CHAPTER SEVEN
Iliana
“Never turn your back on the monarch,” my new boss, Thierry Masters, was repeating to me as we walked through the carpeted hallways that led away from his office. He was carrying his camera, and I was walking beside him tugging a large wagon behind me with what felt like three hundred studio lights and ninety-eight different lenses.
“And while it’s not the official dictate nowadays, it’s still a good idea to wait until you’re spoken to,” he added. “And remember to stand when any of the royal family enter the room, and for goodness’ sake, remember a proper curtsey.”
Ah, the curtsey. This single act alone had me more distressed and anxious than anything else in all of my twenty-four years. I’d watched Marta do it at least a hundred times in the past four days since I started the internship, and I still felt wobbly and unstable each time. My arms would flounder about like misfiring flippers to keep me from toppling forward, and I couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that Marta was able to look poised and graceful in heels.
“It’ll come,” Thierry said. “If you practice enough. I can’t have my interns making a fool out of our office, so do your best to avoid catastrophes today if you can.”
I promised that I’d do my best, and he motioned me away so that he could have a strategy session with his first assistant, Pascal.
I was a lighting assistant today, something I knew fairly little about because I hadn’t been especially fond of portrait workshops through the years and only took them when absolutely necessary. Travel photography and landscapes were my passion, but it looked as though portraiture was going to pay my stipend for the summer, so I’d be whatever assistant Thierry needed me to be.
A pair of guards in palace livery opened the large floor-to-ceiling double doors for us as we approached and let us into the throne room.
I’d worked especially hard the past few days not to look like some slack-jawed annoying tourist around the palace, but the throne room did me in. It was simply spectacular, and from my crude calculations, it was about the same size as three of the houses I lived in during my years in San Diego put together.
The domed ceilings were massive, seeming to go on forever.
The throne room of the Cassian monarchy, I learned, was a living thing. When the royal family changed, so did the throne room. After the passing of the queen, her throne was put into the museum, and a smaller, more graceful throne was put to the right of the king’s throne. It was where Princess Penelope sat during State events, I assumed.
I smiled wistfully at the thought of being a crown princess, or nobility in general. My father hadn’t thought much of it, and he’d been the son of a baron. From what I’d heard from Hermione and Nigel, Princess Penelope was a sweet girl who was incredibly photogenic.
“Like a little cherub,” Auntie Hermione said with a sigh.
“Will grow up someday to make a stunning queen,” Nigel added, to which Hermione agreed.
The team set up on the tables toward the side, and I helped unpack all the gear. We were about fifteen minutes from the arrival of the king and the princess when my stomach started to feel sick.
I pressed my hand to my belly, hoping to still the roiling going on inside. I was nervous, sure, but it wasn’t like I was a diplomatic visitor from a foreign country or anything. I was a damn intern and probably wouldn’t be within fifty feet of the king, but I still worried that I’d muck something up somehow.
I’d been warned to dress professionally, so I was already sweating in my beige pantsuit that featured capri length pants. I’d paired the suit with a silk scoop neck blouse in a green that matched my eyes and selected the tall but surprisingly comfortable nude platform pumps Auntie Hermione had purchased for me, promising that my toes would thank me later.
Small silver hoops completed the ensemble, and I’d pulled my hair back from my face in an easy half up, half down style. I’d been assured that the dress code in the summer was much more relaxed, although not quite as relaxed as I’d been on my first day. Since then, I’d taken fashion cues from Marta, who wore sundresses with light weight cardigans or jackets most days. Thierry never strayed from his dark Italian suits and his outrageously colored bowties. He wore the same uniform day in and day out, no matter the weather.
“Secret to my creative success,” he said with a grin. “I never have to use a creative cell to wonder what I’m wearing that day. I can pour it all out into my camera.”
It was definitely one way of looking at it.
“How’s your curtsey?” Marta whispered after the equipment had been set up. I gave her an unconvincing thumbs-up, and as soon as she turned around, I dipped my left toe back behind my right heel and tried to gently, gracefully lower myself while reining in my arms.
It’d almost worked, too, but on the way up, my back foot gave me too much of a boost, and I came unbalanced. I took a jerky step forward and bumped the table, sending a spare lightbulb rolling off the edge, where it fell to the floor and shattered.
Loudly.
So loudly that it seemed like everyone who’d gathered on the other side of the tables and near the doorway stopped what they were doing and looked back at me.
I untangled my feet and did my best to disappear on the spot by making like a column and freezing. It didn’t work, but thankfully, conversations picked back up, and people returned to what they were doing so that I could clean up the broken glass.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to Marta, who’d turned around to check on me. “I bumped the table, and a light bulb fell off.”
Marta gave a tense smile and whispered, “Get housekeeping to help.”
Not wanting to bother someone to clean up my mess, I squatted behind the table and began to gingerly pick up the larger pieces and collect them in my open palm. Tottering that way in my heels wasn’t easy, and I came unbalanced again. Trying to catch myself, my hand came down on a shard of glass. Lifting my hand, I dropped my knee for balance. Yep, right onto another piece of glass.
Silly Illy.
Sucking in my breath, I could almost hear my mother calling me that. I had been a clumsy child who had turned into an even clumsier adult. Eyeing the floor carefully, I managed to get to my feet without bleeding on anything important… and saw the darndest thing.
I believed in déjà vu, but I was pretty sure this was the first time I’d ever experienced déjà butt. Through the crowd, from my vantage point, I caught the back of a man near the doorway. He was speaking to someone I didn’t recognize, standing nearly a head taller than the other man.
He was wearing a snowy white dress shirt and a pair of impeccably tailored black slacks. It was the slacks that drew my eyes to his butt and his butt that drew me back to the night that I brazenly eyed a man’s tush as he made his way to the restroom.
The butt was so familiar it made me smile. And then almost groan in want. For as good as Seb’s butt had looked that night, it’d felt all that much better while I was grabbing hold of it all through the early hours of the morning.
Covering my grin with my non-bloody hand, I backed up and away from the mess I’d created and looked for a footman along the wall. I explained what I’d done, and instead of directing me to a broom and dustpan as I’d been hoping, he assured me that he’d notify the housekeeping staff who would take care of it posthaste.
I thanked him and made my way back to the equipment bags in hopes of finding a few bandages. Blood had already created a circle on my knee and was trailing down my shinbone while also gathering in my palm. Geez, it was a good thing these cuts were small, or it would have looked like a massacre was taking place.
Begging for a box of Band-Aids to appear, I dug through bag after bag and couldn’t find a thing.
I was getting ready to find a restroom when a footman yelled, “Announcing His Royal Highness, King Demetrius,” and I nearly jumped out of my skin. The assistants gathered behind Thierry, and I hobbled toward them, trying to stay directly behind everyone as they paid homage to their king.
In front of me, the royal photographer and the monarch struck up a friendly conversation, making it clear they were old friends.
“Good to see you, old man,” the king said, and I heard Thierry laugh and return a greeting. From the corner of my eye, I spotted a little girl in an uncomfortable looking ball gown made of gold standing in the hallway. There was a purple sash going down her narrow chest and a sparkling tiara on her blonde head. I couldn’t help but smile at the Crown Princess Penelope.
She was a doll.
A doll who also happened to be looking at me — more specifically, the blood running down my leg, her eyes wide.
She motioned to me, pointing toward her own knee and then to mine, trying to let me know about it. I gave her a smile and a shrug and then a thumbs-up, trying to pantomime that I was okay.
The little girl frowned. Was a thumbs-up some sort of faux pas when it came to royalty? What about royalty in the first grade?
I hid my hands behind my back and realized my mistake too late — I’d just smeared blood from my hand on my right thigh, adding to the carnage.
With a dramatic sigh, I silently wished the old school chums ahead of me would hurry up already, so I could go try to wash some of the blood off me and check out the slice on my palm which was really starting to hurt something ugly.
“…yes, Your Highness, she’s from America this year.”
I froze at the word America.
Please, no.
No. No. No.
I prayed for some sort of divine miracle to save me from what was about to happen. Not only was I a bleeding mess, I was about to be some horror-movie extra trying to curtsey to the king. What if I fell forward on him with my bloody hands? Would secret service shoot me?
I was in a full-blown panic as the assistants and Thierry parted like the Red Sea, and before I could dive under a table and save myself, I was suddenly standing four feet from the King of Cassia.
I swallowed hard, a jumble of everything Thierry and Auntie Hermione tried to tell me swirling together like some godawful smoothie of rules and etiquette that I was never going to get right.
“Come forward, miss,” the king said, motioning me to step up. “I’m happy to meet you. I’m a bit of a photography buff myself.”
Mess that I was, I had no choice but to step forward. And wouldn’t you know it, I suddenly had the strongest urge to pee on top of it all.
When I was about two feet from the king, I got my feet into position… and dipped. It probably wasn’t as shallow as it was supposed to be, but I didn’t tumble to the king’s feet, and I’d been able to keep my arms pinned to my sides.
When I was back on my feet, I nearly fist pumped the air in pure glee, but managed to refrain.
“Thank you, Your Highness,” I said, suddenly forgetting when to use majesty and highness. Most of the people I’d heard around here said highness, so I was going with it.
“How are you enjoying your stay so far?”
Oh, crap. He wanted to make small talk? I wasn’t prepared for small talk. My mind raced. Small talk was easy. Small talk was simple. Say something, Iliana, I internally screamed at myself as the monarch of Cassia stood looking at me.
“It’s been a wonderful first few days, thank you,” I managed, sucking in a breath and plastering a smile so hard on my face, my cheek muscles ached.
“And how long will you be staying?”
I blinked. Staying. Staying where?
It took me a good two seconds to realize he was talking about my stay in the country.
“I’ll graduate from the university here in December,” I said. “I’m taking my last semester of classes here in the fall, sire.”
Sire. Did people still use that word? Had I watched too many princess cartoons growing up? Was King Demetrius even my sire if I was an American citizen? My anxiety was making my head swim when the adorable little princess flounced forward, gold and purple coming at me in a swirl.
“Father, her—” she began, but the king cut her off with a look.
“I don’t remember hearing your name being called,” he gently scolded his daughter, an eyebrow raised high on his forehead.
Princess Penelope had the good manners to look embarrassed. “But—”
The king’s mouth twisted as if he was attempting to hold back a smile, but he continued to give his royal daughter a firm look. “But since you’re here, allow me to introduce you to Miss Costas, an American citizen who is interning with us through the end of the year.” He turned to me. “Miss Costas, this is my daughter, Penelope.”
Shit. I needed to curtsey again.
Taking a deep breath, I managed to dip lower this time, thinking that because she was shorter that maybe I had to make an extra effort? I had no idea. I was making it up as I went along.
“Hello, Your Highness,” I said. She was a highness too, right?
“Hello,” she said, giving me a little wave before her eyes darted to my pants.
“Father…” she began, this time pointing at the blood, and I felt the color drain from my face. The little shit was going to out me, and I was going to cause some sort of international incident by bleeding on a sovereign ruler of an ally country.
But little Penelope only frowned when it was clear that her father’s attention was focused elsewhere, and I wondered if I was about to witness my first royal tantrum.
“Come over, Sebastianos,” the king was saying to someone I couldn’t see. “Say hello to Thierry and meet the newest member of his staff. There’s a newcomer from America this year.”
The king appeared to be almost giddy. Was he a fan of hot dogs and baseball? An Americana buff of some sort?
I was trying to inch back behind Marta, but I felt a hand shoot out at my back, locking me in place. From my peripheral vision, I could see it was Thierry himself making me stand still.
“Miss Iliana Costas, this is my nephew,” the king was saying as I was still looking over my shoulder at Thierry, who was imploring me with incredibly expressive eyebrows and eye movement to look back toward the king. “Prince Sebastianos Xenakis, Duke of Becktonas.”
Taking a deep breath, I faced the king again, repeating over and over in my head what I knew. Dukes weren’t highnesses. They were your graces. But wait, didn’t he also call him a prince? Which prince? Was there a prince?
Ack. I was so confused.
Fixing a smile in place, I faced the man beside the king, keeping my eyes on the marble floor. I dipped, managed to rise, then lifted my eyes to the tall man’s face as I said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Your… oh my god.”
It was him.
Seb.
The man who’d rocked my world. The man who’d claimed my thoughts.
My divergence from protocol earned me a few murmurs and a fair number of sharp intakes of breath. I tried to recover but ended up making it all worse.
“Grace!” I practically yelled. “Your Grace. It’s an honor to meet you, Your Grace.”
I closed my eyes and locked my knees, hoping that would keep me from sinking to the floor.
By some miracle, did the stranger I’d gotten naked with the first night I met him have some doppelganger out in the world? A twin who hadn’t put my legs over his shoulders so he could drive into me harder? A mirror image who hadn’t plowed into me from behind in a fantastic sex move that had me nearly howling like the sex position name proclaimed?
I swallowed hard at the memories as I struggled to pull myself together.
“Ana… I mean, Iliana.” Seb cleared his throat, clearly as stunned by this surprise meeting as me. “Fancy meeting you here.”
The entire room was silent, everyone taking in the conversation like it was primetime television and not real life.
I managed a weak smile. “Imagine that, Your Grace,” I said in a voice that was barely louder than a breath. “It’s a small world after all.”
I wanted to jump off a cliff. I wanted to swallow a fork. I wanted to be anywhere but right there, right then inadvertently quoting the most annoying song known to man from the Disney theme parks.
“Is that…” Seb frowned and stepped toward me, pulling my hand between us. “You’re bleeding.” His eyes flew back to my face, concern in his expression. “Miss Costas, are you hurt?”
I was surprised at the intensity of his questioning and more so by the fact that he hadn’t let go of my hand. Blood and all, he hadn’t released me.
“I was trying to tell Father that this whole time,” Penelope said from behind Sebastianos. “But he wouldn’t listen to me.”
Seb looked to the king and motioned toward the door. “I’ll take her to the medical office if that’s okay with you, sir.”
The king looked at my injuries and nodded. “Yes, by all means, Sebastianos. Get her looked at.”
Prince Sebastianos Xenakis, Duke of Becktonas, and owner of the greatest butt known to mankind dragged me out of the throne room before I could get a word in edgewise.