And a damn solid one too.
Neither of them voiced it. Neither of them had to. A fast look toward her maid, as serene and humble as before, was verification enough. Whatever the outside world chose to infer or invent, the jig was up.
But instead of more dread, the realization brought Jayd…relief. A flood of it. A cleansing so complete, she was not even tempted to laugh about it. She was ready to cry.
“Highness?” The woman’s sweet sough provided another tug toward the tears. “Do you…want to talk about it?”
Jayd turned and sagged against the vanity. “Yes. No. Oh, I do not know.” She folded her arms and dropped her head. “Things are so confusing right now,” she rasped, ending with a gulp. She knew not why she still battled the tears, except to admit that once she pulled out the stops on the spillways, the deluge was likely not to stop for a while. As in, well after her new color had to be washed out.
“Confusing,” Emme reiterated. “Because you did not expect to be bringing Brickham home with you?”
The heat behind her eyes became a tormenting sting. “To begin with, yes.”
“And that is not a comfortable circumstance for him? Or maybe for you?”
Jayd sniffed. Hard. “How about box number one and two?”
Her friend nodded. “And because everything you shared in Paris was never supposed to last longer than Paris. And now that it has—”
“No.” As she swung a hand up high, more agony thudded the opposite direction, low in her gullet. “It has not. Which is exactly what I must accept here.”
“Why?”
Because Maximillian Brickham refuses to see it any other way.
Because even though we are here, he clearly cannot wait to get back there. As far away from me as he can get. As far away from what we had…
For the thousandth time, she fought to justify that somehow. To sympathize with why he looked like they had flown to Alcatraz, not Arcadia. Like his room, the most opulent in the palais infirmary, was actually his locked cell and not a gift from the cosmos, part of the conspiracy to keep them together a little while longer.
Why?
Because Samsyn had gotten to him before she had? Perhaps said something? Made a caveman-style threat? But Syn had not been in there long. He’d beat her by a few minutes at the most. And though he was the most physically daunting of her brothers, Brickham’s dimensions were nearly identical. Moreover, they spoke the same language of tiger snarls, tidal waves, and testosterone. No way could Syn have unnerved him that easily.
Which meant he was already spooked for another reason.
What?
Was there someone waiting for him back in Seattle? Maybe a number of someones? Did he have certain agreements with them when he was traveling for his missions?
At once, she doubted that. In so many ways, she sensed it was about…more. Or, depending on how one approached the subject, less. Not a female who waited for him at home. One who was somehow…with him…already. Pounding through his head. And his heart?
Was she haunting him from another realm, perhaps? Or maybe relentless with him from this one?
Or maybe…
That woman was her.
Maybe she was enough for one night but nothing beyond that. Or maybe she was too much to handle beyond that.
But in the end—the one he had basically presented to her on a glaring silver platter three nights ago—did any of it really matter?
Because in the end, he did not want her anymore.
It mattered not that his body was ignoring that memo. She would not have taken advantage of the technicality then, and she would not do so now. Brickham was a virile male—that was a surety—but she refused to settle for the incursion of his body without the fullness of his spirit.
“Can we just…change the subject?” she blurted, lifting her head until her gaze again locked with Requiemme’s, courtesy of the long mirror. “Besides, we are only halfway finished here.”
“We are?” Requiemme drawled, repositioning herself with the freshly loaded dye brush. “And here I was, thinking you were looking to start the indecisive peacock trend.”
A giggle spilled before she could help it. “Only the males are called peacocks, you know.”
“Then it shall really be a trend.”
A new giggle, buying herself a few seconds to come up with a properly cunning comeback, until the sound suddenly clutched in her throat—as a reflected movement in the mirror snagged her gaze. And a hint of cedar zinged her nostrils. And a jolt of awareness blasted her chest. And at once, zipped lower…
“Creator,” she choked out, just as that heat bore in on the most intimate triangle of her body. Too late to do anything about her psyche, compelled at once by the primal pull of the new visitor to her suite.
The force of nature who took over the archway between her bedroom and bathroom.
“Oh, my stars!” Emme’s reaction followed hers by but a few seconds, coinciding with her physical start. The brush popped out of her grip, splatting the wall before clattering to the floor. “Mr. Brickham,” she stammered. “What a…distinctive surprise.”
“Hello, Requiemme.” His stance was as determined and tall as ever despite his new accessory—an aluminum walking cane, centered sturdily in front of his crotch. “How’s the leg?”
“Healing swiftly,” Emme supplied. “Merderim for your inquiry. And yours? I mean, not just your leg, of course. All of it… Should you even be out of bed?”
It was the very query stuck between Jayd’s brain and lips—not that it was going to penetrate far with the human thundercloud before them.
“I’ve been encouraged to take short walks,” he said. “Get everything flowing again. Hunt down chances to hear pretty girls call me distinctive.”
Even before he flicked a bantering wink at her friend, Jayd deep-breathed against the new nettles in her bloodstream. “It is hardly a short walk between here and the infirmary,” she stated.
“A truth, to be sure,” Emme concurred. “Nor exactly a path one would be taking if they did go too far and began exploring the palais.”
“Nor an entrance door that would automatically open for said explorer,” Jayd amended, carefully gauging his composure—which, predictably and maddeningly, did not falter.
Including the stare he honed directly in on her.
That unbending, unrepentant, all-seeing scrutiny…
He kept at it for several more minutes, letting her squirm beneath his ruthless regard, before murmuring, “Good explorers know how to enlist good allies.”
Jagger.
There were other options for the answer, of course, but none that made more sense to her. But even if that was not the case and someone else had keyed in the entrance code to her suite, what good would such an accusation do? Brickham was an exceptional operative. He knew the value of keeping confidences.
More importantly, being irritated at Jag meant an extra shot of boldness for her. All the better for getting through this face-off. Or whatever it was.
“What on earth are you doing here?”
Thank the Creator for Requiemme, who was able to voice the query aloud. In return, Brickham nodded as if she had gotten a script cue right—in a play he’d written. Undoubtedly, the scene also contained a hero in borrowed medical scrubs and a faded black T-shirt, still looking like a take-charge super spy despite the cane keeping him upright.