Page 35 of Once Upon A Time

Flicka didn’t have time to even consider such a thing, not with her charities, and her music, and now with Wulfram’s religious wedding that she would certainly plan with Rae for a few months’ hence.

Any sort of affair, even a purely physical understanding, would take too much time.

Yes, she didn’t havetime to indulge herself so.

But meanwhile, where had her husband disappeared to?

Quentin Sault, the head of Pierre’s Secret Service security detail who was more whipcord tough than muscular, was standing over by one of the doors to the hallway.

She trotted over to him. “Have you seen Pierre?”

Sault looked at her, angling his head up slightly because Flicka was a tad over six feet in her heels. “He exited this door ten minutes ago. Brousseau and Defrancesco are his personal protection today.”

“Thank you,” she said, polite as always even though Quentin Sault sometimes gave her the creeps. Her chills might have been the very specific knowledge that he was under orders from Pierre’s uncle, the current sovereign Prince of Monaco, and that Pierre’s security was prioritized over hers in every circumstance. They’d proven that at her wedding the day before when they’d left her alone in the middle of a damned kill zone.

Good Lord, where had she learned such language?

A “kill zone.” She sounded like a mercenary.

Flicka found Claude Brousseau and Jordan Defrancesco, Monegasque Secret Service, standing on either side of a closet door in the hallway that stretched beside the meeting room.

Far down the hallway, Georgie and Alexandre were whispering to each other, probably rehearsing for the music performance she had coerced them into.

Flicka was an alpha princess. If they couldn’t handle the fact that she took charge of hopeless situations and made them successes, then they needed to step back. In the meantime, they could get their butts over to the piano and sing.

Jordan Defrancesco was one of the better Monegasque Secret Service men, in Flicka’s opinion. Besides the fact that he had that strong jaw and broad shoulders, his hazel eyes surveyed the room correctly. He followed a pattern, scanning and skimming, just like Dieter Schwarz did when he was on duty.

Plus, when the bullets had been flying yesterday, Jordan Defrancesco had at least looked back at Flicka as they had shoved Pierre into the limousine. Quentin Sault and the others hadn’t even checked to make sure someone else had protected her.

Flicka asked him, “Jordan, do you know where Pierre is?”

Jordan Defrancesco had the decency to glance down at his shined shoes before returning to scanning the long hallway. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I couldn’t say.”

Jordan tilted his head at the doorway between him and Claude Brousseau.

Brousseau glanced at them talking and then pointedly turned his head and stared far down the corridor in the other direction.

Okay, so Pierre was screwing someone in the closet.

She asked Jordan, “Should I wait?”

Jordan looked straight ahead and spoke to the air. “If any physical harm threatens His Highness, I will have to intervene, using the minimal amount of force necessary.”

“So I can’t strangle him,” she said.

One side of Jordan’s mouth lifted. “Strangling would be considered physical harm.”

“So you’d pull me off of him?” she asked.

Jordan licked his lips. “Sure. Eventually.”

With that assurance, Flicka grabbed the doorknob and twisted it.

The cold knob turned in her hand because of course Pierre wouldn’t even bother to lock the door.

A neon light fixture cast chilly, blue light on Pierre Grimaldi where he stood, leaning against the back wall with his head tilted back and his eyes closed. The harsh light glinted on his strong cheekbones.

A man was on his knees in front of Pierre, his head bobbing as he sucked Pierre’s dick.