Page 32 of The Princess and the Fraud

“What?”

“The help, the help.” He stopped right in front of me, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t know if you’re being self-deprecating for a laugh or if it’s a subconscious slip, but stop acting like that’s all you are. You are not your job, Lovisa, and frankly, it’s irritating to hear you talk like that.”

His words struck a chord in me, but the feeling wasn’t easy to shake. “Oh, it’s irritating, is it?” Sarcasm dripped from my voice. “My apologies.”

“Not everything has to turn into an argument.” Aaron lowered his head, bringing his gaze closer. “Stop trying to turn this into one.”

I opened my mouth to launch something back, then stopped. The edge in me dulled a little the longer he looked into my eyes. His were dark, almost too dark to even see his pupil, but there was the faintest difference. Wind dragged his hair across his forehead, shuttering my view for a moment before he pushed it back. He was right; I wastaking it out on him. He wasn’t the one I was mad at. I wasn’t evenmad—I just felt like a cello string wound too tight, pressure vibrating through me, on the verge of snapping.

Aaron lifted his other hand, and it took me a second to realize what he held between his middle and index finger. It was the ten-dollar bill I’d left on the table.

I stared at it for a beat longer before lifting my attention back to him. “I have more pride than that.”

“Says the girl who’s blackmailing me for a house.”

I sucked in a breath, ready to launch back at him as the breeze slipped under the porte-cochere again.

“That,” Aaron murmured, this time reaching out and smoothing my blonde hair back out of my face, “was supposed to be a joke.”

Two urges dueled within me—one to hold still under his touch and the other to smack his hand away. The former won out to the gentle gesture, but barely. “You bring out the worst in me,” I told him.

“Youthinkthe worst of me,” he countered, taming my flyaways for one more moment before dropping his hand. “I understand. I’ve been told I’m not that likeable.”

That pulled a startled laugh out of me, an ugly sound that was mixed between a chuckle and a scoff. Aaron softened at the sound, as if it was some sort of victory. It wasn’t. But he could think whatever he wanted.

The rattling sound of my car’s exhaust filled the air then, along with the pungent stench of it, and I turned to find Jeff putting the clunker in park. He hopped out, leaving the door open. “Here you go, Lovey.”

“Thank you,” I told him, taking the key when he offered it out. I tipped my head toward Aaron. “He has your tip.”

Aaron, after passing the ten-dollar bill to the valet, eyed my sedan in horror. “This is yours?”

“Cinderella had a pumpkin.” I patted the rusting hood. “Mine’s a bit nicer than a pumpkin.”

“If you say so.” Aaron had followed me and stopped on the other side of my open car door, hands curving along the top of it. “After you, my dear.”

I slid into the driver’s seat with an eye roll, and Aaron walked around to make sure my legs were inside the car. Before he shut the door, he hesitated, gaze slipping over me as if there was something he was about to say.

“What?” I asked.

“I think this is my first time seeing you out of uniform.”

I stretched my seatbelt across my sweater, buckling myself in. “Is this the part when you realize I’m kinda pretty?” I meant it teasingly, but as soon as the words left my mouth, I cringed. It sounded almost like I wasflirting.

“No.” Aaron’s tone was casual, matter of fact. My jaw dropped, but before I fired back, he added, “I’ve always known.”

And then he shut the door between us.

I stared at Aaron’s back as he retreated into the club, not giving me so much as a second glance. A mix of embarrassment and something else—something unspoken—gnawed at me. The anger that’d burned moments ago had faded, but it left me still feeling warm.Alive. It was new to me, as someone who moved through every day in a cold and quiet indifference. It was like I’d just finished listening to a symphony, one with so many abrupt key changes that the notes still echoed in my head, even though the music had stopped. A piece that left you feeling disoriented… and wanting to listen to it again.

I shook my head once, hard. “Get a grip, Lovisa,” I told myself, reaching for the gearshift. “Get a freaking grip.”

CHAPTERSEVEN

Thursday morning, Mr. Roberts called the staff in for a meeting before the start of our shifts, which meant I sat in the boardroom at 7:35, fighting the urge to yawn. The meeting started in ten minutes, and I was the only one at the table. Mr. Roberts hadn’t even arrived yet.

It wasn’t common for me to have two days off back-to-back, but after being off the schedule for both Tuesday and Wednesday, I was almost relieved to be back in Alderton-Du Ponte’s walls. Even after five years of working, I’d still never learned how to spend my days off. There were only so many TV shows to binge, only so many puzzles to put together, and only so many ways to distract myself from the emptiness of my apartment.

And that’s what Alderton-Du Ponte was. A distraction from how empty my life felt.

---