Paper Princess (The Royals #1)(35)

“Nope, just committing to memory the profile of a jackass. You know, so if I’m ever called upon to draw one in art, I’ll have some inspiration,” I reply airily.

He grunts and it sounds suspiciously like a laugh. For the first time in his presence, I start to relax.

The rest of the trip passes quickly, almost too quickly. I feel a tiny kernel of disappointment when the bakery comes into view, which is all sorts of fucked up because I don’t like this guy.

“You driving me every day or just this morning?” I ask when he brakes in front of the French Twist.

“Depends. How long you planning on keeping up the charade?”

“It’s not a charade. It’s called earning a living.”

I get out of the truck before he can manage another stupid and mean retort.

“Hey,” he calls after me.

“What?” I turn around, and that’s when I get my first full look at his face this morning. My hand flies up to cover my mouth. The left side of his face, a part that I now realize he kept shaded from me the entire ride, is bruised. His lip is puffy. There’s a gash over his eye and a bruise on the upper edge of his cheek. “Oh my God, what happened to you?”

I raise my fingers to his face, not realizing that my feet carried me from the bakery back to the truck.

He jerks away from my touch. “Nothing.”

My hand falls uselessly to my side. “It doesn’t look like nothing.”

“It is to you.”

Grim faced, he speeds off, leaving me behind to wonder what he did last night and why he called me over just now if he wasn’t planning on saying anything important. I do know one thing. If I got hit that hard in the face, I’d be pissy the next morning, too.

Despite my better judgment, I worry about Reed throughout my morning shift at the bakery. Lucy casts me some concerned looks but since I work hard like I’d promised, she doesn’t say anything.

After my shift, I hurry off to school, but I don’t see Reed. Not on the path leading to the gym, not in the halls, and not even at lunch. It’s like he doesn’t even go to Astor Park.

And when classes are over, it’s the big Town Car that’s waiting for me. Durand’s holding the door impatiently, so I can’t even loiter in the parking lot. It’s better this way, I tell myself. No good can come from thinking about Reed Royal.

I lecture myself all the way home, but as we pull through the wrought-iron gates, Durand gives me something else to think about.

“Mr. Royal would like to see you,” his double bass voice informs me when the car comes to a stop at the front steps.

I sit there like a dummy as I process that Mr. Royal means Callum. “Um, okay.”

“He’s in the pool house.”

“The pool house,” I repeat. “Am I being called to the principal’s office, Durand?”

His eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “Don’t think so, Ella.”

“That’s not very encouraging.”

“Want me to drive you around some more?”

“Will he still want to see me?”

Durand nods.

“Then I better go.” I sigh dramatically.

The corner of his eyes lift slightly in what is considered a broad smile for him.

I drop my backpack at the base of the sweeping staircase and then make the trek to the back of the house, across the long patio, and to the end of the yard. The pool house is glassed in on three sides. There must be some trick to the walls because sometimes the side nearest the pool is reflective rather than see-through.

As I get closer, I realize that the walls are really a series of doors on a slider and they’ve been opened, allowing the ocean breeze to drift from the shore up to the house.

Callum is sitting on a sofa facing the ocean. He turns around when my shoes scrape on the tiled floor.

He nods in greeting. “Ella. You have a good day at school?”

No trash in my locker? No pranks in the girls’ room? “Could have been worse,” I reply.

He gestures for me to come sit with him.

“This was Maria’s favorite place,” he tells me. “When all the doors are open, you can hear the ocean. She liked getting up early to watch the sunrise. She told me once it was like a magic show every morning. The sun draws back the curtain of inky black to reveal a palette of colors more gorgeous than even the greatest masters could conjure.”

“Are you sure she wasn’t a poet?”

He smiles. “She was rather poetic. She also said the rhythmic push and pull of the waves against the shore is a musical score as pure as the most brilliant orchestration.”

We listen to it, the tinkle and wash as the tides creep up to the sand and then slide back as if pulled by an invisible hand. “It’s beautiful,” I admit.

A low moan slips from Callum’s throat. In one hand, he clutches his usual glass of whiskey, but in the other, gripped so tight his knuckles are white, he holds a picture of a dark-haired woman with eyes so bright it’s like sun shining from the frame.

“Is that Maria?” I gesture to the frame.

He swallows and nods. “Beautiful, isn’t she?”

I nod back.

Callum tips his head and empties the glass in one swift gulp. He barely sets the glass down before reaching for a refill. “Maria was the glue that held our family together. Atlantic Aviation hit a bad patch about ten years ago. A series of reckless decisions coupled with the recession placed my sons’ legacy in jeopardy, and I threw myself into saving it, which took me away from the family. I missed seeing Maria. She always wanted a daughter, you know?”