“Again,” I say, desperate to leave this conversation aside, “I should have consulted with you. We should have talked. I was wrong.”
“Can I have it now?”
Her words freeze my heart into ice. After all these months, can I give it to her? It’s not as though I could stop her at this point. It’s precisely as she said: everyone thinks she’s in on it. No one would think twice of letting her “borrow” their makeup. “I’m out,” I say desperately. Then, at her flash of skepticism, I blurt, “But I’ll make sure you get some tomorrow. I dispense a lot of it on Wednesdays because security is so lax.” That was probably one sentence too many, I realize as Molli gives me a puzzled look. “Do you want to sleep over tonight?” I ask, more to cover up my faux pas than because I’ve thought it through.
“Tomorrow’s Wednesday.”
I groan. “Can you imagine?”
“Forget the minor scandal your half-moon caused—can you imagine the heyday the gossip feeds would have if you woke for your lever with another girl in your bed?”
“I can see it now,” I say dramatically as I walk her to the double doors. “Danica Grayson, having an illicit lesbian affair right under her affianced sovereign’s nose!”
“His overlarge, pigheaded nose,” she says. But she whispers it, because M.A.R.I.E. is listening. “Even you would have difficulty dispersing a scandal such as that.”
I smile and open the door, and we exchange parting pleasantries before she walks away. When she’s out of earshot, I lean heavily against the doorframe and whisper, “You have no idea.”
“ARE YOU HIDING from my mother?”
Saber’s head pops out from behind a tall potted plant beside the door to my parents’ apartments. “Is she still trying to get me fired?”
“You have a point.”
“What’s that?” Saber asks, pointing at a small but elaborately wrapped little box complete with a red bow as I let us into the apartments.
“Payment. An overstuffed envelope of cash is evidently too gauche.”
He lifts the top corner of the little box and peers in, eyes widening at the brick of bills. “Some party.”
“Much needed. Duchess Sells paid for a private demonstration for twelve of her dearest friends.”
“Congrats?” Saber asks, never willing to truly encourage.
I don’t let it deter me. “Every woman in attendance was either a director, a major shareholder, or married to one. Together they control nearly a third of the disposable wealth in the entire palace, and at least that much prestige,” I say as I glance at my reflection in the atrium mirror. “If I’m going to make my new deadline, this is exactly the kind of clientèle I need.” What I don’t say is that they’re all older women than I would have originally felt comfortable selling to. My standards are unraveling.
“Thanks for letting me sleep in,” Saber says, dropping a kiss on my forehead. “Are you going to need to rest before the assembly tonight? I could make the run out to Giovanni’s myself.”
“Tempting,” I admit.
“You know you can trust me.”
“Of that I’m certain.” We both take a scant moment to remove our Lenses before I key in my father’s code on the decorative inlay and bend for the facial scan. “I just don’t want to get caught skipping my dance lesson.”
“You could sleep in the car,” Saber suggests, stepping slightly in front of me to hold the door open. “I make a pretty soft pillow, I’m told.”
“There’s a possibility.” I drop my reticule on the desktop, and at the moment I look to the side, my foot hits something soft and warm.
I look down in confusion and find my mother, sprawled on the floor. A trickle of blood has dried under her nose.
“Oh lord.” I remember her snooping about on Tuesday and alarm clangs like a bell, reverberating through my entire body. Saber rushes to her side and drops to one knee. His fingers go to her throat, and when he looks up at me with fear-glazed eyes, I know.
“She’s dead?”
Saber just nods.
“But I…I picked up product for the party an hour ago. She wasn’t here!” A sob wrenches out of my mouth, and I slap my hand over it. My throat convulses, but I let no more noise escape. If you had asked me two minutes ago if I’d be pleased to see my mother dead, my answer would have been yes. But the reality is more devastating than I could possibly have imagined. There were days, years’ worth of them, when I knew—or at least thought—my mother loved me. It’s those days that come back now, threatening to bowl me over with remorse.
Remorse for her death? I ask myself when rational thought finally worms through my tangle of emotions. I’m not convinced that’s what it is. For the waste. The potential. The could-have-beens.
Questions form and fizzle in my brain as I force myself to take deep breaths. Could the King be responsible for this? What does her death mean for me? What contingencies did my mother have in place for something like this?
Do I still have to marry Justin Wyndham?
“Danica, look.” Saber’s voice brings me back to the present. The top drawer of the desk is open.