CHAPTER SEVEN
Nikolai
“MY, MY, ISN’T His Highness in quite the chipper mood?” My wicked stepmother, Queen Adele, sizes me up from across the mahogany table. Even when it is just she, my father and I in residence at the palace, she insists on using the formal dining room that can accommodate up to fifty guests. Overhead hang three large crystal chandeliers, and lining the wood-paneled room are suits of armor interspersed with the images of frowning black-haired men, my ancestors, the kings of old.
From the looks of their faces, dark and brooding is a family tradition.
“As a matter of fact, Majesty, I am in good spirits.” I wipe my lips with a linen napkin before crooking them into a smile as fake as her own. The queen’s gaze narrows as she tries to see through my mocking mask.
Lots of luck, love.
My father cuts his roast, oblivious as always to the private war that I carry out with the hag. “I understand you met with the matchmaker this afternoon. She seems a competent woman.” He spears the beef with his fork. “Most enthusiastic.”
“Quite.” An image of Kate Winter flashes, one where she is on her knees, hair wet and wild, sucking my cock like some sort of mythic water goddess, and I suppress a satisfied grin.
“Rather common, if you ask me.” My stepmother gives an audible sniff.
“Good thing no one did,” I growl, my mouth flat-lining.
She ignores the warning in my voice. “I do admit to having second thoughts on Miss Winter. After all, how can a commoner have the proper breeding necessary to discern fine taste? Edenvale is the second-oldest throne in all of Europe. The realm expects certain standards.”
White-hot fury builds behind my eyes. This snobby shrew isn’t fit to lick the sole of one of Kate’s heels, let alone dare to speak her name with such disdain. True, my favorite matchmaker isn’t blue-blooded, but she has more natural grace and elegance in one of her little fingers than Adele has in her entire Botoxed body.
Who knows what prompted Father to marry her? I barely remember my real mother, but from all accounts, it was a love match. Queen Cordelia remains well-beloved by her people to this day, no thanks to Adele, who likes to pretend she never existed.
I study the fine lines that groove my stepmother’s frown. She has always been a sourpuss, but since her only daughter Victoria’s death she’s turned downright wicked.
The last vestiges of my good mood vanish. When Adele married my lonely father the only bright spot to the arrangement came in the form of her beautiful and vivacious nineteen-year-old daughter, my stepsister and first love. I was a foolish twenty-three-year-old boy determined to make Victoria my queen. While Father disapproved of the relationship, Adele could not hide her ambition. She might not have liked the idea of me making love to her daughter but persuaded Father to allow the engagement to proceed because it would make Victoria a queen. She even argued that it would strengthen Edenvale’s royal ties to have not one but two generations of our royal bloodlines matched. Their aristocratic family has always been one of the wealthiest and most influential in our kingdom. But they’ve always had a reputation for being ambitious.
Too ambitious for my liking.
Over the years, whenever I indulged in a whiskey too many and allowed my thoughts to wander, it had seemed conceivable that Adele might have masterminded the whole affair, put her only child in my path, advising her on how to best seduce her way into a lonely prince’s heart. If Victoria had survived the accident, perhaps she’d have grown to be as calculating and bloodless as the woman sneering down her aristocratic nose at me. The question, though, will never be answered. My youngest brother, Damien, saw to that, ending her life with his usual recklessness, earning his banishment and my everlasting hatred.
“Well, do try to retain your good mood for Saturday evening,” Adele says, dipping her spoon into the lobster bisque.
“What’s Saturday?” I crook my finger, signaling the butler to bring me more wine. I am tempted to grab the whole damn bottle, get too drunk to dream. I don’t want nightmares of Victoria disturbing my sleep tonight.
“Didn’t Miss Winter tell you?” My stepmother’s lifeless smile is stiff and doesn’t reach her cruel eyes. “She has arranged your first date.”
Kate
“No,” I say, when I open my apartment door to find X standing there. “Absolutely not.” Before I can close the door in the man’s face—and I would feel horrid doing so, but this crosses the line—Maddie sidles up behind me.
“Who’s your friend?” she asks, though I’m sure she can tell by his immaculate suit that he is not one who dwells on Market Street. I glance at my own attire, a freaking Fall Out Boy T-shirt and skinny jeans. I look like an American teenager.
“Maddie, this is X. He works for the royal family.”
My sister pulls the door the rest of the way open. She, of course, is in a perfectly beautiful sundress, because she has a date. Which is fine because I was very much looking forward to Netflix, and ice cream, and not thinking about the strange events that have transpired this week. But no, the prince has to butt into my plans, my thoughts, my whatever—simply because he can.
X offers my sister a slight bow, and she backhands me on the shoulder.
“This is the prince’s driver—the guy who picked you up the other morning? You didn’t say he was a silver fox!” she whisper-shouts, but the man is standing right in front of us.
X’s brows rise, the slightest hint of his amusement. “Miss Kate,” he says. “His Highness says it is part of your professional obligation.”
I roll my eyes.
“What obligation?” Maddie asks.
“Tell him no,” I say to X, ignoring my sister.
He pulls a phone from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and glances at the screen.
“Miss Kate declines your invitation,” he says, and my stomach drops. The prince has been listening to our entire interaction.
When I hear his voice, my body tingles in response, and I silently curse Nikolai Lorentz.
“Kate,” he says. X points the phone toward me and my sister. “I’m going to be late for the date that you set up if you don’t get down here in the next three minutes.”
I huff out a breath and try to ignore my sister’s wide eyes and mouth open in a surprised O.
“Your Highness—” I start, but he clears his throat, interrupting me.
“Nikolai,” he corrects me, and I repress an exasperated scream.
“Nikolai. I think you are confused. This is your date. I set it up, but believe me when I say that both you and the Countess of Wynberry will be most put out by me joining you for dinner.”
Maddie backhands me again, this time harder, but she still says nothing.
Nikolai’s raucous laugh rings out from the phone in X’s hand.
“You won’t actually join us,” he says. “You’ll be in the car with X. Beatrice has prepared a veritable feast for you to dine on while you wait for my cue.”
My fists clench at my sides, and I don’t bother stifling my groan.
“You have some nerve,” I say.
“I need a wingman.”
“No.”
“I need to be called to an urgent meeting, an out if things go south. Because if the countess doesn’t go for my proposed arrangement, I promise things will go—southerly,” he adds, his words laced with amusement.
“No,” I maintain.
There is silence for a few long beats, and I hold my breath until he speaks again.
“If I behave badly,” he says, slowly drawing out each word, “which I’ve been known to do, I could scare off a potential prospect. But if someone is there to give me a more respectable exit should I need one, well, then, we all win. Don’t we?” He pauses to let his words sink in before he puts the final nail in the coffin that is my fate for this evening. “You don’t want to chance me not making it to the altar. Do you, Kate?”
White-hot fury pulses through me. Does he know the king and queen will refuse my fee—no matter how tireless I work—if he does not marry? How dare he use such leverage against me? But because I cannot let Maddie carry our grandmother’s financial burden alone, I say what I need to say to shut him up before he reveals too much.
“Fine,” I relent through gritted teeth. “I’ll be right down.”
X sighs and ends the call as I spin into my apartment. My sister follows.
“You’re accompanying the prince on his date. Oh. My. God, Katie. Why didn’t I get this freaking job?”
I grab my bag from the foot of my bed and sling it over my shoulder. “Right now, Maddie, I wish you had.”
I don’t even bother looking in the mirror. I storm toward the door where X waits patiently.
“You’re not even going to change?” my sister asks from behind me, and I shake my head, answering her over my shoulder.
“You heard the man. He’s going to be late, and I sure as hell don’t want to keep the prince and the countess waiting.”
“Have fun!” she calls, unable to mask her own giddy excitement.
Not likely.
“You too!” I offer, sincerely hoping her night goes better than mine is about to.
“If you succeed then we will have clients pouring in.”
I fake a smile. “Yay!” My enthusiasm rings false, but my sister doesn’t notice. She is too good to speak the language of sarcasm.
Maddie deserves all the happiness and success. She built our little company from nothing, and when my life fell apart two years ago, she gave me a place to stay and a job to dive into so I wouldn’t waste away in my grief.
This is why, despite his behavior, I head downstairs and out to the Rolls-Royce parked at the curb. I’m doing this for her. For years I’ve depended on my sister, and now more than ever she’s depending on me. I won’t mess this up. She deserves for her business to succeed, and that means lessening the burden of paying for Gran’s mounting medical bills. Every day it seems a new one arrives. She tries to hide her worry from me, but I see the dark shadows under her eyes.
X opens the door for me, and I slide into the seat opposite Nikolai. I cross my arms and try to level him with my glare.
“You look—” he starts, but I cut him off.
“Don’t, Nikolai. Just don’t.”
He raises his brows. “I was only going to say beautiful. You look beautiful, Kate.”
Don’t, I tell myself in silence. Don’t let his words have any effect on you.
“X,” he says when the man appears behind the wheel. When did he even get there? I swear he just shut my door. “Do you know what a Fall Out Boy is?”
I snort. “Tell me you’re joking.” Then I see it again, the ghost of a smile on X’s face. We’re silently sharing a joke at Nikolai’s expense.
Nikolai shrugs. “I’m assuming it is some sort of popular rock band. The music I listen to does not come with a T-shirt.”
I laugh again and thrust my phone through the open partition to X.
“It’s my top playlist,” I say. “Can you put it on?”
The man nods, and seconds later my phone is hooked up to the car’s speaker system.
The tightness in my throat loosens as “Immortals” wafts from the speakers, and I’m shocked once again when Nikolai’s shoulders relax, and he cocks his head to the side and smiles.
“It’s no Amadeus,” he says, “but I quite like it. I suppose I’m learning I like a lot of new things these days, Miss Winter.”
A chill runs along my spine, but I will it away.
Do not for one second think that he is charming. You know full well that Prince Charming he is not.
But as the anger subsides I see him clearly, his jet-black hair slicked back from his face, charcoal gray suit to match his eyes, and a royal blue tie for a pop of color. He looks so—princely. And gorgeous. And when his smile reaches his eyes, I have to push away the surge of emotion that rises to the surface because I’ve suddenly lost my grip on the anger.
I shake my head and remind myself why I’m here—to make sure this date goes smoothly. To ensure that Prince Nikolai Lorentz is one step closer to marriage—and becoming my king.
“Thank you for coming,” he says softly, and I force a smile.
“Of course,” I say, regaining my composure. “Nikolai?”
“Kate?”
“Have you read the entire contract between Happy Endings and your family?”
He laughs. “What’s to read? You were hired to find me a wife. You’re finding me a wife. I’m not interested in the fine print.”
I let out a breath. So he doesn’t know the consequences for me—for my family—if I fail. My anger ebbs completely as I realize Nikolai’s behavior this evening is simply him being Nikolai.
“Well, then,” I say. “Tell me what I need to do to make this date a success.”
At this, X pulls away from the curb, and we set off for Nikolai to meet his first potential match.