Page 10 of The Princess and the Fraud

Thehouse. My mother’s dream house.

Four weeks.

My feet moved again of their own accord, pulling me away from the bubble of conversation as the last act of self-preservation. I staggered, gasping, in my non-slip shoes, and I could’ve blamed it on the uneven cobblestones inlaid into the garden grass—could’ve blamed it on anything except the house I had been working the past five and a half years to afford was finally going to auction at the end of the month.

And I knew I didn’t have nearly enough money.

But even though I stumbled, instinct kicked in. My body and my entire world tipped to the side, but my hand mechanically moved to hold my tray of flutes steady.

The cobblestoned path led back toward the kitchen, and I carried the shaking platter with me, pressing my free hand to my stomach. My apron suddenly felt a thousand times too tight where it wrapped around my waist, slicing me in two.

“Oh,goodness!” The high-pitched yelp all at once snapped my attention back into focus, just in time for me to react. The black shape in the corner of my vision that I’d assumed to be a rosebush was, in fact, Mrs. Massey. I tugged my tray away a second before it careened into her, my world—and career—flashing before my eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” I gushed, and if I thought I’d been shaking before, the tremble came in full force now. “I—I’m so?—”

“Please watch where you’re going.” Her hard stare was as unforgiving as her voice. “I expect you to be paying attention, Lovisa.”

The sinking feeling didn’t go away as she stalked past me, and neither did the trembling.

Get a grip, Lovisa Hahn.

Instead of heading back into the kitchen, I took a hard right down the path, disappearing between the rosebushes and setting my tray down on a wooden-slatted bench. The champagne flutes jostled with the movement, but by some miracle, none of them spilled.

1442 Everview Road. It was a two-story Victorian-style house with gabled roofs and a delicate trim, a broad wraparound porch with intricate spindle work, arched glass windows, and a turret-like structure that stuck out half a story on the third level. The property sat on a hill above the bay, overlooking the calm waters.

It sounded picturesque, but it’d been abandoned decades ago. The elements had its way with it, leaving it a once-beautiful shell that no one deemed worthy to buy at the jaw-dropping price tag.

Except me. I wanted to buy it. I needed to.

It’d been a long time since I’d checked my bank account. I had no idea if I was even close. But it didn’t matter. Growing up, my mother would tell me she didn’t want many things. “1442 Everview Road,” she’d said. “That’s my dream.”

And now, after five years of chasing it in her place, I was out of time.

I crouched down and braced my hands on my knees, my face close to the greenery as if the floral scent could ground me. Except it was the earliest stages of spring, and all the shrubs smelled like was dirt.

Dirt and… cologne?

As I stared into its depths, something in the rosebush began to take shape.

I blinked. The strangeness of the shadow pulled me back from the brink, and I leaned closer, my imploding world momentarily forgotten.

In the midst of the darkness, a pair of wide eyes swiveled up to meet mine.

An instinctive shriek wrenched its way out of me, a sharp and sudden note that caused whoever crouched in the bushes to give their own surprised shout. Theirs was lower, distinctly male.

I jerked away from the bushes, every ounce of Alderton-Du Ponte training vanishing. “What the hell?”

My hand shot to my waist where my walkie-talkie hung on a belt loop, but before I wrenched it free, the figure called out, “I—I just dropped something!” They pried themselves free of the rosebush, the thorns tugging on their clothes. “I wasn’t—I wasn’t being a creep.”

I stiffened as they, because out of anyone I expected to be crouched in a bush like an absolute weirdo, it wasnota tall man wearing a Rolex and Hefman & Italia leather shoes. Working in an atmosphere that praised the designer brands, I’d been quick to pick up the hierarchy of what would impress, and their prices. Those were two pieces that easily would’ve cost several months’ salary from me—each.

It made the whole situation stranger.

“I wasn’t being a creep,” he repeated, holding out his palms to me as if they proved his innocence. “I just dropped something.”

“You dropped somethinginthe bushes,” I repeated, staring at the hole he’d created wedging himself in the foliage.

The man coasted a hand down his clothes, wiping away dirt. “Yes, well. It happens.”

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