CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Sebastianos
My conversation with Iliana lingered with me over the next week, as we both were torn apart or thrust together by our growing responsibilities.
Torn apart by the many meetings I was taking part in or the many teas or brunches or bullshit meet and greets the palace communications team thought would increase her PR value and help “submerge her into our culture.”
I’d had a very pointed conversation with Ralph, head of communication, to make sure Reina didn’t have a hand in Iliana’s schedule, trying to manipulate us into growing apart. But the older gentleman, who’d fully recovered from the stomach upset at the press conference, assured me that he was keeping my former betrothed away from anything to do with my current fiancée.
When we were thrust together, it was under intense scrutiny while we smiled and waved, waved and smiled.
The summer festivities were in full swing, so we’d have our pictures taken with festival winners, smiling in photos that ranged from the most beautiful quilt to the biggest olive.
Then there were the wedding plans. The venue had already been chosen, and the cathedral booked for the entire week prior so that security sweeps could be conducted daily. A wedding planner had been hired to take over much of the responsibility, but Iliana was still away a great deal with fittings and wardrobe choices for the many events both before and after.
She was exhausted.
Her obstetrician was ordering her to get some rest and eat better, but it wasn’t enough.
So when my phone vibrated on the nightstand, I rushed to silence it before it woke her.
A text from Nate. Find me when you get up.
I groaned and rolled from the bed, careful not to disturb her. I tiptoed to the shower and was dressed and out the door of the apartment in less than ten minutes. I didn’t need to call Nate as I found him perched on the edge of my desk when I made my way through the door.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that he was precariously close to the very spot that Iliana and I had used to christen the office.
“What?” Nate asked, looking around like I’d seen something tangible to make me laugh.
I just shook my head. “Memory,” I said as I grabbed the folder in his hand and he took a seat in front of my desk. “Let me guess. The report from Poulos.”
He nodded. “You win the prize.”
It’d been less than two weeks since Nate asked our old military buddy to do a little extracurricular work for us, and the fact that there was a dossier in my hand already meant bad things.
“There’s nothing explicit enough to actually arrest her,” Nate said, sounding disappointed. “But we have keywords and faces from meetings she’s been attending around the country over the course of the past week. More clandestine get-togethers than is probably acceptable for such a high-ranking government official.”
“And Poulos was able to trace some of the people connected with her?”
Nate gave a shrug. “Sort of. But the juicy stuff here are the keywords and places we get when we play a little game of connect the dots. Amurian fundamental groups are upping their rhetoric and stirring the pot on their side of the border, and you can see that Anjou is certainly trying to kick the hornet’s nest on our side.”
I took a moment to read through everything Poulos had pieced together. It was still purely speculation, but just like Nate said, it gave us towns and leaders and border checkpoints to monitor more closely for any increase in activities or even hostilities.
“Please thank Poulos for me, and let’s get some priorities set with Fieldsis about how we’re going to keep an eye on our new targets. We’ll try to keep Poulos out of this as long as possible, and hopefully, he can keep ‘observing’ for us.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Nate said.
Reading all the way to the end, I finally closed the folder and sat back in my chair, rubbing my face with the palm of my hands.
“This makes it all so much more complicated,” I said. “It certainly doesn’t seem like they’re going to try to make any sort of moves on Abingson, but I feel like our outer cities are more vulnerable than ever.”
Nate was listening carefully. “Agreed.”
“But if Anjou wants a major show of military force around certain borders, then we’re just furthering whatever agenda she’s pushing,” I reasoned. At times, I was grateful that the only objective on my calendar each day boiled down to one thing: supporting the king and crown princess and protecting her however I could.
But it also meant that when things like this happened, I operated in the shadows and had no real say. I could cajole, influence, and persuade, but I couldn’t do what I felt best at the moment I felt it.
“Does this change anything with Penelope’s schedule?” Nate asked. We had a few festival events this week, but nothing more than two miles from the palace and nothing that lasted longer than forty-five minutes. I didn’t think “grounding” Penelope would make her any safer at this point, but if it’d been truly up to me, I’d have suggested the king and his daughter take a few months off and vacation in the south of France for a while so that Nate and I could borrow a few commandos and “re-settle” the armed militias that were likely looking for weak spots in our outer cities.
According to Poulos, they wanted to provoke a skirmish with our military and demand their government retaliate. In the end, it was all a big ploy to get the king overthrown and a sympathetic/puppet regime with a military leader installed.
It was an old Amurian playbook that hadn’t been updated since the current theocracy head had been installed in the mid-seventh century. They were nothing if not persistent in their ideals — I’d give them that.
“Penelope’s pretty home-based this week,” I said. “I think we’ll keep her on track unless something changes. Whoever is hoping this plays out would probably love nothing more than a round of ruined Summer Festival activities.”
“I’m curious,” Nate said. “If you had carte blanche right now to do whatever you wanted, how would you handle Anjou with the evidence we have?”
I considered it. “I’d probably do something really devious and ring her up on trumped-up charges, so she had to be removed from power.” I met his gaze. “Although, I doubt finding legitimate charges would be that difficult. Either way, I’d get her mouth away from the ears of the security council and media as fast as possible.”
Nate seemed to agree with me and tapped his foot against my desk, looking deep in thought. “How’s the situation with Iliana?”
“Busy. Hectic. Warp speed.”
He nodded. “I’d agree with that. Seems you don’t do anything at an easy or straightforward pace.”
I snorted. “Guess not.” I knew I was about to open up a can of worms with my friend but plowed on anyway. “Have you ever been in love?”
I probably wouldn’t have gotten a stranger look from my friend if I’d asked him to cover me in peanut butter and roll me out into the garden to feed the birds.
“What the hell, Sebastianos?” He gave me a look of horror. “Who are you and what have you done with my friend?”
I rolled my eyes. “Hear me out, and for god’s sake, take something besides national security serious for a moment.”
He leaned back in his seat, still looking ill at ease. “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll listen.”
Inhaling deeply, I plowed on. “Iliana asked me the other day if I’d ever said ‘I love you’ to a woman. At first, I thought she was having some female hormone overload thing, but the thought occurred to me that I’d never even come close to feeling anything more than minor affection for a woman. Sure, I’ve loved certain things about women, but I’ve never loved one. Not even close. Is that fucked up?”
Nate lifted his hands palms up. “No clue. But if you’re fucked up, I’m fucked up too, so maybe I’m not the best person to ask.” He peered at me closer. “But I think there’s a bigger question here. It doesn’t matter if you’ve loved someone or not. What matters is if you think you’re capable of it.”
I frowned. In the twenty-five years Nate and I had been best friends, we’d never had this serious of a conversation. It was fucking uncomfortable. And fucking needed.
“That sounds a little fatalistic, but maybe? Am I somehow broken?”
“I don’t know man,” he said, shifting his weight in his seat. “Have I ever seen you all flowery and shit over a woman? Not really. Well, not since Agnes Grace in the fifth grade.”
I groaned, trying not to remember how I’d written Agnes a poem that went along the lines of…
The grass is green
The sky is blue
Your face is like an angel
Please let me kiss you
Totally embarrassing. Especially after Agnes Grace showed all the other girls, and each day they all made kissy faces at me.
As if reading my mind, Nate made a kissy face at me too.
“Get out.”
He laughed as he rose to his feet. “Oh, Seb. Maybe you need to write Iliana a poem.”
“Get out!”
He headed toward the door, raising his voice up several degrees. “Cassia is great but California is sunny. The Green Dragon might not have been classy, but it was there that I impregnated your assy.”
My favorite paperweight flew past his head when he ducked just in time. He just laughed and waved his fingers. “Bye, lover boy.”
But I was smiling as my second favorite paperweight hit the closed door.
***
The following week, Iliana surprised me with a text saying that she was bringing lunch to me at one. Sure enough, just when my stomach was about to gurgle loud enough to alert the crisis response team, she breezed through my door pushing a cart filled with something that made my mouth water.
“Please tell me that’s beef and noodles.”
She lifted a domed lid. “Ta da.”
“Mmm… I…”
Shit. I’d almost said I love you.
I cleared my throat. “That looks wonderful.”
She winked. “A little birdie told me it was one of your favorites.”
“Smart little birdie.”
She seemed relieved.
It was strange. As much as we knew each other intimately, we were still getting to know the little things like this.
I followed her to the little table in the corner. “What’s your favorite food?”
“Anything involving pasta, so these noodles are perfect for me. But I also love anything seafood.” I wrinkled my nose and she lifted a brow. “You don’t?”
I scratched my chin. “Actually, I’m not completely sure. Seafood is highly discouraged for a royal because of the threat of food poisoning so I haven’t eaten enough of it to discover if I like it or not.”
She gaped at me. “Does… does… that mean I can’t eat it either?”
I gave her a sorry smile. “I’m afraid so.”
She tossed down the napkin she was holding and raised her chin. “That’s it. This marriage is off.”
I just stared at her, but before I could panic, she laughed and sat down at the table.
I laughed too, although I wasn’t feeling it. It was actually getting annoying at how big of a lunatic I was become about this small creature.
Without waiting for me, she tucked into the meal, and I smiled. It was good to see her eat. Although she was still officially in the first trimester, I could tell she was beginning to feel better more consistently.
Forcing myself to concentrate on the meal and the small talk she was making, I paused after she finished a sentence that sounded a lot like a cross-department road trip. Up north.
“Wait, what?” I asked, setting down my chopsticks.
Officially, Iliana was still on the books as an intern because she enjoyed working inside the department when her schedule allowed… but a trip?
“It’s a photo shoot road trip to some of the historical sites around the country in honor of the king’s thirtieth anniversary as ruler,” she said. “It was an idea that Thierry was kicking around with the public relations department and it sort of took root.”
I wasn’t trying to come across as instantly negative, but the thought of palace employees and staff members roaming the north countryside shooting promotional videos seemed like a really bad idea given the information Nate and I’d recently come across. And yet, we had no real proof we could cite, so trying to get Thierry to cancel might be a challenge.
“When?” Maybe by next year, things with Amur would have settled.
“Sometime next week,” she said, and my stomach dropped a few degrees.
“I think it’s a bad idea.”
She stopped chewing and frowned at me. Swallowed. “What’s a bad idea?”
I had to choose my words carefully. “Well, the whole plan is risky given the places you mentioned them wanting to shoot,” I began. “But you, specifically, going makes me really, really uneasy. You’re carrying my child, and the rumors are getting to the point where we’ll need to confirm it. And when we do, you become an even bigger target.”
Iliana frowned as she considered my words. “You mean the baby could be in danger?”
I didn’t want to scare her, but she needed to be aware of these things. “Yes. My wife and child are considered targets, and right now, you two are a package, so the burden falls directly on you.”
Even with the heavy weight of the words, she smiled a little. “Sorry. You said ‘wife’ and it made everything feel suddenly very real.”
I smiled and said it again, “Wife.”
She smiled bigger. “Knocked-up wife.”
I bobbed my eyebrows at her. “Even sexier.”
The strange thing was, it was true. While I would have thought I’d run screaming from the word… I kind of liked it.
Her Royal Highness Iliana, Duchess of Becktonas. My wife.
The mother of my child. Maybe children, if we were so lucky.
“So, you don’t want me to go with the team?”
I met her gaze, focusing my thoughts away from the image of Iliana with a baby at her breast. “Correct. I’d like to keep you safe in the palace.”
A stubborn look came over her face. “Even though you don’t know of any real threats? And you don’t know of any dates or times something bad could happen?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Correct. Evil people wanting to overthrow governments don’t exactly send out press releases for us to put on our calendars.”
“Will you be letting Thierry know all this?”
“Yes.”
She looked relieved. Did she really think I was a shitty enough person to let our staff face a danger I wouldn’t face myself?
“But just so you know, I can actually take care of myself. If you remember, I traveled extensively with my parents and we often ended up in not so safe countries.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “So as long as you don’t have to curtsey, you’ll be perfectly fine?”
Her mouth popped open, and she threw a napkin at me. “No fair. I was nervous.”
“Nervous in front of my uncle but you want me to believe that you have nerves of steel if faced with armed bad guys.” I leaned forward, growing serious again. “And speaking of bad guys, you need to go through anti-terrorism training.”
She didn’t even blink. “Okay. I can do that.”
I hid a smirk behind my hand. “You think?”
She lifted both brows. “Small and mighty, remember?”
I laughed. “You are definitely that, but anti-terrorism training is no joke. You’ll be randomly kidnapped by Cassian special forces and held prisoner for an undisclosed number of days.” When colored drained from her face, I went on. “It will feel real, it will sound real. You will be treated as if it is real.”
Her green eyes were huge. “Why?”
“Because of me, Iliana. Because of who I am. I’m sorry.”
She just stared at me, unblinking. “You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
Now, she’s going to run screaming. Now, she’s going to leave me.
Her gaze fell from my face and landed directly in her lap, where her fingers twisted together.
I’m losing her.
Panic hit me like a fist. Adrenaline surged while my mind looked for options to save myself from the hurt I was sure was heading my way.
“Okay.”
I blinked. Did she say okay?
She met my gaze. “I’ll do it. When?”
It took a moment for the adrenaline to drain away and the roar of my heartbeat in my ears to clear. “It will be a surprise attack. You won’t know. I won’t know.”
She shuddered. “It sounds scary.”
I nodded. “It is.” I forced myself to smile. “But the good thing is that you can defend yourself, small and mighty.”
The distraction worked because she grinned. “I’ll have you know that I’m really good at picking a lock.”
I was calling bullshit. And did.
With a toss of her shoulder, she reached up and into the twisty bun thing on her head and grabbed two bobby pins from her hair. “What will you give me when I break into your office with you sitting in it?”
“Whatever you want, Squeaks,” I said, earning another smile from her. “But you need to do it before my lunch is gone or the deal is off.”
A small but surprisingly sly smile lifted her lips. Fiddling with the hair pins, she bent one into a short-sided L-shape then straightened the other one.
“When we’re married, they’ll give you hair pins that can be used as daggers.”
Her eyes grew wide again. This time with excitement. “Really?”
“Um, no.”
She scowled at me, disappointed.
This new and sneaky Iliana was adorable. Small and mighty indeed.
Rising to her feet with an elegance that had me smiling, she fisted her tools and headed toward my office door.
“Iliana…”
She turned, a brow arched high. “Yes?”
“If you can’t do it, I want you on your knees later tonight.”
She grinned. “And if I do, I want you on your knees.”
I was still laughing in delight as she locked the door on my side, then exited and rattled the knob for good measure.
Grinning, I took a bite of my meal, listening to the scratches coming from the door. Curiously, I stood and walked over to it. To my amazement, in less than a minute, the damn thing swung open, a grinning Iliana on the other side.
Fucking. Adorable.
Taking her hand, I pulled her inside, closed and locked the door, and pressed her against the wood.
“What are you doing?” Her voice was breathless, but I suspected she already knew.
Going to my knees, I pushed her skirt up to her waist and shimmied her panties down her legs, leaving them to pool around one ankle. Lifting her leg over my shoulder, I grinned up at her before taking a long, slow, delicious lick.
“I, my dear Iliana, always pay my debts.”