Page 9 of Bared

Maybe, in a few ways, it was.

But was staying here any less crazy? Hiding her head in the sand until the day she surrendered to Trystan Carris’s lifelong ownership?

There was always option three. The one where she allowed Carris and the Pura to erode Evrest’s credibility beyond repair.

Wrong. That was not an option.

So she commenced pacing laps around the suite as Jagger kept tapping, clicking, and staring at his pad.

More tapping.

Clicking.

Staring.

For minutes that felt like hours. Then longer.

Jayd kept pacing. Rubbing at her aching belly. Nibbling her thumbnails down to nubs. Contemplating which of her fingers to start on next.

Breathe, Jayd. Breathe.

And believe. Damn it, believe!

She had no other choice. She had no other path.

For a long moment, she paused her pacing. Was this what Louis LaBarre went through twenty-four years ago? Had he stood somewhere in this palais, looking at the whitecaps across the sea, wondering if he would ever see the beauty of Arcadia again? If he would ever see her again? Was that a wrenching decision for him?

Or…not?

Had he been relieved to keep his silence about all of it? About her? Had he even stayed until her birth? Had he given half a thought about her health, her happiness, what she looked like? Or had he been relieved about the cover-up? Perhaps even happy to step away from acknowledging her? From ever knowing her?

As the queries built up in her mind, the ache pushed harder at her heart—and a glaring certainty took over her soul.

No matter what those answers were, she had to seek them out. Had to find the one person on this planet who could fill in so many blank spaces for her. And—oh dear Creator, please—bring her new clarity along with them. A new direction. A solid purpose.

She needed to know, once and for all, who she really was. What she was really doing here. Or anywhere.

But not if Jagger found nothing.

A possibility she forced herself to consider with every new step she took, pacing again through the maddening minutes of her friend’s continuing search. If Jag really did come up short on the hunt for LaBarre, she would have to fall back on a desperate Plan B—aka, the needle-in-a-haystack maneuver. Finding her father would not be impossible. Just harder.

But life never gave anyone a promise for easy. Not even fake princesses. Perhaps, especially not them.

After another collection of long minutes passed, Jayd decided she could give Jagger just another thirty seconds. Then twenty. Then ten.

“Got him.”

Jag’s proclamation had to be the most blessed pair of words in the history of words. After giving herself permission to breathe again, Jayd managed to croak, “Wh-Where?”

Jag hitched a shoulder back, implying his invitation for her to step over and join him. Once she did, her eyes widened at the digital pin in the map on his pad. “France? Paris?”

Jagger leaned back in the chair and folded his arms. “They call it the City of Light, yes? Maybe this is fate already giving you a sign.”

Jayd let out more air, turning the whoosh into a sigh. The exhalation was threaded with an energy she had not allowed herself to feel all day.

Hope.

“From your lips to the Creator’s ear, my friend,” she uttered at last.