Page 48 of The Princess and the P.I.

Fiona still looked shaken, and if Maurice was honest with himself, he was too.

Shakily, he stepped into his wrinkled tuxedo pants. His legs felt like ribbons. They walked down a long corridor and pushed open the black saloon doors into a room draped in black velvet.

Sara stood in the middle. The only woman with a phone. She was never without it. She had too much dirt on too many people.

“So, this is the cock heard round the world?” Sara’s skin shone through the black chiffon robe. Her warm chestnut hair lay artfully over her breasts.

“You can shoo, honey.” She looked at Fiona, then pointed to Maurice. “You. I want you.”

Maurice touched his hand to his chest, trying to look flattered. Stalling.

“Yes, you. She fucks like a teenage nun.” She shrugged toward Fiona, who darted her eyes away from him.

Sara laughed. “No offense, I’m sure it felt amazing, but these things are about the show, you know?

You’re at a play party. For god’s sake, act like it.

” She clasped her hands together and turned back to Maurice.

“But you have skill. I want you to make me tremble like that. I’ve never seen anything like that. ”

Me either , Maurice thought.

She handed him two bluish pills.

He flipped his wrist in one direction, drawing her eyes away, and pocketed the pills with the other hand. When Sara turned back around to face him, he pantomimed swallowing the pills down.

“I want some privacy,” Maurice said.

She looked toward the balcony. “With pleasure.”

“But—” Maurice said. A promise his tone. “I get off on people watching.”

“So, you want someone privately watching?” Sara looked confused.

“Yeah, like one…I want to bring her.” He pointed to Fiona.

“Oh, you’re an ass man…” She looked down at her modest cheeks and shrugged. “You’ve been sticking close to her all night. Did you know her before tonight?”

“No, I can’t say I did,” Maurice said, looking at Fiona and licking his lips.

He pulled Fiona onto the large balcony. They weren’t particularly high, but Maurice didn’t look down.

“Come here.” He walked to Sara and grabbed her face, roughly kissing her neck and shoulder.

She buckled underneath him. He slid his hands down her shoulders, and they snaked around her arms. Finding Sara’s thumb and pressing it into the phone, stealthily unlocking it as she rocked herself on his leg.

Still nuzzling her, he eased the phone out of her hand.

Fiona stood behind Sara Al Haddad and pulled a tiny USB-C drive out of her bra.

Get it all, Fiona.

She would copy everything on the phone since there was no time to search for particular files.

My brave Fiona.

Sara reached for Maurice’s dick with her cold, dry hands, and he winced.

He glanced up at Fiona, grimacing with something close to pain as the other woman attempted to rework some life into that organ.

When Fiona signaled that it was done, he pulled off the mask, pulled himself in, and zipped his trousers.

“My name is Maurice Bennett, and Fiona and I would like to have a word with you.”

Sara covered up her breasts. “What the fuck!”

“Don’t scream. We have reason to believe you know more than you’re saying about the murder of Robert Thorpe.”

Her laughter, a melodious sound, echoed off the high ceilings. She was still horny, but mostly she was put out. She waved a soft olive hand. “Maurice, please.” Sara whirled around toward Fiona.

Fiona stepped forward, ripping off her mask. “Sara, how did you know my brother?”

Sara covered her mouth, eyes wide, and began to laugh. “Oh my god, is that…” Her lips curled into a slow, mocking smile. She broke off into a fresh peal of laughter, wiping at her eyes with her fingers. “Oh my god, look at you.

“God, I haven’t been surprised in so long.” Sara leaned back on a nearby railing, her long fingers curled around a stemless glass of something red.

“My brother. There was a picture. You knew him before the church disowned him,” Fiona said. Maurice swallowed his frustration. Fiona loved her brother, sure, but that wasn’t the most pressing piece of information to get right now. They needed to focus.

Sara tilted her head, feigning confusion. “Your brother?” She let the words hang in the air for a moment before something dawned in her expression. Her laughter subsided, replaced by sharp disdain. “Suddenly you care about how the church treated your brother?”

Fiona pursed her lips, and Maurice swooped in, pulling the questions where he wanted them to go.

“We know you’d been giving Robert drugs,” Maurice said. “We took a look at that tox report, and he was chock-full of benzos.”

Sara shrugged, tipping her glass lazily toward her lips. Elbows propped on the balcony. “So what? I’m full of benzos right now. What does that prove?”

“That you were playing a game,” Maurice said. “Pretending to love him while plotting something else.”

Sara’s lips quirked into a wry smile. “Love?” she drawled, rolling her eyes. “No, Dimples. I wasn’t playing at love. I was playing at money. Isn’t that what we’re all playing at?”

“I don’t believe you. This isn’t about money,” Fiona said. Maurice opened his mouth to say something else, but Fiona’s eyes told him to stand down. Let me lead , they pleaded.

“Why are you even here?” Sara purred at Fiona, trailing a fingertip along the rim of her glass. “I assume you’re not offering me a position at the church.” She eyed Fiona’s scandalous outfit.

Fiona’s hands clenched at her sides. “The ABBEY,” she said suddenly, cutting through Sara’s deflection. “You were part of it. In the picture of you and my brother, the stained glass Lazarus doors are in the background.”

Sara’s smile faltered, just for a moment. “Fastest-growing membership in the state,” she said, recovering quickly. “You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who wasn’t.”

“How long were you a member?” Maurice blurted out. He liked the turn Fiona’s question had taken. But he was still learning to trust her instincts. Sara was opening up.

Sara’s expression hardened. “My whole life,” she said flatly. “But come on, look at me. Do you know what they say about women like me in the church? We’re either vessels or temptations. I was both.”

Fiona’s voice softened. “So was I.” Fiona wrapped her arms around herself and Sara shivered as well. Fiona led them away from the balcony and back into the warmth of the black velvet room.

Sara’s gaze flicked to her. “Right,” she said quietly. “And it messes you up, doesn’t it? How you feel about your own body?”

“You feel guilty,” Fiona said, trembling.

“Exactly,” Sara said. “That’s how these parties started. Shock therapy, believe it or not. But it became a prison.”

Maurice frowned. “Robert found you here,” he said. “And he used you.”

Sara laughed again, joyless. “Used me? Dimples, he built me. He paid me to make his sins disappear. He’d sin and I’d spin.

And then I lied about his old publicist—accused her of taking money…

and I was in.” Sara stood up, still naked.

Her tight body had no bounce. No give. “He liked to collect broken things, and I was the shiniest piece in his collection.”

Her words hit Maurice like a punch to the gut. He, too, had been one of Robert’s “broken things,” a little thief from Southeast molded and repurposed to do Robert’s bidding.

“What did he have on you, Sara? Why did these parties become a prison?” Fiona asked, pulling on a thread Maurice had forgotten about.

“We’re cut from the same cloth, Fiona. You’re lucky your father kept turning David down for your hand, or they would have you too.”

“Have me on what?”

Sara’s expression darkened. “We thought we were fixing unsubmissive women, but it was barbaric. You only see it for what it is when you’re on the other side of the screen.

” Sara leaned back in her chair, her composure slipping.

She was speaking to Fiona like Fiona knew something, but he could see Fiona’s face working to make sense of what Sara was saying.

“They save the footage. And they make you do whatever they want. I was tired of living like that—even when I clawed my way out of the church, I was still the vessel or the temptation.”

Fiona flinched beside him.

“We were all tired of it,” Fiona agreed. “ I stole a vest. What did you do, Sara?”

Sara smiled slowly, something serpentine and satisfied curling at the edges of her mouth. “Nothing so bad as that. Just a little offer no one could refuse.” She laughed. “Literally.”

“So, blackmail,” Fiona guessed.

Her laugh was sharp, and it scraped against his nerves. “Damn right I’m blackmailing someone,” she spat. “Damn right I’m making him dance for everything he’s done to me, to my friends. I don’t even need the money. I just want to see him beg.”

Maurice’s gaze narrowed, following the quick flick of her eyes toward Fiona. The hair on the back of his neck prickled—a cold, instinctual warning. He didn’t like it. Not one bit.

“Why tell us this?” Maurice pressed, his voice still calm but his body coiled.

“You asked nicely,” Sara said with a shrug, her finger lazily pointing at Maurice’s midsection.

Her eyes flicked between him and Fiona, and she let out a surprisingly charming laugh.

“You know that scene where the villain lays out their whole plan, and everyone’s like, ‘Why would they do that?’?” Another chuckle.

“Because it doesn’t matter. I got a little insurance policy. ”

“You’re bluffing,” Fiona said.

Sara tilted her head, appraising Fiona with the kind of look that made Maurice want to put himself between them.

“Oh my gosh, you’re so cute,” Sara said, leaning in and tapping Fiona’s nose with a finger.

Fiona jerked away. “Hard to believe you sold your brother out for the church, but looks can deceive.”

“I never did that,” Fiona snapped. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”