BECOMING THE PRINCESS'S LACKEY

TWO

Matthias POV

The time passed like lightning, and so did I.

I knocked at her door fifteen whole minutes before eight. Once, twice, and no response, so I permitted myself in. She didn’t hear me come in.

That was the only explanation for what I walked into– her royal highness the princess, standing barefoot, holding a folder in her armpit while stooping down to check her pantyhose that had torn from her knee right up to her thigh. I turned around quickly.

“Sorry, there was no response, so I let myself in,” I explained immediately.

I heard her footsteps right up to her desk: “The brief,” she requested.

“Right,” I turned, and she was seated as usual but angrier than before.

Oh boy.

She snatched the files from me and flipped through them, her eyes scanning them like a machine, but her rosy, flushed cheeks made her seem more human.

Well, someone’s bashful.

I stood there and waited for what seemed like an eternity. If anything was wrong with the work I did, I’d resign on the spot.

She dropped the brief, as if pissed that she found nothing: “Get me a fresh pair of suits from the closet.”

I walked over to the giant closet at the other end of the office. There were all colours of suits, and I could feel her eyes boring into the back of my head. Was this part of some test?

“The black one will do you very good, Your Highness.” I turned to her since she already had something black on.

She didn’t respond, so I picked them up along with a pair of black heels with a lower height and brought them to her desk.

She stared me dead in the eye. “And the purpose of the heel is?”

“I just suppose that you may be a bit uncomfortable in those.” I gestured to the weapon of a shoe she left at the side of her desk.

She stood up and walked towards me as if seeing me for the first time, “Matthew.”

“It’s Matthias,” I paused, “Your Highness.”

“Do you know what often gets people fired?”

“Not doing their job,” I sighed. I’m so getting fired right now.

“Doing a job that isn’t theirs,” she answered almost immediately. “Strike five, Cole.” She turned and picked up the clothes, heading straight to the bathroom. “Wait outside.”

I let out a breath I didn’t realise I was holding as soon as I was out. Wait, strike five, what were the other strikes about?

***

The day drew to an end quickly; the board meeting ended in grace, and twelve hours later, I was still at my desk. Isabeau had assigned other tasks to me, but for now, I was done with anything that even remotely had to do with work. I permitted myself to spy on her for the thousandth time that day, even though I promised each time was the last time.

She still had her eyes glued to the screen. Was she ever going to close?

I sighed and began packing up.

“My driver called in.” I saw her standing by the door. “Family emergency, you’ll have to drive me home.”

I looked through the glass wall at her empty office and then back at her, needing to be sure that she was the same woman I saw by the desk seconds ago. She now had her coat on and her bag over her shoulder as though twelve hours had cost her absolutely nothing.

“You want me to drive you.”

“Is that a problem?”

I thought about three things I planned to do tonight and pushed them somewhere quiet. “No, Your Highness.”

“Good. Five minutes.”

***

The building had already been emptied by the time we were heading out, just some janitors by the lobby doing their job as they bowed to her. The place was quiet, and only our footsteps were going toward the elevator bank.

I pressed the button. The doors opened.

We stepped in.

She stood on one side, deeply immersed in her phone. I stood on the other side. I counted down with the elevator as the floor numbers descended.

Sixteen. Fifteen. fourteen.

The elevator stopped suddenly; the lights flickered twice, then went completely off.

“No,” she said, but it sounded more like a whimper.

I turned my phone light toward her. “Are you okay, Your Highness?”

Her eyes were wide open, transfixed; her mouth seemed to be moving, counting numbers maybe, while focused on breathing as her hand squeezed on the elevator railing.

A panic attack.

“It’ll reset,” I tried to assure her, “the system usually…”

“How long?” she cut in.

“Could be a few minutes. I’ll call the building security.”

I had my phone out, dialed and got through to them, explained the situation with an urgency I usually wouldn’t have. The security officer on the other end said the word technician and thirty minutes in the same sentence.

I hung up.

Silence.

But she was a bit calmer now. She walked to the back of the elevator, her eyes fixed on the middle distance, as if she was fighting something and hating every second I was there to see it.

I put my bag down on the floor and sat with my back against the side wall, then turned off the light. Not looking at her. Giving her the only thing I could give her in four square meters of enclosed space– the illusion that she wasn’t being watched.

I watched her plop to the floor seconds later, making out her figure; her knees were folded to her chin as she wrapped her arms around them. And for the first time today, I saw the beauty behind the beast.