Royally Screwed Part 28

"I know you do Kitten. He definitely spiced up New York with all those d.a.m.n fine bodyguards. Last night I had the best f.u.c.king dream where " But Lane never made it to the story because they were practically trampled by a string of people exiting a store to their left. "Watch where the h.e.l.l you're going!" Lane snapped.

"Screw you!" a familiar voice replied behind them.

"Marco!" Kat said in surprise, her head rising and turning in shock. "Oh my G.o.d, what happened to you?"

"Like you don't know," he sneered with a wince. His face was bruised so badly it looked like he'd taken purple eye shadow and applied it liberally, everywhere. His lip was cut, those four words enough to open the wound again. His arm was in a cast just like Blaze's, black instead of blue, and he teetered precariously on one good leg as he brought his sleeve up to dab at his lip.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kat said, her hands making their way to her hips.

"Oh come on baby, don't play stupid. I know you told him to do it."

"Told who to do what?"

"Told that nancy brother of yours to beat the c.r.a.p out of me."

Kat narrowed her eyes, Lane's hand on her arm stopping her from lunging at him for that comment. She took a deep breath, biting painfully into her bottom lip as a reminder of restraint and asked, "Why would I tell him to beat the c.r.a.p out of you?"

"h.e.l.l if I know baby. You're the one that's gone bat c.r.a.p crazy the last few months." He shifted with a wince as his cast bandied about in frustration. "Ignoring my calls, standing me up, acting all high and mighty. Whatever I'm done with you you're too high maintenance."

"Too high maintenance?!" she squealed, completely unlike her. "Too high Maintenance?! What, it's too much to ask that your boyfriend keeps it zipped in his pants when you're not around and doesn't f.u.c.k anything and everything with two legs?! You're ridiculous, do you know that, f.u.c.king ridiculous!"

"Whatever. You just tell that fruity brother of yours to stay away from me 'cause next time I'll press charges. One piece of a.s.s ain't worth all this trouble."

"My brother's not who I'd be worried about," Kat said, making a move towards him. Lane had to restrain her, wrap her arms around her middle and practically pick her up off the ground, to stop her from reaching Marco.

"You're all f.u.c.king psycho," he murmured as he left.

"Yeah you better run!" Kat yelled after him.

"That," Lane said, watching him stumble away, "was highly entertaining."

"Did you know?" Kat asked, rounding on her. At her blank look she added, "Did you know that Blaze beat him up and wasn't injured playing rugby. Did. You. Know?"

Lane gave her a haughty look, not even needing to make a sound. "I can't believe this," Kat said, stalking away, "I can't believe you guys."

"Oh, what, did we ruin your life? Your chance with Marco dashed, what, you're going to go join a f.u.c.king cloister of nuns and be celibate forever because, d.a.m.n, he was your f.u.c.king true love?" Lane looked at Kat with disapproval, forcing her to stop.

"Don't cuss when you're talking about nuns."

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Lane took her arm again and started them walking at their previous leisurely pace. "Pastrami on rye from the deli?"

"No," Kat said, "gotta go home and kill Blaze."

"Sweetie, you're the only one that still harbored any illusions about Marco."

Kat remembered the look in his eyes, angry, hissing. How his tongue had darted out at her words, his oily hair always looking as if it had been sh.e.l.lacked. And a story she once heard. "I know, he's a snake."

"You d.a.m.n well can't blame your brother for wanting to protect you from that."

"Watch me."

Blaze was on the couch watching the couple across the street fight when the door slammed behind him. "Kat, you gotta see this! The pixie girl just "

"What did you do?!" Her voice was deathly still but he knew that tone.

Blaze looked over his shoulder at her, saw the jut of her chin and those hands on her hips and winced inside, steeling for a fight. "What do you mean?"

"Seriously, we're gonna play it like that? That's how you want to do this?" When he just looked at her, letting the silence stretch paper-thin, she continued. "Fine. Fine. Have it your way. Guess who Lane and I just ran into on the street?"

He groaned but maintained the faade. "Who, Sebastian?"

That startled Kat out of her bad mood for just a moment. "No. Why would you even say that?"

"Well I know he's in town and I saw him the other day and . . ."

"Oh my G.o.d, how many people did you tell you beat the s.h.i.t out of Marco? Is it how you start conversations now? What is wrong with everyone I know? I swear to G.o.d they've all gone certifiably insane."

Blaze breathed just a little bit easier. Oh, she was mad about That. "I was one hundred percent completely sane when I did that. Sanest thing I've done in a long time."

Kat threw her hands up in surrender. "And you're gloating about it? You're actually bragging about beating up my boyfriend."

"Ex-boyfriend. He d.a.m.n well better f.u.c.king be your ex-boyfriend."

"He is now that he thinks I called in a hit on him. Don't think you're going to get another chance at him, he said next time he'll press charges."

Blaze barked a laugh, a howl of injustice, and jumped up from the couch. "Oh that's rich! If he presses charges on me I'd press them on the h.o.m.ophobic posse that jumped me. Three guys and I still got the better end of that deal."

"Don't make me feel sorry for you," Kat said. Though her eyes couldn't help scanning him for more injuries now that she knew he hadn't been in a fair fight. "And don't crow about being a macho idiot."

"Hey, I don't regret anything I did. Defended my sister's honor, finally got to beat the s.h.i.t out of that sorry excuse for a man and I was such an impressive figure, I got laid. Perfect day."

"Good let's just forget about how you could have been seriously f.u.c.king hurt. Or spent two days in the hospital. Or how worried I was about you, hopped a plane from Europe and obsessed over you every d.a.m.n mile. So glad that you enjoyed it but please, don't mind me, didn't mean to bring you down."

Blaze rolled his eyes at her dramatic turn but he couldn't excuse the niggle of guilt and truth in her words either. "I am sorry about worrying you. You know I never want to do that."

Kat begrudgingly waived that comment away. "Whatever, I'm used to it it's in my job description." She ran her hands though her hair, still angry as h.e.l.l. "I'm just So Mad at you right now."

"Come on Kitten, seriously? Why? Please don't tell me you were going to get back together with him. Please." Blaze's voice was pleading with her, held an anguish she hadn't heard in a long time.

"Me being with him was that much torture for you?"

"Yes! He treated you like c.r.a.p. And cheated on you. And would just ignore you for days and sleep with whatever moved and then come back. And you'd take him back."

"Wow, thanks for not judging."

"Why?" Blaze asked, looking at her with true curiosity. "Why did you always take him back?"

"Because . . . "

"Because?" he prompted. At the earnest look on his face Kat lost it.

"Because he had sticking power! He was like a termite you couldn't get rid of. Yeah he was a jacka.s.s and unfaithful and a f.u.c.king bad lay but he stuck, he stayed. All I ever wanted was someone who'd stay." Sebastian didn't stay, Sebastian was marrying someone else. Sebastian had let her go.

Blaze looked at her with slightly haunted eyes. He reached a hand out for her but she moved out of his reach, something she seemed to be getting pretty good at lately. "It could still happen to me," she whispered, staring at the ground, "it could still be me. I could still get it." She slipped down to the floor, running her hand idly over the scar at the back of her head, the reminder that life and sanity were fragile.

"Kat," he sighed, dropping down next to her. "I don't think it will. Oh sweetie, I didn't know you worried about that."

"How could I not worry about that . . ."

"It'll be okay," he murmured.

"How do you know that? You don't know that."

"I know you," he whispered, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I know that you're strong and smart and determined. And even if it did, you'd kick any diagnosis' a.s.s and fight tooth and nail to never let it win." She laughed and he kept talking. "And, honey, I know that taking c.r.a.p from jacka.s.ses is not the way to find someone who'll stick."

"Everybody leaves me. I'd leave me if I could." Sebastian would have left her, did leave her when she told him about Blaze; a psycho waitress could never be the Jewel of Sezynia.

"I wouldn't. Never." He held her for a moment, her cheek against his shoulder and stroked her hair, his little sister. "I know someone else that wouldn't leave you either."

"Who?"

"I'll give you a hint. He's European royalty."

Kat pulled away, ran a hand through her hair, raising her knees up into her chest. "He doesn't want me."

"Now that's a lie."

Kat rolled her eyes. "What do you want from me Blaze?"

"The truth."

"Fine. I left him before he could leave me. But he was always going to leave me. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"I just have one question." Blaze leaned over and placed a kiss on the top of her head before rising. Her upturned face looked at him, waiting. "Are you sure he was going to leave you?"

Kat walked up the steps to her loft and wondered if she'd ever been this tired before in all her life. She'd been back in the country for a week, had left for Sezynia only ten days ago; thinking about everything that had happened since then made her want to crawl into her bed and sleep for a month. But her bed wasn't exactly her favorite thing these days so she worked until she was too exhausted to dream.

Because otherwise every time she put her head on the pillow and closed her eyes, she'd see his face sometimes smiling at her, sometimes winking at her, sometimes begging her to stay and fall into a restless, relentless slumber where she could neither catch nor flee him. How long before she'd be able to get him out of her head?

"Blaze," she called as she entered the apartment, dropping her bag at the front door, her shoes quickly following. "Blaze, are you here?"

"He went out." She turned to the smooth Sezynian accent and her mouth fell open in shock.

"What are you doing here?" Why was he standing looking like that, in her kitchen, too good for her own sanity. Five days. It had been five days since she'd seen him why was he still in America. Why wasn't he back in Sezynia getting married? "Why aren't you half a world away?"

A crooked smile appeared on his face for just a second as he answered. "I had some unfinished business to take care of." Their eyes met but she quickly looked away. Sebastian sighed and added, "I believe I owe you a shirt. Among other things."

"You waited around five days to give me a shirt?"

"I left and came back. Just got in. And I said among other things. Let's try to pay a bit more attention." It was hard for Kat to stop from smiling at that comment but she managed. "Okay. First, Roman insisted that I bring this to you a case of wine from his vineyard. He wanted me to tell you that you overestimated its worth by leaving with just a bottle and he needed to rectify that. Will you accept it?"

Kat gave him a puzzled look what was with the overt formality. Maybe he was trying to establish distance; they could never go back to how it was before. He was an engaged man after all, and not to her. Kat's heart wilted slightly but she nodded her head in agreement. "Yes, I will accept it. It's good wine."

"It is, isn't it? What an overachieving royal."

"Don't blame the guy for having aspirations your fiancee has a job too."

"I told you, she's not my fiancee."

Kat waved that statement away. "She wants to marry you, she'll accept, she's waiting for the question." She couldn't ever stop being the fairy G.o.dmother, could she? Why was she encouraging him to go chase after another girl?! And how long could she stand here before she broke down in tears? "Could we get on with this please? What else do you have in your bag of tricks Mary Poppins?"

"As far as nicknames go I like Casanova better."

That got a smile. "Yes well this from the man that called me Kitty Kat."

"You don't like that?"

She grunted in disapproval. "As bad as being called food."

Sebastian remembered the first time she told him that, the night they met, and he couldn't stop a grin at the memory. Kat must have remembered too because her cheeks turned pink and she refused to meet his eyes.

"Ana sent you this," he said, gesturing to a trunk sitting at the foot of her couch. He opened it with one hand, holding the lid for her. Kat took one step forward to peer inside. She had to laugh when she saw what was sitting on top a stuffed peac.o.c.k. "She said you left it in her car."

Kat closed the distance to grab it. "I did, after we went sightseeing. How could I forget you Pete?"

"Pete?" Sebastian tried to restrain the laugh in his voice.

"Yes, Pete the Peac.o.c.k." Kat averted her eyes from his and saw the rest of the trunk full of clothes. The bright orange tumeric sat on top.

"Will you accept it?" the Prince asked.

She shook her head. She didn't need the reminder of those clothes. "I couldn't possibly. It's too much."

"Ana wanted you to have them. Told me not to return with them if I know what's good for me. You don't want me to suffer a beheading do you?"

"I don't know, a foot off the top might do you good."

Sebastian outright laughed at that. Kat didn't join in but the scowl didn't stay either. "You may be right. But I still won't suffer my sister's wrath. You take them or I drop them off at the goodwill. Your choice."

Kat stared at the clothes for a long moment. She didn't want the painful reminder they brought but she didn't want them traipsing along the streets of New York either. She could live with them stuffed in the back of her closet. "Yes I will accept them."

The Prince looked at her, fondness in his eyes, and she didn't know how much longer she could stand being in the same room with him. "Next," she snapped.

"Next," he drawled, "I must pay my poker debt. I have no wine to give but you may like this. It is a Serdtse." Sebastian reached down into the chest, thankful that she only knew the word 'goat' in Sezynian, and pulled out a box.

They were now so close that she could breathe him in. Her composure was cracking. She needed him out of here she was ready to accept anything that he wanted to give her if it would hurry him out of her apartment. But she hadn't been expecting this.

Inside the ornately decorated box was jewelry an exquisite cage necklace, dotted with deep, blood red jewels unlike anything she'd ever seen. She couldn't resist running a hand over the intricate metal work, feeling the cool silver. "It's beautiful," she whispered.