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“Let’s just say I used to talk to her like Tony does. Once I did it at a time when she considered it off the clock. She might take what’s expected in this industry when she’s working, but when she isn’t …” He trailed off, but I got the drift.
“She isn’t afraid to stand up for herself,” I said, nodding since it made sense—at least to me. When I was enlisted, I could ignore the shit people threw at me that would have sent me into a fit of rage had I been a civilian and not been representing anyone other than myself.
He swallowed hard before nodding. “Her brothers might be scary, but I tell you, I know now why the feared warriors, the Amazons, were women.”
Before I could respond, Alessia called out to him, and he scurried like a rat aboard a sinking ship.
Yet another piece to an already fragmented puzzle, I thought, wincing as I saw her step on a sharp rock. She didn’t so much as flinch, just pulled her foot up and placed it next to her original footprint, but I swore I saw a bit of red smudged on the stone. The aristocrat who had caught her attention strode past, ignoring me and everyone else completely as he stepped onto the set and took her hand in his to raise it to his lips. She smiled, the first one I’d seen that day, but the warmth still didn’t reach her eyes.
“It was so wonderful for you to open your grounds to us.” She’d pulled out her accent slightly, just enough to soften her syllables and round the edges of her words. Her accent had almost completely disappeared on the plane, something that had startled me the first time she spoke, but it had come back fully when we were talking the night before. “You’ve shown us true hospitality. I feel so much safer here than I would out in the middle of the woods.” She shuddered softly, and the man’s eyes dropped to her bare shoulders. “I’m sure you’re aware I have some … unsavory … fans who are being a bit overzealous of late.”
“Anything for you, Miss Accardi.” He practically bowed, his hand still holding hers.
“Please call me Alessia. All of my friends do, Mr. Albrecht.”
He turned, enfolding her hand in his arm in a practiced move, escorting her to a chair I hadn’t seen her use the entire day. I wasn’t sure she could even sit, considering how tight her dress was. “Please call me Karl,” he replied. “We have a long history at this estate of guarding what is considered dear. This estate is all part of aneine Festung.”
“A castle?” she murmured, leaning into him slightly. “How fascinating. I love history. Europe is so full of it.”
“Germany has more than its share,” Karl said sagely. “And what girl in the world doesn’t dream of becoming a princess?”
Alessia raised an eyebrow, reaching her hand to touch the forearm that still held her other in his grasp. “A queen,” she said quietly, letting her fingers linger on his skin suggestively.
I cleared my throat, needing to get her hands away from his body before I forcibly removed them. “I’m sorry, Miss Accardi, but they need to take your dress, and your feet need attending.” I tried to sound professional, helpful, even, but the look she sent my way told me I’d missed my mark.
She winced, wiggling her toes. “I do detest being barefoot,” she told Karl, pulling back slightly as she acknowledged the two attendants waiting to assist her in removing the dress. “But beauty must override pain.” She sighed, smiling up at him before attempting to step back.
Karl jolted, gripping her tightly before relaxing his grip, though he didn’t let her go. “What did you say?” he asked, his attention riveted on hers. I took a step forward, not liking his hold on her.
Alessia tilted her head in confusion. “My ruined feet hurt but were worth the sacrifice if Tony got the pictures he needed.” She rephrased her last statement, and if I didn’t know any better, I would say she was trying to be considerate of the language barrier, but her body language betrayed her. Somehow, she thought she had made some sort of misstep in her words. She patted his arm one last time, deftly removing her arm from his grasp.
“You have a wonderful evening, Mr. Albrecht.” She didn’t look back as she followed the two women to a tent, more akin to a canopy with sides. Karl didn’t look away as she left, and I noted she added just a hint more sway to her step than normal. Karl’s guard finally said something to him, pulling the man’s attention away. With reluctance, Karl walked to his vehicle, looking back one last time at where Alessia had vanished before getting into it. Judging by the look on his face, it wouldn’t be the last we’d see of him.
“What was that?” I asked once I’d escorted Alessia to our hotel suite at the end of the day and cleared the room.
Alessia hobbled into a chair, her steps slightly stilted after her cuts had been cleaned and bandaged. “The shoot? A normal life in the day of a model,” she said grouchily. “But according to my brothers, I just stand around all day, looking beautiful and trying on pretty dresses.”
“Not the photoshoot. The Prince Charming you hooked today.” I pulled out two acetaminophen from my medical kit and handed them to her with a bottle of water.
“Just doing my job,” she said before popping the pills into her mouth and chasing them with half the contents in the bottle. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she continued, “Networking is a huge part of what I do. My contacts—the demands and desire by others to have me at their parties, events, and even political functions—keep fashion houses like Valencia interested in me. They dress me for those events, get more people with eyes on their designs, and I continue to increase in popularity.”
What she said was reasonable, but it still rankled. “That wasn’t like any business networking I’ve ever seen.” My tone had her back up instantly, and I knew I’d pushed too far.
“One, you are my PSO, not one of my brothers, so back off. Two, you have no right to judge what I do and how I do it—you’ve known me for about a minute and have no knowledge of the circles I move in. And three,” she pointed at me, “Karl is a very handsome man for his age. I could do much worse than someone that rich and good-looking paying me a bit of attention. As you’ve found out, it’s not like I have a boyfriend at home, so I’m not doing anything wrong by looking at my options.”
I saw red, imagining her in the arms of that egotistical— “He’s too old for you,” I snapped, not caring that I had no right to say anything. She was right. I was her PSO. I was supposed to stay in the background, unseen and ignored unless necessary. I wasn’t supposed to converse with her or argue with her over her life choices. Hell, she could bring any man she wanted into the hotel and have screaming sex, and the only thing I could do was to ensure the man she chose didn’t have a weapon or kill her in the middle of their midnight acrobatics.
Alessia snorted. “He’s not that old. I’m sorry to say that models are pretty well known for having a type.” She frowned. “Or people have a type about models.”
I was saved from a retort that I might have regretted when we both heard a knock at the door. I wasn’t angry enough to forget why I was there to begin with, so I was cautious as I approached, careful as I looked through the peephole. Not recognizing the well-dressed man, I slowly opened the door, keeping myself between him and the rest of the room so that he couldn’t see inside.
“Mr. Albrecht has sent me.” The heavily accented English was hard to understand. “I have an invitation to eat,” he continued, “for Miss Accardi.”
“Let him in,” Alessia’s sultry voice called from her spot on the chair. I did a quick pat down of the man, noting he was younger than he appeared, before letting him enter the room.
“Hello, miss.” The man turned bright red when his eyes met hers, looking down at his feet. She gave him a moment to remember his purpose, and I couldn’t help but smirk at her over the kid’s head at his obvious loss of composure. She gave me a look of warning, reminding me we both had parts to play, before turning her attention back to the young man, who seemed to recover his wits.
“Mr. Albrecht has sent me to fetch you for dinner. He says he looks forward to getting to know you more.” He frowned, and I’d bet my passport that wasn’t exactly what he’d been told to say. Likely, seeing Alessia in person had his young brain cells scrambling amid his hormones kicking into overdrive. “He sent a car … for your protection,” he finished, looking at her expectantly. My hands gripped into fists, but there wasn’t anything I could do while we waited for her answer.
