The Royal Treatment (14 page)

C
hristina staggered into her room three hours later, utterly exhausted. Argh! A whole morning she would never, ever get back. Wasted on shopping. Shopping for
shoes.
Why not just hit her over the head until she lost consciousness? That would have been quicker. And kinder!

She opened her top drawer, intent on showering and changing to get the smell of Mall off her, and nearly shrieked. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye, leapt backward, and just managed to catch Prince Nicholas by the back of his hooded sweatshirt as he sprinted for the door.

She yanked. Nicky made a sound—Yark!—and she shook him like a maraca.

“Dammit, you little perv! You keep out of my drawers, understand? Stop. Rearranging. My. Clothes.” Each word was punctuated by a shake.

“Awwww, Chris, come on! You can’t keep your cottons with your silks. It’s unnatural—yark!”

“I give a shit! And it’s unnatural that a twelve-year-old boy should care about this stuff. I mean it, Nicky. At first I thought this strange obsession you had with my clothing was cute, but now I’m getting a first-class case of the creeps. How’d
you
like to have to go talk to Dr. Pohl every week?”

“I wouldn’t,” he admitted. “She looks like a nice grandma, but I think she’s scary.”

“Agreed. So cut. It. Out.”

“You should be nicer to me,” he burst out, his small, sneakered feet swinging a foot in the air. “My mom’s dead.”

“Join the club, pal,” she said grimly. “No special treatment from
me.
”

He stopped kicking his feet. “I forgot about your mama, Chris,” he said, chastised. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. But remember what I said. One more time, and I rat you out to the king and he makes you go talk to a shrink instead of going out fishing with the guys.”

“Okay. Um…Chris…can I ask you something about your family?”

She set him down, but kept a grip on his sweatshirt hood, just in case. “Sure.”

“Do you look like your mom or your dad?”

She blinked. “Neither. My mom was short and had long, straight dark hair, and brown eyes. My dad was a redhead with green eyes.”

“You
have green eyes. Except sometimes they’re blue.”

“Anyway, I look like my grandpa.”

“Oh. Because I don’t look like my fa—I mean, some people say I look like my mom’s side of the family,” he finished lamely.

“Well, ‘some people’ are idiots, Nicky. Do you know what a recessive gene is? No? Okay, it’s why I look like my grandpa instead of my dad. And it’s why you look like your grandma—or is it your great-grandma? I can never remember…anyway, it’s why you look like her instead of your dad.”

“Because…because I don’t look anything like my brothers or sisters. They’re all dark and I’m not.”

She blinked down at him. It was obvious this was a big deal to him, but if
she
made it a big deal, that would be a mistake. So she let out an exasperated sigh and said, “Nicky, it’s like I said. It’s recessive genes. It doesn’t mean anything. Besides, you think your dad cares if you’re a blonde or a brunette? Got news, punk—he doesn’t. Not even a little bit. And I know plenty of people who would
kill
for your hair. Natural blond curls…it makes me mad just to look at you.”

“Okay.” He grinned. “You shouldn’t call me a punk.”

“I’ll call you whatever the hell I want, you little—”

“Want me to shoot him?”

They both looked up. Kurt was leaning in the doorway, grinning.

“Can I see your gun?” Nicky asked, instantly distracted.

“Sure.” Kurt pulled it from his shoulder holster, checked the safety, ejected the slide, ejected the bullet from the chamber, then handed the empty gun to the prince and bent to pick up the round on the carpet. “That’s a Beretta, nine millimeter.”

“I know. It’s nice.”

“You always said shoulder holsters were for TV,” Chris commented. “Said it was impossible to get a quick draw from them.”

“Well.” Kurt shrugged. “I practiced. And that’s not a problem anymore. D’you know the king gave that gun to me? He had that tall, skinny, scary guy—”

“Edmund,” Nicky and Chris said in unison.

“—right, him. He had that guy check on what I had back in L.A., and got me two new ones. One to carry, and a spare.”

“Daddy said since we wrecked your vacation, you should get something nice out of it,” Nicky volunteered. He handed the gun back to Kurt, butt-first. “It’s nice, but I like the thirty-eights better.”

Chris covered her eyes. “Oh, don’t tell me.”

“It’s okay,” Nicky said. “I’m only allowed to practice on the range, with my gun instructor.”

“I feel
so
much better. I guess it’s not in the king to let one of his kids take up a normal habit, like gardening.”

Nicky snorted. “I’m going now.”

“So go.”

“Well, ’bye. ’Bye, Kurt.”

“See ya, Nick.” Once Nicholas had left, Kurt added, “Nice kid.”

“In a mildly creepy way, yes. D’you know, yesterday he asked me to wait for him to grow up so
he
could marry me?”

“There’s a lot of that going around.”

“Oh, ha-ha. What are you doing up here?”

“Wondered if you wanted to go a few rounds in the gym. Figured you might need it after all that shopping.”

“Oh, God,” she said gratefully. “You have
no
idea.”

“S
o I picked out a pair—unf!—right away, right? And they’re perfectly
fine.
But nooooo, because they didn’t cost six hundred bucks, they’re unacceptable. Jenny’s all—unf!—‘they’re not suitable to your station,’ whatever the hell that means.”

“And Jenny—oof!—would be…?”

“Protocol officer-slash-bridesmaid-slash-pain in my neck. Short, maybe up to your shoulders? Always wears severe suits? Looks weirdly like Shania Twain?”

“Oh! Right. The babe who looks kind of harassed all the time.”

“That’s her.”

“She’s cute.”

“She’s a pain. But yeah—cute, too. Want me to fix you up?”

“Naw. She looks a little too tense for me.”

“She says she—unf!—loves her job,” Chris said doubtfully. “But she goes through, like, a bottle of Advil a week.”

Kurt swung; she ducked and socked a foot into his groin. He caught the blow on the outside of his thigh and his fist pistoned out. She sidestepped, and kicked his feet out from under him.

“You’re not a brown belt anymore,” he groaned after he hit the floor.

“Oh, did I forget to mention?” she asked over-solicitously. “Got my black two years ago.”

“Bitch.”

“Whiner.”

She was too busy chortling over her little surprise to sidestep his sweeping kick, and now her butt was in the dirt. Well, on the gym mats.

“So then we go to this hoity-toity store in Juneau, a store so stuffy they don’t even have their name on the door. There was a freaking chandelier on the ceiling—how’s that for dumb?”

“I was there,” Kurt reminded her.

“So what happens?” She braced her hands, rocked back, then flipped to her feet.

“I love that trick,” Kurt said admiringly, still prone. “You look like Buffy the Vampire Slayer when you do that trick.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She bent to pull him up. “So what happens? Sixty-five pairs of shoes later, I pick out a pair that looked
exactly
like the pair at Payless, only these cost seven hundred bucks! And everyone’s all, ooooooh, they’re perfect, blah-blah, and I’m all, hello? What’s the difference? And you know, you know what was
really
bad?”

“They told you,” Kurt said, yanking her forward so she collapsed on the mat beside him.

“I know! I heard more about seam stitching and hand-tooling than I ever wanted to know. Plus, they’re not even the right color—they’re white.”

“I know. They’re going to dye them to match your dress.”

“Right. Frankly, I’m amazed they let me go with flats at all.”

“That
is
amazing.”

“I know! But I put my foot down on that one. Literally. No high heels. I’m going to be uncomfortable enough.”

“You’re so cute when you’re all huffy and annoyed.”

“Shut up,” she said irritably, batting his hand away. “I was hoping for a little more sympathy.”

“Babe, you got all my sympathy.” He reached out again—weird! What was with him today?—and she jumped to her feet.

“Come on, let’s finish up. I want a shower and then I have to do the tasting menu, God help me.”

Kurt climbed slowly to his feet. “You know, Chris, you really don’t seem very happy here.”

“Eh? Well, I am. I mean, I’m stressed, sure, but I guess all brides are. There’s a lot to do, and frankly, I’m not interested in very much of it.”

“Exactly.”

“What?”

His face was getting closer to hers. Kissing distance—how was that for weird? She stared as his face loomed like a moon, as it came closer, and when she finally figured out, yes, he really meant to do it, it was too late—she couldn’t
believe
he was doing it, and was frozen to inaction, and then his mouth was on hers, and then she could move, did move.

“Owwwwwwww!”

“What. Do you think. You’re doing.”

“Shit, Chris, my fucking nose!”

She kicked him in the shin as hard as she could for good measure, then shoved. He went over like a bowling pin.

“Goddammit!”

“Don’t you ever.
Ever.
Do that again.”

“Jesus Christ!” He peered up at her from the floor, hands cupped below his nose to catch the blood. “How could you do that?”

“How could
I
do that? What the hell is wrong with you? You know I’m engaged, you know we’re done—you’re supposed to be my
friend,
and you put the moves on me in
my fiancé’s own home?
”

“I just—I thought—”

“You didn’t think. You never think when it comes to pussy. You just see what you want and you try to take it. And sometimes—most times—it gets you into trouble. But you never learn, do you?” She tried to keep yelling, burst into tears instead. “How could you?”

She ran out, but didn’t get far—her eyes were swelling and so teary she couldn’t see, and was shocked when she banged into something hard.

Al’s chest.

Worse, David was standing next to him.

Al took one look at her, one look at Kurt, thrust her aside, and started forward.

“Don’t you dare,” David said, and now
he
was pulling Al back, and starting for Kurt.

“Fuck that. My country, my house, my guest.”

“My fiancée.”

“Well, you can have the second shot.”

“No.”

“Stop!” she shrieked. “No more shots! I took care of it!”

“Hush, Chris,” Al said absently.

“Never mind, Chris,” David said, equally absently.

They bent as one man and hauled Kurt up. He went as easily as if he were made of helium. But then she was there, and tugging on their shoulders. “You guys, don’t! I said, I took care of it. Look, he’s sorry—see how he’s sorry?”

“So, so sorry,” Kurt added, then coughed and spat a sizeable glob of blood and mucous onto the mat.

“Not sorry enough,” Al said, cocking a fist the size of a grapefruit.

“Quite right,” David said. “He’s still conscious. How sorry can he be?”

“I mean it, you two! Quit it, now!” Using every ounce of her strength, she managed to move them an inch or two away from a now-terrified Kurt. “It’s my problem, my personal private problem, and I took care of it, now get lost!”

“Boy, have you lost your damned mind?” Al asked Kurt.

“Uh…yes. Yes, I have.”

“Talking is one thing,” David said. “Putting your lips on my girl, however, is entirely unacceptable.”

“Yes,” Kurt said, the flesh around his nose beginning to swell. “I see that now.”

“It’s not so much the kiss—although we’ll be kicking your ass for that in a minute—it’s making her cry.” Al paused, then added, “I didn’t think she
could
cry.”

“No, it’s the kiss,” David said.

“Well, look. You work him over for the kiss, and then I’ll work him over for making the kid cry. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“Hold it!” Christina snapped. “Are either of you two going to bother to ask me what I want? Or are you too high on testosterone overload?”

“Uh…”

“Well…”

“I told you, but you
don’t listen.
You never
listen.
I took care of it. Kurt’s sorry. It won’t happen again.”