“Presenting Her Serene Highness, Princess Isabelle of Neubaden.”
Isabelle paused for a moment at the top of the grand staircase leading down into the New Year’s Ball being held at the Vieux Palais in Brussels. She gave the paparazzi ranged on either side of the landing a dazzling smile, the one the London tabloids called “diabolically charming.”
While the Herald announced her father, the Prince of Neubaden, and his latest wife, Isabelle moved down the steps and into the party. She paused in her slow meandering around the room to take selfies with the French Prime Minister and the Colsteinburg Ambassador to the EU. She joined various conversations and made the same comment about the amazing decorations over and over as if she were as vapid as her blonde hair implied. If she were being honest, she didn’t think much of the decorations beyond the cover they gave the hidden Belgian snipers guarding all of the visiting royalty and dignitaries at the event. But, the socialite she played in real life wouldn’t have noticed, so Isabelle didn’t comment either. Instead she continued to circle the event, making small talk and posting meaningless updates on social media. She snagged a glass of champagne she wouldn’t be old enough to legally drink for years and kept one eye out for her target.
Constantin looked up from his phone when they announced Isabelle of Neubaden. He just barely managed not to snort that she had been called “serene.” He knew that this was the traditional way the German princes and their families styled themselves, but he’d never heard of anyone less serene than Isabelle.
“Isn’t that the girl Father wants you to meet?” asked his older brother. Pieter was the golden boy of the Corvin family—handsome, smart, and the natural to follow their father in his food import and export business once Pieter left Cambridge next term. There was only one thing Constantin had ever managed to do that Pieter hadn’t done first and better. Constantin had been accepted to L’École Suisse, the elite boarding school where the richest and most powerful people sent their children. Once Constantin started school he’d be sharing a three room suite with a Saudi prince and an heir to the second wealthiest oligarch in Russia, but to cement his social standing at the school—and the future business opportunities they would represent—he needed to get in good with the school’s reigning princess. Isabelle of Neubaden might be from an outdated principality with no real political power, but her social capital bought more friends than all the gold in the vault under the New York Federal Reserve.
“Isn’t she?” Pieter prompted.
“Isn’t she what?”
“Focus.” Pieter acted like he was going to snatch the phone out of Constantin’s hand, but they both knew it was a feint. “Isn’t Isabelle the girl Father wants you to chat up?”
Constantin nodded but didn’t speak. His eyes raked the crowd searching for the golden haired girl in the excessively daring designer dress.
Pieter shoved him from behind. “Get going then. You don’t want to disappoint Father.” Pieter said this as if were the worst threat he could envision.
Constantin tried not to roll his eyes. To Pieter, who had never disappointed their father, at least not in living memory, there probably wasn’t a worse fate. For Constantin who had been nothing but a disappointment since birth (as if he could control that he hadn’t been the much desired girl), disappointing his father just meant it was Tuesday.
He finally spotted the princess laughing with a minor adjunct from his country’s embassy. Constantin smiled a smile that was more like a predator baring his teeth than a reflection of his mood.
Isabelle pretended to give the Hungarian spy her full attention while he said vaguely sexist remarks about the shape of her dress. The real Isabelle would have made a cutting comment about his manhood or lack thereof, but the real Isabelle had been tucked away three years ago when she agreed to join the youth division of the German spy organization, the BND. With her mother’s tech money and her father’s connections as Europe’s number one unrepentant playboy, she had been uniquely situated to infiltrate the highest levels of society, levels the average BND-J could only dream of achieving. Most of the time she made headlines and provided distractions when important BND operations needed cover. Trading on her Father’s dissolute reputation, she had crafted her own party girl image with the help of some carefully timed BND sponsored posts.
She made another inane comment to the spy, certain he was paying as little attention to her as she was to him. Without appearing to break eye contact, she scanned the crowd directly behind the man. There had been no sign of the target, but one of his sons, the younger one, seemed to be headed for her. He had the single focused stare that teenaged boys got when they were on a mission. For a second she wondered if her assignment had been blown, if the kid had been sent as an intercept to keep her away from his father. Then he caught her staring and smiled. Her gut clenched, but she smiled back, her mind spinning with possibilities and alternate plans. Her own mission might have just gotten infinitely more pleasant.
“Hi, I’m Constantin.” Constantin interrupted the conversation with no style and even less grace. The diplomat from the Embassy raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment on Constantin’s rudeness. It was one of the few benefits of being a Corvin. It didn’t make up for his father’s soul-crushing expectations, but it was a benefit.
Constantin turned to the breathtaking girl beside the embassy flunkie. Up close, she was better looking than the paparazzi shots he’d seen online. Her face was animated with an intelligence the vultures of the press had never managed to capture in their quest to add to her reputation as a party girl drinking her way through Europe. “You’re Princess Isabelle, right?”
The princess nodded. “Most people just call me Isabelle though.” She leaned in as if sharing a daring secret, her hand resting lightly on his jacket sleeve for just a moment. Constantin’s arm felt like it had caught on fire. He didn’t hiss in surprise, but it was a near thing. “Royalty is so last century, don’t you think?” She spoke so low, she practically whispered in his ear. Her breath brushed his face like the gentlest of breezes.
Constantin’s jaw dropped, and he stuttered out something in response.
Isabelle smiled again. Constantin was cute in an adorable I Have No Idea How to Talk to Girls kind of way. Considering how hot he was, and he was yummy in his tuxedo, she was surprised he wasn’t a better flirt. Most guys in her world were players, jumping from one conquest to the next as soon as they turned fourteen. She knew from his dossier that Constantin was a year older than her, seventeen, but he was blushing like a kid holding a girl’s hand for the first time. It was refreshing. It was sweet. It was distracting her from her mission.
She pulled herself back into the game. Using every technique drilled into her from her Langley tutor, she put Constantin at ease and got him talking about himself. She found a sweet, well-meaning boy hiding beneath someone attempting to be cynical and all-knowing. Without him realizing, she even got him to admit that he only talked to her because his father wanted him to make only the best connections once he started her school. The more Constantin spoke about his hideous father, the more resolved she became to successfully complete her mission. According to their intel, the older brother Pieter was a mirror image of the gun-running head of the Corvin family, both in looks and spiteful temperament, especially towards enemies. How that man had raised an innocent like Constantin was beyond her.
Constantin had never felt so comfortable with another person in his entire life. He had no real friends back home since his father deemed very few people worthy of associating with a Corvin. His father’s business associates and their kids found him lacking the traits they valued most—greed, ruthlessness, and a complete disregard for other people and their feelings. Constantin had coped by speaking as little as possible with a cynical outlook on the rare occasion he was forced to socialize. It had been a lonely and isolating experience, and being so open with Isabelle only highlighted how stifling his own life had been.
“It’s nearing midnight,” he said to Isabelle, unable to keep the regret out of his voice. This had been the best hour of his life, but he knew he couldn’t monopolize her all evening.
“So?” She gave him another one of those dazzling smiles, one that made him glad he had already leaned against one of the pillars lining the room, otherwise he might have fallen down. “It’s not like I’m going to turn into a pumpkin at midnight.” Her smile turned mischievous. “Are you?”
Constantin sputtered. “No, of course not,” he managed to get out. “It’s just midnight, New Year’s Eve.” His voice trailed off, and the blood rushed to his cheeks.
They had been watching the dancers twirl around the center of the room, but now Isabelle turned to give Constantin her full attention. “Why, Mr. Corvin,” she said in English, in an excellent imitation of an American woman from one of the old movies about their Civil War, “are you angling for a kiss?”
If his face had been flushed before, it must be fire engine red now. His mouth moved, but no sounds came out. He probably looked like a drowning fish.
“Because if that is what you’re thinking,” Isabelle said, switching back to the German they’d been speaking all night, “I think it’s a very good idea.”
Constantin tried to swallow, but he had trouble getting anything past the huge lump in his throat. His heart was beating so fast, he thought it might fall out of his chest and go racing around the room. “Oh, okay,” he said. The blood seemed to be leaving his head, shooting to other, more embarrassing places. He both wanted to kiss her and wanted the Earth to open up and swallow him whole.
“However, I do not kiss and tell,” Isabelle said, glaring for a moment at the line of photographers along the upper railings shooting at the glittering crowd below. When he must have looked a bit puzzled, she added in a dark tone, “Not when it matters.”
“Oh.”
Neither of them said anything else for a moment. They grinned at one another, but these weren’t the smiles that they used for the public, the ones for the cameras or for his father. These were small, intimate smiles, ones that confirmed that for now, only the two of them mattered.
“Let’s go then,” said Constantin. Taking a deep breath, he did the bravest thing of his life. He reached over and grabbed her hand.
Isabelle let Constantin lead her out of the ballroom into a service hallway behind the main rooms.
“Do you think we’re safe here?” he asked.
She laughed at his innocence, the sound filled with more humor than she felt. Even if she hadn’t been a trained spy, she would have known better than to kiss in the hallway of a public building, no matter how deserted the corridor might appear. She pointed up at the cameras mounted along the upper reaches of the walls. “You’d be surprised what an underpaid security guard will sell to the press.”
Constantin looked thoughtful. “You would know better than me. Where do you suggest we go? I’ve never had to worry much about the press. My father doesn’t really crave publicity.”
Well, most gun-running international criminals are not big on PR, Isabelle wanted to say, but she physically bit her tongue instead. The sharp pain reminded her to stay on task. Her goal was to get in the Corvin’s suite and copy the gun-runner’s hard drive, not make the man’s younger son into her new best friend with benefits. She needed Constantin to take her to his room and for it to be his own idea.
“There must be someplace we can go with no cameras, and maybe a door.” Isabelle paused for a second, but Constantin didn’t seem to be getting the hint. “If only we were staying here at the Palais, but Papa isn’t welcome most places anymore, not with the way he trashes hotels with his all-night parties. We’ve had to put up with family friends.” She hoped she wasn’t laying it on too thick.
“Oh, of course,” Constantin said, finally catching on. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it right off. We’re actually staying here in one of the suites. There’s a whole contingent of diplomats, businessmen, and other important people staying in one of the wings.”
In anyone else, Isabelle would have assumed that last bit was a dig to remind her that the German princes weren’t quite the important people they had once been during the Austro-Hungarian empire, but from Constantin’s eager tone and open face, she knew he meant nothing by it. Her heart pinched a little bit at the deception she was playing on him. She swore to herself that when they both got to school in three weeks, she would watch out for him, both as penance and because she didn’t want this lovely soul eaten alive by the brats at her school.
Constantin took them to his family’s suite, only getting lost once on the way. Isabelle had the entire building’s floor plan memorized, including all the duct work, service corridors, and any other escape route, but she couldn’t tell Constantin that. She couldn’t let him know that she knew the exact position to his suite and twelve different routes between it and the ballroom.
After what felt like an eternity, they turned the final corner and nearly ran straight into the two security goons guarding the door. These weren’t the rent-a-cops used by the Palais and other museums around Brussels. These were a pair of gun-toting, burly guards ready to take down any threat to the Corvins. Isabelle giggled and hid her head on Constantin’s shoulder like she was embarrassed. Really, she wanted to scope out the guards without them getting a clear look at her face. Finding the man and woman in front of the doors wasn’t a surprise, but they were an unwelcome development.
“Uh, hi,” said Constantin. He walked past the two stone-faced guards. Neither said a word although the man reached over and opened the door for them. They passed through, and finally, Isabelle was in the target’s suite. Her eyes darted around the room searching for the gun-runner’s laptop.
Finally, Constantin had gotten Isabelle back to his family’s rooms. He hoped she hadn’t noticed that it took them so long because he got lost. She hadn’t said anything, so if she had noticed, she’d been nice enough not to embarrass him about it.
“Have you ever been in one of the private suites before?” he asked her.
“No,” she stopped looking around and gave him a half-smile. “Is it that obvious?”
“You seem to be taking in everything at once.”
Isabelle looked a little disconcerted for a moment, like it bothered her that he’d noticed her staring. The place was hard not to stare at though. It had been built, and decorated, during the Baroque period, and everything was a bit over the top. There were modern hints like the mini-fridge in the wardrobe, but the uncomfortable chairs and velvet wallpaper made it hard to look away when you first walked in.
“It’s certainly something,” Isabelle said. She turned and stood a little closer to Constantin. “It’s almost midnight,” she whispered. Her breath once again tickled his cheek.
He didn’t take a step back although his heart had stopped for a moment and then restarted at a speed that just might kill him. He glanced at the delicate clock sitting on the mantle. “Just a few more seconds,” he whispered back, afraid his voice would do something mortifying like crack if he tried to speak normal.
Isabelle turned her head to see the clock. Constantin licked his lips without realizing it and then instantly regretted it. He didn’t want her to think he was a slobbery kisser.
“Five,” she murmured.
Constantin thought he might faint. This wasn’t his first kiss, but he sure was acting like he’d never kissed a girl before. Maybe he was freaking out because she was famous. “Four,” he whispered back.
“Three.” Isabelle didn’t turn her head back to him yet, but she leaned a little closer.
“Two.”
“One.”
Isabelle turned and kissed him.
Isabelle realized her mistake the moment their lips touched. This wasn’t just a kiss to distract a boy until she incapacitated him, this was a Kiss. With a capital K. This wasn’t Constantin’s first kiss, either, although she had been a bit worried that it might be. Once he’d gotten over his initial timidity, the kiss deepened until tongues got involved, until one kiss had turned into an unending series of kisses.
When Isabelle’s brain started working again, she had her arms wrapped around Constantin’s neck and his arms held her against him. The Kiss had gone on too long and hadn’t been long enough. She broke their lips apart and gasped for air as if she’d been running a marathon.
“Oh, wow,” said Constantin, clearly feeling as thrown as she did.
Isabelle shook her head, unable to speak. She loosened her grip on his neck despite wanting to pull him closer and kiss him again.
“Are you okay?” Constantin started to ask. He opened his mouth to say more, but she didn’t let him. She barely had enough resolve to go through with her mission as it was. She couldn’t let him show her again what a great guy he was. She ran her right hand over his shoulder and before he could react pinched his Carotid artery.
Constantin sagged to the ground, instantly unconscious.
Isabelle made sure he wasn’t laying on something uncomfortable before heading to the desk to see if she could find the gun-runner’s laptop. She didn’t rush. Although she’d never had to use the Pond Pinch in the field before, she had used it a number of times at parties when some of her “friends” got too drunk to remember the meaning of the word “no.” Based on previous experience, she knew she had at least a half hour before Constantin would begin to stir.
Pulling on a pair of latex gloves she had hidden in her bra, she rummaged through the room’s desk until she found Constantin’s father’s laptop. The gun-runner was paranoid, with reason, and this particular computer had no internet capabilities. Since it also held all his contacts, his inventory, and his sales, copying the data on it was a high BND priority. She rammed a special USB flash drive into one of the computer’s ports. The BND techs had preloaded the drive with an automatic program that began downloading the contents of the computer immediately.
She watched the screen for a moment while the data started copying to the drive. Schematics of various weapons, some even she didn’t recognize, flashed up and then away as the data transferred. Isabelle smiled, pleased at her mission’s success.
“What are you doing?” Constantin asked.
Constantin wasn’t sure what was going on. One minute he was enjoying the best kiss of his life, and the next he was on the floor with a sore shoulder. Isabelle stood over his father’s sacred never-to-be-touched computer. Her face paled for a moment, and then her mouth set in a hard line. Her eyes narrowed.
“Of course,” she said. “You’re not drunk. The pinch must be more effective if you’re drunk.”
“What?” Constantin climbed to his feet, a little unsteady both from the kiss and passing out and from the gibberish coming from Isabelle’s mouth. “What are you doing with Dad’s computer? I mean, I know he’s got his business stuff on there but why would a princess care about the amount of wheat Dad imported into Hungary last year?”
Isabelle’s jaw dropped open. “You don’t know?” Her eyes scanned his face like she was looking for something. Constantin felt more confused by the minute.
“You really don’t know.” Isabelle sort of sagged against the desk. “You really think your dad is some kind of …” She paused as if the words she wanted floated just out of reach. “Some kind of grocer.”
“He’s more than that,” Constantin said, not sure why he was bothering to defend his father. Still, it was one thing for him to think poorly of the head of the Corvins. It was quite another thing for this upstart royal (even if she was the most fantastic kisser) to denigrate Constantin’s father.
“I’ll say.” Isabelle flipped the computer around so he could see the screen. Bizarre photos blinked on and off the screen almost faster than he could process. He did recognize the nuclear hazard symbol on one of the images as it flashed by.
“Was?” Constantin tried to swallow, but his throat seemed to have stopped working. “Was that a nuke?”
Isabelle shrugged as if she saw this kind of thing every day. “Probably.”
Now Constantin was the one sagging against the desk. “Why is this on my dad’s computer?” he whispered.
Isabelle bit her lip for a second. It brought back the memory of their kiss, but Constantin shook his head and pushed the memory away. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” she said, “but your dad is one of the largest, most influential arms dealers in the world.”
Constantin just stared. He wanted to argue, to protest, to tell Isabelle she couldn’t possibly know, but the evidence flashed across his father’s screen. The proof was in his father’s weird business associates, people Constantin had always thought to be a strange fit for the food importing business. Did a glorified grocer like his father really need twenty bodyguards surrounding his home at all times?
“Who are you?” he asked her instead of continuing with those disturbing thoughts.
Isabelle gave him a sort of half-hearted laugh filled with cynicism instead of humor. “I’m a princess of Neubaden who takes the duty of protecting my people a little further than most.”
“Your people?” He raised his eyebrows at her.
This time her laugh sounded a bit more genuine. “My people. It’s true that they might not have much use for princes and princesses in this day and age, but that doesn’t mean my duty and loyalty should cease.” She pulled a tiny flash drive out of the computer and pushed the laptop shut. Pulling off the latex gloves he hadn’t noticed on her hands, she stuffed them and the drive down the front of her dress. There was no way he was going to try to get that drive back now.
“I would lay down my life for them,” Isabelle continued, “which I may have just done. If you tell your father about what I just did, he will have me killed.”
Constantin opened his mouth to protest, but then snapped it shut without saying a word. Two years ago, his dad had caught him making out with the second foreign minister’s daughter. The minister had rapidly lost his post, and his whole family, including the daughter, had moved to London. His dad had insisted it was for the best since “that girl” hadn’t been good enough for a Corvin. Only, that girl had disappeared from social media, and not even her best friend had heard from her after the move. Constantin had always kind of wondered.
God, he’d been so blind.
“I’m sorry you had to learn the truth this way.” Isabelle reached over to pat his arm, but he snatched it away.
“So, all this.” He pointed at the two of them. “All of it was just an act to get access to my father’s computer.”
“That kiss was not an act.” She touched her lips for a moment as if she too had been moved by that kiss, as if she’d also found it to be as momentous as he had.
Constantin didn’t say anything. There was nothing left to be said.
Isabelle moved to the door. She had her hand on the knob, ready to twist it open when she turned back. Giving him one of her brightest smiles, she said, “If your father doesn’t have me killed, I’ll see you in school in three weeks.” Then she winked. She. Winked.
Still reeling from the audacity, Constantin didn’t notice when Isabelle left the room. The click of the door shutting brought him back to the present.
With a sigh, he walked around the desk and put the computer back in the drawer where his dad had stashed it before the ball, erasing the last bit of evidence that Isabelle had messed with it. He stared around the room. The furniture hadn’t changed, yet his world had. His father was a gun runner; the best kiss of his life was some sort of spy.
He sank down on the uncomfortable chair behind the desk and sighed. Three weeks, she had said. He began to smile. He couldn’t wait.
Lori Bond is the code name for an author of teen books featuring spies, crooks, and those who want to be spies or crooks. She lives somewhere on this Earth (as opposed to another world in the multiverse) with people she claims are her family. For more books, her newsletter, and information, visit her at covertreads.com.