A Prince's Ransom: Kidnapped by the Billionaire (15 page)

“You could say that,” she murmured, shaking her blond head a little bit. “I just… I can’t be around Eric right now. I can’t pretend I belong anywhere around him anymore, or that I still want to be around him.”

A sympathetic look stole across Brigitte’s face, and she approached the balcony railing, leaning her arms upon it with a sigh. “I understand that. I have known Eric for most of my life, I am quite aware of how he can behave. I wonder sometimes if he even realizes it himself, or if he simply does things, if he acts and speaks without first considering the consequences. A dangerous trait in a prince.”

“A cruel trait,” Katherine corrected. “A mean one. I have no doubt that someday, Eric will be a great king. I don’t know much about Montavian’s history, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he were properly remembered. I just doubt that anyone close to him will ever actually care for him. Maybe that’s what he deserves, though, to be left lonely even when he has everything he wants.”

“Maybe it is,” the lady answered softly, reaching out and clasping the shorter girl’s hand lightly before turning and looking behind them into the ballroom. “Ah, it looks as though Eric is yet coming. If you would like, Katherine, I will distract him so that you may avoid the rest of this.”

“You will?”

“Of course. A girl like you does not deserve such cruelty in her life, prince or no. Just follow these stairs to the garden level and then head around the side of the palace.” She pointed toward one corner of the building. “And there should be an open servant’s entrance there that you will take you back inside.”

“Thank you, Brigitte,” Katherine said quietly before quickly moving away and starting to head down the stairs of the two-tiered balcony, only to jump when there was the sound of the balcony door above opening up.

“Katherine—” Eric’s voice cut through the air, and she quickly darted beneath the overhang of the balcony, hoping he wouldn’t be able to see her from there. She didn’t want to deal with him anymore tonight.

“
Eric? You are looking for your little American friend?
” Brigitte spoke in French, and Katherine stilled to try and understand them.

“
Brigitte. Where is she?
” the prince replied, a dangerous sort of growl in his voice that made her shiver even from further away. “
What did you say to her?
”

“
I said very little to her, I merely made certain that she knows exactly what you tend to do with girls who don’t know better than to get involved with you
.” Katherine’s throat tightened. Brigitte had known she was there? She had brought all of that up with Jacob on purpose so she would overhear?

“
And I suppose you left out the part where Isabella began drinking because she walked in on you kissing me, right?
” Eric spat at her, taking a measured step nearer the redhead. “
The part where you kissed me because you knew she was coming?
” Katherine’s heart thundered.

“
What difference does that make? Still you would have used her for your own ends and then discarded her, like all the girls who came before. All I was doing was speeding up the process a little bit. Have you ever noticed how quickly the girls you get close to suspect you of lying to them? I wonder why that is,
” Brigitte snorted derisively.

Katherine could feel the tension in the air—she could feel Eric’s barely restrained fury like a growing thunderstorm, and she shut her eyes. “
I will never marry you, Brigitte. No matter what my parents, no matter what your parents, no matter what you say or do, I will never marry you. You are a parasite who accuses me of negligence and callousness even as you spark the things which break their hearts. Because you think I am yours.
”

“
You are mine, Eric. And someday you will marry me because there will be no one left who will. That girl, that American girl you lowered yourself to even notice, she will never trust you. She loves you, of course, as they all do, but she will never trust you, and she will never be yours. And good for her, that she knew it before I had to tell her something was wrong with you
.”

“
You are wrong! She is wrong. I will not hurt her that way—not her.
”

“
And what is so special about her? You are a liar and a cheat, Eric, and sooner or later you would have grown bored with her and done something to drive her away regardless. She is already lost to you. Why are you so insistent on trying to find someone else to marry, when you and I are the only ones who deserve one another?
”

Eric hissed, and Katherine heard Brigitte gasp slightly when he stalked nearer to her. “
Perhaps we are. Both of us are liars, both of us hurt others. But I’ll be damned before I give you my throne so that you are above reproach when you hurt everyone else around me. Brigitte, for all your beauty, you are little more than a worm working your way into things you want. At the very least, I lie only to protect such things from you
.”

Something about his words seemed to strike a nerve with Brigitte because she huffed a little, struggling for words—and then her heels clicked on the balcony as she hurried toward the door back into the ballroom. Katherine’s tears had finally escaped her control, rolling down her cheeks as she tried to process everything she had just heard. Brigitte had been manipulating her, just like Eric had been. Except… could she really let herself wonder if he actually cared? A few moments ago, she had been certain he hadn’t. But if what he had said to Brigitte was actually true, then maybe he hadn’t hurt that Italian girl the way Katherine feared. What did that mean for her, though? Had there been other girls? Girls he had hurt—or girls Brigitte had hurt?

She couldn’t find the will to move as she processed it, and only the sound of footsteps on the nearby steps stirred her from her thoughts as she looked toward the sound. Her breath caught when she saw Eric descending, looking out over the garden blow, trying to spot her, only to sigh a little. His fists clenched, and he shook his head before turning around.

Those eyes found her instantly in the darkness of the lower balcony. But still he found her, taking in the sight of her tears and the way she clutched a post that held up the balcony. For a long moment, he did nothing, as if not believing she was actually still there, but then he drew closer to her.

“You heard all of that, didn’t you?” he asked softly, taking a slow step nearer. Katherine nodded mutely, and he chuckled slightly, bitterly. “And here I thought you could not speak French.”

“I can’t,” she answered, hoarse. “But I can listen to it pretty well.”

He winced and looked away from her. “Brigitte is very good at seeming genuine and kind, and not—”

“Like you are?” Katherine interrupted, shaking her head. “What I heard might have just been her trying to drive us apart, but she didn’t have to try very hard, did she? You’re just the same as her.”

“I am nothing like her,” he shot back, his anger bursting forth with a growl.

“Bullshit! It took nothing for me to believe that you had hurt Isabella the way she had suggested, and it takes nothing for me to wonder if she isn’t right about the rest. If you use girls like me and then discard them…”

“Katherine, I am not perfect. I couldn’t be. And my vices, my mistakes, they will always be there, but that does not mean I have not learned from them, or that I want to repeat them
now
, with you,” Eric spoke insistently, reaching for her now that he had gotten close enough.

“I don’t trust you! I don’t trust you not to hurt me,” she replied, pulling away from him. “You’ve done enough without Brigitte interfering. I’m right not to trust you. Nothing I said is false. Maybe it would be better if you just let me go. I don’t think either of us will walk away without getting hurt if it continues.”

The prince stared at her stiffly. His eyes were burning, defying their normal intensity as he looked down at her. Katherine stared back up at him before quickly looking away and reaching up to angrily wipe at the tears that had started to slip down her cheeks. She didn’t want to cry in front of him, but she didn’t know what other choice she had. All of this had left her feeling so used.

“I don’t belong here. I don’t know how to play these stupid mind games. I’ll never be able to compete with someone like Brigitte, or anyone else who comes along to manipulate me. They’ll probably get away with it, and then where will I be? I’m not stupid, but this isn’t
my world
, Eric. It’s not,” she started again, more quietly this time.

Eric suddenly surged towards her, forcefully pushing her back until she was pressed up against the wall beneath the balcony. Without giving her a chance to respond, he found her cheek and tilted her head up, his lips slamming down on hers recklessly, smearing her lipstick. Katherine’s fingers twisted into his tuxedo shirt and she whimpered a little bit before jerking herself free.

“No!” she gasped, shaking her head rapidly. “No, I won’t give you anymore of myself, knowing what’s waiting for me if I do.”

“I am
not
letting you go,” he growled at her at last. “I am not letting you walk away, not like
this
, not because of something that wretched Brigitte has done. Yes, she got the better of you this time, but do you have any idea how much she underestimates you, Katherine? I am not letting you go this way!”

“Why?!” she demanded, trying to push him away. Unlike before when she had been able to wrench herself free of their dance, this time his strength was unyielding against her. “Why do you want to keep me here so badly? What could you possibly want from me?”

“Why does that matter so much?!” Eric countered, with an intensity in his voice she had never witnessed before. “Doesn’t it matter that I just want you to
stay
? That I want to keep you, regardless of my reasons, whether they be political or personal?”

“Of course that matters, Eric! The reason you wanted me in the first place was because I was easy to manipulate, as Brigitte just proved! Now you only want me to stay because you’ll lose if you let me go. You’ll have lost, and you can’t stand losing. That’s just who you are, Eric, it always will be. But letting you win means that the rest of my life will be as painful as tonight was. And you… you’re not worth that sort of pain.”

“You are wrong.” The words were spoken in a way that made her stomach try to swallow her heart, and she gulped fiercely, turning her head away from him—but he caught her and turned her back. “You are wrong, Katherine. And I will prove that you are wrong, one way or another. Brigitte will be the one to win if I let you go because I don’t have time to find anyone else.”

“That! That right there, that just proves—”

“It proves that I have a political motivation, yes, but Katherine, you are forgetting one crucial detail.” He leaned nearer to her, pressing his lips against her ear. “I could have anyone I want to fill this position you’re in. Anyone. I do not want
anyone
. I do not want someone I cannot stand. I want
you
.”

The words left her breathless, but then the prince suddenly let her go and turned away from her. Unable to speak, she could only watch him mutely as he straightened himself—adjusting his tuxedo and his hair, wiping away the lipstick she had left behind during that kiss. He watched her with those burning blue eyes for only a second, and then he blinked and the heat was gone. Without a word, Eric turned away, ascending the staircase and returning to the ball.

Katherine sunk to her knees, the folds of her voluminous skirt rustling against her loudly as she trembled and stared out, blind, from the shadows.

Torn between anger and confusion and pain, Katherine ripped the pins out of her hair before she’d even made it past the door of Élise’s bedroom. The young princess was reading by her window, and she yelped in surprise as the door banged against the wall behind it. Kat almost ignored her, hurrying toward the washroom where she had gotten ready not even an hour ago, rubbing at the tears that wanted to fall.

“Katherine?” Élise asked, her voice thick with concern as she put her book aside and quickly followed. “What happened? I thought you—why aren’t you at the ball?”

“Because I can’t do this,” she answered, her voice resonating with unshed tears as she swallowed hard. “I can’t do this with Brigitte, and I can’t do this with you, and I… I can’t do this with Eric. I can’t pretend I’m alright when I don’t even know the truth anymore!”

“What truth—Katherine, what
happened
?”

“Did you know that other girl? Isabella? The one your brother dated before?” She really didn’t know what the truth, and she was in way over her head right now. Katherine just wanted to tear up her dress into little bits and wish this night had never happened. To wish that she had never agreed to any of this in the first place.

Élise shifted uneasily as she watched Katherine’s short blonde hair haphazardly come undone from its pins. “
Oui
, but not well… she left very suddenly after…”

“After she got drunk at a party and publicly humiliated herself in front of Eric and all of your court and probably your parents—supposedly because she walked in on Brigitte kissing him!”

The black-haired girl stepped back, startled at the words. “What? No, that—that didn’t happen that way…”

“Which part? The public humiliation or the kissing?”

Élise’s voice failed her, and she looked away. Katherine huffed in frustration and ran her fingers through her hair, wishing her mascara would stop running and making her eyes sting.
Waterproof, my ass
, she thought. She was shaking, and after a long moment, she sat down on a stool in front of the vanity and stared into the mirror. How much did she want to believe Eric? Completely. With all of her being, she wanted to believe Eric. But how much of her actually
did
?

Very little.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered to herself, shutting her eyes tightly. “I’m not brave enough to stick around and find out.”

“What?” Élise asked softly.

Katherine took a deep breath before turning around and looking at the princess. “I can’t stay here, Élise. I can’t do this with your brother, it’s going to hurt me too much if all my worst fears are right. Will you… will you please help me get out before this goes any further?”