Page 9 of Palace of Betrayal

As they closed the door to the bedroom, sealing the outside world away, she stepped from his embrace and turned toward him. Arms crossed over her waist, the sun from the open blinds slanting across her body, she looked innocent. Yet her eyes told of a worldliness he ached to understand.

“We need to make sure this cover is solid. That means we need to act like we’re falling in love with lots of touching, flirting, and kissing. Is that going to be a problem after last night?”

León shook his head as he widened his stance, his arms crossed over his chest now as he faced Bebe. “No, of course not. I know I was out of line last night and I shouldn’t have touched you. It was a mistake, but it won’t happen again…. unless you want it to?”

“Listen, Leo, it’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, or that I’m not attracted to you because obviously that’s a lie and I don’t make a habit of lying to myself, but this is a job. There’s too much at stake for me to get scrambled up in emotional entanglements.”

He rubbed his chest where the words lodged and tried not to acknowledge the sting of them, but she was right. The stakes were too high for him to let himself get carried away and it wasn’t what he wanted either.

“Then it’s settled. Out there we put on a show but in here we work the case.”

Bebe gave a short nod and began pulling clothes from the case he’d had delivered from her hotel last night. “I need to see the Tanzanite and get cameras in that room.”

León sat on the couch where he’d folded away all evidence of his night there. “There are already cameras in the room. Why don’t we just hack those?”

“Because I don’t like the idea of anyone but my team being able to access them. We need to assume the person involved will cut the feed or loop it when they make their move.”

“True. Okay. When I take you on the tour later, we can get them in place. We might just need some good acting skills to distract anyone who’s watching.”

“No problem. I can pretend to like you, Leo.”

Her smirk made his cock twitch, and he was glad he was sitting so she didn’t notice.

“I need to change and then I’m going to check out the lay of the land outside while you do whatever you need to do with the King.”

“It’s a boring council meeting as far as I know. Hopefully, we can wrap it up quickly.”

“I’ll see you back here then.”

León felt his phone buzz and withdrew it, frowning at the message from Roberto, his father’s private secretary. “The meeting had been moved up to nine. I should probably change too.”

Moving to the wardrobe, he peeled his shirt over his head, his back to Bebe and threw it on the bed as he reached for his navy suit and a pale blue shirt with a silver tie.

“You have a fair bit of ink for a prince.”

León looked behind him to where Bebe was watching him, her clothes clutched in her arms. “You know a lot of princes?”

She shrugged and her eyes caught his, confident and unwavering, enchanting. “A few.” She waved her hand at his body. “None of them look like that.”

León tried not to be pleased by the unintentional compliment. “I guess not many have served their country in Special Ops either.”

“Yeah, you’re something of an enigma.”

With that, she closed the bathroom door, and he was left wondering even more about the complex woman.

At five to nine he stepped into his father’s office and found the King already at his desk. The room was on the opposite side of the palace to the living spaces he and his father kept and allowed a certain amount of privacy and division. Not that the King was ever not working; he was a good monarch. The King was also a good man, but a good man didn’t always make a good husband. León still had a somewhat strained relationship with him because of his multiple affairs over the years, which had ended in his mother’s early death over twenty years ago. The coroner had said it was a heart attack, but León was convinced she’d died of a broken heart.

“Father, you’re working early this morning. Shouldn’t you be taking it easier as the doctor suggested?”

The King looked at him over his glasses, a deep frown marring his features at the reminder of his high blood pressure and the warning from the family physician. “I’m fine. I like to be busy.”

Sitting across from him, León crossed his ankle over his opposite knee and relaxed back in the chair.

His father pulled his reading glasses off his face and set them on the desk, resting his hands over his belly. León didn’t look away as his father assessed him, as if looking for the future King León would be and not finding what he sought. “I hear you brought one of your conquests back to the palace last night.”

León’s jaw tensed at him calling Bebe a conquest and a feeling of annoyance streamed through his blood. “She’s not a conquest.” He paused wondering how far and how fast he should go with this and then realised time wasn’t a luxury they had. “She’s the one.”

King Alfred’s bushy eyebrow went up as if trying to make contact with his receding hairline. “The one?”