Codename Charming

by Lucy Parker

Genres: Romantic Comedy; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Following Battle Royal, beloved author Lucy Parker pens another delicious romantic comedy about a fake relationship between a grumpy royal bodyguard and the charming, sunny assistant who melts his cold, hard exterior.

Petunia De Vere enjoys being the personal assistant to lovable, bumbling Johnny Marchmont. But the job has its share of challenges, including the royal’s giant, intimidating bodyguard, Matthias. Pet and Matthias are polar opposites—she’s spontaneous and enthusiastic, he’s rigid and stoic—but she can sense there’s something softer underneath that tough exterior…

For Matthias Vaughn, protecting others is the name of the game. But keeping his royal charge out of trouble is more difficult than he imagined because everywhere Johnny goes, calamity ensues, and his petite, bubbly assistant is often caught in the fray. Matthias hates the idea of Pet getting hurt and he’s determined to keep everyone safe, even if it means clashing with his adorable new coworker.

When a clumsy moment leads to a questionable tabloid photo, the press begins to speculate that Pet is romantically involved with Johnny. To put an end to the rumors, the royal PR team asks Pet and Matthias to stage a fake relationship and the two reluctantly agree. But as they spend more time together outside of work, they begin to wonder what real emotions this pretend connection might uncover. Especially when a passionate kiss leaves both of their heads spinning… 

Release date: August 15, 2023

Publisher: HarperCollins

Print pages: 384

Sample

Prologue

Months (and many minor calamities) ago

Most people went viral on social media because they pulled off a successful joke on Twitter, posted a particularly hilarious photo of their cat, or deliberately provoked an entire fandom so that thousands of people felt compelled to prove they were wrong. Going out on a limb here—or a scalp, to be strictly accurate—Pet was guessing she would be the first person to trend at #1 after being accidentally catapulted off a conference stage by the soon-to-be newest member of the British royal family and ending up wrapped around his bodyguard’s head.

The sights and sounds of the Oxford Green Eighty environmental conference faded into a blur of white noise and gaping faces as she clung to Matthias Vaughn’s massive shoulders. She was balanced tummy-down as if they were attempting a see-saw acrobatic act, his closely shaven head was surprisingly slippery, and it was entirely possible that her knickers were on display to photojournalists from seven major tabloids. It was a good thing she’d abandoned her circus dreams at a very young age, because if she’d ever had delusions of flexibility, they’d just fractured. Along with what felt like several ribs.

She wasn’t quite sure what to do now. She’d landed at a precarious angle, and Matthias couldn’t let go to lift her off him without unceremoniously dumping her on the floor. Tentatively, she shifted her weight, shot forward, and would have landed headfirst if he hadn’t gripped her tighter.

“This is unfortunate,” she observed, as the blood immediately rushed to her upside down head.

He didn’t immediately respond. Apparently, even in these circumstances, he wasn’t inclined to waste words. If Pet could collect every syllable that had ever left his lips in her hearing, it would add up to a paragraph shorter than her average text message. His shoulders shifted beneath her as he exhaled. Very gustily. Very long-suffering. Very understandable when wearing a fully grown woman like a snood.

One of his hands slid up her arm, until his strong fingers were wrapped around her wrist. “Don’t move.”

His voice was crisp and efficient, but edged with a gravelly undertone, like someone had gone to town on his vocal cords with sandpaper. Matthias was ex-military and used to giving orders. He was also about nine feet tall, built like an absolute weapon, and unsurprisingly, most people were inclined to follow those orders.

As a personal assistant, Pet made a career out of fulfilling wishes and making sure people had everything their little hearts desired, but she also had a strict policy of not working for mannerless pricks. Authoritarian orders made a rebellious devil appear on her left shoulder and cock a brow.

This evening, however, she quite literally was in no position to argue.

She could see nothing of his face from this vantage point, and he probably couldn’t see anything at all, with her breasts resting on his brow bone.

This was very awkward.

And it had all gone wrong so fast.

Twelve seconds ago, she’d been standing on the central dais next to her boss, Johnny Marchmont, extremely earnest fiancé of Princess Rose of Albany, the king’s least favorite granddaughter. She’d handed him the speech notes he’d absentmindedly left on the dessert table, and he’d cast her a grateful glance and tripped over the microphone cord. His flailing left arm had sort

of . . . scooped her, right across the back. He’d heaved her into the crowd like he was throwing a tennis ball for Rosie’s pit bull. If she delved back into her memories of school physics, there was probably a handy series of equations that would explain the height and velocity she’d reached in point-five of a second.

Unfortunately, Pet was pretty sure she’d left her brain back on the stage, because her mind was just an echo chamber of four-letter words right now—although for some unholy reason, she’d retained enough muscle function to starfish her arms and legs as she flew. Like a bat.

Luckily for her, and extremely unfortunately for him, Matthias had been doing his laser-eye sweep of the crowd directly beneath the stage. He’d managed to break her fall. With his skull, but still. He must have moved like lightning, but he was used to reacting quickly, especially in this security detail. As much as she liked her incredibly well-meaning boss, she hoped Matthias and the rest of the bodyguards were getting hazard pay.

Just this morning, Johnny had attempted to pick a bunch of flowers for Rosie from the palace gardens and set fire to a wheelbarrow. After kissing him on the cheek, his fiancée had calmly filled an antique chalice with pond water, extinguished the flames, and continued speaking into her work phone. The royal couple in a nutshell.

Still dazed, Pet twisted her head sideways and looked up at the stage. Johnny’s cheeks were crimson, and he appeared to be frozen to the spot. The ludicrous dismay in his expression snapped her brain back into its correct location—and it finally sank in exactly how far away she was from the ground. If Matthias dropped her at this point, she’d crack like an egg.

“High,” she squeaked brilliantly, and her breath rushed out as he moved his big hands again, lifted her a few inches, and did some sort of flipping maneuver. She landed squarely in his arms, her hands instinctively fisting in his crisp black shirt. Blinking, she met his inscrutable gaze.

“Hi,” he said, deadpan, in that deep, level voice. As usual, his harsh, uneven features were set in imperturbable lines, and people had been giving him slightly wary glances all night.

Admittedly, his body language did emit a general aura of “fuck with me at your peril,” but when they’d first met, in fairly traumatic circumstances, he’d been kind to her, in his gruff, monosyllabic way. She’d been looking forward to already having a friend on the palace staff when she started work. Overly optimistically, as it turned out.

In the ten days since she’d officially joined the team as Johnny’s personal assistant and troubleshooter, this was their longest one-to-one encounter. She might as well add “part-time magician” to her résumé, because hey presto, she could make a fully grown, big bear of a man disappear with a single “good morning."

 

Renewed self-consciousness washed over her as he set her carefully back on her feet. As a young child she’d been quite shy, a perfectly valid personality trait she’d nevertheless thought she’d outgrown until this past week. He scanned her for visible signs of injury, closely and thoroughly, but with his usual professional detachment.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, and there was a fractional edge to the words.

To be fair, she’d probably put his neck out.

He was very subtly rolling one shoulder, and she detected a lightning flicker that might have been a suppressed wince.

Pet smoothed down her dress, very aware of the many faces and cameras pointed their way.

“I’m fine. Thanks to you,” she said, flushing, and he made a short, dismissive gesture with his bearded chin. She cleared her throat. “Just . . . not exactly how I’d pictured my first big function on the job.”

She jumped violently, then, as a loud, strange noise traveled around the room, stretching out above the excited hum of voices. It was hard to describe, but if pressed, she’d have to go with the dying throes of a drunken raccoon. “What the hell was—?”

On the stage, Johnny was holding the shrinking remains of an enormous inflatable green creature. The Green Eighty Task Force mascot let out one final plaintive wail before it shriveled into a pile of wrinkled recycled plastic. Not a raccoon, but . . . not far off the mark.

Johnny stared down helplessly at the dead mascot.

Pet looked at Matthias, who ran his fingers over his jaw. His closely cropped dark beard made a cozy little scratching sound.

“Welcome to Team Marchmont,” he said dryly. “I suggest you invest in a portable fire extinguisher, a lock-pick kit, and a crash helmet.”

Chapter One

Amidst a suffocating cloud of wisteria perfume, the director of the new Fine Arts Museum leaned forward, her lips parting in a tight smile, revealing a large piece of spinach stuck to her protruding front teeth. As Pet tried very hard not to watch, it fell off and landed on the tip of her shoe.

“We’re so delighted to have Mr. Marchmont with us this evening,” the director murmured, and Pet upped the wattage of her own, equally forced smile in return.

The poor woman didn’t look delighted. She looked like a person who’d spent weeks brandishing a shiny, exclusive-looking parcel, bragging about its contents to everyone in earshot, only to belatedly discover that it contained a ticking bomb.

It was an expression Pet had seen often throughout the past months, since she’d started working for Johnny.

“I’d just like to extend our apologies again about the DeWitt sculpture,” Pet said, trying and failing not to pause slightly before she finished that sentence.

She considered the arts one of the saving graces of humanity. A vital form of expression and communication. Frequently the last speck of hope and beauty in a world overrun with tax-dodging billionaires, politicians, murderers, and friend requests on Facebook from apparently amnesiac school bullies. She was an artist of sorts herself, although the paper silhouette portraits she snipped when she was stressed or bored were child’s play compared to most of the exhibits in the museum.

Most of the exhibits.

But, frankly, “sculpture” was a very generous word for Brooklyn DeWitt’s Orgasm—a warped, writhing mess of metal pipes, clay, and tin cans, which had looked a literal load of rubbish even before Johnny had lost his balance and sat on it.

She glanced anxiously over at him again. Having finished destroying the ugliest artwork in the foyer, he was talking to a rep from the museum’s executive committee. His fuzzy blond curls were all but crackling with nervous energy, and one hand was moving rhythmically in his pocket.

Either he was fiddling with his speech notes, or he’d taken the relaxation breathing techniques they’d practiced to a whole other level of public stress relief.

“These incidents happen,” the director said with another rigid curve of her mouth, and Pet couldn’t help an ironic glance around at walls laden with millions of pounds worth of Old Masters and contemporary classics.

She certainly hoped they didn’t happen often, and she suspected that if the culprit arse in question didn’t usually dwell in a palace, it would find itself hauled into court and landed with a massive damages bill.

“Anyway,” the other woman added in a slightly more natural tone, “fortunately Brooklyn places a lot of faith in serendipity. He believes the work has now advanced to its next natural stage of existence. He just said . . . let me get this right . . . ah! ‘The splayed, somnolent lines of the crushed metal represent the moist limbs of the sated female, her state of being molded by the force of the male. Nature at its most vivid and elemental.’”

Pet couldn’t hide her expression, and very briefly, the director lifted an eyebrow as they exchanged looks.

“Ah!” Pet repeated agreeably, and unfortunately had to complete the rest of her response silently in her head: “The random bullshit of the absolute pillock.”

The director’s posture had relaxed, but when she spoke again, both her words and her gaze were very direct. “It was a great coup for us to secure a royal presence at the opening, and for Mr. Marchmont to give the keynote address.” She, too, cut a sidelong

glance at Johnny, whose Adam’s apple was visibly bobbing, even at this distance. It was never a good sign when he started the compulsive swallowing. “Her Royal Highness Princess Rose’s husband currently reminds me of my son on school sports day. Wobbly knees, sweaty brow, and about five seconds from faking a sudden case of laryngitis. Is he going to manage this? The press presence is very heavy this evening.”

Yes, Pet had noticed that. Members from the standard royal press rota had woven themselves throughout the room, like a tapestry of cameras and shrewd eyes, interspersed with the usual nose-twitching rats from the more sensational tabloids, and a few royal bloggers.

She was used to an occasional paparazzi encounter when she was out with her brother, Dominic, and his wife, Sylvie, who were both judges on a very popular TV baking show, but the typhoon of media attention on the royals was an entirely different league. At times, it was terrifyingly intense, overwhelmingly intrusive, and she couldn’t imagine ever getting used to it. The fact that Johnny had voluntarily signed up for it, for his entire life, was testament to how much he loved Rosie. By nature and inclination, he ought to be a nursery teacher in a sleepy little village somewhere, or holed up in a room designing his favorite console games, not making awkward small talk and facing public pillory on a daily basis.

It was her primary task to help him manage all this—go through the briefings with him while they did their homework on whom he was going to meet, organize his schedule, accompany him on these trial by fire engagements. Play her part in keeping the cogs running smoothly. This was her wheelhouse, and it sounded very simple on paper.

In practice . . .

Well, her boss was Johnny. Adorable, enthusiastic Johnny with his heart of gold and his two enormous left feet, one of which was usually lodged squarely in his mouth. E.g., when they’d arrived at the museum this evening and been introduced to the current Member of Parliament for Chelsea and Fulham, Mr. Simon Winger. Johnny had cast a quick glance at the “S. Winger” on the man’s name tag and said cheerfully, “I know the House of Commons is l-legendarily full of f-fuckers, but I didn’t realize things were quite that exciting.”

He was going to kill her stone dead, any day now.

Despite the pulverized priceless artwork, some sort of angel was watching over them, because in a room stuffed to the gills with reporters and phones, not a single soul had heard him except Pet, the blinking MP, and Johnny’s personal protection officers.

Although even ultra-professional, ever-expressionless Matthias had been unable to repress a tiny cheek twitch at that one.

Pet opted for overall truthfulness now. “Mr. Marchmont isn’t a natural public

speaker, but every person in his position grows into their role over time. He has a genuine passion for the creative industries, and he’s equally honored to be here this evening.”

The director looked at Johnny with a shade of sympathy. “Not an easy role for a shy person.”

“No.” And Johnny was shy. Behind his disastrously candid comments and surprisingly dirty sense of humor, he was a shy man—and a kind one. Despite the frequent mishaps, he was by far the best boss of her career to date.

He was due to give his speech at exactly seven o’clock, in a few minutes’ time. Excusing herself, Pet skirted tactfully around the perimeter of the room, automatically returning a quick smile when a handsome guy in a perfectly tailored suit cast her an interested glance. He winked at her without breaking off his conversation. She’d noticed him come in earlier and had him pegged as one of the mega-rich City investors. Definite merchant banker aura. Clothing-wise, they all looked like they’d come straight from a funeral.

Brooklyn DeWitt might be a pretentious con artist, but at least his fuchsia overalls were livening things up a bit.

On the other side of the large reception space, a massive figure, also in head-to-toe black, stood against the velvet-draped wall.

Looking straight at her.

A rare occurrence, since unless they were having a brief, blunt discussion about the correct care and feeding of a new royal, Matthias usually treated her like a veritable superhero.

Invisible Woman.

Pet immediately returned his gaze in full, staring back into irises of the palest, clearest green. Those sea-glass eyes belonged in the face of an absentminded country vicar, or a young ingénue in a play, or—somebody like Johnny. Somebody openhearted and friendly, maybe a little naïve.

There was nothing naïve about Matthias Vaughn.

Or particularly friendly.

In his remote, cyborg-y way, he did genuinely care about Johnny, however—demonstrating that you could always find at least one point of common interest with a person. She appreciated Matthias’s dedication to his job and Johnny’s safety, even if he was about as bendable and open to negotiation as a titanium plank.

He was still looking at her, his lips disappearing into a familiar grim line. It was the same expression he’d pulled last week, after she’d proposed the idea of a game of laser tag in the palace gardens. Anyone could see that Johnny—and Rosie—needed a regular burst of fun and sheer silliness, or they’d never cope as well with the public side of their lives. Several staffers had confirmed that the princess had been withdrawing into herself before she’d met Johnny. He was the love of her life and soul, the person who embraced every inch of her for the caring, snarky goth she was. Apparently, they’d giggled their way through a night of beer drinking and video-game troll-bashing on their first date. The following day,

Rosie had engineered a fund-raiser for chronic illness support, adeptly prying millions of pounds from the wallets of Whitehall clout-chasers, the same MPs who’d systematically stripped away vital health-care funding in the first place. Exactly the life balance of badassery, chill, and poetic justice Pet was aiming for.

If only Matthias would stop vetoing every suggestion on the grounds of safety violations and failure to follow advance protocols.

What she called spontaneity, he considered a grievous insult to his precious digital clipboard of schedules and red tape. Yesterday, he’d caught her barely leaning over a second-floor balcony to retrieve the game controller Johnny had accidentally thrown out the window into a trellis; he’d behaved like she was stringing a high-wire from the sixth-story turrets.

The man had probably laminated his copy of the protocol manual and carefully sponged the fingerprints from it every night.

Obviously, she wasn’t suggesting anything that would actually endanger Johnny. Security was a legitimate and constant issue. Their boss had joined a family who’d had targets on their backs from the cradle, and he’d attracted dangerous, overzealous attention of his own before he’d even walked down the aisle. Pet’s mind immediately tried to flinch away from that memory playing out again, but she gritted her teeth and dragged it back, like pulling reluctant performers onto a tiny stage.

Rosie’s twenty-fifth birthday ball last year. Beautiful, opulent, full of famous faces—and the only one Pet had seen was her brother’s. She’d had an argument with Dominic that week, bitter words and hurt, and had wanted desperately to make it up. She could still hear the sounds of that night, the live band, the hum of voices, her heels tapping as she crossed the ballroom, the beads on her favorite vintage dress dancing and clicking against her legs—and then the flash of movement as a blonde woman emerged from the crowd, her eyes fixed on the royal couple, her face blank. Just blank. When the woman had raised her arm, the overhead lights had twinkled with incongruous gentleness on the knife in her hand.

It was still a blur of adrenaline, that cluster of surreal minutes. Pet didn’t really remember lunging between Johnny and that first downward stroke—and only fragments of what followed, including the slice of burning heat as metal cut through her skin.

Almost unconsciously, her hand went to her forearm now. She’d had the best surgeon in the city, thanks to Rosie. The scars were neat and had progressed through an ombre palette of colors, moving progressively down to the lighter end of the scale. Most of the time she forgot they were there, until nerve pain skittered through every cell from elbow to fingertips, sparkling and terrible until it faded.

Another spike of memory—a big hand folded around hers, a tight squeeze

of comfort. Drifting in and out of consciousness that night, she’d been only half aware of the stranger crouching at her side. His black clothing had blurred into the darkness edging her vision, her eyes skating over his uneven features, unfocused and fuzzy. He’d seemed somehow both substantial and ephemeral, and in her confused mind, he’d been a sort of dark angel. It had been a startlingly intense shock when Matthias had later turned up at the hospital with Johnny and Rosie, like coming face-to-face with a wistful fragment of a dream.

Across the room, his gaze slipped down to where her thumb traced the line of the largest scar.

He was always so still. Even in the rare, glorious hours when Pet had absolutely nothing to do and nowhere to be, she needed something in her hands. No double entendre intended.

It was fascinating to watch him at work. Physically, he was not someone who should ever be able to sink into the background—and yet, when he needed to, the man might as well have a supernatural cloaking device. Just shimmering into the shadows, his eyes all intent like a cat.

A ginormous, humorless cat.

She could still sense the disapproving vibe even at a distance. She could fully admit that for all his personality quirks, Captain Risk Averse was very good at his job, but the sentiment was not mutual—and if she were brutally honest, he did have reason to consider her more of a liability than a team asset so far.

Reasons such as the fact that she kept landing on top of him in public.

Four times now, she’d been the unintentional victim of Johnny’s malfunctioning limbs.

And four times, Matthias had been in her trajectory, forced to catch her.

Four times.

She was trapped in a vaudeville nightmare.

At least she usually landed in his arms these days.

Right on cue, a middle-aged man wove through the crowd with a cocktail in his hand and did a slight double take when he saw her. His eyes narrowed as he obviously tried to place her, then the confusion cleared. “Ah,” he said with a smirk, chuckling loathsomely to himself. “The Green Eighty conference girl.”

The Green Eighty conference girl.

Absolutely fuck her life.

It had reached a million

views on YouTube now, the clip of her clinging to Matthias’s head, and every time she thought about it, a little piece of her soul chipped off and died.

It had been like she was a slightly too-snug shirt, she’d told Sylvie gloomily on the phone that fateful night, and he’d got stuck halfway through getting her off.

“Do you want to rephrase that?” her sister-in-law had asked with a soft snort.

She knew Johnny couldn’t help it. It seemed to be coded into his DNA, but she’d never been into the damsel-in-distress act. She was one of the best PAs in the city, bloody good at her career, with no hesitation in saying so. Prior to this contract, she’d been sitting, standing, and walking without catastrophe, all on her own, for over twenty-seven years.

Several guests walked past her toward the bar, and the fit merchant banker winked at her again. Matthias’s laser focus briefly switched to him. His career centered around protecting clients from dangerous people, but it also seemed to be an ingrained personality trait for him, looking at everybody as if he were a human X-ray machine, capable of seeing through flesh and bone to their worst qualities and innermost thoughts. Pet wondered what judgment he’d formed of the winker. Not a favorable one, by the look of it. His frosty demeanor suggested he’d excise the first vowel of “winker” and insert a different one. She found herself instinctively averting her gaze when the guy turned to look at her once more. She did tend to use Matthias as a gauge of trustworthiness. If someone passed his silent tests, they were probably a good egg; if not, steer clear.

She couldn’t help an envious glance at all the people ordering drinks. She’d consider sacrificing a limb right now for one of those cocktails, especially with Johnny’s speech still to come. If he were anyone else, she’d suggest a very small shot of liquid charisma for him as well, but even stone-cold-sober Johnny was unpredictable. Tipsy Johnny was a daunting thought.

“Champagne, ma’am?” A waiter appeared at her side, tray in hand, and it was probably time to stop staring tragically at the cocktail menu like an unrequited lover.

Regretfully, she shook her head with a polite no. Over his shoulder, she saw the faintest twitch of Matthias’s eyebrow, as if it wanted to lift in a mocking arch but had belatedly remembered its owner didn’t do frivolous expressions.

His bearing really was particularly militant tonight.

Pet didn’t even have the excuse of booze that she suddenly found all that upright sternness very provoking.

They were on the clock and his was a very serious, important job, but they were still in a stunning building surrounded by beautiful things, and there was a huge cake on the food table. As a novelty, they were all being given slices to take home in seriously cute little containers, like the poshest kid’s birthday party she’d ever attended. Free cake! In boxes shaped like tiny houses, decorated with miniature versions of the museum’s most popular artworks. He could relax the facial muscles just a bit. He was a bodyguard, not a Beefeater.

Before his gaze traveled on its way, Pet narrowed her eyes, rapidly scrunching

up her face into an exaggerated, prune-like scowl. Within two seconds, she’d smoothed out her expression again.

Not so much as a blink in response.

“Have to bring bigger guns than that, honey. He once managed to guard a client through an entire screening of Bringing Up Baby with nary a titter,” a voice murmured in her ear, and Pet glanced sideways at Benji, Matthias’s co-lead on Johnny’s protection detail.

“I’m baffled how you two ever became friends.” For someone who could literally have people’s lives in his hands, Benji lived his own in a state of languid amusement. The two men existed at totally opposite ends of the personality scale.

“Shame the Duchess of Clarence isn’t here tonight.” Benji’s tone was musing as he made a few unnecessary adjustments to an already immaculate tie. His black curls were cut ruthlessly short, and his brown skin was clean-shaven as usual. Pet had never seen him with even a scrap of stubble. He stuck even more stringently than Matthias to the no-nonsense grooming of their military days, which had initially seemed out of character, until he’d informed her—cheerfully and entirely unprompted—that it would be criminal to conceal such glorious bone structure. And had she ever seen such a godlike scalp? He thought not. “She’d pull out her soothsayer cards and provide a vivid explanation of how Matthias and I complement each other. Opposing energies twining together, emblematic of the connected universe.”

“Careful. Brooklyn DeWitt and his cohort will think you’re usurping their territory. They’ve got the market cornered on pretentious dickery.” Pet lifted her brows at him. “And I don’t think the duchess actually claims to predict the future.”

When Rosie’s aunt wafted around the palace with a cocktail in one hand and a romance novel in the other, her vague comments did often hit on an element of truth, but Pet suspected that had more to do with a canny network of informants than actual clairvoyancy.

“Unless you count the time you decided to tightrope-walk the perimeter of the courtyard fountain after staff drinks, and she accurately predicted what would follow.” Pet checked her watch and looked across at Johnny. He’d stopped fidgeting, at least. “But in that case, slap a crystal ball in front of every other person there that night and call us Nostradamus.”

The amusement in Benji’s dark eyes turned into a flashing grin. He nudged her affectionately with his elbow. “You know, if she’s right and opposite energies do draw together, you and Matty ought to be lifelong best buds.”

Only Benji would get away with calling hard-faced, impassive Matthias Matty. There was no way that man had ever been a sweet little Matty, even when he was little. She could see him as a businesslike baby, already five feet tall and grimly handing out safety infringement notices to any kids who moved too quickly with scissors.

“Once upon a time, I nearly became an astrophysicist. I used to daydream

about being part of an exploratory expedition into the great unknown beyond the observable universe.” She tugged at the button on her silk fringed dress. She’d burned off nervous energy with her silhouette portraits from a very young age—she’d have been one of those children annoying Matthias with her improper handling of stationery—and her hands were suddenly itching for paper and scissors. “I think there’s more chance of that still happening than there is of Matthias curling up on the couch with me to eat Jammie Dodgers and binge-watch K-dramas.”

Benji brightened. “Is that an open offer?”

“Yes, but I should warn you that I accept happy endings only, become far too emotionally invested in people who don’t exist, and seem to have gone through a hormonal upheaval since my last birthday. Last week, I was watching the news and I cried at an ad for loo roll.”

“Platonic soul mates, you and me. Next night off. I’ll bring chocolate Hobnobs.” As he spoke, his eyes were scanning over the room and its occupants. He was a stark contrast to Matthias physically as well as in temperament, leanly built and a much more convenient height for Pet’s neck. For all their differences, however, both men were at the top of their field, and very little got past either PPO. Johnny was at ease in Benji’s happy-go-lucky company, but he was also in secure hands.

Benji shot her a sudden glance. “Odds the speech will come off without incident?”

Pet couldn’t hold back a fractional grimace. Johnny was even paler than earlier, and he looked deceptively small and fragile with Matthias in proximity. “He managed a clean run-through this afternoon, so fingers crossed.”

Before she’d finished speaking, the museum director ascended to the central dais for the long-winded introduction of their royal patron.

Pet held her breath when he took his place at the podium, straightened his notes and his bow tie, and began to speak.

“Good evening, and th-thank you all for coming tonight . . .” He faltered momentarily, but most of the faces around Pet were relaxed and warm. She’d like to think that only the tabloids and a tiny handful of small-minded people would give a shit about someone’s stutter or shyness. Even as the words formed in her mind, she noticed a couple of women by the bar whispering to each other and exchanging looks. The older of the pair turned her head, seemingly sensing herself under surveillance. She met Pet’s stare, and the disdainful curve of her mouth deepened.

Pet’s jaw tensed.

“The arts have always been an important part of my life and I look forward to working with you all in the coming years . . .” As Johnny continued through the speech he’d painstakingly constructed, his shoulders went back, and he even managed a few genuine smiles. Pet didn’t realize she was clutching Benji’s arm until he leaned over and whispered that he was happy to be a support prop any time, ...