"Because the Prince"s charming. And hot." Blaze raised an eyebrow at Giovanni. "It"s true."
"When do I get to meet this hot charmer?" Blaze asked.
"Never if I have my way," she said just as her brother made a swipe at the box she was carrying. "I"m probably not even going to see him again. All he wants is my a.s.s." She tried to s.n.a.t.c.h the box back but he held it above her head and lobbed it to his boyfriend. Giovanni opened it and whistled.
"Give that here," she said, stuffing the underwear out of sight.
"Okay, seriously, when am I meeting this guy?"
"And I repeat never."
"Are you afraid what I might do to him?" Blaze asked with a self-satisfied grin.
"Frankly, yes. You"re a loose cannon."
Blaze scoffed. "I"m a loose cannon? I thought that"s what the meds were for." Kat turned with an apology already on her lips but her brother just winked at her. She punched him in the shoulder too and stalked away.
"How much trouble is she in, really?" Blaze asked after she was out of earshot.
"Let me put it to you this way," Giovanni said, closing the magazine in front of him. "Remember when we went to that art show with the zebra motif."
Blaze laughed. "And there was that girl that kept . . ." He interrupted himself. "Oh no, that girl? My sister"s that girl?"
"Becoming that girl. But, I mean, hard not to you"ve seen his picture."
Blaze scoffed. "It"s just a picture." And after a long brooding moment he added, "And my sister is not that girl. She"s far too levelheaded to be that girl."
"We"re talking about the girl that settles for Marco every other month, right? You remember that Jersey Sh.o.r.e wannabe that keeps getting mysteriously caught with his pants down when he knows she"s coming over. A rocket scientist that one."
"That"s just . . . I mean . . ."
"You can"t defend it, Blaze. Your sister has a type player who treats her badly. At least this guy is gorgeous and loaded and so charming I"d marry him. As far as Lotharios go, it could be worse."
"Lotharios, really? What, are we a poet now? Leave the artistic license to me. And my sister is too smart for all of this."
"You might be right. But your practical, sensible, levelheaded sister just walked in with a pair of red lace panties. When "Stop, stop that is my sister," Blaze murmured, throwing his hands up over his ears. Giovanni just shook his head and laughed.
"And another thing," Kat said, returning from her room and picking up the thread of the conversation, "you don"t even need to meet him. Anything we had is over and anything moving forward would just be business. Strictly business. That"s it."
"Kat, sweetie, who are you trying to convince? Us or yourself?" Giovanni asked.
She stamped her foot in a huff. "I don"t like that you"re around so much."
"Love you too," he yelled after her.
Kat was gone for less than a minute before she returned. "And " She didn"t get to finish though, a knock on the door interrupting her.
"And?" Giovanni prompted with a smirk as she crossed the room.
"You just wait and I"ll give you an "And,"" she murmured, throwing the door open wide.
"Yo Babe, where you been at?" Speak of the devil.
Blaze rolled his eyes from the kitchen the sound of Marco"s voice, and his sister"s reaction to it, always put him on edge. He couldn"t help slipping into view of the front door, muscles clearly on display with his arms crossed in what he knew was an intimidating stance.
"Where do you think I"ve been at? Right here."
"I know where you shoulda been at." He leered at her; Kat fought hard not to cringe. Was this how he always acted? The Prince did suggestive so much better.
"And where is that?" Blaze interrupted. Marco clearly hadn"t seen him standing there and a look half parts disdain and wariness crossed his face. "Sup," he said, jutting his chain at Blaze.
"What do you want Marco?" Kat asked.
"You. Me. Dinner. Let"s go."
She scoffed at him. "No."
"What? Why?" His eyes glanced at Blaze with a frown.
"Why? The last time I saw you, you were in the back of a car with that ditz from the coffee place and you weren"t looking for your keys."
"Her? She"s nothing."
"Yeah, well I"m over all of the nothing you keep s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g."
"All?"
"Seriously Marco? My best friend works for a PI and you"re like the opposite of discreet."
"Fine, you wanna be like that? You cool off; I"ll see you in a week." One more sidelong glance at Blaze and then he was gone.
"Can you believe him?" Kat murmured with a shake of her head.
"What?"
"Thinking that in a week I"ll have changed my mind."
"Yeah, it"s gonna be at least ten days," Giovanni added.
"What?"
"Come on Kat, be real."
"Seriously, what Gio? You got something to say?"
Giovanni glanced at Blaze before answering. "Kat, I love you, but you always take him back. How many times have you caught him with girls in the back of cars. Or restaurants. Or that time at the zoo. You"re each other"s defaults and you take him back because nothing better"s come along. You"re like "eh, good enough," every time. Ten days from now you"re gonna be exactly where Marco thinks you"re gonna be you, him, dinner."
Kat stared at them both for a moment before stalking out of the living room. Blaze shot Gio a slightly hara.s.sed look. "At least I didn"t point out the reason she does it is to forget and or escape the utter uselessness and abandonment of your crazy mother."
"When did I start dating a pop-psychologist?" Blaze murmured under his breath as he went after his sister.
Sebastian sat on the couch, throwing a ball at the wall and idly catching it as it came back. Sergei was sure to be home any minute, with another list of "female prospects," and would ream him for not being more productive in his absence. But he didn"t feel like doing anything productive at the moment. The fact that marriage was in his future, part of the grand plan now, was weighing on him. He felt a need to be wicked, devilish, rebellious. Before it was too late, before he had to be proper, before he turned into his worst nightmare Anton.
There was a knock at the door but he ignored it Sebastian never opened his own door. When it happened again he looked around, noticed that he was completely alone, and got up to answer. It had been forever since he"d been anything resembling alone; another perk of America and exile.
"Kisa," he said with a smile when he saw who was on the other side of it. "How did you get up here?"
"I can be quite persuasive when I want to be."
"I"m sure you can," he murmured with an unmistakably suggestive grin.
"Were you serious?" His brow furrowed in confusion and she elaborated. "Were you serious about hiring me as a matchmaker? About wanting me to help you find a wife?"
Sebastian stared at her quite a while before answering. The list of dossiers Sergei kept putting in front of him Sezynian women yearning to be royalty, to be pa.s.sive, submissive, benign things to hang on his arm were depressing. He had resigned himself to the idea of marriage but he could do without the glossy, preapproved, proper women being suggested. Plus a foreigner would have the added bonus of angering his father, which seemed to be half the reason he was doing things these days. At the very least someone like Kat would make the search exciting, even if there was little chance she could make the choice so. "I was."
"Okay. Then invite me in so we can talk business." He bowed her over the threshold and Kat let out the breath she"d been holding. She wasn"t going to sleep with him, not again, but Marco"s appearance and Gio"s comments had made her think. Did she really do that default to d.i.c.kheads? That wasn"t her plan, not at all how had that come to pa.s.s? Spending a few weeks with a Prince wasn"t going to change the course of her life but maybe it could wake her up a bit to everything she had the tendency to forget. Sebastian was entertaining and charming and not bad to look at. One night and Marco"s faade already didn"t seem as persuasive. If anyone could help her see his true colors, Sebastian could. Ten days from now she was not going to be sitting at dinner with Marco. She couldn"t be.
Sebastian returned to his perch on the couch and motioned her beside her. Kat sat across from him and took out paper instead. "So, what"s the proposition? What are your expectations? Your timeframe? Any things to consider?"
A ghost of a smile crossed the prince"s lips. "My, aren"t we the s.e.xy little librarian."
She raised a hand to her topknot. "I like to be organized." She brushed her hand across the stark lines of her notebook. "Plus, especially where you"re concerned, I like to know what I"m getting myself into."
"I didn"t hear any complaints last time."
"You still owe me a shirt."
Sebastian propped his ankle atop his knee, leaned back, and studied her. Kat tried not to fidget under his gaze but it was impossible. "I turn thirty in ten weeks. According to the customs of Sezynia, I must be married by then in order to be eligible for the throne. Though by no means official, there have been rumors, indications that at our birthday celebration, my grandmother Queen Ekaterina will name a successor. Not to rule at this time but for when the time comes."
"And what do you need me to do find you dates?"
"Find me a wife. A wife befitting the future ruler of a country, but one that does not bore me to tears." He ran a hand across his jaw, the stubble there abrasive against his skin. "You like to be organized, right? Sergei will love that. He has research background checks and personality tests and school transcripts and hierarchies of social competencies. He leads with that. All of that is nothing without chemistry."
The Prince dropped his foot to the ground and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. "I will marry because I must. But if the course of my life is to be decided with this one decision, then it"s not only my grandmother or my country who must like her. Shouldn"t I like her as well? Shouldn"t I have a say in the way this will go?"
Kat cleared her throat and looked away. The duty reflected in his eyes, that she understood. "That doesn"t sound unreasonable."
"Then you will help me?"
"I think we can make an arrangement," Kat said. "My fee is fifteen hundred dollars." She hadn"t wanted to say it, not after hearing the sincerity in his words, but she had to. Last time she left Marco, she quit answering phones at his mechanics too. There had been pride in Blaze"s eyes when she told him but she"d heard him call about tossing pies at the pizzeria again. Blaze needed his time to sculpt; she needed to make that happen.
"Double it. Three thousand," Sebastian countered.
Kat gasped. "No. I"m not taking that much money."
"Why not? I can afford it. And I guarantee I"ll make you work for it."
"Fifteen hundred and not a penny more." She"d crunched the numbers. Seventy-five dollars a day. Twenty days of her time. It would cover what she made answering phones while she found something else. She already felt that she was overestimating her worth as a matchmaker she was not in the business of fleecing people, royalty or otherwise.
"I suppose it would be foolish to argue?"
Kat let out the breath she didn"t even realize she was holding and grinned. "Most definitely."
"Then we have a deal." He took her hand between his and the corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly. A wave of attraction radiated out from his touch and she tried not to squirm before pulling her hand away.
"So, what have you been doing for the last two weeks? Sitting around and hoping the universe sends you a wife?"
"No, Sergei has been trying, bombarding me with options. About as effective as a Porsche in a snowstorm."
"Why?"
"It"s a metaphor for "
She rolled her eyes at him as she leaned back in her chair. "No, not the metaphor. Why isn"t Sergei effective?"
"Because he"s Sergei." At the slightly patronizing look she shot him, which he couldn"t deny turned him on, he elaborated. "He"s choosing women just like my father would choose. I don"t really agree."
"Who would you choose then?"
"Giselle Bundchen. But I hear she"s taken."
Kat stared at him for a moment, wondering if he was joking or if he really could find and marry a Brazilian supermodel if he put his mind to it. "What do you like about her?"
"What"s not to like about her? She"s striking, intriguing, charming. I would not mind waking up next to that gorgeous thing for the rest of my life. Those legs, stunning. Plus she"s exotic, foreign. Not stupid but not so smart I need to look up things other than the hockey scores in the morning. Traveler, so would not mind living in my country. Rich and a good job so would not have to worry about draining Sezynia dry. And my grandmother loves her, favorite Angel I know, I"ve heard Baba say looks like her sister."
Kat had been scribbling in her notebook while he talked. "So important parts I got from that are gorgeous, smart, professional, good with grandmothers."
Sebastian laughed. "Did I say that? Fine recapping Kisa."
"Anyone else you have your eye on?"
Sebastian picked up one of the magazines off the table. "I"ve been staring at her for the last few days and could definitely get used to doing it every day."
Kat looked at the cover. "Madison Duncan? Really?" She took it from him and flipped it open. "If you had opened it you could have read the article about her husband and how they just celebrated their second anniversary with a vow renewal. I wouldn"t exactly call her available either with a headline called "Love in LA.""
Sebastian rolled his eyes. "Love? Maybe I do need to get out of this country. So much unnecessary emotion."
"You really don"t believe in love, do you?"
He scoffed. "Belief is for grade school children. Love is a highly misguided illusion. We"d all be much happier if we agreed to set emotion aside and base life decisions on other criteria."
"Wow, and Sergei can"t work with that?"
Her sarcasm brought a smile to Sebastian"s lips. "He doesn"t understand my expensive tastes."
"Well let"s tone it down just a little. A perfect ten pinup girl, sure, but how about one that doesn"t already have a ring on it."
"Must I?" he asked, matching her mocking tone.