A Player for A Princess

My bottom lip goes between my teeth. I don’t know if I should say thanks or apologize. I decide to simply nod and say, “Okay.”

I go to the wet bar and pour a ginger ale for me. No champagne with the little princess onboard. Tracing my finger along the edge of the glass, I think about Cal, and his team and my idea at the ball before everything blew up.

“You should stay in Monagasco,” I say. “It’s your home, and you love it here. We’re leaving anyway.”

“Right,” he says, that tightness returning. “You’re leaving the security of the palace and the guards.”

Weariness rolls over me in waves, and I can’t retread this argument. “Either way, I hope you find happiness. I am grateful to you for all you’ve done. Now I’ll say goodnight.”

“Sleep well.” His voice is quiet. “I’ll be here.”

As exhausted as I am, however, sleep never comes. I lay in our enormous, king-sized bed staring at the ceiling and listening to the sounds of the palace after dark. I think about Cal out there somewhere, and freaky Wade Paxton and his horrifying mask. The sight of it still makes me shudder.

The ball was cut short and all the lords and ladies and dignitaries returned to their houses or castles. Ava and I were sent to our rooms like children.

“No, that isn’t fair,” I sigh, turning again in my bed. “We were sent heavily guarded to our secure rooms.”

My window is open, and I listen to the noise of night birds. I hear cicadas screeching. I miss Cal. I want to be in Tortola, or at the very least, I wish we were at Occitan so I could go down to the shore. I wonder what Ximena and Selena are doing…

Hours drag by, and Cal doesn’t return. Logan’s footsteps as he walks from my sitting room out to the balcony echo in my quiet suite. The baby isn’t big enough to disturb me, but I can’t seem to get comfortable around my belly.

I’m about to throw back the blankets, grab a robe, and demand he play a round of blackjack with me when my phone lights up, buzzing and vibrating. A soft tap on my bedroom door follows next, and I hear shouts and the scuffling of feet in the courtyard below.

Logan appears in my room, and the expression on his face shoots dread through my veins.

“What’s wrong?” I demand.

Scooping up my phone, I see Ava is calling me. I haven’t heard from Cal. In one fluid movement, I’m out of the bed, grabbing my robe and holding it in front of me as I approach Logan.

“We need to go to the hospital,” he says. “There’s isn’t much time.”

* * *

My heart is breaking, and I can’t seem to breathe. Ava sits beside me clutching my hand, and I can’t stop shaking. My entire world is crumbling, and I’m on the edge of a cliff, facing the end of everything.

Wade Paxton is dead, but before he went down, he used that same fucking knife—the one he threatened me with when I was trapped in the bathroom during the grand prix—and jammed it into Cal.

r />

My Cal…

He’s in a room far from us fighting for his life. Fear claws at my throat as a fresh wave of tears fills my eyes. Rowan’s face is ashen. His mother sits stoic, staring at the floor in front of her, and all we can do is wait.

Wait and wait.

Minute after minute.

One second, two seconds.

Fifty seconds, one million…

We’re waiting for any change, for a word from the doctor. For Cal to come out of the coma.

“Paxton was aiming for his heart,” Freddie says to Rowan.

They speak softly to avoid alarming the queen.

Or me?