A Farewell to Charms by Lindsey Leavitt Read Free Book Online

Meredith—”
    “Are you telling me the truth?” Reed cut me off. His voice came out broken. He still wasn’t looking at me.
    I nodded solemnly. “Yeah. It’d be better if I wasn’t, but…yeah. All of it is true.”
    Without saying anything else, Reed stumbled into his bubble. I wish I could have figured out an easier way to talk to him about sub-sanitation. I wish we had more time to discuss it—maybe he would think of it as a necessary evil like Meredith and Genevieve did. Maybe I was just being dramatic.
    Or maybe I was totally right, and Reed and I needed to get our own bubble and go save the subbing world stat.
    “So, what are you doing here?” I asked, once I’d joined Meredith in the bubble.
    Meredith took some hand lotion out of her desk and rubbed it into her fingers. “Every time I visit Dubai, my hands dry out. Granted, I adore Princess Alice and Princess Lucy, but the least they could do is offer some moisturizer.”
    “Mer? Hello?”
    “You have work, of course. Now, sit.” She motioned to the plush black leather chair in her front waiting area. “And for the millionth time, don’t call me Mer.” She got busy making herself a coffee and me a hot chocolate. She even plopped in marshmallows. I loved how well she knew me, loved our little bubble office briefings. And honestly, I loved this job. If I didn’t know what I knew, I could sub forever with Meredith, and be perfectly happy.
    But marshmallows or not, I did know, and there was no turning back.
    “I am so slammed right now.” Meredith downed her coffee in two quick gulps. “They’re hosting a celebration today for my promotion, but since no one but Genevieve knows I’ve been promoted, my workload is still ridiculous.”
    “So, that promotion?” I set my mug down on her glass coffee table. “You really got it?”
    A slow grin spread across her face. “Yes. It’ll be official today. I’m the youngest council member at twenty-nine.”
    “You’re twenty-nine?” Meredith was young, but not that young.
    “Ish. Thirty-two. Thirty-five, tops. But still the youngest. It’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me, that’s for sure.” Meredith lifted up my mug and wiped away the condensation mark. I looked at her hands, so tiny and graceful and…ringless.
    I don’t know why this surprised me, but it did. Back when Meredith was a sub, she’d fallen in a love with a prince. As far as Façade’s rules went, this one was The Grand Master Broken Rule. Another agent, Lilith—my Level One trainer and Meredith’s enemy—spilled the beans on the secret relationship, and Meredith almost lost her job. She broke up with her prince, but they had recently gotten back together. Right after she’d gotten the big promotion, he’d sent her a text saying, marry me. Hey, not the most romantic proposal, but it’s not like he could drop by in a hot-air balloon when they had to keep it all hush-hush. I didn’t know how Meredith answered him—if she was secretly engaged now, or if they’d broken up because of the promotion.
    “So, speaking of biggest things that ever happened to you, any other news?” I asked.
    Meredith narrowed her eyes. “You know about my promotion. Pay increase of thirty percent.”
    “Right, but is your status in any other area changing? Like, relationships?” I pointed discreetly at her finger. She slipped her hand into her suit pocket.
    “My credit card company just upgraded me to platinum,” she said icily. “That’s about it.”
    So that would either be a no or an I’m not telling you. And the snippiness was undoubtedly because she knew what my opinion would be on the matter—take the prince, drop Façade. But for Meredith, her job came before everything, even a proposal from a prince.
    “We’re almost at Façade. You might as well read about your assignment. I just have to check on something at the agency, and then we’ll get you going.” Meredith slipped into her office, probably to get away from