“I know they’re going to be amazing, Cirella. Those sketches and progress pics are perfect.” Alora beams. “You’resotalented.”
“Thank you,” Cirella says coyly, tucking her chin to her chest.
Her arms snake around herself, crisscrossing over her waist, and the image immediately causes another nauseating sensation of déjà vu.
The world stops spinning, and my blood runs cold.No way.
That exact movement, that self-soothing tactic she’s doing right now, I’ve seen it before … from one very special person.
Dean’s eyes meet mine, slightly wide.
He saw it too.
Couldshereally bePrincess? Could she have been living under our roof this entire time without us realizing it?
“Hey, Cirella. Would you be able to help Dean and me—” My phone rings loudly in my hand, cutting me off mid-sentence.
It’s my father.
I turn the phone, showing Dean, whose face instantly falls.
Aggressively, he rants, “Shouldn’t he be in the air right now?”
“Yep,” I groan before answering the call, my voice even and calm. “Hello?”
“Asher. Change of plans. We’ll be leaving tomorrow morning. The weather is turning sour, and the pilot doesn’t feel comfortable taking the jet up.” He pauses as my heart rate kicks into overdrive. “We’re on our way home.”
“Shit.”
“Shit,” Asher curses under his breath.
Oh God, what the hell is our father saying right now?
“I mean, shoot. That sucks that the weather means you guys can’t leave until the morning.” His eyes widen, bulging out of his head.
“Fuck,” I mutter, immediately scanning the room for next steps, my problem-solving brain kicking into overdrive.
We need to hide everything, but the problem is, the foyer looks like a bomb went off inside of a bougie Party City.
I haven’t even had time to process the pretty blonde girl standing between Asher and me, who is currently crossing her arms the same way our Princess does. The biggest elephant in the room to ever exist.
I doubt she’s the only one in the world who does that, but the coincidence would still be insane, given the fact that she’s standing inside of our house right now.
“We’re not home. But we‘ll be back soon.” Asher ends the call and shoves his phone into his sweatshirt pocket. “He’s going to be here in five.Fuck.”
“Fuck,” I repeat back to him, taking one last second to gather myself before snapping into gear. “All right, listen up.” Our friends and the straggling staff members all turn their attention to me. “We need to hideall of thisright now. Everett is going to be back in less than five minutes, and there cannot be a shred of evidence.”
Maria raises her hand as she asks, “And where would you like us to shove everything?”
Tapping my toe incessantly, I run a thousand ideas through my mind.
We could take it all up to Asher’s and my wing of the house, but there’s a chance he would go in there to check on us later and find all of it.
We could take it back to the storage rooms, but I think it would take us too long to get everything down there, unlock the sealed rooms, and then get everyone out of the basement without detection before he got here.
“I have an idea.” Someone speaks up in a sweet, timid voice.
Turning to Cirella—thanks to Alora, I now know her name—I encourage her to continue. “What are you thinking?”
