A Prince's Ransom: Kidnapped by the Billionaire (24 page)

“Your Highness,” she gasped, straightening and turning to face Annette. “You expect me to just be some… frivolous American girl. You expect me to be inappropriate in every way because you believe the stereotypes about who I am and where I come from, but you? You are a queen! You should be above that kind of judgment, but you aren’t. You don’t know if I’m right for Eric, but you believe I’m not because of things you couldn’t possibly know. And you’ve made your decision not based on who I am or what Eric wants, but instead on what you think I will turn out to be.”

“I know how you met Eric, Katherine,” Annette responded without missing a beat at the accusations. “I know you came onto my son in a club while on a school trip, and that you should not have been there to begin with. You were only looking for a foreign boy to have a bit of fun with, as you Americans would say. That says a great deal more about your character than a few days trying very hard to convince me that you are something else. Yes, I believe certain things about you, but they are probably truer than you like them to be. You are young, you wish to live your life, and that is fine. But you cannot do it with Eric. He has responsibilities, things he must be prepared for now. He cannot focus on some girl who doesn’t know what she is doing in life, and might never know.”

Tears stung at Katherine’s eyes as she stared at the queen, who was utterly impassive as she said those heart-breaking, soul-crushing words. She didn’t know. She didn’t, no matter what she thought. But words escaped her and she couldn’t think of a rebuttal.

Annette sighed. “Use your week wisely, Katherine. I am sorry you must face the reality of the situation this way. I had thought Eric would realize my intention and enjoy this week with you, instead of trying so fruitlessly to change something unchangeable.” Queen Annette turned and left the balcony.

The water glass tumbled from Katherine’s fingers, and her knees buckled beneath her.

She had already lost this game.

The blue tweed skirt-suit combo she was wearing was itchy. She was having trouble not fidgeting where she sat next to Eric and his parents. Honestly, Katherine might have given into the urge to fidget anyway if they weren’t sitting at the table closest to the outdoor stage that had been set up in the garden early that morning by the royal staff. Everyone was focused on the orchestra playing, strumming at violins and cellos and other string instruments she didn’t know the names of. It was lovely without a doubt, but she wasn’t really in the mood for any of it.

She hadn’t slept the night before. Trying to sleep after everything Queen Annette had said—confirming what she should have just let herself believe, and what she should have convinced Eric to believe—had been absolutely impossible. And she hated the fact that the warm lemon water that the older woman had suggested actually worked. Her throat felt a lot better after just half a cup of the stuff.

Katherine wasn’t really sure how long the concert was supposed to last. A light brunch had been provided, the orchestra had been introduced, and now people were waiting to get up and start milling about. Katherine just wanted to chug the entire contents of the tray of champagne, but she knew she couldn’t let herself do that. She might not have any chance at this, but that would basically be suicide. And she needed Eric to believe she was still trying, that they had done everything they could before his mother put an end to all of it.

Brigitte was here. That was a fun bonus to an already awful day, and every so often, Katherine could really feel the redheaded witch glowering at her back. She refused to engage, though, because Brigitte could only make this worse and the queen would undoubtedly handle her at some point after Katherine was gone.

Somehow, Eric was relaxed today. He had been stiff and uneasy the past two days, but he had thought yesterday had gone really well, and that they still had a chance to turn all of this around. Of course, she hadn’t told him what his mother had said. How on earth could she ever tell him that?

The orchestra’s song ended and Katherine quickly forced herself to focus and clap along with the rest of the crowd. It was only when the king and queen and Eric stood up did she realize that it signified the end of the concert. She rocketed to her feet as gracefully as she could, as the musicians stood to take their bows. The rest of the gathered crowd stood up as well, and Katherine made herself smile. It was only an hour or more, an hour to get through at Eric’s side, and then she could stop it with this charade. As far as she knew, the prince didn’t have any other tests planned for the week, and Annette had promised them a week. She would probably make a big show about deliberating over what she had seen and everything.

Eric caught her arm, and she turned and smiled up at him, moving closer and lacing her hand around his elbow as he led her away from the table. There was still clapping going on, but it was quieting more and more as people dispersed. Most went to people they had seen before to greet them properly, but she could only follow Eric as casually as she could manage, smiling at people as he led her through the crowd, clearly with someone in particular in mind for her to meet.

“Where are we going?” she asked softly as the prince led her around tables.

“You’ll see. There’s someone very important I want you to meet.”

“Okay…” She frowned at him in confusion, before noticing the table he was leading her towards. There were four people, dressed exquisitely, one woman and three men. They seemed almost bored by what was going on, not paying any attention to the other people as they got up and started to mingle—and it was only because of her recent closeness with Eric and Élise that Katherine realized that they also had bodyguards watching nearby. She’d have thought there’d be more noticeable security, but good bodyguards were rarely noticed at all in most situations.

One of the men looked up at their approach, and his eyebrow lifted with an air of haughty curiosity. Katherine blinked when she realized that he looked a great deal like the prince. “Ah, cousin!” the man greeted, standing up from the chair and examining Eric and Kat critically. “I had heard that you had a new lady friend on your arm, but I had no idea how lovely she was. A pleasure to meet you, I am—”

“A wildly inappropriate flirt,” Eric interrupted, as the other man reached for her hand to kiss the back of it. “Katherine, these are my cousins, Julien and Raoul, and Raoul’s wife, Karine, and his brother-in-law, Henri.”

“A pleasure to meet all of you,” she managed to say, although her head was still spinning. His cousins? Why had he wanted her to meet his cousins? But she realized that Eric was encouraging her to sit down, and she accepted the seat with a smile, anxiously brushing the tweed hem of her suit jacket.

“And a pleasure to meet you, Katherine,” Karine replied, smiling idly as she tucked a brown strand of hair back from her face. “I must admit that I did not expect your next conquest to be American, Eric, but she is cute enough.” Uh oh. Katherine was starting to realize why he’d wanted her to meet his cousins. This wasn’t going to be fun.

“Quite cute, indeed,” Julien agreed as he sat back down, still examining her. “I mean, not that she has much compared to Brigitte, but new is always better, I suppose. Besides, of course you could not agree to marry that girl after what she had done to your relationships…” He sniffed, and Katherine could only stare, flabbergasted. Had he really just said all of that aloud? “A little thin-skinned, though, Eric, to be unable to handle a girl who simply wanted to be at your side on your throne. If I were set to be king, I certainly would not have let that stop me.”

Eric was back to his calm and reserved self—as aloof as his cousins were—and yet she had never heard anything nearly so cruel and callous pass his lips in front of the person he was talking about. But Julien didn’t care at all, and he was still looking at Katherine like he wanted to eat her.

“Julien and Raoul are my cousins on my father’s side,” he explained nonchalantly. “Their father, my uncle, is my father’s twin. My father is older by three minutes, which made him heir.”

Julien eyes, which matched Eric’s perfectly, flashed. “Indeed, three minutes and I would be the one who was about to ascend the throne of Montavian in a few months, and not relegated to ‘back-up’ heir if something happens to both Uncle Grégory and you, Eric, before Élise came of age.” The bitterness in his voice was a palpable, writhing thing that wanted to reach out and strangle the prince, probably something he had inherited from his father, but Eric just smiled very slightly at his cousin. Julien’s eyes narrowed, and he looked back at Katherine. “So tell me, mademoiselle, are the rumors about how the two of you met true? I had heard, interestingly enough, that you met in a club, where you allowed Eric to have sex with you right on one of the tables.”

The crude language brought snickers from around the table, and Katherine’s eyes darted among all of them, absolutely aghast. This was really how Eric’s
cousins
behaved at a public event? And yet, after a moment, she just laughed a little bit. “I see you have been talking to Brigitte,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “It’s good to know that there are enough people in the country who are bitter about not being able to sit on a throne to form a club. You can keep each other company.”

Henri had to cover a laugh behind his hand, forcing it into a cough. In all likelihood, he was only a part of this crowd because Karine was his sibling, and he’d probably gratefully take an escape from all the underhanded jabs. Julien and Raoul, however, immediately had to hide a glare aimed in her direction.

“Of course, of course…” Raoul returned. “It is not as though all of us can catch a free ride to said throne simply by parting our thighs a bit, hm?”

“Well, it might have helped if you spread your thighs a little bit, Raoul,” she quipped, with another laugh. “Because even if your father had been the older twin, you still would have lost out to Julien, right? If you bent over far enough, though, he might have let you have a little bit of the glory.” This time, it was Eric trying not to laugh, and Raoul was just about to come out of his chair to get at her. Karine grabbed her husband’s arm to stop him, but she was glaring at Katherine too.

Julien snorted. “You have terrible taste as always, Eric, although I had not imagined that even you would find something attractive about some lewd, idiotic American girl.”

Katherine’s eyes narrowed at him just slightly. “You find something attractive about a girl who would basically keep your balls in her purse—but hey, to each their own. At least I let mine have a little bit of fun.” She leaned over to Eric, and he immediately accepted her warm, fervent kiss, catching her chin and pulling her closer to him. He tasted like wine and spice, and she allowed herself to indulge for a long moment; then, her tongue emerged, pressing at his lips and tasting him properly. She could hear the other men at the table shifting uncomfortably, and Karine letting out a derisive snort—probably at her husband’s reaction. Only then did Katherine draw back with a smile, and stand. “But it was lovely meeting you all. I’ll let Brigitte know that your balls are up for grabs if she them. After all, marrying the fourth in line is the closest she’ll ever get to the throne.”

Eric moved with her, and she caught his arm again as they walked away. All four of them stared after them as they left, and Katherine looked up at the prince. “How are you related to them, exactly? Because I’m not buying that they’re your father’s twin’s children.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised, mon ami,” he answered with an entirely too-amused grin. “My uncle is even
worse
.”

She grimaced. “We don’t have to invite them over for Christmases or anything, do we?”

“Never.”

Katherine started kissing him so that he wouldn’t start talking about how well she had done. As promised, the brunch had only lasted an hour, but then there had been an encore performance from the orchestra, a luncheon, and they had been invited for a wine tasting at the restaurant. By the end of the day, she was very full, a little drunk, and extremely tired, but the first thing she had done when she and Eric were finally alone was kiss him. Desperately, anxiously clinging to him, she finally felt warm and somehow safe. Safe, when he was the reason she was in this mess to begin with, when he had hurt her more than a few times, when she was going to lose him…

They were closer to his room than her guestroom when his arms went around her. The prince’s fingers crept up beneath the edge of her tweed blazer and eased along the cream-colored silk blouse beneath, until he was pulling at that as well, pulling it out of her skirt. Her breath hitched in her throat as Katherine stood on tiptoe, his hands finding the smooth curve of her waist and the bottom of her ribs. He started to pull back, but she pressed closer, edging her tongue along his lips again until he opened his mouth. He tasted even more like wine this time when his tongue slid forth to meet hers, twining around it and pushing it back until they were in her mouth instead. Faintly, she moaned.

Eric wrapped one arm around her waist and guided her with him further down the otherwise-empty hallway. She stumbled, then laughed a little bit, the sound bubbling against his lips so that she finally had to pull away to let them both breathe. His blue eyes glittered down at her in the dim hallway. It was just before sunset but the lingering rays couldn’t get in through the windows on this side of the palace. A smile toyed at his lips.

“You seem rather eager this evening,” he growled softly to her, even as the arm that wasn’t wrapped around her reached back and found the handle to his bedroom door.

“I can’t help it,” she whispered. “I’ve been wanting this since I kissed you earlier.”
He laughed
and pulled her into the room, shutting the door behind them. Despite that some part of her wanted to focus just on Eric, she had never been in his bedroom before, and she looked around. Everything was dark, unlike his room at the villa. Dark gray and black and blue silks, so many more books than she had ever read, and paper strewn out over every flat surface in the room. She didn’t know what they said, and she didn’t care enough to look.