2. Hey, Kids, Spying is Fun （Not）
2
Hey, Kids, Spying is Fun (Not)
Rose
M y father steps inside, rubbing his hands against the chill in the late-November air.
I can’t help but flash back to a summer day about ten years ago, when I let him into the apartment Poppy, Noli, and I shared. I had just graduated high school, and I hadn’t seen him in several years. I couldn’t believe he was there—in person. My hands shook with the sheer joy of being reunited. I thought he was coming back so we could be a family again. Instead, he looked me dead in the eye, without an ounce of emotion on his face, and offered me a job. He said he could train me; that I was the type for it. A loner at heart, like him. A fan of physical fitness. A helper.
He also said the fewer people who knew, the better. It would be less complicated and easier to do our job that way.
I could barely process what he was saying, but at the chance to be close to him, I jumped in feet first. I thought I could wear him down over time and bring about a full family reconciliation. But that was ten years ago. I thought wrong.
“You’re early.” I press the door shut and lock it.
My dad, Lennox, strides forward without a word in response. In one shrewd glance, he takes in the floor-to-ceiling bookcases, the book display tables, the circular staircase, and the second-floor loft. He’s good at this—assessing locations, determining threat levels, seeing things other people miss.
I resist the urge to squirm under his evaluation. Dueling feelings wage war in my chest when I’m around him—I want him to be proud of me, and I want him to be gone, all at the same time. I briefly acknowledge that these feelings are stronger here, in my safe space, before bottling them up and focusing on the job. I have to keep my emotions under wraps, especially now, or I’ll never get out in one piece.
I trail him into the center of the bookstore, stepping forward and motioning for him to take a seat in one of the overstuffed corduroy chairs Mia has positioned for our patrons to curl up in.
“I’m not thrilled about this,” I say as I sit across from him.
I don’t know why my dad insisted on meeting in person. He could have passed along the information through my secure email. We could have video-conferenced. I’ve been doing this for a decade. I’m good at my job. I don’t need a babysitter, but it’s like my dad can’t resist checking up on me. Almost like he doesn’t trust me fully with this assignment.
His first words to me are, “You’re the best option we have to protect Bates.”
So maybe he does trust me.
That, or he realizes my history with Anton makes me our best shot at protecting him. My dad knows as well as I know that I’m going to do whatever I can to help.
Secret’s out: I’m a security specialist. I work for a private security agency run by my father. We’re a team of executive protection officers hired to protect high-profile dignitaries, celebrities, and persons of interest on both American soil and overseas, when the opportunity presents itself—which, admittedly, isn’t as often as I’d like. I’ve been begging my dad to let me establish a satellite team in Europe for years. Because the thing about all the secrets I keep from those closest to me and the double life I lead is that nowhere ever feels like home. I figure I may as well spend my time some place exotic…like the streets of Paris, or the canals of Venice, or the mountains of Switzerland. So far, he hasn’t bit on the idea, but I’m holding out hope .
My dad reaches into his bag and pulls out a tablet. After a couple taps of his finger and flicks of his wrist, he flips it around for me, and I’m staring at a photo of Anton Bates.
All six feet, four inches of blond-haired, blue-eyed, star-quarterback goodness.
Remember what I said about sports romances?
Not. For. Me.
I repeat those three words over and over again in my head, even as the skin along the back of my neck prickles. I say a quick prayer that my dad doesn’t notice the rush of goosebumps that coat my body. How? How does a photograph of the guy I dated all those years ago still have this effect on me? It’s pathetic.
I take the tablet and frantically scroll past the image, exhaling when the synopsis of the threats against Anton and our plans for mitigating them appears.
“There’s been chatter of an assassination attempt.” My dad speaks about the threat against Anton as if he’s telling me he had a bran muffin for breakfast. He’s detached. Nonchalant. “The palace in Penwick is asking for extra protection. They want our eyes and ears on the ground level.”
Not only is Anton a star professional quarterback here in the United States, he’s also the prince of a small island nation off the coast of Norway.
Yeah, the royalty trope?
Not. For. Me.
You see where this is going, don’t you?
“They’ve signed off on the cover story we’ve come up with for you.”
And there’s the spy trope…no bueno.
I sigh. “Which is?”
“You’re a freelance journalist who’s been hired to write an in-depth character piece on him.” My dad stares me down with one eyebrow arched, as if to say, It’s a good plan, and you know it . “You’ll have total access to him for the next month, conducting interviews and gathering info.”
“Do I actually have to write the article?” I’m a decent writer, but I didn’t go to school for journalism.
“If you want, or I can have someone else at the office do it based on the interviews and your notes.”
I give a noncommittal nod. I’ll figure that part out later. I scroll through the dossier. I know most of this stuff about Anton. I know his family. His mother, Queen Della. His father, the late king consort. A cousin, Duke. That’s the guy’s name, not his title. Though I guess he could be Duke Duke, which is kind of hilarious.
I know other things about Anton too. Things that aren’t listed in the write-up for my job. Like how he listens to Disney music before his football games. Or that he likes his eggs scrambled and on top of whole wheat toast. I know he’ll choose chocolate ice cream over vanilla every time. He also hates wearing socks, which I find strangely endearing. He’s a great listener, and he makes everyone feel like what they say matters. When he puts his belief in you, you start to believe in yourself.
No.
Not. For. Me.
I get to the bottom of the dossier and blink up at Lennox. “Does Anton know about any of this? The article? The fact that I’m interviewing him?”
“I’ve been assured that he’ll be looped in soon.”
He’s going to hate this. If he’s anything like me, our break up is still seared in his mind. He told me he never wanted to see me again. And now, surprise! A ghost from five years past!
“What about the threat? Is he aware?”
Lennox shakes his head once.
“He doesn’t know that extra security is being put in place?” It’s a question I already know the answer to, because it was the same five years ago when I went undercover and started dating him .
Here’s where I should clarify. I’m not really a spy. Not for most of my assignments, anyway. I’m more like a bodyguard. But Anton has a history of refusing extra security. His mother, Queen Della, hates that. She is who hires us, and it winds up that I’m kind of both spying on him and for him. It’s a whole mess.
“Anton refuses extra security measures, so Penwick Palace has stated, in no uncertain terms, that he’s not to be made aware of the efforts being made to ensure his protection.”
“But—“
“There are no buts , Rose. That’s it. They’ve hired us. They trust us to carry out their wishes—which we’ll do. Discretion is the name of the game. Can I count on you for that?”
I look away and bite my lip.
I think I could handle the sports and the royalty, but it’s the lying to Anton that makes me feel like crawling out of my skin. He’s always been so open with me. Deceiving him is like my own personal torture chamber. It’s a constant drip of water, splashing on my forehead until I go insane.
“This is how it has to be.” My dad’s voice takes on a slight edge of exasperation, as if he doesn’t understand why I can’t reconcile this aspect of the job. To his point, I’ve been doing this sort of work for almost a decade. I should be able to handle everything that comes with it.
But all the lying and the deceit…it’s chaffing. I’ve been keeping pace and outrunning it, but it’s gaining ground—reaching out its skeletal hand to grab me around the ankle and yank me down into a heap of dust and self-inflicted destruction.
Not just with Anton.
It’s things like shutting off the security system without Mia knowing. Sure, she’ll likely never find out. But it doesn’t sit well with me.
It’s the fact that Noli had a deranged ex-boyfriend stalking her for over a year, and she didn’t come to me about it. I could have helped her. I could have done something. But she doesn’t know that, because I can’t be open with my own sisters.
Heck, I’ve had to find roundabout ways to help Poppy keep a roof over our heads for years, not ever letting her in on the hefty salary I’m pulling in, because she’d ask questions I don’t want to answer. So instead, I’ve gone behind her back to landlords, worked out deals, and played dumb when I had to. I hate it. But it’s what I signed up for.
I could always get a job elsewhere, doing security but not working for my dad. Then I could come clean with my sisters and everyone else about what I actually do. Although, at this point, I’ve been lying to Poppy and Noli for so long I’m terrified of what they’ll say when the truth comes out. And a job with a different agency wouldn’t solve my problem where Anton is concerned. Nothing changes how I’ve lied to him. He’ll always be the one who got away…the one I had to let go. If he knew the real me, he wouldn’t want me anyway.
“Fine. Yeah. I know.” I hand the tablet back to my dad. “To be clear, I don’t have to date him again? Just pretend to write the article?”
“Nothing’s off the table. If you need more access to him, then…” My dad shrugs as if stringing Anton along, trying to make him trust me again, is such a blip it doesn’t even require an explanation.
I swallow away the feeling of sick that’s piling up in the back of my throat.
He slides the tablet in his bag. “You start tomorrow. You’ll have a meeting at the River Foxes stadium in Green Bay. Then you’ll get to work. I’ll need daily reports of who Anton is with, what he’s doing. That’s how we’ll identify patterns. You know the drill. Do your job well, and he stays safe. It’s as easy as that.”
Ha.
That’s what I thought too…once upon a time.