Page 38 of The Princess and the P.I.

“Fiona, you did a good job. No one is discounting that.” Maurice sounded weary. “But we can’t afford to chase smoke. This will be a complex operation.”

“I-It’s not smoke,” she stammered. “It’s just a job. If she’s going to be at a sex party, we’ll meet her at a sex party. You said yourself that she would be the hardest to access. This is access. We can’t have our nose in the air about how it comes.”

Maurice only looked at her over his coffee cup.

A dozen possibilities unfurled in his mind—the risks, the angles they could work, the costumes—but his gaze lingered on Fiona’s face longer than it should have.

The window light framed her face in a way that seemed intentional, tiny golden filaments floating past her cheek.

He felt a breathtaking thud of something hard and heavy inside of him drop like an anchor.

An ange —

Oh no.

Nice try, Jesus.

“Fine by me.” Maurice dribbled the coffee on his thumbs. “But you’ll have to get some clothes. Fast.”

Fiona was buzzing around the suite getting swept up in preparations when Esi cocked her head to the side.

“Maurice, why does she need new clothes?” Esi pulled at Fiona’s nightgown, giving Maurice a tantalizing silhouette of her waist and hips. “This is who she is. Who she always will be. She never cared about looking good for you or anyone.”

“Well, she has to care now. If we’re going undercover, she has to look the part.”

“How the hell is she going to do that?” Esi asked.

Maurice’s jaw twitched at that. Is she fucking with me? Even if Fiona did dress like a plus-size model hastily thrown into witness protection, there was simply no way her sister didn’t know why her family dressed her like that.

People tended to put too much emphasis on self-presentation, reading into things like a disheveled blazer, a rouged cheek, or a crooked tooth.

His three sisters, known colloquially as the Bennett Beauties, were a prime example.

The oldest had been runner-up for Ms.DC three times.

They were objectively attractive, but he knew better—they were also petty, insecure, sometimes shallow, and rank with morning breath and BO like anybody else.

He wasn’t immune to beautiful women; he just didn’t make the mistake of attributing mystery, kindness, or inherent goodness to a pretty face. He liked to think of himself as more inoculated—he could get a little sick, but he wouldn’t die from it.

“Is this for Fiona or you , Maurice?” Esi folded her arms, looking sideways at him. “If you have a problem with the way my sister looks, maybe you shouldn’t have been on top of her, humping away. And now when you have to be with her in the light of day, you need her to change.”

Maurice had been, and still was, that typecast sibling.

He loved his family, but he had always been too serious for his silly sisters.

They were protective of him in ways that stifled him and dismissive of him in ways that shrank him.

He felt most himself out of their presence.

And when Esi was here, Fiona, Maurice noticed, slipped into the background.

“You infantilize your sister,” Maurice said, realizing slowly that what Fiona said was true and Esi had somehow sucked him into twenty minutes of arguing instead of prepping for a potentially critical undercover mission.

If he were younger, he could easily mistake this kind of high-octane intensity for passion.

But as he scrubbed a hand over his jaw, he recognized the dynamic for what it was. Exhausting. Toxic.

He walked toward the bedroom, knocking softly. Fiona was kneeling by her open suitcase, and she looked frustrated with the offerings. The room smelled like her: lavender, roses, some scent he remembered from his mother selling Avon. Shit…she comforted him down to the marrow.

“I’m going to call my sister, if that’s okay with you. She can give you additional help.”

“ Your sister?” Esi rushed toward them, nearly tripping.

Fiona held up a hand, stopping Esi mid-charge.

“Learn to ignore her,” she whispered to his chest.

“I will if you will,” Maurice said, because Esi had a minimizing impact on Fiona, and he wasn’t sure she saw that fully. While his sisters were maximizers, they overplayed, overdid, overtalked—

Then Maurice had a light bulb moment. “Fiona. My sisters…This is actually double duty. You say you’re not good with people—or with interviews.” He fingered the cotton strap of her gown like it was fine silk. “My sisters are a crash course.”

Fiona attempted to pull her strap from his grip, but Maurice held it fast. His heart sped up with the material clenched in his fist. He wanted to rest—not just sleep, actually rest—with his hand lying across her hip.

“Maurice, your sisters are—There is no way I—”

“Yes, there is. You’re going to get one piece of ungoogleable information from each of them.

” He finally let the material go, and Fiona seemed to breathe easier, too, her eyes flicking over to Esi.

“Listen, Fiona, I want you to take me seriously when I say this: playtime is over. Everything is converging on you—the cops, social media, the actual media. You have to take control of this narrative.”

“Maurice, but…your sisters…”

“Don’t believe everything you read on the internet. They’re not dragons.”

“We’re actually in a good place in the investigation. We have a tox report that can get my sentence dismissed. Mark and Sara Al Haddad are rock-solid leads. We have detailed timelines, down to the minute,” Fiona said.

Maurice agreed. “But all of it’s not enough.”

“Don’t push her, Maurice. Fiona gets really flustered in these types of situations.” Esi’s voice broke. “I—I would love to—”

“Thank you, Esi.” Maurice’s tone was sharp to the point of rudeness. He nodded to Fiona. “Fiona. Tomorrow morning. Ungoogleable.”

Maurice was out of the hotel room before Esi could argue.

Whipping his phone out, he dialed his sister Deya. When her voicemail picked up, he scrolled and dialed Liza, who was still in town for the mural she was getting commissioned for their grandmother. A Kehinde treatment of Granny’s face in a sea of roses.

“Yep?” Liza always answered the phone like they had never gotten off the phone.

“Liza, do you have time to do a little shopping?”

“I always have time for shopping.”

“My, uh…colleague doesn’t really have the ’fits to do some of the work she needs, so I wonder if you might help her.”

“Ohmygod, is this her? Is this who Deya proposed to? Hold on, this is Deya.” The phone beeped, and both of his sisters were on the phone.

“Deya, you ignored my phone call, but called Liza?” Maurice said.

“I was afraid Amish Jill Scott had quit already. You always call me when your assistants quit.”

“No, Fiona’s…different.” He said it with a touch of something he instantly regretted.

There was a beat of silence. Maurice was no fool.

“But that doesn’t mean—” Maurice started, but Deya cut him off triumphantly.

“He loves her,” she said.

“Deya, Reece needs to get some outfits for the love of his life!” Liza blurted it out like she’d been holding her breath for days.

“Now, y’all…don’t start this in-want-of-a-wife shit.”

Liza guffawed. “Austen? You wish. You’re a Bronte hero at best.”

He didn’t know enough to be offended.

Deya squealed into the phone. “Can I get her some makeup?”

“Hold on, let me—”

“Deya, do not—” The phone went quiet, then his oldest sister’s soft voice joined the cacophony.

“Janae, I don’t know what Deya told you—” Maurice tried to run interference.

“She said we’re doing a makeover.”

“Make-o-ver!”

“Make-o-ver,” they chanted, and Maurice was outvoted and outnumbered on every side.

“Just help her get some new ’fits. I don’t need her looking like a Real Housewife of Potomac!”

They started to squabble about who would be in charge of what, and Maurice raised his voice.

“Y’all.” His tone was a warning. “Forget it.”

“No! Reece, we have it. Deya’s doing makeup, Liza’s doing clothes, and I’m doing attitude,” Janae said. “Where are we meeting?”

“At the Ross or something?—”

He heard sputters and teeth kissing on the other end of the line. “The who? Oh, no. No, sir.” They were suddenly one voice. And as much as they would hate to be told, it sounded remarkably like their mother, Bev.

“Reece, my black card is burning a hole in my purse. Meet us at the Saks in Tysons.”

“Y’all…do not overdo it. You’re going to scare the shit out of her with your intensity.”

“Reece, when have I—”

“Liza, please. This girl is…delicate.”

“Just meet us. We’re going to be super chill, I swear.”