Home > Code Name : Tiara (Jameson Force Security #7)(3)

Code Name : Tiara (Jameson Force Security #7)(3)
Author: Sawyer Bennett

“You are a princess,” Netty replies with a chuckle. “And deserving of someone with a royal title. But you and I both know that options are limited if you’re shooting for that. Princes don’t grow on trees, you know.”

I spot a stray hair, lean toward the mirror, and pluck it efficiently with a slight wince. I’d rather be gored by a rhinoceros than pluck individual hairs out of my eyebrows, but a princess must do what a princess must do. The only reason I’m doing it now is so I don’t have to engage in this age-old conversation with Netty.

“I don’t want to wear the coral dress,” I command, tossing the tweezers down. “Pull out the navy-and-white-striped jumpsuit—”

“But that’s not dressy enough,” she insists.

I ignore her protest. “The navy-and-white jumpsuit,” I clip out as I stand from the vanity. “And my decisions are not to be questioned.”

It’s a brusque, cold response, and truthfully, she doesn’t deserve it. Netty stares at me with pink cheeks and bobs her head. “Of course, Your Highness.”

I grit my teeth. Netty has known me since the changing of my first diaper. She rarely addresses me so formally, and really only when I remind her of my station, which is really unlike me to do. But I’m stressed about this tea today with the Delmondes and the continual push for me to go down a path I don’t want to travel.

Pushing aside any sympathy for Netty, I turn my back on her. “That will be all for today. I don’t want to be disturbed until it’s time to get ready for the tea.”

“Shall I send your breakfast up or will—”

“No, thank you,” I say quickly but firmly so as to discourage further solicitations. “See yourself out, Netty.”

I harden myself against the hurt on her face. Netty has been my caretaker in one form or another since I was a baby. At first, it was to help my mother in any way necessary—a live-in nanny so to speak. As I grew older, it was to escort me to and from school and ensure I ate properly and did my homework, since my parents traveled a great deal as part of their royal duties.

I’m almost twenty-five now, and Netty’s job within the royal compound is to take care of me. That means choosing my clothes, making sure I eat, managing my social calendar, and generally clucking at me when I need it.

When Netty is gone and the door shuts behind her, I waste no time in moving to my bedside table where my phone has been charging overnight. I unlock the screen and send a quick text to Marius. We still good?

I glance out the huge balcony windows of my suite. From the uppermost elevation of Bretaria—the main island of our kingdom—the waters of the Coral Sea call to me. Mystic teal, lighter closer to shore but never deepening much, even a hundred yards offshore, due to the barrier reef that surrounds our land. Only past that does the water turn deep blue.

It’s January, the height of summer for our island sovereignty that sits about fifteen hundred kilometers from Brisbane, or roughly a two-hour flight via one of our family’s jets located at our private airport at the island’s southern end.

Bretaria is not only the name of our kingdom—a sovereign city-state—but also the name of the main island upon which we live. It’s eighteen square kilometers, which doesn’t sound like a lot until you remember that Monaco, also a sovereign city-state, is only two square kilometers.

Though it is by no means our family’s largest ruby mine, the original one sits on the north end of the island and still produces a hefty number of gemstones every year. We have other mines on the outlying islands, and I’ve visited every single one over my lifetime. It’s my family’s legacy, so of course, I’m intimately familiar with the operations—I’ve been schooled in such since I started talking.

The weather in Bretaria is near perfect. The high summer months of December through February hover in the mid-eighties, and our winter months never dip below the mid-seventies. Living on this island means you spend most of your days outside to soak up the warm breezes and sunny skies.

My phone dings, and I smile when I see Marius’s response. Already waiting for you. Bring breakfast.

Heart filling with joy, I text him back that I’ll be there in twenty minutes and scramble to my dressing room to find what I need.

Five minutes later, teeth and hair brushed and a swimsuit on underneath a T-shirt and jean shorts, I move with stealth through the palace.

I’m not sure why three people need almost twenty thousand square feet to live in, but our monstrous home was born of nothing more than the ego of our ancestors who fell into the riches of our ruby mines. Even though Bretaria was originally under British rule, our palace mimics neoclassical French architecture. It was meant to be grand and lavish—some would say ostentatious.

But I love the white brick and cut-stone facade, white marble columns, and gilded, wrought iron balconies that dot the exterior of all four stories. The black-and-white marble squares of the interior courtyard look like a huge chessboard, and given the semitropical weather, every room, balcony, porch, and patio are filled with verdant plants that flower year-round and perfume the air.

It’s my home, and it’s magical.

It’s also stifling, and that’s not just because of the massive twenty-foot stone wall that circles the outer boundaries of the palace lands. The wall was originally erected to protect the north mine from pirates and looters, but as the family’s wealth and associated notoriety became global knowledge, the wall was continued as to encircle the entire palace grounds. Every one of my family members is a high-value target. Me, my mother, and my father.

There are actual companies that provide kidnapping and ransom insurance for the wealthiest of the wealthy and those who travel to dangerous territories. However, it is often laughed about in our family that we are uninsurable. No insurance company would be willing to take on the risk of paying out a requested ransom if one of us were successfully kidnapped.

Instead, my father has taken our vast fortune—in the multibillions and rapidly growing—and invested it in an elite palace security force to protect us.

All of which means… I have to be careful making my way to Marius. I have to skulk in the shadows and cut through rooms with multiple entrances. I make a quick stop in the kitchen and snag some fresh cranberry muffins, wrapping them in a linen napkin and stuffing them into my backpack.

I then quickly make my way to the servants’ quarters on the eastern side of the palace in the basement. It’s an area about two thousand square feet and provides small but luxurious apartments for the top-ranking staff. That would include Netty; Armand, our household manager who reports directly to my mother; the head housekeeper Mary; the head land manager Jules; and the top dog of the security force, Dmitri, who intimidates me without even trying. He’s an imposing figure, very tall and barrel chested. He’s probably in his late fifties and can be incredibly austere. There’s a rumor that he’s supposedly ex-KGB. On the one hand, that is what intimidates me, but on the other, he’s my father’s most loyal and trusted person within all the palace, and I feel secure with him here.

At any rate, every one of those staff members is off tending their duties and managing the massive amount of people it takes to run the palace. As such, their quarters are empty. It’s a short dash through the common hall to the rear door that leads to a small parking lot for the household vehicles, available should one of them want to run into the city for something.

Hot Books
» House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)
» A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
» From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash #1)
» A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime
» Deviant King (Royal Elite #1)
» Den of Vipers
» House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2)
» The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #
» Sweet Temptation
» The Sweetest Oblivion (Made #1)
» Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels #6)
» Wreck & Ruin
» Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2)
» Twisted Hate (Twisted #3)
» The Play (Briar U Book 3)