Page 20 of The Princess and the Fraud

As soon as I rounded the corner, I turned around, not quite expecting Aaron to berighton my heels. He bumped a full step into me, his hand shooting out to brace himself on my waist. For a moment, all I could think about was his wide, five-finger grip on my body. The instinctual hold pulled me into him for the world’s briefest moment, and everything became engulfed in the scent of his heady cologne.

My traitorous thoughts summoned the image of his bare chest, and I jerked back from him as if I’d been burned.

I tried to shake off the touch. “You’re fumbling out there,” I told him. “Bad.”

“So thiswasn’tabout my shirt.”

“You’re reallythat dense?”

Aaron directed his petulant scowl down the hallway. “No.”

“Mr. Holland and Dr. Conan aren’t the targets you want to aim for. They’re just there for the illusion—it’s the wives who make decisions around here. The Monarchs. They’re who you have to target. And you have to come at them from an inferior side. ‘I know this is such a hassle, and the space might be better use for something else, but?—’”

“Better than a music center?” He seemed almost disgusted. “Better than a space a charity can utilize?”

“You lie to these people.” I made a face at him. “You know that. You’ve done it before. Why are you acting like you’re on some moral high ground now?”

Aaron reached up and combed a hand through his hair, the dark locks feathering between his fingers as he tugged. It was then that I realized how much longer it’d grown out since last June, how… unkempt it looked compared to the short style he’d had. Hownormal. “Because they think they’reso much betterthan everyone else, Lovisa. It drives me mad.”

“And you don’t do the same? Bringing upMargot?” I all but scoffed. “As if you didn’t use her as a prop the last time you were here.”

He drew in a slow breath through his nose, clearly fighting for patience. “There is a difference, my dear, between viewing someone as a business partner and viewing them as the dirt beneath your shoe. I would’ve thought you’d know the difference.”

It took everything in me to remain calm where I stood. “And what’s that supposed to mean? You thought I’d understand because I’m thehelp?”

“Because it’s obvious that the way I treated Margot was vastly different from how these people treated her.” Aaron’s dark eyes were sharp on mine. “I didn’t outcast her. I didn’t try to control her. I treated her like aperson?—”

“A person you wanted to use for her money. For her family business. You didn’t want her—you wanted herposition. She was going to inherit to Massey Hotels, and that was the only reason you gave her the time of day.”

Aaron slowly straightened, and it was only then that I realized he’d been tilting forward as he spoke—leaning in. A quiet emotion stirred in his eyes, almost something like disappointment. “Oh, don’t tell meyou’vehad a sip of their Kool-Aid, Lovisa.”

“I’m not wrong. You are no better than them.”

“Then why are you helping me?” He arched a brow. “Giving me tips on how to win them over, how to convince them. Why help me, if I’m no better?”

With Caroline, I’d lied. For some reason, with Aaron, the idea never occurred to me. “I don’t care if you embarrass yourself. But I do care about the music hall.”

A strange look played on Aaron’s features, something like amusement mixed with another emotion I couldn’t put my finger on. Whatever it was, I didn’t like it. It pinned me in place like an animal targeting its prey. “Interesting.”

I was about to ask him what he meant before my attention shifted over his shoulder. From where we stood in the hallway, I could see Caroline pacing the lobby, talking animatedly into her father’s phone. She spoke to Grant with as much excitement and warmth as a sister would with her younger brother, as though he hadn’t cheated on her best friend. It caused my stomach to clench.

“You know him?”

I blinked back at Aaron. “Who?”

“Grant.” He watched me. “You reacted when she said his name.”

I scoffed. “I didn’t?—”

“You froze. I saw you.”

There was something vaguely invasive about the way he spoke.I saw you. It felt dramatic to be upset about it, but it unsettled me all the same.

A small smile tugged at the corner of Aaron’s mouth. “Is that the boyfriend you talked about before? The one who didn’t call you on your mother’s anniversary?”

I normally was good about packing my personal feelings into a neat little box when I stepped on Alderton-Du Ponte’s property. I shrugged on a clear raincoat, and anything someone said or did were little drops of water that rolled off my back.

Aaron, however, was a pair of scissors, cutting open my box and slicing my raincoat to shreds.

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