“Ah, Justin. It’s you.” I rest a hand on the doorframe and strike a pose, cocking my head to one side, my hip to the other. “I was retrieving a few personals from my father’s safe and must not have heard your knock.”
He rolls his eyes, and I vow I can hear his teeth grind. “You sent my bots back.” When I say nothing, he adds, “Empty-handed.”
“Is that where they went?” My face is utterly impassive. “I didn’t realize. I simply told them to go while I packed some”—I clear my throat and arch one dark eyebrow—“delicates, and when I finished they were gone. Personally, I’m not very impressed by M.A.R.I.E.’s inability to detect obvious intention. Perhaps she’s in need of an update.”
I see his jaw working furiously; he wants to accuse me of something, but my story is too simple for holes. The best lies always are. “What’s in that box?”
My lashes don’t so much as flicker. “You wouldn’t ask a girl to spill all her secrets, would you?”
He glares at me with eyes darkened by anger that spark like obsidian. “We are now your guardian as well as your intended; We would like to know what is being brought into Our wing of the palace.” The We again. Though this time it’s rather satisfying to have driven him to it.
“If you must know, it’s photographs. I’m leaving hearth and home tonight; it seems only fitting to bring a few mementos of my life before you hijacked my freedom.”
He hesitates, his eyes narrowed, the spots of rouge on his cheeks looking nearly—but not quite—gaudy. “I want to see them,” he says, more like a two-year-old than the ruler of a wealthy principality, teenager or not. He’s always been fascinating to watch in that way. A spoiled childhood has left him an emotional infant.
I don’t break eye contact as I raise the top of the box.
The top compartment holds just what I said it did, and the false bottom is well crafted—though if he were to take the box from me he’d be bound to notice its unusual heft. His hands move forward, reaching for the box as though he heard my private thoughts. His gloved fingertips are centimeters away when I snap the lid closed with a clack that echoes through the chamber.
“Not yours,” I say simply, enjoying the ability to deny him something. Anything.
Without being dismissed, I turn—my heavy skirts whispering against the faux-weathered-wood floor.
“Did you bring the bots back with you, Justin?” I ask over my shoulder. “I wasn’t finished with them.” Sometimes I think his boiling rage is the only thing left in the world that can still warm my heart.
Under the King’s watchful eye, I play the perfect mistress, directing M.A.R.I.E. as the bots pack my things, from gowns and cloaks to chemises and stockings—even my rather extensive collection of silk and satin underclothes. I refuse to allow him to see how uncomfortable that makes me. Instead, I stand perfectly straight—so straight I can barely feel my corset—and point languidly, with long, graceful motions, making full use of the poise my mother drove me to acquire.
I see now that I shouldn’t have worried about hiding the box of euros from the bots to begin with; halfway through the process, I proffer the box to a faceless bot that places it in a gilt-and-lacquer chest, where it’s soon covered by a Venetian lace shawl. Curiosity isn’t in M.A.R.I.E.’s programming.
I wish I’d invited Molli to spend the night instead of tearing out of the ballroom. With Molli here, I wouldn’t have checked my box, I wouldn’t have gone to confront my father, and I wouldn’t have discovered his drug habit. Or the temptation I’m fighting. It’s odd to think that my entire world would be far brighter right now if I’d only stopped to grab my best friend.
“I don’t know why you’re bringing all of this,” His Royal Highness says, fluttering his hands—almost hidden by lace cuffs—at the heaps of satin and damask. “Half of this clothing is utterly unsuitable for a consort to the King.”
“Perhaps if you had given me more notice,” I say, refusing to cringe at the word consort and all it implies, “I could have culled my wardrobe properly. As it is, I’ll have to organize later.”
He mutters something unintelligible, and I return to my bored pose as the bots finish their work.
“Dani?” the King says as the final chest closes.
“Danica,” I correct, for perhaps the millionth time. My family is permitted to call me Dani, not because I approve but because there’s really no way to keep the people who changed your nappies from calling you whatever they wish. I suppose I was trying to make that very point when I started calling him Justin, but as usual, His Royal Obtuseness didn’t catch on.