Page 2 of Maid for the Alien Prince

ONE DAY EARLIER

I put my suitcase down on the front step and rearranged the new blouse I’d bought at Glelle. It was frilly and moved constantly like an octopus’s tendrils. It was all the rage and had been what I’d spent the last of my money on.

What little money I possessed in the whole galaxy.

I’d been away for two months, recovering from a series of operations on my hip that allowed me to walk. I never thought I would get to move freely without the aid of crutches ever again. I was even less sure the insurance would pay for it.

Since the accident, I’d been in a lot of pain, limping from place to place. Worse than the limp were the looks I got from passersby.

It was a sure sign that we were desperately poor. Only those with nothing could afford to get the kind of surgery I’d needed.

I checked myself over one more time in the front door’s glass panels. I ran my hands over my pencil skirt and felt at my hip that had, until recently, been the bane of my existence and the source of untold waves of pain.

Sometimes I still felt a twinge—a nipping sensation like some giant monster had seized my leg and twisted it for his own cruel enjoyment. But the pain faded, along with the frown that always came with it.

Ready, I raised a fist and knocked on the door. I could have used the face scanner which would have alerted my father that I had arrived, but I wanted my appearance to be a surprise.

I had returned unannounced and hoped to give him the same thrill that he had given me when he announced the insurance company would pay for my hip operation.

I knocked on the door and waited. I had to repeat it three more times before Dad came to the door.

He opened it and I beamed joyfully, raised my hands above my head, and said, “Surprise!”

It took a moment for him to fully take me in and realize just who I was. Clearly, I was the very last person he expected to see showing up on his doorstep like this.

Then his face registered an emotion…

It fell.

I’d wanted to surprise him… but I didn’t want it to be a negative surprise! He turned pale as the blood fell from his face in a mask of horror. He tried to cover it, but I was too used to reading his emotions to be fooled.

I lowered my arms. “Dad? What is it?”

He smiled, though it was a very sad thing and did little to cover his angst. “Oh. It’s you. I didn’t realize… I didn’t know you were coming…”

“I wanted it to be a surprise. Is everything all right?”

Dad glanced over his shoulder at something inside the house before turning back to me. “Now… isn’t a good time.”

His shoulders seemed to have shrunken a great deal over the past two months that I’d been away. His hair seemed thinner, grayer. He might have aged ten years.

I peered over his shoulder into the dark recesses of the rooms at the back of the house but made out only shadows. “I’ve come home. Can I come in?”

Dad looked over his shoulders once again and, as always, couldn’t find it in his heart to deny his daughter. He opened the door and let me in. “Of course. Just… head straight upstairs. I’m… entertaining someone in the front room.”

Entertaining someone?

Why was it all so cloak and dagger? I wondered. Then a thought struck me: had he been dating while I was away?

Returning unannounced the way I had could have led to me catching them in the middle of something very embarrassing…

I shook my head of the image and couldn’t bring myself to believe it. After Mom died, Dad had taken no interest in other women.

He was good-looking for his age, in terrific shape, and could hold his own with men ten years his junior. There had been no limit to the number of females interested in him, but he hadn’t responded with anything approaching affection.

I picked up my luggage, perplexed and confused, and entered the hall.

It seemed tiny. There was something about traveling that always seemed to broaden the mind, making the things we knew best back home seem a whole lot smaller.

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