Page 51 of The Midnight Princess
Pietor tips his head. “You need more than my silence. I came through Queen Magda International Airport, and by tomorrow morning, the whole country will know I’m back. If I’m not seenat your side, playing the doting fiancé, I don’t give us more than a couple of weeks before we start showing up as blind items. Three before people start conjuring conspiracy theories. Neither of us can afford for news to leak.”
I hate that Pietor is right. If our break-up gets ugly—if he goes public about my mysterious ‘companion’ and I lob a volley about Our Sainted Lady of the Lip Fillers—my mother will be sidelined during the negotiations, and they will be left in the care of her bumbling, offensive prime minister. Everything I care about will be damaged.My queen. Sondmark. Jacob.
I shake my head and make a correction.Sondmark’s indispensable ties to Vorburg.Those will be damaged.
My mother would negotiate her way out of this mess, and I’m not her daughter for nothing. “What do you want?”
A light leaps in Pietor’s eyes. “If I can’t have you back”—a brow lifts but his delusion receives no encouragement—“I need us to appear as a happy couple. We’ll do press interviews, gala appearances…the usual. In order to reassure investors and bankers, I can’t have any tapering off.”
What will it cost me, being at Pietor’s side, behaving as though I’m in love with him? Pretending. I release a slow breath. If I can make this deal, it would be one less thing Mama has to handle.
“You can carry on with the trash collector in private,” Pietor offers.
My head snaps up. “You drag him into this and the deal is off,” I say, surprising myself. Every negotiation has deal-breakers, but they should be few and confined only to the most vital things. How did Jacob become mine?
“Excellent,” Pietor answers, passing me on his way to the door. “I’ll be in contact soon.”
I’m restless when I return to the suite. The kitchen is pristine, and I flick off the lights. The worst thing about Pietor is that I’m a conservationist at heart, striving to leave no trace when I visitforests and nature preserves. It’s one of the facets that drew me to him. But seeing him again makes me want to dump industrial waste into the watersheds and burn a mountain of tires.
I flick the light on and off several needless times.
I climb into bed and work on knitting, churning out the tightest, stabbiest stitches while the winter wind roars outside. An hour later, I throw the homeliest knitted cap anyone has ever produced into a basket and punch my pillows, no closer to rest. It’ll have to be the gym.
On my way, I pass Ella returning from an evening engagement. Her dress is a cocktail gown in floaty forest green with tiny scattered flecks of gold, so carefully appropriate that I’m immediately suspicious.
I look closer and see that the specks are Seongan characters. “Sneaky,” I conclude.
Ella gives me a too-innocent expression. “What could you possibly mean?”
I’m not in the mood for games. “Getting the fashion press to do your dirty work.”
They’ll mention Seong in their coverage, and Pixy will add an auto link to every social media post, steering donations to relief agencies working to alleviate the Seongan Crisis. My little sister’s hands will be clean from the charge of interfering in international affairs.
“What did Mama say?”
Ella dimples. “We were on public roads before she gave me a proper inspection. I offered to wiggle out of the dress in the back seat of the Rolls. I can’t think why she said no.”
She reaches for her phone. “You okay? It’s late for the gym,” she murmurs, typing something out.
I’m not giving an answer to the top of her head.
She looks up and tips the phone. “Sorry, it’s Marc. He’s in Seong, just updating me on conditions.”
Ella drops the phone to her side, eyes lingering on my face. “Hey, come obliterate a few demons with me, sometime, if you’re feeling stressed,” she says. “It won’t make you as sweaty as a run.”
I dredge up a smile. “Will do.”
Will never do.
I jog down another level to the gym and push through the door, halting abruptly on a squeak of sound. Jacob has come before me and, damp with sweat, he is in the process of pulling off his shirt. I gape at a figure that looks like Michelangelo’s half-carved Atlas, arms raised and bound in rock, tearing out of the stone prison.
We have a copy of it in the palace sculpture garden, and I’ve gotten used to sliding my eyes over it, hardly registering the details. In the split second before Jacob emerges from the fabric and I am expected to slide my eyes over him without registering his details, I trace the muscled arms crossed over his head. I follow the trail of dark chest hair, tapering down to his stomach.
The current fashion is for men to look like hairless Egyptian cats, innocent of experience, lost, in need of mothering and a home cooked meal. I, however, have an appreciation for the classics.
“Alma.”
The door bangs against my backside, scooting me into the room.
