She keeps me there for an hour, and then dismisses me, telling me she won’t be down for dinner, so I can eat in my room if I prefer. Her focus is completely on her laptop, and she doesn’t even glance at me as I bid her goodbye.
I have no idea what it was about at all, but I eat alone in my room as she suggested, with a sense of relief.
The next day, during another visit to the village, my suspicions about Leon deepen.
I’m lingering outside the bakery, breathing in the scent of fresh bread and trying to shake off the claustrophobic feeling that seems to catch up with me these days, no matter how far I wander from the castle, when I catch sight of Leon in a side alley.
He’s talking to a different man this time—someone in a flat cap and work clothes who keeps glancing around nervously. Leon’s voice is low and intense, even if I can’t understand what he’s saying. And then he takes an intimidating step forward, and the man presses back against the wall.
My pulse quickens as Leon concludes the discussion with a few hissed words, and then he walks away down the alley, leaving the villager alone. The man stays there staring after him for several long moments before finally turning back toward me. I duck around the corner once more and make a show of looking at thevegetables on sale at the tiny grocery store. The man emerges from the alley and hurries away down the main street.
What was that all about?
And more importantly…does Eva know?
That night at dinner, I can’t keep quiet any longer.
“I saw Leon talking to someone today,” I say, setting down my fork with more force than necessary. “It seemed…strange.”
Eva pauses with her wine glass halfway to her lips. “Oh?”
“In the village. He had a man practically cornered in an alley, and it looked like he was threatening him.”
“If Leon is threatening anyone, he has a reason to do so.”
“But…what if…”
“What if what?” she asks sharply. “Leon’s protected the Novaks since before I could walk. If he wanted me dead, I’d already be buried.”
The dismissive tone stings, but I press on. “That’s not what I meant?—”
“Then what did you mean, Robin?” Eva’s voice drops to that dangerous tone. “That my most trusted advisor, the man who’s saved my life more times than I can count, is somehow working against me? That he’s—what, exactly? Plotting? Scheming behind my back?”
When she puts it like that, my suspicions sound paranoid. Foolish. But I can’t shake what I saw.
“I just think?—”
Eva rises from her seat, the mask sliding back into place. “I will require your company tomorrow.”
My response is automatic. “Alright.”
After all, why should I care whether she’s really hearing me about Leon? But…what if she’snothearing me? What if the man who’s protected her family for decades has his own agenda?
Ihaveto worry about it, because I know Leon is head of Novak Consortium security. And that includes the security detail on my family at home.
I tell myself that’s the only reason. That I’m not worried about Eva herself. She’s cunning enough and savvy enough to look after herself. I’ve always been the naive one, after all.
No. I don’t need to worry about Eva.
So whydoI?
The answer is written in the way my pulse quickens when I’m around her, in the way her rare approval makes my chest flutter, the way her touch burns right through my defenses like they’re made of paper.
I’m falling for her.
Again.
Despite everything—the circumstances that brought me here, the power imbalance between us, the constant feeling that I’mjust a pawn in a game I don’t understand—I’m falling for Eva Novak.
