“Where have you been, Rose?” Clara screams into the phone, making me cringe away from the phone receiver. Even with the handset held a couple of inches away from my ear, I can hear her perfectly.

“It’s a long story,” I say, “but could you tell Father—”

“Father’s worried sick about you,” she cuts me off.

“Yes, that’s why I’m—”

“Honestly, it’s so selfish of you to leave when everything is already in ruins, Rose. But it’s just like you to drag this family into trouble and take no responsibility for it. I don’t know why I expected anything different from you.”

“Clara, listen, I—”

Don’t you care that Father has to leave tomorrow?” she asks.

“That’s why I’m calling, Clara. Could you tell Father to stay?”

“What are you talking about? All of us have been asking him to stay. The problem is he can’t. God, were you even listening when he told us, Rose?”

“Clara, I got in touch with the man who owns the rose bushes that my flower came from. He told me I can take the punishment in Father’s place.”

Clara goes quiet.

“Clara? Are you still there?” I ask.

“You mean Father doesn’t have to leave?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my god, that’s amazing!” she exclaims. “That’s great that you’ve decided to take responsibility for that stupid flower of yours. I’ll tell everyone the good news.”

“Wait, Clara,” I say before she hangs up.

“What else?” she asks.

“Could you tell Father that I’m doing okay and they’re treating me well here? I don’t want him to worry,” I say as nicely as I can, gritting my teeth. I want her to deliver the message, and that means I have to play the good, long-suffering sister.

“Sure,” Clara says before the connection dies with a click.

I take a deep, frustrated breath. I don’t know why talking to Clara still drains me so much.

When I dialed the home landline phone number, I knew there was a chance one of my sisters would pick up the phone. I also knew they weren’t going to understand what’s happening from my perspective.

So when the phone call went exactly the way I thought it would, I really shouldn’t have been upset.

If Father had picked up his cell phone, I wouldn’t have had to go through that. But oh well, at least he’ll get the message now.

I lean back in my chair, the same chair where I sat last night when I first got here.

This office looks so different now when Prince James isn’t here. It feels smaller. Less intimidating.

Like the rest of the palace, the interior in this office is excessively luxurious.

Soft rugs cover a few patches of the beautifully warm parquet floor, while the walls are covered with artwork, from floor to ceiling. There are carvings of golden plants and animals native to this kingdom and portraits of rulers from a different era.

Statues and candelabras have been carefully placed, with dramatic spotlight overhead. The crystal chandelier provides ambient lighting.

There’s a marble fireplace with golden accents. On top of it, a mirror stretches from the mantel, all the way up to the high ceiling.

Considering the grandness of the space, the prince’s desk seems small. It has thin, delicate legs and golden metal accents. Despite the lack of drawers, there’s nothing on the surface. Nothing except for a cup.

Yes, that cup.

The one with a chipped edge from me dropping it in the garden this morning.

Damn it. I can just imagine the prince sitting on the big chair in front of me, fingering the cup with a smug expression. Maybe he’d even smirk as he fantasizes about making me beg for him to fuck me.

The thought irritates me, but I can’t deny the growing pressure at the juncture of my thighs when I think about him sexualizing me like that. And the fact that it turns me on only irritates me even further.

As my finger traces the carvings on my armrest, I hear noises. Electronic noises.

They sound out of place, and not just because this palace is hundreds of years old.

Throughout the palace, I haven’t seen many electronic gadgets. Of course there are TV screens and kitchen appliances. But considering the size of this place, I would’ve expected more.

Albert told me that communication devices like cell phones are useless here, and even computers don’t have access to the Internet. Apparently, some kind of a high-tech thing blocks all signals coming in and going out of the palace.

This is so nobody from the outside discovers this palace by accident, and nobody from the inside reveals the location by accident.

With some apps and devices automatically adding geographical tags to pictures and videos, it’s too easy for one of the housekeepers to carelessly post a status on Facebook with a geo tag attached.

But I’ve been thinking about how James manages to get online. He has a phone in his office, so it makes sense that he’d also have a laptop with Internet access, at the very least. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to email me.

So, these electronic noises… I wonder if they’ll lead me to his secret computer.

I don’t even know what I’d do with Internet access, but there has to be something to do here, other than gardening.

Honestly, I’m going crazy with boredom, and I haven’t even been here for twenty-four hours!

When I’m at home, I’m always either working or sleeping. I never have time for anything else.

I’ve always wished for some free time so I can just do nothing for one day, maybe read a book or take a day trip to the city.

But now that I have all the time in the world—at least for one month—I don’t know what to do with all this time. Maybe I’ve been so ruined by hard work that I’ll never be able to enjoy a life of leisure.

You know what the problem is with having too much time? Your mind wanders. You think too much.

I could be talking to customers who are looking for bouquets at Mrs. Greene’s flower shop, or even learning more about botany from Mr. Taggins.

But instead, all I have is a garden that’s already in perfect shape and nothing else. There is absolutely nothing to focus on, except for the persistent, almost painful throbbing between my legs.

So those electronic noises? They sound pretty damn interesting right now. I need some kind of a distraction.

I wonder where they’re coming from, those low hums and high beeps. They sound too close to come from outside, but too far away to come from inside this office.

I get up from my chair and take a few tentative steps toward the wall opposite the fireplace. Like all the other walls, it’s covered by beautiful artwork.

There are so many intricate designs on it, so many different things that attract the eye, that it would be easy to miss something that looks just a little off. Something like this thin vertical line on a large mural that stretches from the floor to the ceiling.

I reach out my index finger and trace the line. To my surprise, it moves.

The wall moves!

Okay, now this is getting interesting.

I rub my palms like villains in action movies do.

I don’t want to damage a multi-million-dollar piece of art, especially one that’s hundreds of years old and belongs to the royal family.

If taking a single rose gets me one month as the prince’s personal prisoner, there’s no telling what kind of a punishment I’d get for damaging this mural.

So, gently, I put my index finger back on the line and push.

Again, the wall moves—at least a part of it does. And it moves quite easily. This is actually as easy as pushing a regular door.

A rectangular piece of wall, a little smaller than a regular doorway, breaks away. It swings open into a dark room.

When I look up, I realize why I didn’t notice this opening before. I was anxious and confused when I got here last night, but this doorway is also well hidden.

The top and sides of this secret door align with the edges of the artwork, with the frames of the paintings and the lines of the decorative plaster panels on the wall.

I should probably get some source of light so I can see what’s inside the room.

I quickly grab a candelabra from a nearby shelf and push the door all the way open.

With the warm, flickering candle flames and the light spilling inside from the bright office, I can just make out the shape of the room, and the screens on the wall.

What is this place?

It looks like one of those surveillance rooms I see in action movies, or even control rooms at TV studios.

There are just so many screens. More than I can count. They’re almost covering a whole wall.

Most of the screens are turned off, but a few are glowing almost blindingly bright in this room.

I stand frozen in the doorway, not sure if I should get any closer.

All I wanted was Internet access so I could sneak in sometimes, play some online game, and maybe even read a few chapters of my romance e-books.

But this is… I didn’t expect to stumble upon this.

I can see people moving on the screens, and I recognize some of them. These videos are coming from cameras installed in Malvern and Willowdale.

What is this? Some kind of a spying command center?

I know he’s a prince, but is this legal? Can he really just watch people without their knowledge like this?

“There you are,” says a deep, stern voice from behind me.

I jump from the shock, my hands instinctively letting go of the secret door. I twist around just quickly enough to see the tall figure in the office before the door swings back and hits me on the head.