Page 25 of The Princess and the P.I.

Maurice cast a glance down at Fiona, lingering just long enough to sear through the delicate fabric of her slip.

The heat of it was unmistakable, and she felt as if the air had been sucked clean out of the car.

The green glow of the streetlight bathed his face, giving him a dangerous, almost wicked allure.

The way he looked at her—deep, a flicker of fire beneath the exhaustion—set something loose inside her.

“I…I don’t think I have magical powers or anything. I just think that you seem to sleep around me? You’ve tried a lot of things, so this is just one more thing to try.”

“Fiona.”

“ Just sleep. You’re on the couch. I’m in my own bed with the door closed a mile away. I was going to spray the pillows with my shower spray. I think it’s lavender. Just try it. If it works, you can pay me back with an egg breakfast.”

“Fiona, why tonight?”

She thought of the note slipped under her door.

Because I’m scared. Because I’m scared for you , she thought but didn’t say.

“Why not tonight? Let’s be scientists about it. If it works, we can find the thing that is making you so sleepy and isolate it. I would trust you with this case a lot more if you were getting some rest.”

A hint of embarrassment lingered in his tone. “It’s like I’m genuinely exhausted, but I can never…And you’re right. I am dozing off, forgetting things. I don’t know what is making me drop like Sleeping Beauty around you.”

“Okay, so let’s be curious.”

—

When they returned to the hotel, Fiona moved quietly, not meeting his eyes. If she looked him in the eye, she would feel that pounding low in her belly or her chest would tighten.

That wouldn’t do.

She filled a Ziploc bag with ice and applied it to his nose. He played old funk music from his phone while he washed his face. Oddly domestic scene for two people brought together by murder.

Maurice pulled off his shoes to reveal mismatched socks, one red striped and one blue.

Fiona draped the softest blanket she could find over the couch, tucking a pillow neatly into place, the faintest spritz of lavender spray lingering in the air. She wanted to soften the edges of this odd, charged night.

Maurice stood looking asleep on his feet with his jacket folded over his joined hands. Another reason why she avoided his gaze was that for whatever reason, he seemed deeply embarrassed by how far his insomnia had gone.

“I was also a little afraid to be alone,” Fiona said. It was the truth too. This was more symbiotic than Maurice realized.

“I forget this is probably the first time you’ve been on your own.

It must be overwhelming,” he said. She let him misunderstand.

She loved being alone. Relished this precious time to learn who she really was.

No, the threats, the notes, the shadowy figures had her constantly looking over her shoulders.

“Have you heard that fairy tale, ‘The Princess and the Pea’?” she asked, more to fill the space than anything else.

“You are not telling me a bedtime story right now,” he replied, though his lips quirked in a reluctant smile.

“Just listen.” Fiona moved around the couch, her fingers brushing the edges of the blanket, and Maurice’s eyes followed her every step, twisting his whole body to keep her in his sight.

“Come sit here.” He patted the sofa.

The invitation, she knew, was not to sit.

“Oh, no. This isn’t the couch anymore, it’s your bed, remember?”

Maurice slid down onto the couch with a defeated sigh.

“So, there’s this prince,” Fiona began, and she couldn’t keep an edge of nervous energy out of her voice.

“He’s trying to get married, but all the princesses are fake—they’re not the real deal.

They search for years. One day, a woman comes in from the storm, claiming she’s a princess. Naturally, they’re skeptical.”

“Naturally,” Maurice echoed, his dark eyes tracking her slow loop around the room.

“So, the prince’s mom slips a pea under, like, fifty mattresses,” she continued, almost conspiratorially.

“Oh yeah,” Maurice said, the faintest spark of recognition lighting his face. “And she wakes up, doesn’t she?”

“Exactly. She feels the pea and complains about how impossible it was for her to sleep.”

“So, the moral of your story is don’t be a little bitch?” Maurice asks.

Fiona laughed. “No. No, Maurice. It’s that you’re the real deal. You’re sensitive to the world and the terrible things in it. You feel it deeply. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

She reached toward him, meaning to readjust his ice bag. But his hand shot up, gripping her wrist with just enough pressure to make her breath catch. His thumb grazed her skin, and she felt the tremor in his hands.

It was what he was trying not to do that pressed and dug into her like a too-tight bra. She felt that now, heavier than his action.

“Fiona.” His voice was thick, and he held her fast and then, after a minute, let his grip loosen. He moved the pillows loosely over his lap.

“The couch is more comfortable than it looks,” Fiona said. She stepped backward and gave him a small, encouraging smile like he was up to bat at Little League.

Fiona slipped into her own king bed and stared at the ceiling. She was on fire. She was sure that for as long as she lived no man would ever look at her like that again.

Fiona could appreciate the irony of her inability to sleep right now, but it didn’t make it any less miserable.

She closed her eyes and saw Maurice, looking down her dress in the car, the brief flicker of something volcanic passing over his face.

Maurice standing sock-footed in her foyer while she made up the couch for him.

Fiona kicked off the covers then slipped to the cool side of her king bed. She flipped on her stomach and then to her side.

She must have fallen asleep, because she shot up an hour later to the sound of rustling.

Her heart stuttered. Someone was here. The church again?

She hurried out of bed and scrambled to the door before she remembered that Maurice was there. When she opened the door to her room, he was slipping on his shoes in the foyer.

“Hey,” he whispered. It was 3:34 a.m. Fiona knew what he was about to say. It wasn’t working. “I appreciate this Fiona, I do.”

“But you can not sleep in your own house, right?”

He grinned, a sad lopsided little thing that squeezed Fiona’s heart.

She walked toward him—too fast, too reckless.

“The bed,” she said, before she could stop herself.

“Fiona, look, we tried.”

“Maurice, please. I promise I’m not trying to make a move on you.”

He gave her a funny little look as if the entire notion of her making a move on him was laughable.

“It’s not that. It’s just I can’t…” He tilted his head down to her, and that look of utter helplessness broke her a little.

“I can’t escape it, Fiona,” Maurice said, barely cracking above a whisper.

“Every time I close my eyes, I see her wide-open eyes. I feel her cold body. It’s like she’s always there, waiting for me to find her every night—waiting for me to be too late—waiting for me to not be enough. ”

Fiona was already pulling him to her. “Lie with me. Just put your head on my shoulder. Talk to me.” He followed her with no resistance—like her touch had sapped him of strength.

He kicked off his shoes and shrugged off his overshirt, letting it fall to the floor.

When they sank onto the bed, it was so soft, so seamless, that for a moment, she forgot they were two separate people.

“I kept thinking I would get over it,” he whispered, pulling her impossibly close to him. His hands kneaded her waist. He managed to press her so neatly into him his head rose and fell over her breast as she breathed. “It’s only getting worse,” he said. “And I’m fucking up little things.”

“It’s getting worse because you’re afraid you’re going to mess this up. But you’re not. You’re the best detective I’ve ever met.”

He snorted. “I’m the only detective you’ve ever met.”

“Excuse me? I’m ten seasons into a Law and Order marathon…so I’ve seen detectives.”

He laughed again.

Fiona wished she could offer more than just words. She knew more than he could understand how deeply the past could dig its claws into a person, how hard it was to break free from memories that refused to fade.

She and her sister, Esi, were playing a game they called Sister Sleuths when Fiona was ten. Maybe twelve? Kwesi would burst in saying he knew who the killer was. A plan Esi had set up for two days, Kwesi unraveled in ten minutes.

Is this our thing? Why do you want to be a Sister Sleuth anyway? Esi laughed. Are you gay or something?

Fiona and her sister tumbled over laughing.

Kwesi, who had told only Fiona his deepest secret, just stared at her before she closed the door.

The night stretched on, and Maurice’s breath evened out. His Jaws of Life grip on her slackened, and he was asleep. Fiona counted Maurice Bennett as the first IRL case she ever cracked.