Chapter 6.
Kat walked through the front door of her apartment still trying to figure out what exactly had just happened. Saying it out loud to herself hadn"t really helped her believe it. She"d hooked up with a prince and was going to teach him how to find a woman so he could become King. The fate of his country might just hang on whether she advised him to go for beauty over brains. What kind of reality had she woken up to this morning? What kind of crazy Pygmalion was she playing at?
"There you are," Blaze said in an aggrieved voice, exiting his bedroom at the sound of the front door slamming.
"Here I am." She grabbed a soda from the fridge and hoisted herself up onto the metal slab that doubled as kitchen island and work s.p.a.ce. She let her feet dangle as she took a long drink. "How are you feeling?"
"You didn"t come home last night."
"That"s true."
"You always come home at night."
"Also true."
"So I got worried about you "
"Did you?" she asked with an affectionate look. Kat was used to worrying about him but she"d always made sure he never had the same feeling; he had enough to be concentrating on and she could bear that load for both of them.
"Of course crazy," he answered with a roll of his eyes. "Who else do I have to worry about? So, when it got later and later and I hadn"t heard from you, I called Gio. You know, just to make sure you hadn"t gotten arrested for a.s.saulting Donahue with a tea strainer or something."
"You didn"t."
"I did!" He slammed a hand in emphasis against the tabletop, the resounding bong making both of them smile. "And he told me this crazy story. But I wasn"t about to believe it until I heard it from you."
She just sat there in silence, giving him an accessing look, before downing her drink, crushing the can and lobbing it across the room into the recycling bin. "I think I"m gonna go to bed."
"Brat," Blaze murmured at her as she crossed the room.
"I told you she wouldn"t kiss and tell," Giovanni said, appearing in Blaze"s doorway.
She turned to her brother with a huff, hands already on her hips, a stern look already seeping into her eyes. "You! What did I say about coming home and finding anyone here?"
"You know me Kitten. I don"t spend the night alone." He winked at her and she tried very hard not to smile.
"Last night neither did I," she replied with a haughty smile.
"Okay, name them names sister. I have to know who I should go out and kill." He was only half joking.
"Blaze!"
"And if you tell me nothing happened then one of the people might be you."
"You said getting laid was going to put her in a better mood," Giovanni laughed, plopping down onto the couch and staring at her over the back of it.
"It should have. She must be wound tighter than I thought." Blaze dropped down next to Giovanni and they looked at her expectantly, waiting for a story.
"I"m not wound tight," she protested softly, not looking at either of them, fidgeting with the trinkets within arm"s reach. They just stared at her, waiting for her to fill the silence. Which she always did. "Fine, whatever. A guy hit on me at work, we flirted, I spent the night with him. There you go."
"She left out the part about how the guy was a smoking hot, honest to f.u.c.king G.o.d Prince," Giovanni added.
"It was implied," she glared, silencing him with a look.
"Anything else you"re trying to imply?" Blaze asked.
"Did you catch the part about me turning down his marriage proposal but agreeing to help him find a wife?"
"What?!" the boys burst in unison, drawing a smile from her. She rolled her eyes and reluctantly scampered over the couch and squeezed in between them.
"Whole story?" she asked.
"Whole story. Now."
"We"re staying in the country for a while longer," Sebastian said mildly as he reentered the hotel room.
"Not here," Sergei replied gruffly. "Your father just checked us out."
"What? So now not wanting to be King means cut off? Am I not allowed to be in the family photo anymore either?"
"I"ll fix it," Sergei grunted from his computer.
"Good." Sebastian grabbed an apple and started throwing it up in the air like a baseball. "What about that apartment the emba.s.sy has uptown for guests. I seem to be a guest now."
"You"re a Prince."
"Well then I"m the owner. Either way it"s empty." Sebastian dropped down across from Sergei and eyed his friend whose brow was knit together in concentration. "Don"t tell me getting cut off wasn"t in one of your numerous contingency plans? You must have invested some of that siphoned money in real estate in New York I"m here enough."
Sergei looked up in surprise. "You are aware I do that, sir?"
Sebastian couldn"t stop a grin. "Sergei your job is to watch out for me. You"re good at it, my friend, because it doesn"t stop at bullets and kidnappings. I"d actually be okay if you were just stealing from me, for future reference. I know I put you through enough and I can"t imagine you"re compensated well enough for it. And don"t call me sir."
Sergei opened his mouth to speak but his charge rushed on. "I think we need another t.i.tle change: Sergei the Butler, Bodyguard, Consultant, Confidant, Fixer, Financial Planner, Kingmaker. Pales in comparison to Prince, I think."
"You will be a good King," Sergei said after a moment.
"I don"t know about that," Sebastian replied mildly, peering intently at his apple before taking a bite. "Anastasia would be the perfect choice, shame no one realizes it. But I"ll be better than Anton."
Sergei gave the Prince an amused look. "What?"
"You pay much more attention than I give you credit for. I often worried you didn"t have it in you."
"Another t.i.tle change for that one, this time not at all flattering."
"Whatever you wish. Sir."
Sebastian scoffed. "Hmm, whatever I wish. That sounds sincere. When I am King you"ll be less impertinent I trust?"
"So we really have had that change of heart I"ve been waiting on. You are dreadfully late with it Prince Sebastian."
"Royalty is never late Sergei. Everyone else is simply early."
"Hmm," Sergei grunted, tapping the keyboard quickly, a clatter of keys. "Why do you want to stay in America Sebi? It would be most prudent to head back to Sezynia and locate a matchmaker to find you a wife."
Sebastian smiled. "Ahh, I"ve found help with that." At the look Sergei sent him his grin just grew. "Kat offered to help me with that."
Sergei looked up in surprise. "The waitress? The waitress. You"re betrothed to her now?"
"No," laughed the Prince, "though not for lack of trying. She"s offered to help me find a wife. She"ll do a good job I think she knows what I like." He winked for good measure. "Her choices should prove to be more enjoyable than yours."
"James Dean, always James Dean," Sergei murmured in annoyance, swearing in Sezynian under his breath. Sebastian just smiled.
"Blaze," Kat asked, her voice mild and even, walking out of the bathroom with her hair still dripping wet. He should have known from her tone that nothing good was going to happen.
"What?"
"This pill bottle is full," she murmured, holding it up.
"Yes."
"This bottle shouldn"t be full. It should be almost empty." She stared at him. Just stared and let the accusation grow itself.
"That"s a new bottle. I dropped the other one down the sink a few days ago and went and got it refilled."
"And you didn"t think to mention that?" she asked, in that toneless voice that held so much more meaning than her anger might.
"No."
"And why is that, huh?"
Blaze stepped away from the painting he"d been explaining to Giovanni and walked towards his sister. "Because you"ll just take my clumsiness as a symptom of some grand relapse and freak out."
Kat turned and stomped away, pouring the pills out on the counter to count them back into the bottle. She made a new note on the bottom of when it would need to be refilled and took out the rest of his prescriptions to check as well. She whizzed by the boys a few minutes later and started tipping over vases and reaching back behind books and paint supplies, searching.
"Come on Kat, what are you doing?" Blaze asked, shooting Giovanni a helpless look.
"What do you think I"m doing?" she responded tonelessly again, grabbing the coffee grounds and shaking them to make sure nothing was in there with them.
"Wait, I"m out of the loop. What is going on?" Giovanni asked.
"She"s looking to see if I"ve been hiding pills instead of taking them or have drugs stashed around." Blaze looked at his sister, not at all amused.
"He"s taking them, really. I"ve seen him," Giovanni piped up. "And I went with him to get the prescription refilled, that"s true too."
Kat stopped and leveled him with an accessing stare. "You aren"t lying to me, are you Gio?" Her voice was so serious it could have cut steel.
"Have I ever lied to you before?"
"Yes. And you"re horrible at it," she murmured, stopping her hands from feeling around in the back of the silverware drawer.
"I know. That"s why I don"t do it anymore."
"You don"t want to cross me boy."
"Believe me, I know it."
"You get how serious this is, right Gio? You shouldn"t cover for him just "cause he"s a good lay."
"Okay, that"s enough." Blaze popped up from his seat and came to stand between Giovanni and his sister. "Honey, I"m fine. I"m not off my meds, I"m not missing any of my appointments, and I"m not throwing symptoms left and right. You need to chill and stop over-reacting. And stop interrogating Gio."
A look pa.s.sed between them. After a moment Blaze murmured "Bring it in" and she stepped forward for a hug. "You"re going to watch me like a hawk now aren"t you?"
"d.a.m.n straight," she answered.
"I"m not a reality show you know, Kitten."
"I know. Otherwise I"d be enjoying this."
"Here we are, sir."
"I still can"t believe he got them to kick us out. Mother must not know about this she would never have it."
"I imagine," Sergei replied as he held the door open for the ma.s.s of bodyguards carrying bags into the apartment, "that"s the reason the King does not tell his wife everything he does. There would be much more royal disapproval."
"And that"s what you want me to have Sergei? A wife to disapprove of everything I do. How charming."
"Have we changed our mind already?" Sergei asked dryly, barely able to conceal the roll of his eyes.
"No," Sebastian said defiantly. "I"m calling home." He brought his cell phone to his ear and waited rather impatiently for it to stop ringing.
"h.e.l.lo," a female voice said, bringing a smile to Sebastian"s face.
"Stasia." His smile rang clearly through his voice.
"Sebi," his sister replied. He pictured her curled up in her picture window, feet tucked under her, and couldn"t help but begin to calm. Just like their mother, just the sound of her voice had the power to make him feel better. "How are you? How much trouble have you gotten into already?"
"More than if you and Roman had come with me."
Anastasia laughed and his grin grew as he dropped down onto the couch, content to let everyone else load their new home. "What would we do in America? Could you imagine Roman in New York, really?"
"He"d like California, touring wineries and talking to growers of grapes, don"t you think?"
"Perhaps. He"ll have to brush up on his English before we make a trip like that."
"Ah, he speaks English fine. You"re just still in newlywed bliss and don"t want to hang around with your brother anymore. Probably a good move now anyway." The words came out a bit more accusatory than lighthearted.