Chapter 20 – Rowan
ROWAN
It’s been bothering me all day. Every waking moment, it’s all I’ve thought about.
The questions continue to mount, each with no logical answer I can find.
Her palace persona doesn’t lend itself to sneaking into a royal ball in disguise.
The accent adjustment and ability to alter facial recognition are jarring and suggest she’s a professional of some sort.
She doesn’t seem violent, but again, neither did Charlotte, and that’s what I keep coming back to. How easily we were duped and how dangerous that situation turned out to be. I might also be losing it. There’s that possibility too.
I haven’t gone to Sebastian about this. I haven’t gone to Javier, who comes home tomorrow with Emily.
The truth is, I have nothing concrete to go on other than my gut instinct. I need something to prove it. Something real.
Dinner service for the staff is when I decide to sneak downstairs to the servants’ quarters. It’s quiet, the dim hall illuminated by a series of overhead lights that glow over each door I pass.
I had to do some digging, but Marcella’s room is the last on the right—of course, because why should this be easy? Glancing around to ensure I’m alone, I turn the knob and find it unlocked, which surprises me. I assumed I’d be shut out before I could even get in.
Her room is small, consisting of a double bed, a nightstand, a dresser, a chair, and a closet. The window up by the ceiling is as small as the room and provides minimal daylight, but it doesn’t matter because, to my surprise, the lights are already on.
I shut the door behind me and look around, wondering where I should start.
I don’t exactly make it a habit of sleuthing around people’s bedrooms. Everything is impeccably neat.
The bed is made without even the slightest wrinkle in the blanket, and there’s not a scrap of paper or an article of clothing on the floor.
I open the closet and find rows of shirts and pants, most dark-colored like she’s been wearing, and two new gray uniforms that have the tags still on them.
On the floor is a line of shoes—an old pair of sneakers and the black nondescript work shoes she tends to wear. Nothing is nice. Nothing is extravagant. So unlike the gown she wore that night and the diamond earrings that I know to be real since I had it appraised.
The closet door shuts with a tiny squeak that makes me wince, but I continue, going to the dresser next. It’s more of the same. Plain, brandless cotton underwear, matching bras, some T-shirts, shorts, socks, and not a lot else.
Fuck.
Was I wrong? Is my obsession that acute?
I shove the drawer of her dresser shut and move on to her nightstand.
It’s as neat, organized, and simple as everything else.
There’s hardly anything here. No books or an e-reader.
Just an old beat-up first-generation smartphone I can’t imagine works very well and her work phone.
Both are plugged in and charging, which seems odd to me, but maybe she doesn’t bring them with her when she eats.
That’s it on top, and when I slide the drawer open, it’s completely empty.
Frustration boils through me. I pick up her pillow, and there’s nothing under it.
“Arg!” I run my hands up my face and back through my hair.
“Fuck!” I hiss under my breath. I grip her mattress and lift, my last-ditch effort, but there’s nothing here either.
I go to set it down and get the fuck out of here when something in the far corner between the box spring and the mattress catches my eye.
A box.
I shift the mattress to one hand, holding up its weight as I reach underneath and strain for the box, fingering it and managing to shift it enough that I can grip it. The mattress falls back to the bed with a thud, the same moment I open the box.
The earring.
For a moment, all I can do is stare at it, my mind racing.
It’s her. I knew it, but this confirms it. I’m not crazy. It’s actually her.
A voice out in the hallway jerks me away from it, and I quickly close the box, lift the mattress, shove it back where I found it, and lower the bed, smoothing out the blanket to hide what I did.
I head for the door, pressing my ear to the wood and listening intently.
Whoever was speaking is gone. I pull back and wait another moment to make sure, then I open the door and slam straight into Marcella, wearing nothing but a towel and a ratty pair of flip-flops.
She’s holding a shower caddy that starts to fall from her hand.
The towel cinched just above her tits gets the same idea and goes with it.
Naturally Marcella goes for the towel, and I go for the caddy, catching it right before it fully slips from her hand and crashes to the floor.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” she shrieks, fury staining her cheeks and brightening her eyes.
I wince at her loud voice, but she doesn’t care.
“This is totally inappropriate and a complete invasion of my privacy.”
She’s not wrong, but I’m too fired up to care.
She’s Ella. The woman I met at the wedding.
The woman I danced with and couldn’t take my eyes off of for a moment.
Not even a fucking moment. The way she kissed me, the way she moved, the sounds she made, her natural disdain for me, the way she tasted, how her virgin cunt felt.
I slam the door shut behind her and set the caddy on the floor, doing my best to ignore her wet body in only a towel, her wet hair, and her sweet face.
She was beautiful that night at the ball.
A showstopper. But the woman from that night has nothing on the woman in front of me. This one’s a heartstopper.
“Oh, you mean an invasion like cleaning my room and smelling my pillow, or going through a closed portfolio that was under a laptop and fishing through it?”
She looks away, her jaw locked tight, and her eyes narrowed. She tightens the towel on her chest, but she’s breathing heavily, her tits rising and falling, making the knot of the towel precarious at best.
“I admitted to that and apologized. What are you doing in here?”
“I was waiting for you.”
She laughs incredulously, her words accusatory as they slice at me. “Oh. And you weren’t snooping?”
I sure as hell was, but something is holding me back.
I don’t know her motive. I don’t know who she’s working for.
I just know something or someone sent her to the wedding and here, and if I have her arrested, we may never know.
She could clam up out of fear or spite or any other reason, and then we’ll never know what the true threat is. She could also lie to save her ass.
I can’t find Desta. Marie is a dead end. I’m the reason my father is dead, but I will make damn sure no one else hurts my family, and that starts with her.
“Snoop?” I scoff. “There’s nothing in here. A nun has more shit than you do.”
“So you were snooping?”
“You mean, did I open your closet? Yeah. I did that. I even opened your nightstand. Sorry to say there’s no vibrator in there.”
“Me too,” she snaps. “One has to have money to purchase such things.”
“We pay you. We pay you well.” Honestly, I have no idea what the staff earns, but it has to be decent, otherwise, they wouldn’t stay, and we have staff who have been with us for decades. That goes above loyalty to country and the throne.
She huffs a breath. “Why did you come here? What did you think? That we’d pick up where we left off this afternoon?”
“No. Sorry to say, sweetheart, that’s not happening again.”
“Phew.” She wipes fake sweat from her brow. “That’s a relief. I’d hate to have to take another shower to clean your cum off me.”
I wouldn’t. I’d pay serious money to see my cum paint her ass again. But it doesn’t matter.
“You don’t eat dinner with the other staff?” I question, switching things up.
She folds her arms under her tits, making them hike up and the swell of her cleavage grow like an enticing treat. My stupid dick is loving this. Thankfully, for the moment, my brain is running the show.
“No. I shower when they eat because I don’t want to wait to get a shower. But you obviously thought I was eating dinner and came thinking I wouldn’t be here.”
Fuck. That was a dumb thing for me to say.
I snarl, getting right up in her face. “I want you to stay away from my family.”
“On what grounds?” she challenges.
“On the grounds that I don’t trust you.”
“I know. I overheard you speaking to Bellamy earlier, and you haven’t been shy about letting me know that even though I’ve given you no reason not to.”
Now would be the moment to tell her, but I don’t. Telling her relinquishes the upper hand. If anything, I should be nice to her. Charming. Get her to let her guard down.
I sigh in defeat. “You’re right. You haven’t.”
Shock flickers across her face before her eyes narrow and become distrustful. “Bullshit. What’s your angle?”
I hold up a hand, palm out. “No angle.”
“Riiiight. One line from me is all it took for you to realize you were wrong?” She scoffs sardonically. “Please. I’m not stupid.”
No. She’s not. “I mean it. You’re right. I’m being…prejudiced, I guess.”
Her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. “What?”
I feign nonchalance and pan a consolatory hand at her.
“We trusted Charlotte, and she betrayed us, and until a week ago, we didn’t know you.
I’m wary. It’s my family, and I love them, and Bellamy is overly trusting.
I won’t see her get hurt again. Or Sebastian.
” There. Take that for everything it’s worth.
Her eyes shift about my face, measuring my sincerity.
“You haven’t given me a reason not to trust you. Other than your snooping around and inappropriate touching.”
That part is actually true, and it throws me into even more of a tailspin. She’s been a perfect employee. Great with the kids. A friend to Bellamy. Then there’s the other side. The one only I know about.
She rolls her eyes at me, and I so want to spank her again for that. I wonder how rough she’d like it. If she’s fucked anyone else since me, or if I’m still the only man who’s been inside of her.
“Inappropriate touching? I think that’s the pot calling the kettle black, Your Highness.”
I crowd her, my body inches away, not touching but oh so close. A small duck of my head. A lift of my hand. As it is, I can feel the heat radiating off her and smell the heavenly scent of her bodywash on her skin.
My forearm hits the door above her head, and I dip in, my face hovering above hers. “Oh sweetheart, we both know you not only let me, you loved it.”
She presses against the wood and glares fire up at me.
“Yeah, and I just washed your cum off my ass, so clearly I’m not the only one.
You caught me smelling your pillow and stealing a glance at your secret porn.
Big deal. You’re the one who lost control and shoved your fingers inside me.
” She smirks. “And now here you are. Can’t get enough of me, can you? ”
Her little taunt raises my blood pressure, and I get right up in her face, practically nose to nose.
“And I bet if I shoved my hand up your towel, I’d find you soaking wet for me. Again.”
She laughs. “Oh, Your Highness, how sad that you think that was for you.”
“Wanna bet?”
In a flash, I spin her around and pin her to the door, take both of her hands in mine, and shackle her wrists up high above her head. The towel falls, and she thrashes against me, fighting. But it’s not the way she fought me earlier. This isn’t I hate you, but I want you to fuck me.
She’s actually fighting me.
It slows me down for a beat, and that’s when I see it.
The scars and welts at varying stages of healing crisscrossing her back.
Slashes of white that make me freeze, ice over my blood, and slow my reflexes, not releasing her fast enough because my little siren drops her shoulder, twists her wrist, and nails me right in the gut with her elbow.
An oomph catapults from my lungs, and I stagger back a step. It’s enough of a hit to snap me out of my shock and thrust me straight into rage. I grab her by the shoulders and push her back against the door, getting in her face.
Because what the fuck? What the absolute fuck?
There’s so much more to her story than the bullshit lies she’s fed us. And I intend to find out what it is. Right fucking now.