Page 27 of The Princess and the P.I.

Maurice came to her room the next night. Then the next. On the third night, she slipped him the key. Their exchanges were wordless, his eyes instead of his mouth holding the questions.

Is this still ok?

Is this too much?

I need you.

They spent thirteen nights like this. Inseparable.

He never said good morning, never asked how she slept.

Instead, he slipped away, leaving only his quiet offerings—a plate of eggs or an interesting patch of cloth for her to find around the suite.

But her bed smelled like him in the morning, and she rolled over to the other side to smell his smoky, heady boy scent, letting the ghost of him seep into her skin.

Fiona was afraid if she acknowledged what they were doing, it would break the spell, and he would stop.

She did not want him to stop.

Now she didn’t know how she could sleep without Maurice pulling her body to him in the pitch-darkness, face pressed into her stomach or her breast—hands landing wherever they landed.

Sometimes she felt his mouth, soft and chaste on her neck or shoulders.

It was equal parts incredibly pure and desperately erotic to Fiona.

He had quietly sewn while she talked her throat raw about her brother and simply told her to go on.

She could say without exaggerating that he was the only person in the world who believed she was capable of anything.

He showed an incredible amount of trust in her—putting her on finding Sara, arguably the biggest (and hardest) piece of the puzzle. And Fiona wouldn’t squander it.

Every morning, she felt more and more anchored in the life she was making outside of her father’s firm control.

Every time Maurice asked her who she was and what she wanted, it started a domino effect or identity crisis, but she pieced herself back together with her answers to him—always true—truer than she had ever been with anyone.

The papers shoved under the door had stopped too.

And she didn’t see those shadows that haunted her when she was in Maurice’s arms. Every night, she thought about saying it.

About turning to him and telling him she was ready.

Ready to go. Or maybe ready for love like that India Arie song.

All the words sounded stupid in her head.

Her pretrial hearing was only one month away, and the thought of being locked up without ever knowing the weight of him—his body pressed against hers, into hers—it was unbearable.

She planned to tell him, night after night.

But every time she turned toward him, he was already asleep, his breathing soft, his face smooth and untroubled.

The dark circles that had clung to his eyes for weeks had finally faded, and she couldn’t do it, couldn’t ruin the quiet that had finally found its way into his restless body.

So she stayed silent, letting the words pool in her chest, letting her belly burn with desire with nowhere to go.

She stretched out like a starfish in the king bed and pulled a pillow to her mouth to scream.

Her phone rang, and she hoped her sister had finally decided to connect. But Esi didn’t call. They didn’t have that kind of relationship.

Not for a long time.

The call was from Maurice. His voice smooth and unruffled from sleep, like he’d been up for hours. He started in without a greeting.

“I’m coming to pick you up. We’re going on a field trip today.”

“Where?” She kicked the covers off.

“Just come down.”

“God, it’s barely eight,” Fiona groaned. She dressed quickly, and soon she and Maurice were headed down the 495 loop.

His car smelled like high-end tobacco, rum, and oak, like a pirate ship off the coast of Martinique. He always told her to be careful of having a scent. That scent is a memory. But he had already carved out a Mauriceness every time he waltzed into her suite.

The plan was simple enough. She and Maurice would change into their jumpsuits and collect trash from the iVest headquarters C-suite and take pictures of whatever caught their eye.

“You in?” he asked.

Fiona couldn’t say yes fast enough. “But I can’t be caught rifling through the trash cans here; it’s a violation of my bail.”

They were parked at a distance, and Maurice handed her a bundle of clothes. “That’s why we have these.”

“They know me. I’m not going to disappear just because I’m in a janitor’s uniform.”

Maurice raised his eyebrow. “First, it’s Saturday, but even if it were Monday morning and you were wearing a sign saying ‘I’m Fiona,’ in these uniforms you’d go undetected. People are trained to actively not see the help.”

Fiona tried to remember the faces of the real janitorial staff, and to Maurice’s point, she couldn’t recall them.

“You take the back. I’ll dress in the front,” he said.

“Wait…am I undressing…here?”

“ We are. And quickly too. The shift starts in ten minutes.”

Fiona slipped to the back of the car and moved with uneasy urgency.

Maurice glanced away, giving Fiona as much privacy as the cramped space allowed, but she caught his eyes once in the rearview mirror as she hopped to pull the jumpsuit over her hips.

A hot blush turned her chest splotchy as she broke eye contact.

Fiona struggled with the zipper, her heavy top making it impossible to close the jumpsuit completely. She sighed in frustration, finally settling for tying the sleeves around her waist. Finally, she pulled on a wig and secured it with a cap.

In the front seat, Maurice adjusted his own disguise. He donned a fake beard and glasses, the transformation making him almost unrecognizable. The name Otis stitched neatly into the pocket of the jumpsuit completed the look.

“You ready?” she asked.

He fumbled with his suit. “Uh, give me a minute. Let me…Just give me a minute,” he said.

Fiona furled her brow. She’d never seen him nervous.

They stepped out of the car. Getting in took no effort at all. Just as Maurice had suspected, they moved unnoticed.

“I’m going to the C-suite to take pictures. I think we can get something good.”

“Fiona, we are here to get trash—”

“We can get more than trash. We can get the smoking gun.”

She wanted into Mark’s space. He was arrogant enough to have a signed confession framed in his office.

“Fiona. Do not try any of your Reddit bullshit here,” Maurice hissed to her back.

Fiona walked briskly, rolling a trash can.

The flat structure of iVest meant that the C-suite offices were all on the same floor but in private nested offices near the prime meeting room locations.

Fiona stepped into the C-suite and faced an immediate choice.

Three doors.

It felt like a game show: Robert Thorpe, Mark the Shark, and Sara the publicist. Which office hid the most valuable information? She wrestled with the temptation to call Maurice over. Not for his help, but for that unshakable confidence he always carried.

Think IRL, Fiona.

Okay, Robert Thorpe leaned old-school—probably the type to print everything out. Mark oozed sleaze, the kind of guy likely to leave behind a trail of incriminating evidence. Sara, sharp and strategic, likely kept dirt on everyone.

And then the decision clicked into place. Only one door opened without a key.

Robert Thorpe.

Now, Fiona didn’t believe in ghosts.

Well—the Holy Ghost.

Either way, you don’t unsettle a dead man’s belongings. It was just…eerie. But she pushed inside anyway and gently closed the door.

The air in Robert’s office felt unnaturally still, like she was the first person to rearrange the molecules in here for a while. Her heart was speeding up like the time she had that weird reaction to fish at an uncle’s house.

I don’t like it here.

She snapped on latex gloves, feeling a little like an analyst in a CSI episode.

The shadows in the room played tricks with her eyes, making her see whispers of movement where there were none. The only source of light was a dimly lit oversized aquarium pushed to the corner of the room. Inside it, set pieces to an underground shipwreck floated soundlessly.

She remembered Maurice’s admonition— no Reddit stunts —and, despite her shaking legs, moved with precision to the mahogany desk. Her fingers delicately sifted through the contents of the desk, snapping quick, silent photos.

HR write-ups on employees. Inquiries into shareholders.

She snapped a photo.

Mark filed a suit against a shareholder?

She rushed over the documents but honestly couldn’t make sense of them. The legal speak was so thick with therefore s and herewith s .

The trash bin yielded nothing. The real cleaners probably came in days ago to clear it anyway.

Fiona carefully opened each drawer, mindful to return each item exactly as she found it. None of it felt groundbreaking. None of her photos incriminated anyone. It was actually depressing.

Fiona scanned the rest of the office, noting the expensive art on the walls, the shelf of meticulously arranged business and finance books, that dang aquarium with no fish swimming inside. Fiona walked to the structure and tapped the glass.

A faint click from the door sent a jolt of adrenaline surging through her.

Panic clawed at her throat as she dove behind the huge structure, almost toppling fifty gallons of stale water to the floor.

Then, realizing it was see-through, she rolled herself down into a ball at the dark base, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps.

The door swung open, and light spilled into the room, casting a long, ominous shadow across the floor.

Mark?

On a Saturday?

His footsteps were like a countdown.

Fiona pressed into herself and felt a sharp cramp ripping through her stomach. And still, she strained to listen, to glean any shred of information from him.

“I can’t reschedule. It’s just all flaring up again,” he said in a harsh whisper. Fiona tried not to jump as desk drawers slammed and papers rustled. “I think that Church Girl is related to him. That church is after me. I see them everywhere.”

He sounded like he was cracking up.