Bride By Royal Decree. CAITLIN CREWS

break their heads open, and then fail to pay their astronomical bills, she was caught for a moment in the dark grip of the cold night. It seemed to tumble down around her and she took as deep a breath as she could stand of the sharp winter air, tipping her head back so she could see all the far-off stars gleaming there above her.

      Always watching. Always quiet, always calm. No matter what darkness was engulfing her, the stars shone through.

      By the time Maggy made it to the front door of the resort, that great, raw thing inside of her that felt like the sort of sob that she’d rather die than let free had subsided a bit. Just a bit. But it was enough to keep her hands from shaking.

      A hotel employee with a clipboard and a walkie-talkie waited for her in the slick, self-consciously rustic lobby of the hotel, a serene smile on her face, as if she and Maggy had already met a thousand times before. Maggy was certain they had not.

      “If you’ll follow me, Ms. Strafford,” the woman said warmly. Maybe too warmly, Maggy thought, when greeting a complete stranger. “I’ll take you where you need to go. Mr. Argos—” and there was specific emphasis on that name “—is waiting.”

      On any other night Maggy would have asked a few follow-up questions. Demanded to know how this woman knew who she was at a glance, for a start. But something told her she didn’t want to know the answer to that question. That it would involve the word appalling again. And while Maggy felt her self-esteem was strong enough to withstand the snotty comments of an uninvited king in her coffee shop, there was no point testing that theory here, in the sort of five-star hotel broke girls like herself normally gave a wide berth.

      Instead, she let the woman lead her back outside and into a waiting hotel shuttle, clearly set aside for her use. She didn’t ask any questions then, either. She only settled into the seat she was offered in the otherwise empty vehicle and stared out the window, trying to keep her eyes on the stars as the shuttle wound its way out into the depths of the property, deep into the woods and halfway up the mountain. It stopped there. Maggy glanced out to see a guardhouse and gates, and heard many short bursts of noise on multiple walkie-talkies before the shuttle started to move again.

      “It’s only a few moments more,” the woman from the hotel told her, still smiling so happily.

      Maggy practiced smiling like a normal person. It was a skill she’d never mastered, given how little cause she’d had to go around smiling at random people. Or at all. In her experience, anyone who wanted her to act friendly and who wasn’t paying her to do so was best avoided altogether. It felt awkward and wrong, as if she was doing something to her cheeks. She was relieved when the woman looked back to the shuttle driver instead.

      Gradually, Maggy realized they were on a long driveway. It climbed farther up the steep incline in a corridor of evergreens and ghostly birch trees, then stopped beneath a towering palace of a house done in more timber and even more dramatic glass. It sprawled over the mountainside as if it had been placed there by divine intervention instead of the resort’s developers.

      She wasn’t the least bit surprised that this was where Reza was staying.

      And when she walked inside the soaring entry hall that must have commanded views over most of New England in the sunlight, she was equally unsurprised to find a battalion of servants waiting for her as if she’d strolled into Buckingham Palace.

      Not that she’d ever been anywhere near Buckingham Palace. But she’d seen as many pictures of the British palace in the supermarket tabloids over the years as she had of Cairo Santa Domini and his exploits.

      After her coat was taken and she’d been greeted approximately nine hundred times by uniformed staff members who pledged to attend to her every need, whatever those might be, Maggy was led off into the house. Each room she walked through was more impressive than the last. Here a library of floor-to-ceiling books and dark leather armchairs pulled close to a crackling fire. There what appeared to be a games room, with a pool table and a chess table and stout cupboards likely filled with every board game imaginable, if she’d had to guess. A large living area, ripe with comfortable couches and deep, thick rugs set out before the glass windows and an outside deck with views over the valley. A closer, more intimate den, with wide armchairs and enveloping sofas and the sort of wall of closed wood cupboards she figured hid television equipment.