Glitter (Glitter Duology #1)(15)
But drugs?
I glance up at the ceiling. A room M.A.R.I.E. doesn’t monitor? Here in my home? I stare around the familiar study; it’s a typical Versailles room, with paintings on every wall and gilded trim along a plaster ceiling, painted with a faux-rococo fresco. It’s not just a bit of hallway, like that stretch downstairs—now haunted in memory if not in actual fact. A truly private room. The possibilities sprawl out before me, as though I were gazing into a pair of mirrors angled to reflect each other into infinity. Terrible, unthinkable possibilities.
If you truly think your pathetic life is worth five million euros.
Is my life worth doing what it would take to get my hands on five million euros?
A thunderous pounding puts an end to my number-crunching. My mother wouldn’t knock, and none of my friends would pound that hard. The King, then.
I sent the bots away without my belongings. It appears I defied the King.
I want to weep from the bone-deep weariness I’m already feeling, only to have to face my fiancé again. I rise from the floor, grab my box from the desk, and turn to my father. “Do not come out,” I order, pointing a finger down at him as though he were a naughty child. Not far from the truth tonight.
As I approach the atrium the pounding grows louder, but over the noise, His Majesty growls, “I will override your security in ten seconds.” It’s possibly an empty threat; personally forcing his way into the private rooms of nobility, even untitled nobility like my father, would almost certainly cost the King more influence than he’s willing to lose.
But the angrier he gets, the less I can count on him to act in his own best interest. I spend a few precious seconds pushing back my fear and revulsion, then fling the front door wide, and my liege nearly clocks me in the face.
“Ah, Justin. It’s you.” I rest a hand on the doorframe and strike a pose, cocking my head to one side, my hip to the other. “I was retrieving a few personals from my father’s safe and must not have heard your knock.”
He rolls his eyes, and I vow I can hear his teeth grind. “You sent my bots back.” When I say nothing, he adds, “Empty-handed.”
“Is that where they went?” My face is utterly impassive. “I didn’t realize. I simply told them to go while I packed some”—I clear my throat and arch one dark eyebrow—“delicates, and when I finished they were gone. Personally, I’m not very impressed by M.A.R.I.E.’s inability to detect obvious intention. Perhaps she’s in need of an update.”
I see his jaw working furiously; he wants to accuse me of something, but my story is too simple for holes. The best lies always are. “What’s in that box?”
My lashes don’t so much as flicker. “You wouldn’t ask a girl to spill all her secrets, would you?”
He glares at me with eyes darkened by anger that spark like obsidian. “We are now your guardian as well as your intended; We would like to know what is being brought into Our wing of the palace.” The We again. Though this time it’s rather satisfying to have driven him to it.
“If you must know, it’s photographs. I’m leaving hearth and home tonight; it seems only fitting to bring a few mementos of my life before you hijacked my freedom.”
He hesitates, his eyes narrowed, the spots of rouge on his cheeks looking nearly—but not quite—gaudy. “I want to see them,” he says, more like a two-year-old than the ruler of a wealthy principality, teenager or not. He’s always been fascinating to watch in that way. A spoiled childhood has left him an emotional infant.
I don’t break eye contact as I raise the top of the box.
The top compartment holds just what I said it did, and the false bottom is well crafted—though if he were to take the box from me he’d be bound to notice its unusual heft. His hands move forward, reaching for the box as though he heard my private thoughts. His gloved fingertips are centimeters away when I snap the lid closed with a clack that echoes through the chamber.
“Not yours,” I say simply, enjoying the ability to deny him something. Anything.
Without being dismissed, I turn—my heavy skirts whispering against the faux-weathered-wood floor.
“Did you bring the bots back with you, Justin?” I ask over my shoulder. “I wasn’t finished with them.” Sometimes I think his boiling rage is the only thing left in the world that can still warm my heart.
Under the King’s watchful eye, I play the perfect mistress, directing M.A.R.I.E. as the bots pack my things, from gowns and cloaks to chemises and stockings—even my rather extensive collection of silk and satin underclothes. I refuse to allow him to see how uncomfortable that makes me. Instead, I stand perfectly straight—so straight I can barely feel my corset—and point languidly, with long, graceful motions, making full use of the poise my mother drove me to acquire.
I see now that I shouldn’t have worried about hiding the box of euros from the bots to begin with; halfway through the process, I proffer the box to a faceless bot that places it in a gilt-and-lacquer chest, where it’s soon covered by a Venetian lace shawl. Curiosity isn’t in M.A.R.I.E.’s programming.
I wish I’d invited Molli to spend the night instead of tearing out of the ballroom. With Molli here, I wouldn’t have checked my box, I wouldn’t have gone to confront my father, and I wouldn’t have discovered his drug habit. Or the temptation I’m fighting. It’s odd to think that my entire world would be far brighter right now if I’d only stopped to grab my best friend.