She is the ruby princess, heir to a throne and a mountain of gemstones.
I want to avert my gaze as she moves gracefully down the stairs with her hand tucked into Marius’s arm. But her eyes lock on mine, and I’m stuck.
Her face gives nothing way, but I know she’s pissed I’ve been avoiding her. She’s texted me several times to meet—to talk—but I responded each time that I was too busy with preparations.
When she reaches the bottom of the staircase, her high-heeled sandals make a tiny click as they touch the marbled foyer. She leans over and accepts a kiss on the cheek from Marius. My gut burns but deep inside, part of me hopes that if she chooses someone to fall in love with, it’s him. I’ve seen enough to know he cares for her, not in the full way a husband would a wife, but maybe they could grow into that.
Camille doesn’t look at me again as she follows her parents and sets herself up beside her mother, who is beside Thomas, first in line to greet their guests.
Paul moves over to join Dmitri and me, and with everyone in place, as prepared as we can be, we open the doors and begin the hunt for an assassin.
?
I’m busy.
Over two hours into the party, my eyes are constantly roving, moving from room to room as I follow Camille at a very short distance. I’m back as her main protector, but at any time, there are fifteen agents in each room also watching. There are almost two hundred invited guests and another fifty security personnel blending in. Of course, we have obvious agents dressed in matching plain, dark suits with earpieces, the coiled wire extending from their ears to hide within their jackets. No one would think the family would be without protection, so we set them out to be obvious.
We also didn’t place a lot of them, hoping the assassin would take stock of the minimalist security protocol and feel more confident. In fact, we stationed the obvious agents strategically, leaving what would appear to be an unprotected place around the ballroom dance floor. We’re guessing that will be the room where the assassin will make their move. We, in essence, are funneling our villain to a place where we have a concentration of plainclothes agents.
There’s nothing more to be done.
For myself, I’m in disguise as a guest. I have on a black tuxedo, and Leandra, a female agent, is beside me at all times posing as my date. We’ve even danced on a few songs when Camille’s on the dance floor, but there’s no small talk between us. Our murmured conversation while sipping nonalcoholic champagne is on open comms with the other agents.
While I always check our perimeter, my eyes mostly stay on Camille. I watch her laugh with guests, get hit on by would-be suitors, and dance with men young and old. Marius essentially abandons her, flirting with other women, but she doesn’t seem to mind, and neither do I. But for as much as she tried to get me to meet her today—wanting to talk about what happened with her father—she’s pretty much ignored me all night.
Oh, once or twice, her eyes come to me, but then pass right over.
Frankly, it’s fucking bothering me.
She’s currently dancing with some young fuck who can’t be more than twenty-one, and he’s got a smarmy expression pasted on his face as they talk. He’s desperately trying to charm her, and because Camille is polite, she laughs appropriately. I sort of wish his hand would fall too low on her waist or he’d ogle her chest so I’d have a reason to remove him from her presence, but the fuckwad is a gentleman.
At least there’s some measure of joy from knowing better than any person in this room, Camille doesn’t really want a gentleman.
At least not in bed.
The music starts to fade from the current song, and Camille inclines her head to the young man, thanking him for the dance. Without any thought to the why of what I’m doing, or if it’s going to piss off her father—which I really don’t care about—I push my almost-empty glass of fake bubbly into Leandra’s hand and say, “I’ll be back.”
And then I’m winding my way through the couples who stand between me and Camille. The minute her current suitor steps back, I take his place. Hand to her hip, I hold it possessively. My hand wraps around hers, and I bring it to my chest. An absolute intimate gesture.
She blinks in surprise but then sets her mouth in a flat line of displeasure before moving her gaze to something past my shoulder.
“Are you mad at me?” I ask, knowing the obvious answer.
Most women would deny it and pout, but she brings those ocean-blue eyes to me and simply says, “Yes.”