Page 4 of Roaming Holiday

I stride down the palace’s elegant corridors with two security guards flanking me.

It’s not the royal palace that intimidates me; it’s the fact that Jack seemingly found a job here despite what happened a couple of months ago.

When reaching a secretary’s desk, the straight-nosed older woman behind it goes over the required confidentiality paperwork before I can meet with Jack. I sign several contracts and hand over my phone for her to put into a safe. Everything spoken inside the palace is under complete secrecy. I cannot share that I even attended this meeting. The security guards search me for any wires or other listening devices. The secretary points and instructs me to wait in this chair. No, that one.

I sit in the correct chair, twiddling my thumbs before chiding myself to stop. Shoulders squared, I brace my hands on my knees. Awkwardness isn’t becoming. El Revalté was deadly and quiet. Military Beck was confident, sure of himself. Civilian Beck is nervous. Desperate, even. I need Military Beck to return and El Revalté to stay in the shadows for good.

Perhaps I could be Wesley at some point and shed the past entirely.

“Beck.” Jack opens his office door with a pleasant expression.

I rise. “Jack. You’re working at the palace now?”

It hasn’t been long since I last saw him, but I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. We hug swiftly and pat each other on the back. “Head of royal security,” he says. “It’s a good gig.”

“The big boss, huh?”

He shrugs. “Head of palace security. Not the royal guard or anything. Come on in. How’s the hand?”

I hold up my unwrapped burn wound as we step into his office. “Better. Doesn’t hurt as much.”

Inside, another man waits. Middle-aged. Slicked-back thinning hair that reaches his chin. When he rises from his seat, I notice he’s at least six feet tall—still a few inches shorter than me.

“You must be Mr. Troutbeck.” He reaches out. “My name’s Andrew Elias.”

“Beck is fine.” I shake his hand, watching him curiously. “Elias? As in?—”

“The royal family, yes,” Andrew confirms. “Princess Beverly is my wife.”

Before I can react, Jack guides us over to a seating area. “Let’s cut to the chase,” he says, gesturing for me to sit in the chair. “What do you know about the royal family?” The men lower onto the couch.

“Other than the queen dying from cancer twenty years ago, little to nothing.”

“Good,” Andrew says.

“Good?”

Andrew nods slowly.

My childhood in Maldana was restricted to summers and Christmases. I remember the parades and memorials after the queen’s death. As far as I know, the royals weren’t interesting enough for the media to exploit, and their importance diminishes each year. By the time I moved here full-time, I focused solely on the military.

“Indeed, she died about twenty years ago,” Andrew begins. “However, it’s not public knowledge that Queen Ophelia had abandoned her role six years prior to her death.”

I cinch my brows. “How is that possible?”

“As you might know, Maldanian royals were hardly in the public eye to begin with. When she abandoned her role, we released a statement citing prolonged illness about why Princess Beverly would take her place. The plan was to eventually convince Ophelia to return.”

“Why did she leave?”

“She fell in love with an American and wanted a normal life with him. They had two daughters together.” Andrew reaches across the coffee table to hand me a file. “Maia Laffley, the younger one. And Nina Laffley, the older one.”

I open the manila folder. “Do they know about their mother being queen?”

Elbows on his knees, he laces his fingers. “No. Queen Ophelia didn’t die from cancer, either. She died in a car crash when Nina was five and Maia was two. Their father, Pierce Laffley, raised them in a Massachusetts suburb where they knew nothing of who their mother really was. Pierce remarried when the girls were teenagers to a Ruby Conner.”

“What does it say on their birth certificates? How did they never find out?”

“Pierce was adamant they didn’t know the truth so they could have normal childhoods. However he avoided the topic, that’s for him to say. We kept tabs on the girls throughout their lives.”

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