AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t think, I know that at this very moment, the little princess is downstairs with Jeanette.”
“Fuck. Her parents are going to kill her,” he said, sincerity ringing with every word.
“Only if they discover her little escapade.” I spun the photo around and took a good long look. Granted, I was looking at a formal portrait and the younger version of the lady in question was dressed far more modestly than the one downstairs, but it was her.
“What are you gonna do?”
“At first I was going to read her the riot act and escort her onto the next plane home, but…”
“But what?” he asked, when I was incapable of completing the thought as images of all sorts of alternatives played in my head. “No! You can’t,” Nathan protested as if he could read my mind.
“Wanna bet?” I repeated, unable to conceal the grin. “If my fiancée wishes to sow some wild oats before our wedding, who better to reap them than me?”
He picked up the photo once more. “You sure she’s of age?”
I’d already done the math in my head. Marcie’s birthday was a week after mine which I’d spent celebrating with a bottle of Macallan single-malt scotch and playing poker all night with Nate and a few other good friends exactly seven days earlier. Which meant as of this morning, the princess was officially an adult. “I’m not robbing the cradle if that’s what’s got your panties in a wad. She’s twenty-one and free to do whatever she wishes.”
His eyebrow quirked. “Unless Emberly has gone the way of Atlantis and disappeared beneath the ocean, we both know that’s a big fat lie.” He sighed deeply and laid the photo down. “Adult or not, you’re playing with fire. You do remember her father is the King of Emberly Isles, correct?”
“I do.”
“And if Queen Florence finds out you’ve toyed with her daughter’s… um…”
“Virginity?” I offered.
“Shit, Max. I was trying to be diplomatic. I was going to say virtue.”
I shrugged. “According to Shakespeare, a rose is still a rose no matter if all the petals have been plucked.”
“How you ever got a diploma still alludes me. Shakespeare said no such thing, you philistine. Gertrude Stein wrote that in her poem ‘Sacred Emily’. You might do well to consider the definition of the word ‘sacred’ for a moment.”
“Believe me, I can recognize sacred when it walks through my door.”
He rolled his eyes. “Whatever…”
Knowing what was coming, I grinned and flipped a switch hidden under the edge of my desk and the monitor of my computer sprang to life. Instead of a screensaver, Nate got a good eyeful of the birthday girl.
“Holy shit,” he said, snatching up the picture yet again, looking from it to the monitor where Marcie sat, seated on a small loveseat, her legs tucked to one side, ankles aligned, her posture perfect despite the fact she was presently tapping the end of the pen against lips the color of rubies as she perused the papers clamped to a clipboard. “Holy shit,” Nate repeated, lifting his eyes from the screen to meet mine. “She’s definitely all grown up,” he allowed, returning the photo and flipping the manila folder closed as if finally acknowledging that her childhood was over. “Regardless of the fact she’s drop-dead gorgeous and no longer a little girl, I beg you to remember at the very least, even the most beautiful roses have some very nasty thorns.”
“Makes the battle more memorable and the inevitable victory all the more satisfying,” I said.
“I don’t know, man. Even though she’s had the gumption to walk into the club, what makes… wait. Why this club? I thought no one knew you and I built Revelation?”
“As far as I know, no one but our members know we own the place, and only you know my entire story. So unless?—”
“Not a fucking chance in hell!” he immediately interrupted to declare. “And you’re lucky I don’t slug you for suggesting I’d betray you.”
I lifted my hand to stop his tirade. “I was going to say unless someone has dug deeper than we thought, our secret is still that, a secret.”
He looked pensive, seeming to consider my words as he calmed down. After a few moments, he shook his head. “So you’re saying she doesn’t know? That what, fate brought her to your doorstep?”
“That’s exactly what I think,” I said, having already run dozens of scenarios through my head since I’d seen the monitor in the security room.
“Surely she’s going to hightail it out of here the second she sees you.”
Grinning, I shook my head. “Tell me, do either you or I look anything like we did when we were in our twenties?”
Nate took his time answering, giving me such a long look, I was about to ask if he needed glasses. Before I could, he shook his head. “Well, you certainly don’t, and if I don’t think so, no one who hasn’t seen you for what—almost a decade—is going to recognize you. Still, I’m not sure this is such a good idea. It might be better to pop the princess’…”
