Page 43 of Once Upon A Time

The caravan had driven all the way inside the court of honor, the central courtyard around which the palace was built.

And now, Flicka was inside the medieval fortress that was the Prince’s Palace.

Safe.

It looked so different thanSchloss Marienburg,and it didn’t feel like home at all.

But it was nice that Pierre had held her hand the whole way back to the palace.

After the shooting, he had soothed her during the plane ride, holding her in his arms, ordering tea for her, and calling ahead to make sure her favorite chocolates would be waiting for them in their bedroom.

Pierre could be really sweet.

Flicka’s phone buzzed in her hand. The screen lit up, showing a violin in the background and a text from Pierre’s cousin, Christine Grimaldi.Flicka, baby! Are you back in Monaco yet? Do you want to have lunch tomorrow?

She texted back:absolutely to both.

As they stepped out of the SUV, the afternoon sun slanted over the rooftops of the palace.

To Flicka’s practiced eye, the palace’s facade, built over the centuries, appeared to be the terrace of Renaissance-style, Italian palazzi from differing periods of the Renaissance era.

Hey, when you grow up at least part-time in a castle, and all your friends live in other castles, you get to know castles.

The Monegasque palace looked like tiers of balconies surrounding the courtyard, and it was beautiful. A horseshoe-shaped staircase led up to the main balcony where she would be presented to her new subjects at her first official appearance.

She had been supposed to wear her wedding dress, but it was stained with grass sap, mud, and Dieter’s blood.

Her reception dress would have to suffice.

As they walked toward the huge double doors into the palace, flanked by a battalion of Secret Service men, Pierre ordered supper to be brought up to their apartment within the palace and turned to her. “If we can’t have a honeymoon in the Seychelles, we’ll have it here. Monaco is on the French Riviera, and it is springtime. We’ll picnic on the beach in the sunshine, perhaps go to the casino down in Monte Carlo, and you can settle into the palace.”

They’d been pretending that she hadn’t been living there for the last six months for propriety’s sake. All of Monaco knew different. No one cared.

Well, her brother cared, but he was an old fuddy-duddy. He’d threatened to sendWelfenlegionbodyguardsto protect her.

“I was hoping to get away with you,” Flicka said, “just the two of us for a while. When we’re here, you’re always running off on business.”

Pierre smiled at her, that smile that melted her panties right off when they had been dating.

Still worked.

He moved forward and stroked her arms. “No business. I promise. Or not very much.”

She laughed. “Okay. One event per day, but then I get you all to myself.”

“Deal.” He kissed her softly.

Camera clicks fluttered from beyond the rope line outside the courtyard.

Pierre glanced up and laughed, and his laugh was a brilliant, happy sound that rang from the tiles and balconies.

Flicka smiled and waved for the cameras as they walked, hand in hand, into the Prince’s Palace.

She never thought that, when she moved into her husband’s house, she would feel a little tremor of dread.

Surely, she wasn’t feeling dread.

She liked Pierre, quite a lot.