“Yes, I am,” she said, very firmly. “I’ll pay market value on the shares. You’ll let me come up with some social media campaigns and general promo ideas to help De Vere’s continue on a strong trajectory. You’ll invite me around for a family dinner every fourth Sunday. And I will keep at least a couch length from your demon cat at all times.”
A bubble of welcome laughter was rising in Sylvie’s chest, and something in her own body relaxed as she saw the amusement slipping into Dominic’s eyes.
“Is that the full list of demands?” he asked mildly.
Pet tilted her head, considering. “Don’t check the small print, because there may be something about a lifetime supply of chocolate in there, but basically—yes.”
“Then—yes.”
She had been fiddling with the top of her bandage, but her head lifted. “Really?”
“Really.” He smiled faintly. “Does this mean you want to work in the bakery full-time, too?”
“Oh God, no.” Her return smile was rueful. “As fond as I am of you, bro, I don’t want you as a boss. And as I’ve said, approximately six hundred times, I like being a PA, and there’s no full-time vacancy in your joint.”
“That’s fortunate,” a new voice said from the door, and they all turned as Rosie and Johnny knocked belatedly on the frame and came quietly in.
They were flanked by Johnny’s huge, muscular, silent PPO, who stopped at the door. He was as towering and menacing as ever—and he was holding, in one massive hand, a tiny teddy bear.
Sylvie tore her gaze from the incongruous sight as Rosie went on, “Johnny is in need of a new PA. A full-time, permanent position with excellent renumeration and travel opportunities, that we’d like to offer to you.”
Pet had gone understandably flustered, having the royals arrive at her sickbed. At that, her mouth literally dropped open.
“We already checked you out and you have fantastic credentials. You also have a lovely personality, we both feel comfortable with you, and I suspect you’d not only be very good at this job but enjoy it very much.” Rosie’s hand went out and linked securely with her fiancé’s. “And you might have saved the life of the man I love tonight.”
When they looked at each other, their faces said everything.
Rosie finally recollected they weren’t alone in the room and dragged her eyes back. “Tonight put a lot of things in perspective. It was a pretty strong reminder of what’s truly important. What I was lucky enough to find and will never throw away. And I can never thank you enough.”
Pet shook her head. “You don’t have to thank me. But what’s going to happen to Helena?”
The security team had taken Helena out of the room before the police were called, but they hadn’t needed to restrain her. After she’d cut Pet, she’d gone completely limp, her face frighteningly empty.
Even in the horror of it all, Sylvie had felt intensely sorry for her, and a similar concern was evident in Pet’s voice.
It was Johnny who answered. “She will get the help she needs.”
Looking at him now, standing tall and exuding both protectiveness and compassion, Sylvie thought there was every chance he would defy expectations and become an indispensable asset to the royal family.
There was no doubt at all he would be a loving and supportive husband to the woman beside him.
“And I told the fucking leech press trying to take photos of Helena and Pet exactly what I thought of them,” Johnny added.
Rosie winced slightly.
Of course, there was an equal chance that Pet would have her hands full working for Johnny, if she took this job. By the look on her face, that contract was going to be signed.
Behind the royal couple, in the shadow of the door, Johnny’s PPO took a step forward, and Rosie turned with a start.
“Oh my goodness, I’m sorry. This is Matthias Vaughn, the head of Johnny’s protection team. He’s off shift now, but he wanted to speak to Pet.”
Pet’s eyes widened as Matthias came farther into the room, within sight of the bed.
The bodyguard stood looking at her, his wide chest rising and falling a little too quickly, the only sign of disturbed emotion in his body.
“If I’d been doing my job correctly, you wouldn’t be here now.” He had one of the deepest voices Sylvie had ever heard. His words were clipped, not wasting a syllable. “I apologize.”
“It was a split-second distraction, an unavoidable human reaction to the fire alarm,” Rosie began, and Matthias shook his head in an abrupt motion.
“That ‘split-second distraction’ can be—and tonight almost was—the difference between life and death. I made an error. It won’t happen again.” He looked back at Pet as he repeated, his voice defying the laws of physics and anatomy to become even deeper, “It’s my fault you were hurt.”
He paused—and then he thrust his hand out.
The room had gone very quiet.
Pet’s eyes traveled from his face to the little teddy bear on his palm. It was wearing a waistcoat with a teeny-weeny pocket square.
At Sylvie’s side, Dominic’s eyebrow had lifted. She watched with total fascination as the very tips of Matthias’s ears turned red.
“I . . .” It was not impossible this was the first time the man had ever been remotely flustered. “The gift shop was closed. They didn’t have much at the corner shop—”
His fingers closing around the bear, his hand started to fall away.
Pet shot forward, sticking her own hand out and almost dislodging the drip in her arm.
After another hesitation, Matthias stepped forward to give her the bear, and she lay back against the bed, holding the toy tightly against her chest.
“Thank you.” Her smile was sudden and blinding, and the bodyguard moved one shoulder in a rough, apparently uncontrollable jerk.
With a stiff nod, he bowed to Rosie and retreated very quickly from the room.
Pet had been determined to find a new path. Wherever her life went after today, it was shaping up to be interesting.
Rosie smoothed out her smile before she addressed Sylvie and Dominic, slipping back into her professional princess gloss. “We’ve made a decision about the cake.”
Sylvie drew in her breath. She hadn’t expected that, not tonight. Her eyes went immediately to Dominic, and they exchanged a long look.
Whatever happens, it changes nothing between us.
They didn’t even need to say the words aloud.
“I know it’s late and it’s been a sh-shit of a night,” Johnny said, “but we wondered if you’d like to accompany us back to St. Giles. We won’t take up much of your time.”
“We’re happy to schedule a meeting for tomorrow.” Rosie spoke emphatically on that point. “But a lot of things seem to have come to a pass tonight. Lines have been drawn. It seems fitting that this part of the journey also now comes to a close.”
She looked at the three of them. At Johnny.
“And I hope,” she said, “that the best parts of our respective stories begin from here.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Primrose Room, St. Giles Palace
The end of one journey.