Chapter 27 – Rowan
ROWAN
Iwake before my alarm. It’s not dawn yet, and I’m groggy and have a mild headache, but I’m also smiling like the devil because she’s still here. I doubt it’s intentional. I’m positive she’ll be angry about it when she wakes up, but for now…
I slip out of bed and gather her clothes, which I hung up to dry overnight.
They’re still damp, and I walk them down the hall to the linen room where the royal family’s clothes and things are attended to.
There are two washers and dryers in here, and I toss her things into one of the dryers and turn it on before I return to my room to get myself ready.
She’s out, her breathing heavy, her body not even stirring as I skulk about my room. I grab a piece of paper from the desk and a pencil and do a quick sketch of her like this. It’s not great. It’s dark in here, and this pencil isn’t what I’d typically use, but it’s good enough.
The lines of her face develop beneath my hand.
She’s so pretty. So peaceful looking. It’s the first time I’ve seen her like this, and it might be my favorite look on her yet.
A thought occurred to me before I fell asleep last night.
I finish up my very rough sketch, set it in my desk drawer, and pick up my phone to place a quick order for what I need.
I finish packing, go retrieve her dry clothes, and return to my room.
Just as I zip up my suitcase, her eyes flutter open.
“Morning,” I drawl, and she jerks up, taking the sheet with her to cover herself. It makes me smile at how adorable she is. First, she’s wearing my shirt, but considering I’ve seen and tasted every inch of her, modesty isn’t exactly necessary.
“Shit. I can’t believe I slept in here,” she mutters in Italian as she inches to the end of the bed and gets out, frantically searching around. I step toward her and hold out her clothes.
“They were still damp this morning, but they should be pretty dry now.”
She tilts her head and narrows her eyes. “How did you do that?”
“I’m a prince. I demanded your clothes dry, and they did. It’s how I get everything done.”
She arches an eyebrow.
“I used the dryer,” I deadpan.
She snorts before she can stop it.
“What?” I bark, affronted. “I know how to use a dyer.”
“Oh? How many times before this have you?”
Busted. I shrug. “It wasn’t exactly difficult. You press power and start.”
“The prince of Messalina used a dryer for the first time. Wonders never cease.”
“You’re very sarcastic for a woman wearing nothing but my shirt.” It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Sexy rumpled hair, flushed cheeks, bright green eyes, hard nipples, creamy thighs, and my clothes on her naked body.
“Thanks for the reminder. I have to get out of here.”
“You can use my bathroom. I have to leave anyway.” I didn’t get a chance to talk to her about this last night. Before I can, she scoots past me for the bathroom, and I grab her forearm to stop her. “Don’t you want to know where I’m going?”
She shakes her head as she shakes my grip loose. “Nope.” She makes for the bathroom with hurried strides.
“Don’t you care how long I’ll be gone for?”
“No again!” she calls to me from the other side of the now closed door.
“Fine! I wasn’t going to tell you anyway.” That part is true. I wasn’t going to tell her where I was going or why I was leaving, and I have no clue how long I’ll be gone for.
She laughs, likely because she knows I wanted her to care or at the very least ask while feigning she didn’t care.
“You could at least try to pretend you’re not so in love with me,” I tease, except the words get drowned out by the sound of the toilet flushing and the faucet turning on.
A moment later, she comes flying out of the bathroom, holding her wet shoes because I had no idea what to do with those. I suppose I could have done an internet search to see if shoes can go in the dryer, but it didn’t occur to me until now.
She blows past me like she’s not even going to say bye or give me a kiss or anything, and fuck that. Fuck this. I grab her once again and haul her into me.
I kiss her deep and hard and a little miffed. “I’ll miss you too.”
“I never said I’d miss you.”
I cup her pussy. “I was talking to her. She’ll miss me even if you won’t.”
She pats my cheek. “Aw, is your ego bruised that I’m not like every other woman and hopelessly in love with you simply because you’re Prince Rowan?”
Yes. “Pfft.” I roll my eyes like a teenager. “Like I’d want you to be in love with me. You’re mean.”
“Yeah, but my pussy is sweet.”
I can’t argue that.
She gives my cheek another pat, then heads for the door and, without another word, sneaks out. Damn. I’ve got it really bad for the wrong woman.
I grab my bag, my backpack filled with my laptop and chargers and shit I’ll need, then head out my door.
Except instead of going to the breakfast room for a quick cup of coffee—stopping when you’re the prince of a country isn’t so easy, especially when you’re trying to keep a low profile—or even going to the garage, I go to Sebastian’s suite.
I listen outside the door because the number of times I’ve heard him fucking his wife makes me want to keep noise-canceling headphones on me at all times. Thankfully, it’s quiet, and I tap lightly on his door.
It takes him a moment, but then I hear him bark, “What?”
“Kiss your children with that mouth?” I retort, keeping my voice low so I don’t wake anyone else up.
He curses, but I hear him move, and a moment later the door opens. “What is it?”
“I need to talk to you.”
He scrubs a hand up and down his face. “Now? What time is it?”
“Just about five.”
“Fuck, Rowan. I didn’t get to sleep until a few hours ago.”
“Me too. It can’t wait.”
He nods and goes back into his room to throw on more than only the boxer briefs he was wearing.
A moment later, he’s back, and without a word, we go down the stairs to his study since it’s the closest private room.
Except as we round the corner, I hear what I think is a door closing, and a flash of something catches my periphery, but before I can make out what it is, it’s gone.
“Did you see that?” I ask him because I’d almost swear it was Marcella.
“See what? No.”
Huh. Weird.
We close the door behind us, and Sebastian immediately asks, “What’s so important that you couldn’t wait?”
“Two things. One, Marcella is Ella, and two, I’m sleeping with her.”
Sebastian blinks at me, his hands going to his hips as he works through what I just said. “Rowan…” He trails off, releases a breath, shifts his weight, and drops his chin toward the floor.
“I found the earring in her room.”
A gust of air exhales from him as if I just answered his unasked question.
“I didn’t trust her from the start. There was something about her that triggered me. I told you this. I did my best to stay away from her and stuck to mostly watching her through the cameras.”
“But that clearly didn’t last long. Who is she? Why is she here, and why did she sneak into the wedding? And how the fuck did she make it past our facial recognition?”
“All excellent questions I don’t have answers to, except I believe she was sent there or here or both by someone.”
“Someone who, Rowan?” my brother roars, and I wave my hands for him to lower his voice so he doesn’t wake the entire palace.
“I don’t know, but she’s either not here willingly or she’s here to escape something or someone.”
He growls and paces over to the window. “Why do you think that? Because you don’t want to believe she’s here to hurt us? Because your dick likes fucking her?”
“She has scars on her back. Lots of scars. They’re not new, though some don’t seem to be all that old either. She’s tried to warn me off her a million times, but there’s this…vulnerability to her. A conflict within her. She’s tormented and breaking. I’ve seen it, Sebastian.”
“All of that only makes her more dangerous. She’s been around my wife, my children, and you’ve said nothing to me until now.”
“You have enough on your mind without me adding to it, but with me leaving today, I had to say something. I was handling it.”
“You were not. You’re fucking her, but more than that, you have a twisted fixation with her. You always have. It’s clouding your thoughts and judgment.”
It might be. I’m honestly not sure. I didn’t trust her. Not even a little. But after last night…seeing her that way…I don’t know. Something shifted inside me. Still, my truth is universal.
“I’d never risk Bellamy or the children. Not ever. Not for anyone or anything. I told Bellamy I didn’t trust Marcella and asked her to keep her distance. This was before I found the earring. Bellamy argued with me and said she felt safe with her.”
“We felt safe with fucking Charlotte.”
I pan a hand out toward him. “I agree, and I said that. Marcella is a different situation than Charlotte.”
“How do you know that?” he retorts, looking angry and frustrated. “You know nothing about her.”
He’s right. I know nothing about her. Nothing real.
She’s warned me off time and time again.
Yet I’m so compelled, and I can’t make heads or tails of it.
Am I putting us at greater risk simply because I want her here?
Because I want to solve her puzzle and unwrap her mystery?
Because I want to be the man who saves her?
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t have her locked up immediately.”
“Because if we do, we’ll never learn her secrets.
We’ll never figure out the truth because she won’t tell us.
I know it. But if she believes we’re not on to her, that we don’t know she’s the same woman from the wedding, and that we’re suspicious of her, she might lead us to whoever is orchestrating this.
Or she’s genuinely hiding from someone who has been hurting her, and the palace is a safe place to do that.
She’s been doing her job, Sebastian. Same as she has for four months.
Charlotte showed her hand much faster, and if I hadn’t suspected Marcella was Ella from the start, we’d have no clue about any of this. ”
“It takes big money and resources to pull off what she did.”
“Yes,” I agree. “That’s not her. She has nothing. Barely any clothing and no personal possessions. She’s someone’s captive, one way or another.”
He rubs his scruffy jaw. “You realize that makes her even more dangerous.”
I sigh and shift my weight. “Perhaps. I think she’s conflicted. I don’t think she wants to hurt anyone.”
“A caged animal doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but they’ll do whatever they have to, to protect themselves.”
I blow out a breath, my hands going to the top of my head, and I sit in a chair, only to stand back up and pace in a circle.
Fuck if he isn’t right. I meet my brother’s steely gaze.
“Sebastian, if you want to arrest her and have her questioned, I won’t stop you.
I love my family, and I’d rather die than hurt any of you.
That’s a fact. If something happened to you because I didn’t act…
” I can’t finish that. It’s why our father is dead. “Fuck. I’m a fool.”
“Rowan…” He stops himself, breathing out harshly. “How deep does this go for you with her? Is this sex? Obsession? Or is this…more?”
I drop to the edge of the sofa, my elbows on my thighs, my head in my hands. “I think…how could it be? I don’t know her. Yet, I still feel as though I do. I see her and…fuck, Sebastian, how did you know?”
He chuckles. “You told me.”
I lift my head. “What?”
“You told me I was in love with Bellamy. You were right. I was. But I also trusted her.”
“I’d be an idiot to trust Marcella.”
“But something in you does anyway?” It’s a question, and I consider it seriously.
“Something in me does. Or maybe sees there’s something else there. I don’t know what it is or why it’s there. Maybe I’m lust drunk. Maybe this is my dick doing all the talking.”
“Rowan, you’ve slept around plenty. You’ve never been like this.”
“She walked out on me. Maybe that’s why.”
He gives me a pointed look. “Is it?”
“No,” I answer honestly, feeling the truth behind that simmering in my gut. “But that doesn’t mean that what I’m doing with her isn’t fucking stupid either.”
He walks over to me and sits beside me. “Emily and Javier come home today. She has a work phone with all the security features. We’ll start tracking her, and I’ll have Javier put an alert on her facial recognition in the palace.
Certain locations at certain times will trigger it.
And I’ll have Bellamy and the children keep their distance unless there’s a third party with them, but I’ll add on an armed attendant to them. ”
I nod slowly, my head falling back to my hands. “You won’t let your wife leave the palace, and yet you’re willing to do all of this for me?”
“You told me you believe Marcella’s a patsy or a victim. I’ll give her and you the chance to prove that. But Rowan, I will say that my leash on this is extremely short.”
“Yes. I agree.”
“And if I suspect anything or fear for my family’s safety in the slightest—”
“You act accordingly and do whatever you have to do.”
His hand grips my shoulder. “Go find Marie. Then come home to us.”