Page 104 of Once Upon A Time

“Elands,”Dieter softly swore. “Wulfram’s own people or Rogue Security?”

“He didn’t say,” Flicka said. “He told Quentin—”

“Quentin Sault?” Dieter asked.

Of course, Dieter would know Pierre’s head security man. “—he told Quentin to grab me. He grabbed my wrists before I could even think—”

“I taught you better than that,” Dieter growled.

“He was so fast, and he’s so much stronger than I am.” Tears fell hotter on her face than the water from the shower.

“I’m sorry,” Dieter said. “Yes, he is. I’m sorry.”

“He told Quentin to hold me down, and he had a knife.”

“Did that assholecutyou?”

“He held me down. He said he’dmakeme have a baby, that he would flush my birth control pills down the toilet andmakeme have one. He said he needed me to produce royal heirs, and he didn’t give a shit how it happened. He said that he should have known that I would be just another stupid woman like all the others. He said that he thought I would be different because I’m a damn princess. He said I should have understood. He said that he was taking me back to Monaco tomorrow on the plane, and I wasn’t going to leave the palace ever again. It’s a fortress, you know. It can keep people locked inside, too.”

Dieter’s soft swearing outside the curtain didn’t stop. Flicka recognized profanity in at least four languages, covering the spectrum from Pierre’s parentage and his toilet habits to exactly how Dieter was going to kill him.

His swearing got funny after a while, as it went on and on and on in a furious monotone, detailing Dieter’s weapons and Pierre’s body parts, and Flicka snorted a laugh through her sobs.

She said, “He was drunk. When he dozed off afterward, I ran. Heshotat me.”

A sharp gasp from outside the shower. “He missed?”

“He missed.”

“I’ll kill him,” Dieter said.

“You can’t,” she said, almost laughing again as hysteria mixed with rage. “He’s the sovereign prince of Monaco. People would notice.”

“Maybe they would. Maybe they wouldn’t.”

“Pierre said that he wasn’t going to lose the throne over one silly little girl with bourgeois notions about marriage.” Tears spilled out of her eyes again, and she scrubbed them into the warm, falling water. Damn it, her ancestors had played the Great Game for generations and had won more often than not, but they hadn’t gotten all weepy about it. “I’m so stupid.”

“You’re not.”

Dread coiled in her throat. “Oh, God. What if I am pregnant? I didn’t take a pill tonight.”

“I can get you a morning-after pill from a pharmacy tomorrow.”

Flicka managed to look up, and the shower sprayed the side of her face. “How do you even know about stuff like that?”

Dieter cleared his throat. “I have three older sisters. One overhears things as a teenager.”

Stunned shock numbed her rage and pain. “You never said that you havesisters.”

The curtain moved, and a man’s hand rested on the side of the tub, palm up. “It wasn’t important then, and it’s not important now.”

No, what was important was escaping from and divorcing her husband who owned an actual, if small,army.

Flicka swallowed the words and stupid sucking sounds that welled up in her. She laid her fingers in Dieter’s offered hand. His fingers curled around hers, and she held on tightly. “I’m so sorry.”

“No reason to be sorry. None at all.”

“I shouldn’t involve you like this.”