Читать книгу The Royal Mess - MaryJanice Davidson - Страница 17

Chapter 6

“Go away,” Nicole said warmly.

“Aw, don’t be like that, kiddo. And would you mind putting away the pea shooter? You’re hurting Jeff’s feelings.”

“Not to mention my kidneys,” the man mumbled into the ground.

She carefully got off the man but kept the gun at her side.

“That’s better,” the king said as Jeff climbed slowly to his feet. “So, I’m Al, your dad. And we know who you are. That’s Jeff, head of my detail.”

She smirked. “And you’re not dead yet?” She was being nasty because she was so completely distracted by the bodyguard’s size. When he stood, he went up and up and up. Well over six feet and probably 220, none of it fat. He was built like a linebacker. He hadn’t looked so big from the road. Or so gorgeous.

No. She did not think that. Sure, he had lush, curly black hair—true black, not dark brown—and pale blue eyes. Sniper’s eyes. He had a built-in tan (was he part Akiak? or maybe Ekok?) and the muscular definition of a champion lifter. His head and hands were blocky, like they had been carved by a skilled craftsman who was in a hurry. He filled out his black tailored suit—a man his size couldn’t buy off the rack—superbly.

Gorgeous? Please. She was just distracted because she hadn’t been laid in 29 months and 18 days.

“Sire,” he was saying, “I apologize. I will tender my resignation at—”

“The hell. I didn’t hear a thing either. Serves us right for showing up on her turf without calling. Oh, wait. Edmund’s been leaving her messages all week.” The king beamed at her. “Should have had the palace guards drag you to my place instead.”

“Dead palace guards,” she informed him. “Mutilated subjects. Body parts all over the Sitka Palace.”

“I see you inherited none of your mother’s charm. Just my mouth. Oh, and my fabulous good looks,” he added modestly.

“Like you knew a thing about my mother.” It made her angry, it enraged her, to hear this pampered cheating bastard talk about her dear dead mom. “She was a fling, a one-night stand that lasted for a week or two.”

“She was lovely and sweet and funny, and you will watch your tone when you speak to me, Nicole.”

She almost took a step backward. He hadn’t been smiling. He hadn’t been fucking around. He had sounded like—well, like a king.

“Sorry,” she muttered.

The king cheered up instantly. “That’s all right. It’s been a weird week for everybody. So if you’ll just hop in the car, we can go back to the palace and—”

“No.”

“What?”

“No, King Alexander.”

“Bad idea,” Jeff said quietly at her left shoulder.

Without turning her head, she snarled, “Nobody hit your buzzer, Jeff.”

“Please don’t call me Jeff,” he whispered in her ear. Annoyingly, all the hairs on her left arm stiffened to attention, and she jerked her head away from his mouth.

The king coughed. “Uh, Nicole, I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot, but I wasn’t exactly asking.”

“I’m not going and I do not submit to your authority, sir.”

“Uh.” The king shot Jeff a look and coughed again. “You sort of don’t have a—”

“How quickly we forget, King Cheats-on-His-Fiancée. You might want to reread my letter. My mother and father were Alaskan citizens, but I was born in Los Angeles.”

The king scowled. “Dual citizenship.”

“Right-o.” Under Alaskan law, merely residing in Alaska did not mean you were a subject of the king. You needed to be Alaskan on both sides and born in the country. Any deviation resulted in dual citizenship, and the gentleman (or bastard princess) in question could claim the other country as her own. “So thanks for stopping by, ta-ta, so long, get lost.”

The king stood and, like Jeff, he went up and up and up. Of course, he was standing two steps above her, but still. She craned her head to glare up at him. “Go away now.”

“I don’t get it,” he complained.

“I’m not surprised. Mom didn’t like you for your keen intellect.”

The bodyguard actually flinched, but the king didn’t move. Instead, he scowled down at her. “I’m gonna let that one go by.”

“Thanks gobs.”

His black brows caromed together and his eyes were dark blue slits. But she would not be intimidated! Well, not much.

“If you didn’t want to see me,” he bitched, “and you don’t want to come to the palace, why the hell did you write me that letter?”

“Because my mother asked me to. It was in her will. She told me about you and she asked me to get in touch, and that was all she asked.” And it was damn sure all she was going to do. “It was the only thing she ever asked of me in twenty years.”

“Oh.” Then, quietly, “I’m sorry about your mother. She was wonderful.”

Tears stung her eyes; on the whole, she preferred him kingly and commanding and generally acting like a jerk. “Go,” she said. “Please.”

The bodyguard—Jeff—reached under her trailer with a long arm and retrieved his gun. He gave her a look she couldn’t figure as the king thumped down her steps.

“Well,” the king said after an awkward pause.

“Good-bye,” she said.

Without another word, they left.

Nicole fumbled for her door, ran into the trailer, collapsed on the couch, and wept for fifteen minutes. Then she got up, walked to the bathroom, washed her face, and kicked a hole in the cupboard under the sink.