Free All The Queen's Men (Fantasy Heights) by Meg Silver Page A

came to pass. Even after Scott went home, she worked into the wee hours figuring out how Fantasy Heights was structured and how they handled information and workflow. The work might have been detail-heavy and complex, but she felt as if she’d come home. She hadn’t realized until then how much she missed the methodical, predictable demands of her old profession.
    Scott had come and gone again by the next afternoon when Amanda sat in Beverly’s office, pecking away at scheduling problems. Her brain hurt by the time she realized she had an audience. Thomas stood in the doorway, silently watching.
    Her reaction was complicated. Half of her had never been so glad to see anyone home safe. The other half was spoiling for a fight about Jerod.
    Thomas looked thoughtful himself, but she never got a chance to ask why. He had decided to adopt the trainer role. “You realize you’re fifteen minutes late for your meeting with Ben.”
    She’d forgotten all about it. And she knew the events of that afternoon, at the gamer-gig rehearsal, would be important to Mr. Hughes.
    Much to her relief, the DA asked a number of questions first about the audition process. He started to sound impatient while he made her reconstruct what happened in the days leading up to the Three Sisters Ball.
    By the time he circled back around to ask about the dreaded rehearsal, Mr. Hughes looked and sounded almost desperate to get some straight answers. “I need you to tell me what happened at rehearsal between Thomas and my son.”
    Amanda wished the whole thing had never happened. For just a little while that day, at the beginning of rehearsal, the small group of performers had all gotten along.
    She’d met with Ben first as directed to learn that he had chosen her to take Nicole’s role as princess. She felt a bit strange about it, but the casting made sense. As the kidnapped princess, she wouldn’t need to fight or talk much. And any chance to work with Ben was worth it.
    She’d asked him about the gamer event. “What’s it like? Is it fun?”
    “Sure. Can’t wait. Bunch of techno-wiseasses roll into a resort where a whole lot of sex happens. It turns into one full week of ‘set your dildos to stun’ jokes. It’s unreal. Every single one of these guys is convinced they’re the first to make that joke.”
    She laughed, and Ben caught her around the neck, applying knuckles to her skull. She was still fighting off the noogie when Jerod and Marla came in, followed shortly by Eric. With everyone but Thomas assembled, Ben assigned the weapons and stage positions.
    Amanda, perched atop a faux column, was the first to see Thomas come in, and it was the strangest thing: Even though he looked cross and thickly encased in the hated armor, inside she felt as if the entire room had just turned her favorite color.
    A charge had run through her. Conflicted. She’d missed him. Could still feel the fire in her veins, thinking of the phone and his gift. But when he’d seen her in the office, he’d been so distant. So cold.
    And then her eyes strayed to Jerod for a moment, catching the barest glimpse of a frown, and downcast eyes.
    Guilt.
    Jerod had told Thomas already. Thomas knew she’d found out, and now he was mad, for some reason. Still, he’d motioned for her to get down from her perch, and she took up her place beside him as he faced the group.
    She had no idea how to explain what happened to Jerod’s father.
    “I don’t even really know how it started,” Amanda told the DA. “Everyone on the stage was in the know about Thomas’s true position at Fantasy Heights. They all knew where he’d been, and they all went after him for good news. But of course he had none to offer. Someone asked him about Ridley’s condition, and he just… closed up like shutters.”
    Ben kindly broke through the group’s pressurized scrutiny by handing Thomas a couple nasty-looking curved practice swords. “Best of five?”
    Thomas had nodded, accepting Ben’s