Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 174632 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 873(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 174632 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 873(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
“You do this to everyone?” she asked.
“Yes,” Ian said. “We can’t take risks with the royal family.”
“I guess I understand that. Only takes one looney, huh?”
“Yes,” Ian said dryly.
She watched him through narrowed eyes.
“Read the agreement,” he snapped.
“Jeez, chill. It’s not like there’s a test at the end.”
“Actually, there will be,” he told her as he opened one of her compartments and drew out the box of tampons.
She groaned. Rather dramatically. “Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“Does everyone have to take a test?”
“No. Just you.”
“You’re a knob.”
“You know, you really shouldn’t insult the person giving you the test.” He squeezed the item in his hand. Which exploded all over his hand.
“Hey!” She jumped up. “What did my shampoo ever do to you?”
“Uh, sorry.”
Jack gave him a look as if he thought Ian was losing his mind.
Ian was pretty certain he already had.
“How about I finish searching through the luggage while you go clean up?” Jack suggested. “Then you can quiz Ms. Albany.”
Urgh, fine.
Darn it. There was too much to read and remember in this agreement. Reading had never been her strong suit. She was a person of action.
Well, that wasn’t true. She loved reading romance books.
Sitting still and reading through something this dry and dull was torture.
Although there were some interesting rules. For example, women in Escana were escorted everywhere by a guardian or one of their men.
Uncle Willy had told her how cherished and protected women were, but she’d thought that his memories of the place were hazy. As it had been years since he’d lived here.
And she’d never paid much attention when Escana was in the news.
There were several rules around what she could and couldn’t do. She wasn’t to go anywhere without a security guard. No private meetings. That was weird. She had to tell her guards immediately if she was in any danger or felt ill.
Huh. These rules weren’t exactly what she was expecting.
“All right, that’s all done.”
She glanced up to see that Jack was zipping her suitcase. Whew, he hadn’t found her vibrator or Ziggy, then. “What? No strip search?”
“That part comes next.” Jack winked at her.
Uh-oh.
Bloody hell. She’d been joking.
3
Ian and Jack were definitely off the list.
So was Athena. That was the name of the woman who’d conducted the strip search. She’d been thorough. Very thorough.
But to Maggie’s relief, as she stepped out of the building she saw her uncle standing there, supervising his equipment being loaded into a black town car.
“Uncle Willy!”
“Ahh, there you are, my dear!” He smiled at her, his gray wispy hair standing up on end. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“You can’t lose me. I’m a boomerang.”
He let out a bark of laughter the way she knew he would. She wrapped an arm around his, squeezing it and taking in his scent.
Bergamot.
To her, it was the smell of acceptance. Of love.
Her family loved her, she knew they did. But there was always this sense of disappointment from them.
She’d let them down. And it seemed that she kept doing it.
Uncle Willy was the only one who had never made her feel bad. And she adored him for it.
That was why she’d taken this job. To look after him.
Well, that, and so she could move out of her parents’ house. At twenty-five, she needed her own space.
“Isn’t it stunning, my dear?” Uncle Willy said.
She glanced around. There wasn’t much out here but the airport and desert.
But yeah . . . she could see what he meant.
“My Lia, she loved it here. Said she couldn’t breathe in England. The air was too heavy, too cold. The family didn’t like it when I moved to live here to live with her. But how could I make her live somewhere she couldn’t breathe?”
That hit her harder than it should.
How many years had she been unable to breathe?
For as long as she could remember.
So she got how Aunt Lia had felt even though she’d never met the other woman because her mother had felt like her aunt had stolen Uncle Willy from the family.
But it was clear to see how much he loved her. So much so that in all the years since she’d died, he’d been unable to come back here.
“Let’s get in the car, yeah, Uncle Willy? Go to our room and have a cup of tea.”
“Cup of tea, you say? Yes, I could do with a cup of tea. Isn’t much a good cuppa can’t fix.”
She had to grin. That was his favorite saying.
As she turned to the car, she saw the stony-faced customs officer from before. Actually, no, he wasn’t. He was part of the palace security team.
Ian.
He’d grilled her on the rules and left her uncle waiting for her. Worried about where she was.
She glared at him.
He just raised an eyebrow. Arrogant cockmonkey.
“We’d like to go to our accommodations now,” she told him. “If you’re finally finished with all this over-the-top security bullshit.”