At the sight of the razor sharp, very long, stainless steel blade, I struggled not to freak out. Ricco wasn’t kidding. He intended to saw me in half. Divide me and my leotard up into two sparkly pieces instead of one. The more important question whirling around in my brain was, did he intend to put me back together again?
As they say in Italian, Mama mia!
“Have you done this trick before?” I asked, hopeful his answer was yes.
“Many times,” Ricco said, taking my hand and gesturing for me to lie down on a long wooden table that had ornately-carved, small stocks with impenetrable locks for both the victim’s—I mean assistant’s—neck and ankles. Creepy. “But never with an assistant as beautiful as you.”
“Or as foolish,” I muttered under my breath. I had no idea what to do. How this trick worked. I couldn’t lie here and wait for the sharp blade to slice me through the middle like a roll of salami. There had to be a way out of this, but what?
My mouth was dry. My hands clammy. I was very much aware I’d gone willingly with him. Everyone knew we left the tent together. Surely, they’d send in the cavalry if I didn’t show up for dinner. But for now, we were rehearsing in an old hunting lodge near the festival grounds.
Alone.
I joked this might be the only rehearsal, but Ricco said nothing and gave me that gorgeous smile of his. He showed up right after rehearsal so I couldn’t chicken out. I didn’t want to. I’d seen a side of him yesterday I never expected. I was curious to learn the magician’s secrets, though I kept one of my own. I didn’t elaborate on our motorbike ride at dinner last night with my teammates. I kept them guessing, telling them only that he showed me some Monterran tourist sites. No one believed me, especially Sloan. She gave me a How could you? look that sent me on a major guilt trip. And Emma? She knew I was fibbing, but she kept it to herself.
I had no idea what I’d tell them tonight at dinner.
I looked around the spacious lodge, amazed. His cousin, Prince Nico (I still couldn’t get over him having a prince for a cousin), insisted he make use of the place during the festival to store his props. A place where medieval Monterran kings and dukes hunted until it fell into disuse half a century ago.
I couldn’t keep from letting out a long sigh when he showed me around earlier. Monterra was becoming more and more like a fairy tale to me each day, but I had to tamp down my emotions, remind myself I was only here for a week and this hunky count had a rep that should make me run as far away from him as I could.
I didn’t. Instead, I’d slid across the polished oak floor like I was a dancing princess, running my fingers up and down the elegant wainscoting and poking my head inside the majestic fireplace. I swore it must be at least five feet deep with a ten-foot beam spanning its breadth.
That was before I ended up flat on my back on a padded table.
“I want to open the festival with an eye-popping illusion,” Ricco said, his playfulness taking the edge off the moment, but I wasn’t sure if that was due to his confidence as a magician or my leotard strap falling off my shoulder.
“Emma spent hours sewing on these sequins,” I said. “I wouldn’t want her work to end up shredded to pieces.”
I hoped to appeal to his protective nature to make him change his mind. He didn’t. Before I could say boo, he secured the shackles on the fancy neck stocks so I couldn’t get up.
“I will take care of you, bella, but I’ll also keep you captive so you listen to me and not run away.”
“I’m flattered, totally, but if I promise to listen, will you let me out of here?” I said in a squeaky voice.
“No, this is more fun.”
He laughed and a mischievous glint in his eyes told I had no way out. Magicians usually put their assistant in fake danger to thrill the audience. Not Count Ricco. He had a different agenda, though I had yet to find out what it was.
Next, he fastened the shackles on the small wooden stocks over my ankles. For a brief moment, I enjoyed the pretty floral design with pink flowers that matched my pedicure. At the same time, my heart pounded, echoing in my head, but I couldn’t shove aside the idea that something strange was going on. I was shackled to the table with a pair of medieval stocks that defied logic. Surprisingly, I could easily wiggle my bare toes and move my ankles. As if I could slip my feet out with no problem. Of course, I’m very limber. Weird.
Then a very strange thing happened. Ricco bent down and whispered in my ear. I dared to relax and did as he told me. I couldn’t take my eyes off the steel blade and prayed with every inch of me that he was as good an illusionist as they said he was. Given the confident look radiating on his face, I trusted him. I don’t know why, I just did.
Next, he picked up two heavy Cherrywood boxes engraved with his royal family crest as if they were made of cardboard. Like I said, the man had muscles. He placed them over my upper and lower torso and strapped the boxes to the table.
Hiding me from view except for my head.
“Unfortunately,” Ricco continued, “this is the only way I can be certain you won’t run away. It saddens me I was unable to secure your trust before you heard the unflattering gossip about me.”
“You mean the stories about how the notorious Count Ricco, heartbreaker of females everywhere, is a rogue?”
He opened and shut the two side panels on the boxes. I flinched. The loud sound snapped in my ears.
“Si, those stories.” He nodded, and then picked up the steel blade. I saw my whole life flashing before me when I gazed upon that oversized scalpel.
I gulped. “Are you going to tell me they’re not true?”
He started sawing through the box. “No.”
More sawing. Gritty sounds. Loud. The vibration moved through my entire body scrunched up in the box. I don’t dare move, breathe even. I focused totally on keeping still while he spoke.
And told me a story.
About a young boy sent to boarding school in England where he learned English and science and physics, but he also learned how cruel boys could be. Bullying and making fun of anyone different. At twelve, he was tall and gangly. Always reading books, yearning for adventure, making him a perfect target for their attacks.
I figured this was his story, though I couldn’t imagine him without those muscles. I didn’t interrupt him. Besides, I was getting comfortable in my royal box. It had plush red velvet padding for me to lie on.
“One day during a field trip to a London fish market, the boy wandered off on his own, away from his classmates, eager to explore the world as his father had done, for he adored his father, but never believed he could achieve such wondrous deeds on his own.”
I couldn’t see Ricco as a boy with no confidence, but this was getting good. I kept silent as he continued, though I wasn’t too excited about him removing the saw and grabbing two square-shaped, stainless steel blades.
“As fate would have it, a band of ruffians fell upon the boy, stealing the coins in his pocket, his school cap and blazer, but most devastating, the antique pocket watch his father gave him before he left on his last voyage. A voyage from which he never returned.”
He paused and a look of pain struck hard on his face, making his cheekbones sharper, his mouth set in a firm line.
“What happened next?” I blurted out without thinking. I was eager to hear how the story ended, but heartbroken for the boy.
“Fueled with determination, the boy wandered the docks of London, searching for the thieves who’d stolen his father’s watch. A gold watch of fine workmanship that had been handed down for generations.”
He inserted a steel blade into the slot on the first box. Zonk! That was a jolt.
“For days,” Ricco said, “he haunted the dark alleys and dirty shacks, sleeping in doorways and eating scraps. He didn’t care about returning to his posh school, only finding the culprit who’d taken his watch.
“Until one cold, gray morning when the fog was so thick, the boy couldn’t tell a ghost from a plume of smoke, a wiry, old man plucked him up by the collar from where he was sleeping. ‘Yer causing me nothing but trouble, lad, asking questions and poking your nose where you shouldn’t,” said the man, ‘but I got to admire your spunk.’ Then with a grand gesture, he dragged the boy off to a makeshift camp under a bridge. There he plunked him down next to a trash receptacle blazing with a fire shooting up into the sky so the boy could warm his hands, his feet.”
Bam! Ricco inserted a long blade into the slot on the second box. I was totally unnerved but unhurt, as he said I would be.
“Who was the old man?” I pleaded, my mind seeing every detail . . . while also wiggling my fingers and toes as he checked the metal sheets in the middle of the box where he’d sawed me in half.
Did I really just say that?
I was so freaked, I missed part of his story.
“. . . and then the old man offered to help the boy, though it could be dangerous for him.”
The count swung open the two royal boxes, dividing me in half, but I wasn’t paying attention. I had to know what happened to the boy.
“Please, Ricco, don’t stop now!”
He leaned down and touched my cheek with his finger, slowing drawing it over my skin and giving me chills. “You have a choice, bella. I will finish my story, or I can put you back together. Which shall it be?”
“You can’t do this to me!” I cried out, frustrated.
“But I have.” His eyes sparkled with royal mischief, knowing he was in full control. And I liked it. For the first time in forever, I didn’t have to make a decision or worry about the outcome. I was in the wonderful hands of a master magician. And for some God forsaken reason I couldn’t grab onto, I trusted him. Even when he spun me around in the split box, making me dizzy.
“Please!” I cried out, laughing. I giggled like a kid on a carnival joy ride.
“You break my heart, bella, with your plea,” he said, bringing the spinning box to a stop. “I will make you an offer.”
“Yes, anything.” I let out a deep sigh. Thank God I wasn’t sick to my stomach, but my head was still spinning.
“I will put you back together and finish my story,” he said with a sly grin, “if you will give me a kiss.”
I’m not sure if he understood I’ve been aching to kiss him again and he didn’t have to go to all this trouble. Or he was trying to keep me from asking him about the gossip I heard? I couldn’t believe he had something to prove in the stud department, but what guy didn’t?
Whatever, I didn’t care. With as much sexiness as I could muster with my neck shackled in medieval stocks, I breathed out my new two favorite words, “Kiss me.”