Royal Thief (Editing)

Chapter 23

Dedicated to oyioche and AnnDeePen, thanks for the support guys.

Annabelle

I slammed the book in my hand shut, stood from the bed and strolled to the door in my pyjamas. I opened up to meet the stares of a middle-aged lady with dark curly hair, and a maid holding a black briefcase.

"Good morning Miss Eva, sorry for intruding on your morning rituals, I'm Zara." She smiled, showing off deep dimples on both sides of her cheek.

"Good morning Zara."

"Can I come in?"

"Do come in," I said, making way for her to step in.

She turned to the maid. "Thanks dear, I can handle things from here."

With a nod, the maid handed over the briefcase to her and started down the hall.

"The queen request you pick a gown from my collection, for the ball," She stated the moment we took our seats on the sofa.

"Oh." The thought of picking a gown for the ball never crossed my mind, I thought Logan had that covered as usual.

She passed a fashion magazine with the name Swing Royal, boldly written on it.

Oh, Swing Royal, I thought, recalling Rose's references on my dresses.

I swiped through pages with my eyes shooting out at the lovely dresses, but most especially at the high price tags. I gasped for air as I stopped on a page where a black simple flowing gown with no glitters, no twisted design and most especially, no price tag was sampled on a mannequin.

"You like that one?" She asked, obviously reading my reactions.

I smiled, not taking my eyes off the black V-neck, off-shoulder gown.

"Well, that will be a problem." I heard her said from my trance.

I turned to her sharply, disturbed by this piece of information. "Why? Has it been picked by someone?"

"No, no one has seen this, just you. The queen has her taste of cloth so I have a special magazine for her, so also the princess. I brought this for you and Miss Selena," she explained.

"I'm still working on the design for that, you can see there is no price tag." She gestured to the magazine on my laps. "I'm not saying it's not available, I'm just saying it's not royal."

Perfect, fits my position.

"I want this Zara, it's more royal than any dress I've seen so far."

She let's out a smile laugh and shook her head. "Are you sure about that?"

I nodded with a sincere smile.

She stood from her position and opened her briefcase. "Alright then, would you strip?"

"Sorry?"

She looked from her briefcase to me. "Most of my clients prefer stripping when Its time for measurement, do you want that or-"

"No," I said cutting her short. Stripping from my cloths meant showing off my awful scars, scars no one, not even mum have seen and I would gladly prefer being clothed and not naked in front of a total stranger.

"That's not a problem Miss Eva," she said, now holding a white measuring tape.

After several minutes of taking my measurement, she placed her tape and pad in her briefcase.