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A quick glance in the hall mirror provides confirmation that I appear every inch the picture of a serene priest eager to tend to my flock.
No hint of the devil within.
Ruby
I straighten my Cleopatra-style wig and dip my head to make sure the girls are in place, assessing the cleavage and how my breasts threaten to spill over the top of my corset. I take my chances that my client is a breast man, because, really, what man isn’t? Clients tend to pay more when they salivate upon introduction. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. In fact, I’ve heard some girls say they’ve taken home an evening’s worth of pay from a man’s ogling alone. But ogling won’t be enough for this job. My instructions require far more than that, and though it’s my first night of employ, I am required to give my client whatever he desires. And if he desires nothing, I must tempt him to want more. There is no work in this kingdom for an artist from a disgraced family, so I have to take what I can get. The Madam at The Jewel Box sought me out, and I couldn’t refuse her offer, not when it meant I could provide not only for myself but also my brother’s wife and child.
“They asked for Pearl, but I believe an ingenue will appeal so much more to our dear, inexperienced prince,” the Madam had said before I left. “And you’re the freshest of my pretty little blossoms. The flower not yet picked. Pearl’s not desperate like you are. Plus, that damned bodyguard X would recognize her in an instant. I’ve been looking for a way inside the palace—and other buildings on the grounds—which means you get to be my little lookout.”
“I don’t understand,” I told her. “You want me to spy for you? Why?”
I can still feel the sting of her palm against my cheek.
“And here I thought you’d been trained,” she’d crooned. “Question me, and there will be consequences. Disobey me, and—consequences. All I need you to do is tell me if he owns a painting of an angel—until recently, one I was led to believe had been destroyed when your father passed—and report where the painting is.” She smiled her mirthless smile, and I fought back tears at the mention of Papa—at the fear of being struck again. “Darling, you not only get to seduce a celibate prince, but you get to find me something very valuable. Succeed in gathering the prince’s attention—and finding what I seek—and you’ll be a jewel as prized as your name. Succeed, and you and your remaining family will want for nothing as long as you remain in my employ.”
I swallow the threat of my own conscience trying to weigh in. What do I care about a stupid painting or what she wants with it? I have the chance to save my brother, Jasper. That’s all that matters.
So I repeat her words over and over again to center myself in the moment—to remind myself of what I must do.
I nearly break an ankle climbing the chapel stairs in these boots, four-inch stilettos that cuff just below my short skirt. After almost two months of my apprenticeship, I’m used to the shoes and clothes, but my attire was not built for more than seduction.
There’s also the small fact that I’m on the Edenvale Palace grounds—making my way to an apartment in the lonely-looking, ivy-covered tower next to the chapel. My phone rings, and instead of silencing it as I pull it from my pocket, I accidentally answer it.
“Hello? Are you there?”
“Shit,” I whisper-shout as I scramble back down the steps. “Camille, I’m here. Just...give me a second...” I race outside and around the corner, through the first door I see, not wanting my client to catch me conducting any sort of personal business when I am supposed to be...working. Complaints equal a reduction in my take, and some, I’ve heard, suffer worse.
I freeze, though, when I realize where I am—in the Royal Edenvale Church itself.
“Is everything okay?” I whisper into the phone, and I hear my brother’s wife sniffle before she speaks.
“You’re...you’re working. Aren’t you?” Her voice breaks on that word, working, and I can hear her anguish, her guilt.
“Yes,” I answer, trying to soothe her with the one word. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about me. But something is wrong with you. Tell me what it is.”
She sniffles again. “I took Lola to visit her father today. It was the first time I brought her with me, the first time she would see Jasper in two months, and when the guards told him we were there, he refused to see us.”
I suck in a breath, both at Camille’s pain but also for my brother, Jasper. Because I’m at the Edenvale Palace, completely out of my depth, about to seduce a man I’ve never met—a prince, no less. I understand his shame.
“He loves Lola. You know that. And he loves you. But prison is no place for a child. And you can understand him not wanting her to see him like that. Can’t you?”
I hear the clang of heavy shoes on metal in the tower entryway next door, which can mean only one thing. My client is approaching.
“He wouldn’t refuse to see his child,” Camille weeps. “Something is wrong. I can feel it in my bones.”
“I’m sorry,” I say frantically, trying not to let my own worry about Jasper sink in but also not wanting the prince to find me hiding out in the chapel on my phone. “I have to go, but if tonight plays out as it should, I will have enough to pay this month’s lease on the cottage. You and Lola are safe for now. That is all that matters.”
“But—”
The door from the stairwell starts to slide open, and because I have no choice, I end the call and sneak past the pews and into a confessional. I’m still trying to calm my breathing when the shadow of a man appears on the other side of the lattice.
“Have you come to make confession?” a deep, gravelly voice asks.
I stopped believing in any higher power long ago. But I know why I’m here and what part I need to play. “Forgive me, Father. For I have sinned.”
I open the screen on my phone that has my script for our introduction. I must believe in my brother’s innocence, and that giving up my own will set him free. If I can earn the money the Madam is talking about, then I can buy the best legal representation and set my brother free. Jasper Vernazza is a world-famous art historian. He’d never dream of stealing anything from the museum to sell on the black market. Someone set him up, but for the life of me I cannot imagine why.
“You may proceed, child,” he says. “The Lord is ready to forgive your sins.”
I stroke a finger along the lattice grate and hum, reminding myself to play the part for which I’m being paid.
“What if I want to keep sinning?” My voice is breathy and soft as I infuse it with the need a client would ache to hear. It’s practiced need on my part, of course. But if my training was a success, he won’t know the difference. I glance at the screen in my palm. “What if all I want is to relieve you of that desire pulsing between your legs?”
“Who sent you?” he says, and I can tell he speaks between gritted teeth.
“Let me taste your thick, aching cock, Father,” I say, my voice sweet as an angel as I try to sound less like I’m reading and more like this is what I truly want. “Let me take you so deep. I want to feel you throbbing, salty sweet against my tongue—”
I jump at the sound of what must be his fist thumping the wall between us.
“Who. Sent. You?” he interrupts, but I will not be deterred, not when my only choice is to succeed.
I scroll through the preplanned dialogue on the screen. “Think of all those times you’ve come alone,” I tell him. “Every fantasy you’ve ever had, every sinful act you’ve dared to let yourself imagine—I can be that for you.”
His breaths are ragged, but he does not speak.
I glance at the screen again as a text notification pops up, catching me off guard.
“‘Why did you hang up on me?’” I read, but then realize I’ve read it aloud. And then I add, “Shit!”
He breathes in, and I can tell he’s about to speak, so I fast-forward to the next step to regain control of the seduction, even if it is a lie.
I let go of the lattice and slip my free hand under my skirt, closing out the text and returning to my lines.
“Highness.” I moan as I slip a finger beneath my thong, working myself until I’m wet. “Do you hear that?” I ask, plunging two fingers into my now slick heat. “That’s my pussy, so ready for you. Don’t you want a taste? Just a little lick?”
You need the money. Your brother’s life—the lives of his family—depend on it.
This silent reminder plays on a loop in my head as I try to lose myself in self-pleasure before I get swallowed by regret.
This is for your family.
I swirl a slippery finger around my clit and gasp, the phone clattering to the floor. “Don’t. You want. To make. Me. Come?” I ask between pants, the words all me now. I am lost in the moment just as if I were in the tiny bedroom of my old flat, taking myself to a place that is not here, in this church, but somewhere I am safe. Somewhere I am wanted rather than paid. “Is your hand on that cock, Highness? Is it daring you to bury yourself inside me? Because all you have to do is step into my side of the confessional and sheath yourself to the hilt.”
I try to bring myself to climax, but even I can’t forget entirely where I am or why I ended up here. So I embellish, crying out in feigned ecstasy.
“Oh... Your Highness. Oh God! Your Highness, I can’t—” I add a few more gasps before yelling, “Benedict!”
“Enough!” he growls, and I collapse onto my knees with a satisfied grin.
Yes. That was quite enough.
He waited until he thought I was done, which means he didn’t want me to stop. If that’s all that comes of tonight, I have succeeded in the first step for which I have been hired.
You must earn his trust and break him.
Because this is not just any client on the other side of the wall. He is a prince, second in line to the throne and brother of our future king. I’ve just attempted to get myself off in the presence of a man I’ve only ever seen on a television screen or staring at me from the pages of a newspaper.
I let down my guard for mere seconds and scramble for my phone on the floor, which is why I startle to see him standing in the opening of my booth.
“Forgive me, Father,” I say, straightening the skirt that barely covers what lies beneath. The air smells of sex, and the man looming before me stares with beautiful green eyes. “Did I make you sin?”
He grabs me by the wrist, and I paint on my most wicked grin.
“Come,” he says and pulls me from the booth.
I force a playful laugh. “But, Your Highness...I already have.”
CHAPTER TWO (#u250c2914-1d63-56ae-be19-a470a0eeda66)
Benedict
THE WOMAN FROM the confessional booth is sin in stilettos. Her angled bob accentuates her heart-shaped face, highlighting porcelain skin and perfect crimson-painted lips. While her mouth slants into a coy smile, eyes are said to be portals to the soul, and her violet-blue irises hint at secret pain.
“For the last time, who sent you?” I ask her gently, a wolf in lamb’s clothing. Because her unexpected performance has had the desired effect. My cock strains against the thick band of my boxer briefs, where I clamped it securely in place before pulling her out into the light. The air around us is perfumed by a salty, rich tang, a scent not unlike my own release, and yet beguilingly unique.
Is this what women smell like between their legs?
A muscle in my jaw twitches even as my nostrils involuntarily flare. My mouth waters.
“Sent me, Your Highness?” Her lilt reveals she is from Rosegate, the disputed territory on our northern border with Nightgardin.
Interesting.
Rosegate whores are notorious throughout Europe, hothouse flowers offered to elite clients for the price of what most people make in a year. And I can see the appeal. If I wasn’t planning on offering my inheritance to the church, I’d gladly use it to open this woman’s petals, to press my tongue to her bloom and drink in her dew.
“What makes you think someone sent me?”
I bunch my hands into fists, will my lust into an internal dungeon and padlock the door. My duty is to provide this woman respite from whatever spiritual matters weigh on her soul.
Nothing else.
“You passed by no less than four guard posts, then over acres upon acres of landscaped ground covered in Europe’s most state-of-the-art surveillance system. Yes, my child, someone indeed sent you to me.” But who would want to tempt me from the righteous path? Was it a trick of some discontented servant?
“Oh please.” She huffs a laugh but refuses to meet my gaze. “I’m no one’s child.”
She’s right, of course, even as she evades my question. Her ripe body is pure woman, but she is younger than my own twenty-seven years. If I were a betting man, I’d wager she was at most twenty, a young woman who should be busy studying at university, not here at the royal chapel, being paid to seduce an almost-priest.
“You have two choices.” I draw myself to my full six-foot-five-inch frame. “Either give up a name, or I’ll be forced to take you upstairs for questioning.” I don’t exactly know what that entails, but she can’t remain here in sight of Christ on the Cross. “Follow me.”
“Are we going to your bedchamber?” She skims her hands over her breasts, the tops spilling over her tight outfit, the skin soft and succulent as a peach.
“Not a chance.” I can’t question this woman anywhere near my bed.
That leaves one option.
I begin walking, my pace fast and unfaltering. I might not be heir, but I took my first steps in the throne room and arrogance is my default. I was raised to lead, to expect others to follow. After a moment, the sharp clicks of her heels behind me confirm my assumption that she is keeping up.
We enter my personal tower and I lead her up the spiral staircase. “Do we have far to go?” she asks after the second floor. “These boots aren’t made for walking.”
I’ll give her that, all right. They’re made to draw the eye to the lush curve of her shapely thighs.
“In here,” I say crisply as we stop in front of a carved oak door.
I open it, and the bright summer daylight shines dimly through the slitted windows, an architectural holdout from when medieval archers used these openings while stationed in the turret.
She scans the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and gasps. “I’ve never seen so many books in one place except at the royal library.”
I swallow a smile. My personal collection is rather extensive.”
Little does she know that hidden behind covers like A History of French Cathedral Gargoyles are entirely different reading materials: Story of O, The Joy of Sex, plus a stash of Greek and Egyptian erotic art. Studying sexual arts is something of a twisted hobby. While I may be inexperienced, I’m far from ignorant in the ways of giving and taking pleasure.
“Sit.” I gesture to a leather chair. It takes all my willpower not to revel in the length of her creamy thighs, exposed beneath her tiny skirt. I walk to an antique globe on a desk and give it a spin. “Were you sent by Nightgardin?”
Nightgardin is the kingdom to the north of our borders. Like Edenvale, it is small by modern standards, more a Luxembourg than France, but our mutual enmity has spanned centuries. For generations our two countries have warred through battles and of late, diplomacy, to control Rosegate, a much-admired city that sits on our border, claimed by both kingdoms.
Desperation darkens her gaze. “That’s not important.”
“I disagree. Nightgardin would take pleasure in exposing me as a hypocrite right before I take my holy vows.”
“Please, believe me.” Tears fill her eyes as her delectable bottom lip tremors. “I don’t know anything. The Madam simply informed me of my assignment. A town car picked me up and brought me here.”
My brow furrows at the anxiety in her voice.
“Crap.” She covers her face with her hands. “I am blowing this so hard. Madam will fire me without a second thought, and I will be royally screwed. Please, Highness. Father. Whatever. Let me suck you, fuck you. You can have me anywhere, penetrate any place.” She drops to her knees and tosses her hair back from her face.
“Anything?” Her offer warms my belly like a shot of scotch. “You’ll let me act out any fantasy? No inch of you is off-limits?”
Her pupils widen, the delicate vein in her neck pounds. “I am yours to command.”
Someone is hell-bent on sabotaging me. But the joke could be on them. Tonight’s encounter could grant me a path to redemption that no one has counted on.
This woman offers me the chance to break every rule. But what if I can withstand her angelic body? Here is the perfect way for me to cast doubt aside and prove myself worthy of taking my final vows.
“Stand up. I have a proposition.”
Ruby
I swallow hard. Whatever he proposes, it cannot be enough to sway me from my purpose. I must make him give in to his lust, make him trust me, or we will lose everything. I close my eyes and remind myself of the stories some of the other girls have told me, though these tales are nothing found in the books that line the library’s walls. They claim it wasn’t always like this, that the Madam had changed ever since she’d returned from a trip to Nightgardin a year ago. Now she punished her girls for losing a client—and let clients dole out whatever consequences they saw fit, as well.
