Chapter Seven

I had fallen into bed around three in the morning, after I had gotten lost in the back roads outside of Santa Chiara, which was understandable. It had been nearly five years since I had visited my mother’s Tuscan villa, and in those days I was still chauffeured behind tinted glass.

The warmth of the late-morning sunshine through the window was comforting, even as the memory of the night before crept back to me.

My home in Varenna, the little enclave of semi-normalcy and independence I had carved out was, likely, gone.

Finding Christian Fraser-Campbell wandering about the town was an unlikely coincidence. A palace security officer in my rental apartment was not.

Somehow or another, my location had been discovered. I would not be able to return to Varenna, not unless I was ready to have my door beaten down by the press and other obnoxious persons like Hugh Konnor.

But even in the blessed silence of my mother’s house in the middle of the Italian countryside, I was living on borrowed time. Someone, sooner or later, would visit this villa. And with the kind of luck I had, it would most likely be Felice.

I was lucky, though. Not every woman had a mother who had collected extravagant real estate while she was married to the Crown Prince of Drieden. Her “hidey-holes,” she called them. When I was twenty-one and decided to study art history in Rome, Felice had taken me aside and given me the access codes to this particular hidey-hole. “In case you need to escape the city with someone tall, dark and Roman,” she had purred.

I won’t be coy. Mother’s villa had come in handy, a time or two. And for that reason—and others—a few years later, I invested in my own first hideaway in Varenna. But maybe this Tuscan villa had always been my back-up, I realized. Maybe I’d known, even then, that a well-prepared woman planned multiple escape routes. As Mother had taught me.

The not-too-musty linens reminded me that someone must keep an eye on my mother’s house and that, even here, I could not count on privacy for long. I would keep the lights off for a few days while I plotted my next steps—whatever those were going to be.

I was ranking the possibilities as I slid out of bed and washed. I could go into hiding again. The mountains? America? If I mixed a bit of both, I could run off to Patagonia, as Mother had done. Nothing but hundreds of miles of open air and the occasional South American polo player/cologne model. The idea had merit.

But so did the story of the disappearance of Christian Fraser-Campbell. I patted his leather bag, which I had picked up the night before. When I was safely out of Varenna, I had pulled over and looked through it briefly, searching for any possible clues about where Christian was going next—and what he was running from. I had found only one piece of evidence—a pad of paper from a hotel in Rome. I’d go there next, and maybe someone would have contact information for him—or anyone who knew him. It could jeopardize my privacy to start asking questions in public, instead of anonymously in an email or over the phone, but the pay-off would be worth it. A mystery solved. A huge, shocking revelation. It would cement the journalism career of Clémence Diederich.

If I decided to do the piece, I reminded myself. I wanted to talk to Christian again. Get some answers. And some assurances.

It was habit that made me go to the kitchen, even as I knew there would be nothing fresh to eat. But this was one of Felice’s hidey-holes, and what good was an impromptu assignation spot without some coffee or basic pantry staples?

Still thinking about the best way to travel incognito and how to cautiously approach Christian’s friends and associates, I didn’t notice the man at the kitchen table until it was too late.

I screamed.

Backed up against the wall.

He didn’t move, but he did look mildly irritated.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded. “How did you get in?”

Fucking Hugh Konnor, of Her Majesty’s Royal Guard. In the bright morning light, I saw him much more clearly than I had in the apartment. His usually close-cropped dark hair had grown, along with an auburn beard and mustache. It had been years since I’d seen him like this, in close quarters, without a crowd of people around.

His arms rested on the table, the sleeves of his thermal woolen shirt pulled up to reveal muscular forearms. A thick black tattoo skated along the outside of his right arm. My attention wanted to linger there. To decipher the code. But it didn’t matter what it represented.

I needed Hugh Konnor out of this house. Immediately.

“I’ll ask once more. What are you doing here?” I hadn’t been a princess in so long, I’d forgotten how to sound princessy, and my voice showed it. It was thin, flimsy. Useless.

“I followed you, Your Highness.”

“I’m not a royal princess anymore. Please don’t call me that.”

His jaw tightened. “Mrs. Di Bernardo.”

“Oh, please, no.” My stomach heaved at the sound of my married name. I put a hand over my mouth. Something flickered in his eyes and his lips pressed tightly together.

“You followed me,” I echoed, hoping to get back to the topics I was most concerned about. “I don’t know why you would do such a thing. You can leave.” He stayed seated at the table. “Any time,” I added. Still, the man didn’t move.

A flutter of fear caused my stomach to flip. A small black canister on the kitchen table caught my attention. My pepper spray. Something I had bought when I first lived on my own and was jumping at every sound. I had left it in my car the night before…hadn’t I? Or had I brought it in, left it there when I stumbled through the house in the dead of night? I couldn’t remember.

Konnor noticed me looking at it and he pushed it toward me. “You can have it, if it makes you feel better.”

I lurched forward and clutched at the pepper spray, bringing it back with me against the wall. Konnor had been right. The small cylinder in my hand comforted me, but only a little.

Hugh Konnor’s presence wasn’t disconcerting, exactly. No more than that of any other member of Her Majesty’s Royal Guard would be.

Lie.

Okay, yes. Hugh Konnor was exactly the worst person to find me. To follow me. No other guard despised me as much. And the feeling was mutual. No other officer made me this nervous, this…panicked.

I wanted him gone, immediately.

Which is what I said. “Please leave, Mr. Konnor.” I held up the can of pepper spray. It was somewhat of an automatic gesture, more defensive than a threat.

“I’m afraid I cannot.” To his credit, he looked sincerely regretful. But also—strangely—pissed off.

“You can. There’s nothing stopping you.” I waved on the direction of the door. “Please remove yourself from this property.” And if you could, oh, I don’t know, manage to not tell anyone that you saw me, that would be great.

I didn’t add the request for his silence. Of all the palace security staff, Hugh Konnor was the most by-the-book officer I had ever known. As soon as he left, he would have a form filled out in triplicate detailing what had happened the day before. “Shit,” I said. “You’ve already reported this, haven’t you?” My chest started to hurt. “You’re waiting for back-up or something, aren’t you?”

I had to get out of here. My car was in the drive. My bag was in the bedroom. Would he stop me if I ran back to get it? Would he tackle me? Force me to stay?

“You can’t stop me from going,” I said, in a voice that didn’t sound like my normal self. I was shaking. A little hysterical. I hated being emotional in front of Hugh Konnor. “I’m a private citizen. I have rights,” I added, even though I knew how little that had meant to him when he was in my apartment in Varenna.

He stood slowly, holding his hands out in front of him as if he were calming a snapping dog.

“What are you doing?” I leaned back into the wall, wishing it would swallow me up. Anything to get me out of here.

“Your Highness—”

“No.”

“Your…” He broke off, then recovered. “Caroline.”

My name. The first time I’d heard my own name in months. And it was out of the mouth of this man?

“I haven’t called anyone.” His voice was still low, as if he meant to soothe. “But I can’t let you go, either. Not until—”

I leaped at the opportunity. “Until what?”

“Until you tell me what you were doing in Varenna with Christian Fraser-Campbell.”

Oh, right. Okay. I could do that, just to get him to leave. I opened my mouth to explain, to tell the simple truth about how I’d coincidentally run into Christian on a village street, but just then a bell rang at the front door of the villa.

Konnor snapped to attention, all alert and straight. “Were you expecting someone?” he asked in a low voice.

I shook my head, biting my lip in silence. He nodded and held a finger out to me. “Stay right there. I’ll take care of it.”

When he left the kitchen I allowed myself to slump with relief, and it was if the moment of relaxation triggered my brain to start problem-solving again. Putting the pieces together.

Konnor seemed surprised by someone ringing the bell, which gave credence to his statement that he hadn’t alerted the Secret Service—or anyone—as to my whereabouts.

And, I reasoned with myself, why would he? My grandmother had stripped me of my royal titles and removed me from the line of succession. There was no reason for Her Majesty’s Royal Guard to keep tabs on me anymore.

But I had still disappeared from public eye. Knowing my grandmother—and the rest of my family—the way I did, I was sure they were dying to at the very least monitor my movements.

Maybe. If they still cared.

Maybe that’s why Konnor hadn’t called anyone. No one cared. And if so, that meant he hadn’t been looking for me in Varenna. He had certainly seemed surprised enough when he had his arm against my throat.

But how had he found me, if he hadn’t been trying to search for me… Why had he followed me to my mother’s Tuscan hidey-hole?

My stomach twisted—from nerves, from the exertion of survival, from the execution of secrets. Footsteps sounded down the hall—just one set. I had lost my chance to run.

When Hugh Konnor appeared in the doorframe again, his eyes were serious, sharp and staring right at me. I had the uncanny feeling that a shark was circling me.

“Who was it?” I rasped. I had to know.

“The groundskeeper. He saw the cars in the drive.”

“What did you say?”

Konnor shrugged a wide shoulder. “I showed him my palace badge. It seemed to be enough.”

My head spun. Wasn’t this what controlling men did? Wave off the neighbor who was checking to see what the banging and crashes were about? God, I was so sick of this patriarchy shit. And how did a normal woman fight back when she wasn’t a princess and couldn’t order the stubborn ass of a man around?

Natural instincts flipped on. I lifted the small can of mace and sprayed.

Nothing came out.

Konnor fixed me with a bland stare.

I screamed the F-word. In Driedish.

“I thought you didn’t want people to know where you were!” he shouted irritably.

“Don’t come any closer,” I warned him, but it sounded pathetic and weak. What was I going to do? Claw at him? Spit? My mixed-martial-arts training was non-existent. Shocking, I know.

“I’m not here to hurt you, Caroline. I’m here to protect you from making questionable decisions.”

“Protect me?” I scoffed. “From making questionable decisions? Since when is that your job?”

Konnor’s brows furrowed. “Since I was hired by the palace and I took an oath.”

I blinked. “You think you’re protecting me as my bodyguard right now?” I laughed. Oh, okay. “Then I release you. Go. Shoo. Go forth and guard someone else’s body, please. This body is perfectly, totally, one hundred percent fine without you.”

“Caroline.” There was no fumbling with “Your Highness” or “ma’am” or whatnot. No, he said my name with all his bodyguard authority, like he had that last day in the royal stables, when I was nineteen. The last day he’d been my bodyguard. “Do you know who you had in your apartment yesterday?”

I took a second to process his ferocity. There was something that was being miscommunicated. “Yes, I think I’d recognize the man who was going to marry my sister.”

He shook his head and smiled bitterly. “No. That was the man who was going to murder your sister.”