I sweetly smiled with all the entitlement I could muster. As much belief that Ideservedthe biggest and best.
Olena, a stunning woman with ice blue eyes and birdlike features, considered us with a purse of her painted lips. She herself dripped in glittering jewels and looked both like she could readily serve us tea or kill us, depending on her mood.
My hands were slicked with sweat beneath the table. I held them in my lap to keep them from shaking. It wasn’t so muchthe hot lamp overhead or the performance or the terrifying woman sitting across from me. It was the man standing behind Olena with a gun in his belt.
He had a mean scar like someone had tried to gouge out his eye with a knife and missed. He stared at me with a hunger that reminded me of a shark, watching my every move. His lips peeled into a sinister grin when my father called meprincess.
Olena partially turned her head and spoke to him in a language I didn’t understand.
The man nodded once and took a step closer to the table. A beam of light glinted off his gun when he folded his arms over his chest. I gulped at the sight of it.
Olena rose from her chair like an elegant bird taking flight. She slipped away toward the bedroom to get the diamond and left me and my father sitting at the table with the bodyguard watching over us like a gargoyle.
My father casually lifted the glass of brown liquor Olena had poured him and sipped. I fought to steady my heart, knowing the moment we’d been working toward was almost upon us.
Just then, the suite’s doorbell rang.
The man with the gun swiveled his thick head and reached for his hip. I sat up straighter when I noticed my father do the same in a motion almost too slight to detect.
We weren’t expecting anyone else.
The man with the gun eyed us before throwing a glance toward the bedroom where Olena had gone. He hesitated. I could see his jaw muscles working as he thought, perhaps about how much trouble he’d get in if something went wrong while his boss was in the other room.
“Who is it?” he eventually called in a thick accent.
“Room service,” a muffled voice said through the door.
The thought of food tempted me since we hadn’t eaten before arriving at the hotel. My father said we couldn’t be late,and with having to put on a dress and heels and the identity of a spoiled rich girl, I hadn’t had time for a bite.
The man with the gun threw another glance toward the bedroom and must have decided he was hungry too, or that Olena would be upset if he turned away her dinner, because he stalked off to answer the door.
My father and I were left alone.
It was in those moments I longed for some kind of encouragement from him. A pat on the back, a wink.Somethingto indicate I was doing well. But he never broke character. It was a surefire way to get caught, he’d told me.Neverlet on to your true identity.
He took another sip of his drink, and I forced myself not to fidget.
Olena returned carrying a small jewelry box at the same time the man with the gun came back with a hotel employee on his heels pushing a cart. Olena and the man with the gun exchanged words in the language I did not know, but I could tell she was not happy based on her tone. They seemed to argue, the man shrugging and holding out his arms. Olena eventually grumbled and pointed across the room.
“Over there,” the man instructed and shepherded the waiter toward the living room.
I wondered if the waiter thought it odd since we were sitting at the dining table, the obvious place to deposit food, and he was being guided elsewhere, but he didn’t object and instead pushed his cart toward the couch.
“Now,” Olena said. She turned her terrifying smile on me and my father. She pried open the jewelry box, and inside was the biggest diamond I had ever seen in my life.
My mask slipped for a second—and I let it. Even Ana Prescott would be impressed by the glinting meteor before her.
My father sucked air between his teeth and chuckled. “Now we’re talking. Look at that thing, princess. Do you like it?”
It was undeniably beautiful. A diamond so pure it was white and every color of the rainbow at the same time. I felt its reflection shining in my eyes like I was a cartoon character. I nodded and remembered what I was supposed to do.
“Can I hold it?” I asked.
Olena’s painted lips peeled into a grin. She pulled a small cloth from the box and used it to pluck the stone from its cushion. She placed the diamond in my outstretched hand. It felt like a piece of ice on my skin. A hard, heavy piece of glinting ice.
My heart lifted with relief. I’d done my part. My father had been planning for months to get that rock in my hand, and there it was.
I turned to him with a proud smile. “I love it, Daddy. Can I keep it?”
