emma justgrinned.

“I’m glad you find thatamusing,” Landon hissed. “But—”

“I haven’t even gotten to the best part,” she said quietly with a big smile.

“Spell it out for me,” I muttered.

“They can’t run the story.” Emma’s voice cut the air, her eyes moving to all of us. “For one, recording someone without telling them and without some sort of legal wiretap or surveillance is illegal, in basically all of the kingdoms.”

I arched my brow, the smile teasing my lips as I met her eyes. “I’m impressed.”

Emma grinned widely. “Oh, I haven’t even gotten to therealgood part yet.”

And that’s when she dropped the bomb on us.

See, a hidden recording device like the one her coworker Simone slipped her is a couple of pay-grades above what most newspapers would be working with. Actually, when Ryker and his team cracked that fucker open and started poking around, they’d opened up the real bombshell: the hidden recorder was property of theBellhavencounter-terrorism division.

The bug that’d recorded us to ruin us wasfromour damn country.

Ryker isn’t a man to leave ends untied either, and it’d taken him all of twenty minutes to get in touch with the head of our security unit, match the serial number of the bug to the master equipment manifest, and figure outexactlywho’d signed it out for use in the field. The time and supply location CCTV cameras had been back-checked, and low and fucking behold, guess who’d checked out a spy mic in order to try and ruin the three princes of Bellhaven?

Three members of our own fucking council. The same council that’d spent more of a year so far not being able to pick one of us to run the country.

“Oh, and that microphone has built in storage in addition to a transmitter.” Ryker slowly grinned a wicked smile. “And those morons had the thing on thewhole fucking timebefore her shitty coworker even gave it to her. The three councilmen offering Simone a bunch of money to get her coworker to bug the Club, and promises of more money if she could help bring you three down.”

He chuckled.

“We in the security business like to call that ‘conspiracy and treason.’ We’ve got all of it on tape back at the palace, and I’ve taken the liberty of bringing your legal team into the mix.”

Emma cleared her throat. “Oh, and we’ve also got Simonefuckingmy boss, Martin, in order to get a raise and a title bump thatIwas up for.”

I whistled lowly, shaking my head and taking this all in.

“Thank you, Ryker,” I finally said quietly, nodding solemnly at him. “Honestly, thank you, for everything.”

He just grinned.

“It’s what I do, Your Highness.”

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