Part 15 (1/2)
”It's easy. You have a pa.s.sport, don't you? If not I'm sure Sergei can get one rushed for you. Oh, and . . . .” He kept talking but Kat wasn't listening. She had a pa.s.sport. Lane had made her get one, wanted Kat to feel like they were always just a plane ride away from international capers and exotic locations. She'd never used it, still sat unstamped in her nightstand but at the ready all the same. The pa.s.sport was not the problem.
”Why should I go with you? Why do you need me?” She didn't mean for the question to seem so serious but it felt that way, infinitely important.
That smile that had begun to make her weak in the knees unfurled across his face. ”I'm not quite ready to be all good just yet. I have to leave and I don't want to leave you behind.” She didn't know how to respond to that and before she had time to let it sink in he added, ”Or you could just agree to marry me right now and put me out of my misery.”
She was taken aback for a moment he hadn't asked her that question recently with quite so much conviction. ”I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'm just too hot for you to handle, Your Highness.”
”Why is it dark in here? What's going on?” Blaze asked as he entered the loft. His eyes alighted on the pair of them on the couch. ”Do I have to get my shotgun?”
”You don't have a shotgun,” Kat groused, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the couch.
”No but I have sculpting tools that can inflict tons more pain.”
”I thought we had moved past this,” Sebastian said.
”I reserve the right to change my mind. I'm unpredictable.” Kat opened her eyes enough to shoot Blaze a meaningful look; he rolled his in response.
”When will you learn to recognize a joke, Kitten?” Blaze asked. He leaned down and pressed a kiss against her forehead. ”You look like s.h.i.+t, dear sister.”
”Gee thanks, just what every woman wants to hear.”
”I don't understand women that's why I don't date them.”
”Yes, that's the reason,” his sister sa.s.sed.
”Well that and b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Who likes b.r.e.a.s.t.s?”
”Now I think I need the shotgun,” Sebastian drolled, rising. ”We'll talk when you're feeling better Kat.”
”I didn't mean to scare him away,” Blaze said after the Prince closed the door behind him.
”He asked me to go to Sezynia with him,” Kat said at the same time.
”Wait, what??”
”Sebastian Petrescu, the Royal Rebel, he asked me to go to Sezynia with him. On Thursday.” Kat said.
”What did you say?”
”I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say. What do you say to something like that?”
”Well do you want to go?” her brother asked. She shrugged her shoulders. ”You don't know? How do you not know?”
Her eyes alighted on him for a moment. ”I can't go,” she finally said, a hand coming up to ma.s.sage the decision away. ”I have too much stuff to do here. Work, I can't get out of work for however long he plans on flittering around Sezynia. And what would I do there anyway while he's in boring meetings learning about courtly business or whatever else he's planning on doing. No, there are too many reasons not to go, I don't need to go. I'm not going.”
Blaze let her wind her way down. ”This better not be about me.”
”Yeah right things are always about you, aren't they?” She tried to fill her voice with disbelief but all that came out was uncertainty.
”Kat . . .” he warned.
”What? I can't go anyway. I'm not the kind of girl that gallivants across continents.”
”You could be.”
”Okay, I'm here,” she said.
Sebastian looked up from his paper and smiled. ”Was there ever any doubt?”
He might have thought it inevitable but Kat's presence on that plane had never been a foregone conclusion. She was so nervous about leaving Blaze she'd waffled in the apartment for an hour before Giovanni and Lane had frog-marched her to the waiting limo. They kept saying she should go, when had she ever been offered such a vacation? But Kat couldn't help the suspicion that this 'vacation' was going to be anything but relaxing.
”No, none at all.” He patted the seat next to him on the private plane but she pivoted and dropped down across the aisle. ”How long is the flight to Sezynia again?”
”Oh, just about ten hours.”
”Oh, just ten hours, is that all?”
”Kitty Kat, are we nervous?” he purred with a wicked grin.
”I don't really like planes.” Or had ever been on one, she added to herself. She lived in New York, where else was there really?
”Well maybe you just need something to keep your mind off of it. I always enjoy the Mile High Club myself.”
Kat turned to Sergei in exasperation. ”Does he ever stop?”
”No, ma'am.”
”Ma'am? Ma'am?! Since when am I a ma'am? Do I look like a ma'am?”
Sebastian laughed. ”I keep telling him not to be so formal. He never listens.” Sergei just shook his head, murmuring in Sezynian the whole time, and went back to his computer.
”What do you really do on such long plane rides?”
He shrugged. ”Read, sleep, watch movies. Sometimes I play cards when I can convince the guards to play. But they hate to part with their money so . . .”
”A poker shark, eh?”
”The royal one even.”
”I bet I could take you,” Kat mused.
”Is that a challenge?”
”Well it's not a dance invitation.”
”You're on. And when we get to cruising alt.i.tude you're going down.”