why lucien just earned more pov privileges

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But compartmentalizing—Analinn had something. Even with his own comparatively meager position Lucien could vouch for that. Who he was at work was not who he was at home; who he was when arguing policy on his father’s behalf was not who he was when on those rare dates with Linnana. And he doubted that who Linnana was on those dates was who she was when performing her duties as Heir. “You do need to compartmentalize.” He said finally in the rich silence that had followed her recitation.
She flinched.
“And if that makes you at fault… then you’re at fault.” Lucien shrugged uncomfortably, watching her shoulders stiffen and yet more emotional brick walls get laid at a feverish pace. “Admit it now and get it over with before you can never repair what you had with her. Because to be perfectly honest, it looks like you’re going to need her. I don’t think you can afford to lose her. Think tactically, not emotionally. Can you afford to lose someone who is so intimately familiar with your position like that?”
“No.” Linnana said tonelessly.
“So you should probably try to fix it. Suck it up. Admit you screwed up. Grovel. Whatever you have to do.” It didn’t sound pleasant, and it sure wasn’t anything Lucien would readily volunteer to do, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t necessary. And, if it would prevent more meltdowns like this in the future, it was absolutely necessary. He liked her. Sometimes when he was half asleep and his guards were down he’d bandy around the other ‘l’ word in a hypothetical fashion. And he did not, not not not, want more episodes like this. For one, it foreboded bad things for the economy.
“I don’t know what I have to do.” Linnana muttered. “I don’t know what she wants and I don’t want to ask. I don’t think just pretending it never happened will work.”
“Consider it practice for the inevitable disaster that will occur on your watch,” Lucien suggested with almost obscene positivism.
The glare she gave him was totally worth it.
“She’s better than, say, some finicky asshole Prime Minister.” Lucien said persuasively.
“Have you met my sister?” Linnana practically snarled at him. “That’s who my mother sends to beat down those finicky asshole Prime Ministers! And it works!”
“Then that is definitely someone you want to be in good favor with.” Lucien said placidly.
“Damn your logic.”
“You are cursing a lot right now.” He observed. “And shrugging. You’re just a mess, aren’t you?”
Linnana stared at him, momentarily thrown by his apparent non-sequiturs, and almost laughed. The resulting sound was something between a choke and a snort, maybe a pathetic giggle. “Is it not obvious?”
“It’s painfully obvious.” Lucien stood up, feeling better about the whole ordeal. “Are you okay now? Or at least functional? Are you going to quit being an idiot about things and suck it up and fix them so you have someone to sic on bitch-ass Senators in the future? Because I don’t want to do it.”
“For you,” Linnana managed, unfolding from her nigh-fetal position and for the first time putting her feet on the floor. “I’ll try.”
Lucien helped pull her to her feet. “You need a back exit so you can sneak out of here without those gossipy staff seeing you like this.”
Linnana perfunctorily dusted off her slacks. “Lucien, I’m going to tell you a secret.”
He listened attentively.
“That bookcase behind me is on wheels.”
He looked at it. The wheels were buried deep into the plush carpet, but now that he was actively looking, he could see their burnished bronze wheel covers glinting through the top layer of carpet fibers.
Linnana pushed her chair in and turned her computer monitor off. She stepped over to the bookcase. “Help me move it. Don’t knock anything down; some of these books and records are older than my mother and shouldn’t even be in the light.”
Obligingly Lucien went over to help her pry the wheels out of their gravity-enforced gouges in the carpet. Once pulled free, the six-foot bookcase moved easily. Behind the bookcase was a narrow door that swung out. Lucien’s inner child was practically having an orgasm, prepubescent state of development notwithstanding. A secret passageway! Secret doors! Tunnels! His mouth suddenly went dry. “Adventure time?” He asked weakly.
“Yes.” Linnana said tolerantly. Her voice still wasn’t normal, weak and nasal, but he hardly noticed. The tunnel was dark. There were probably spider webs. And dust. Lots of dust. She stepped in first and he followed her, nearly bumping into her and sending her sprawling when she stopped and picked up a flashlight stored neatly by the door hinges. She thumped it on the heel of her hand to get it to turn on properly. Once the light was going steady, she handed it to him. He was almost embarrassed at how excited he was. The bookcase, he noticed, had a handle in the back that she was using to pull it into its previous position. The wheels fell back in their holes and suddenly the hallway—cave—was black. The flashlight’s yellow beam only illuminated so far.
Linnana secured the door again and retook the flashlight. “If you tell anyone about this,” she said quite seriously, “I’ll have to kill you.” She wrinkled her nose, giving further consideration to the prospect. “Or have you killed, whichever.”
His inner child squealed giddily and clapped his hands in delight as he followed her. In the flashlight’s seemingly weak beam, he could make out rectangles sketched in the walls. More doors to more offices. More secret escapes. He reached out and touched the wall. Solid concrete, likely steel reinforced, and covered in dust. It was as fire resistant as they could make it, dust aside.
The hallway widened, but the space available for walking didn’t. The walls were suddenly lined with empty shelves and nooks. Some shelves closer to the bottom weren’t empty, but she wasn’t slowing down enough to give him a chance to investigate. “What’s down there?”
“Records that absolutely can’t afford to be lost or compromised.” She said, as if describing the garden outside. “If we must, we can store almost the entire province’s data down here. Even if some asshole decides to torch the place and forgets that this is where everything he needs to run the province is, it won’t necessarily be lost. Hopefully.”
And it was an excellent place to hide, too. Suddenly, Lucien had additional motivation to joining her cabinet. Access to secret passageways? Hell yes.
They walked for what seemed like forever. Time disappeared in the darkness, but the shelves stretched on. Finally, Linnana stopped at the fourth of a random stretch of doors. “I’m sorry.” She said to him. “We’re going to have to crawl.”
Lucien’s inner little boy died of happiness.
And then died of cooties when she pried the door open and revealed a mountain of shoes. Heels, flats, sandals, every shoe known to man. Nonplussed, Linnana began knocking them out of her way, pushed some bag-covered garments aside, and emerged… in her walk-in closet.
Of course. He felt distinctly uncomfortable in her closet but manned up and got out of there as soon as he could. Her room was also distinctly feminine, but it wasn’t as suffocatingly intimate as her closet.
Wow. Lucien thought absently to himself, trying not to blatantly check out her room, I did not realize I had issues with closets. Good to know?
Linnana disappeared immediately into her bathroom and he heard water running. She came back with a damp face and tangled eyelashes and a more self-assured demeanor. The splotches of makeup were gone too, and she no longer looked like a maudlin raccoon. “Thanks.” She said, sounding sheepish.
For what? Oh. Lucien gave her a game smile. “It’s nothing.” That was his job, right? Keep the Heir intact? …Avoid her disaffected father? Keep from pissing off her evidently dangerous sister at all costs? And why was her bed so amazing looking? Was that a perk of being an Irenown? King sized beds with an embarrassing wealth of covers and pillows?