I shook my head and dug my nails in my palms to keep from crying. “I’m okay. How’s your night going? It’s pretty quiet in here.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Something strong?”
I nodded, gratefully. “Yes, please.”
She poured me three shots of tequila and pushed them across to me. “Down those and then tell me the truth about why you’re upset.”
I downed all three shots, one after the other, wincing as I did. Then, I rolled my shoulders. I didn’t even know where to start. I didn’t want to talk about Kon. He was the beginning and end of my hurt feelings, though.
“Grace, honey, just talk to me.”
“It’s Kon!” I pulled a face and groaned. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. It’s Kon. It’s nothing, though.”
She crossed her arms under her chest and waited. Her eyes went to my neck and her perfectly waxed eyebrows shot up. “Jesus.”
I pulled my hair forward more, doing everything I could to hide the sucker bites that Kon had left. It was still warm out in southern Florida and I couldn’t exactly wear a turtleneck to hide them all. “Maybe, it’s a little more than nothing.”
“Did he mark you mark you? Like a claiming mark?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I mean…”
“You would know if he did, Grace. It’s…intense, to say the least. Massive orgasm intense.”
I thought of the last bite he’d landed on my breast. “Can you be marked somewhere not on the neck?”
Heidi’s eyes widened and she let out a scream that drew everyone’s attention. Seeing everyone looking, she glared at them and made a motion with her hand for them to look away. “Nothing to see here!”
I leaned forward, the tequila loosening my body and mind, alike. “Does this look like a claiming mark?”
She looked down my shirt as I held it away from my chest. She hooked her finger in the neck of my t-shirt and pulled it out farther. Her eyes slowly came up to mine and she pursed her lips. “He marked your tit.”
I yanked my shirt out of her fist and sat back down on the stool so hard that I almost fell off backwards. I motioned toward the bottle of tequila and gestured for her to keep ‘em coming. When her eyes went back to my neck, I growled and pulled the hair forward again. “He did not mark my tit.”
“He marked your tit.” Pouring me more shots, she tipped her head back and laughed. “Holy shit.”
My heart lodged somewhere just south of my mouth and I felt myself losing the battle of the tears. “He’s leaving.”
“What?”
“He’s leaving with Valentina. He’s not staying. He’s not going to be my mate. You’re telling me that he marked me, but he’s leaving me.” I slammed the shots back and wobbled to my feet. I suddenly felt as though the walls were closing in. “I need to get out of here.”
Heidi was around the bar and slipping her arm around my waist in a second. She walked with me to the exit and once we were outside, she led me to the beach and helped me down. Sitting next to me, facing the ocean, she took my hand in hers and sighed. “Don’t cry, Grace. You look like a sad angel when you do and it’s confusing.”
I laughed through the tears and shook my head. “I’m his mate and he’s still leaving?”
“Tell me everything.” She nudged me with her shoulder. “Then, I can decide if we all need to get together and use his balls for field hockey practice.”
“Don’t do that! He has beautiful testicles.” I laughed and then hung my head in my hands. “I can’t believe I just said that. That tequila packs quite a punch. I’m a hot mess.”
“We all went through piles of shit to get our happily ever after with our men. Tell me about Kon’s version.”
So, I did. I told Heidi all of it.
“He’s still going through with it? He’s still spending time with her?” She was as confused as I was.
I nodded. “I don’t know why. Or in what context, really. I know he doesn’t like her. I know that. It’s just I thought I could do this—spend the little remaining time with him, but I can’t get off my mind the fact that she’s getting him in the end. Happily or not, she’s getting the ever after.”
“Oh, Grace. I’m so sorry.” Heidi wrapped her arms around me and sighed into my hair. “This is a little more intense than what the rest of us went through. There was no royalty or obligation to a kingdom and duties to a crown involved in our mess.”
“I want to trash her hotel room.” I shook my head. “No. Sorry. That was my father coming out.”
A slow smile spread across Heidi’s face. “Are you sure? It’s not a terrible idea. It might make you feel better. Hell, it might make us all feel better.” Heidi’s grin was all mischief but she just watched me silently while I pondered the idea.
I pulled myself to my feet and grinned. “Fine. You talked me into it.”
“Excellent! I’ll call the girls.”
“No, I don’t want to interrupt their time with their mates.”
Heidi cupped my cheek and then roughly patted it. “Trust me, they’ll want to be interrupted. Valentina has ruffled more feathers than Colonel Sanders. They’ll be ecstatic to get in some payback.”
A dark thrill ran through me. I’d worked so hard to walk the straight and narrow my whole life, but maybe being a little bad was just what the doctor ordered.
21
Konstantin
Dead tired, I sank onto the side of my mattress at the P.O.L.A.R. house. I would have headed straight to see Grace, but I needed a shower and I couldn’t fit into the small closet in Freebird that Grace called her bathroom. I also needed to give myself a minute. I was in a foul mood and I didn’t want to bring that to her.
I was having a hell of a time concentrating as I swam around the pickle jar I was in. I wanted desperately to stay with Grace and build a life, a future, with her. I would lose everything—the inheritance, the title, the kingdom—everything that I’d never wanted. I’d relinquish it all in a heartbeat.
The only real problem was backing out, staying here with Grace, meant the team would never be able to return to the covert operations and reconnaissance missions that they thrived on. They would never be able to see their families that remained in Siberia and their citizenship would be revoked.
I knew how much they all hated the heat, hated the never-ending sun beating down on them, and hated the inconsequential work that we were doing here. They were all antsy to get sent back to home. I could be selfish and take what I wanted, but they’d lose everything.
Desperate, I worked through scenarios in my head that would end with Grace and I getting to be together. None of them were the least bit acceptable.
I was showered and just about to dress when my phone rang. I grabbed it and answered without looking at the screen.
“Konstantin?”
“Hannah?” I stood up and searched for a shirt, knowing it wasn’t good if she was calling me instead of Serge. “What’s wrong?”
She giggled and covered it with a cough. “Um. So, we were all out and about. We just happened to stumble upon this hotel and now the police are here, accusing us of vandalizing it.”
I swore. “Grace is with you?”
“Yep.” She popped the p and giggled again. “She’s in the police car. She wouldn’t let us take the blame. She’s one in a million, Kon.”
I charged down the stairs and out the front door. “What hotel?”
“It’s the Bogart & Bacall Inn just off Toucan Boulevard. And, Kon?”
“Yeah?”
“Um, Lady Valentina is here, too.”
I groaned. The last thing I wanted to do was see her. “Why?”
“Well, because, maybe, just maybe, it was her hotel room window that we threw a stink bomb through.” She fell into a fit of giggles. “Sorry. I’m sorry, Kon. Heidi brought us tequila and after a couple bottles…”
My brain fizzled into red. “I’m calling Serge.”
“Oh, no! Kon! Don’t call him. He’s go
ing to get all fussy and I’m going to have to listen to him lecture about safety and what his life would be reduced to if anything happens to me, blah, blah, all night.”
“And I’m telling him you said that!” I hung up and growled as I jogged toward the hotel.
Your mates are with Grace, in trouble with local law enforcement for throwing a stink bomb through a hotel window. I shook my head and my jog turned into a full-out run. The idea of Grace in a police cruiser didn’t sit well with me.
I got there in time to see an officer bent over, talking to Grace through the open squad car door. Resisting the urge to plow into him and knock his ass away from her, I cleared my throat and crossed my arms. “Officer Reynolds.”
He jumped and turned to face me, hand on his firearm. “Oh, Konstantin. Startled me there, son. What can I do for you?”
I nodded toward Grace without looking at her. “The woman.”
He nodded his understanding. “Sorry, Kon. She threw a stink bomb through a hotel window. The entire floor had to evacuate. There’s some kind of VIP or something, or so she claims, in there demanding we press charges.”
I growled. “No charges. I’ll pay for whatever damages were incurred.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late. I’m taking her to lock up.”
I tilted my head and tried to remember to breathe. “Don’t move this car. I’ll go clear things up with the owner and be right back.”
I chanced a look inside at Grace, cuffed, wearing a t-shirt that read life rocks when your home rolls, and mouthing something out of the other window, at the rest of the women. They all fell into fits of laughter and I had to bite back a smile at whatever antics Grace was up to. It was damned hard to stay mad at that woman. Cuffed in a police car and she was making jokes.
I was able to smooth things over with the owner—after settling a large bill—before facing Valentina. Her perfumed scent was gone, replaced with the stench of rotten eggs, which might have been an improvement over the horrid perfume. She looked like a wet dog, drenched and half melted from the sprinkler system.
“I want her locked away for the rest of her life.” She was seething and I was a little surprised she hadn’t gone after Grace with her claws out.
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“No.” I repeated. “She’s going home. The hotel isn’t pressing charges and neither are you. You want me to go with you and you’ll drop this.”
“We’re leaving in two days, then.” She jabbed her finger at me, wafting a new wave of rotten egg at me. “If I could get the plane back by tomorrow, I would. Two days and we’re fucking out of this shithole, Konstantin.”
I clenched my jaw. “Fine.”
22
Konstantin
Grace was not the least bit remorseful. If anything, she was even more belligerent than ever on our walk back to her van. “Why’d you have to go and call the other guys on them? You got them in trouble.”
I hid a smile at the way her southern accent suddenly came out stronger than ever. Tequila seemed to have an interesting effect on my mate. “You women got together and decided that it was a good idea to throw a stink bomb through the window of a place of business. There’s such a thing as consequences.”
“Aw, bullpucky.” She bent to scoop up a seashell and stumbled. “Oopsie. The sand snuck up on me there.”
“How did you even know that was Valentina’s window?”
“Ew. First of all, do not say her name. Second of all, Bunny, I mean, Parker has an amazing shifter nose. She just sniffed Valentina right out. Golly, I wish I had that.” She suddenly threw the seashell she’d picked up at me. “But even I could smell that nasty perfume of hers from a mile away. I swear it smells like cabbage and cat pee. Gag! Like today, when you came over. I could smell her all over you.”
I froze in my tracks. “Is that what made you do this?”
She scoffed. “Yeah, right. Like I even care.”
I laughed, unable to stop myself. “Uh huh.”
“Don’t you laugh at me, Konstantin… Konstantin…” She licked her lips. “What’s your middle name?”
I grinned. “I don’t have one. Want to know my last name?”
Her eyes went wide. “I don’t even know your last name? Oh, lordy. I need to go home.”
“That’s where we’re headed.”
“Oh, good.” She yawned. “I’m exhausted.”
“Criminal activities can take it out of you, huh?”
She took my hand, all her anger at me forgotten. “Don’t tell Gray about this, okay?”
I had to push words out around the lump in my throat. Her hand was tiny in mine but it felt like the world. I never wanted to let her go. “Why not?”
“I’m usually a good girl.” She faked a gag. “Scratch that. I’m not a girl. I’m a woman. A good woman. I don’t do bad things. I stay in line. I always have. Until you. Now, I’m sleeping with someone’s fiancé and vandalizing hotels. Oh, sweet lord above, I ruined that hotel. I’ll have to pay to have it fixed.”
I tugged her into my side as she teared up. “It’s okay, mate. I took care of it. You didn’t ruin anything.”
“Mate. Ha.” She scrunched up her face and mimicked me. “It’s okay, mate.”
“That had a bite to it. Something you’d like to say to me?”
“I’m not your mate. If I was your mate, you wouldn’t be leaving. You wouldn’t be stinking of another woman’s expensive-but-stinky perfume. You…you would stay. With me. And love me.”
I opened my mouth to tell her that I did love her and that I damned sure wasn’t leaving her willingly, but she pulled away from me and shrugged.
“Whatever. One day soon, you’ll be with your queen, living in some palace, making beautiful little babies who look perfect. They’ll have her perfect nails and your perfect violet eyes.”
I stopped moving. “Grace, about that...”
“I hate you. No, no, I don’t hate you. I hate that I didn’t know.” She turned to face me, tears spilling from her eyes. “I didn’t know what I was missing. I was fine. Then, I came here and suddenly, my heart feels like it’s empty and aches to fill the hole in the middle of it. Part of me wishes that I’d never met you so I’d never have to know about this part of me that desperately needs you.”
I swallowed my own emotions down. “Come with me.”
She stilled. “What?”
“Come with me.” I ignored the warning flags in my brain. “Come with me to Siberia.”
“But… You have to take Valentina as a mate. You have to make little Konstantins with her.”
“Grace, we can still be together. My life is hardly worth living without you. We could be together.”
“Together, as what? I would be your what? Your mistress?” Her tears dried up fast. “You’re inviting me to Siberia, to be your mistress? In a palace you share with Valentina? Where your kids will run around? Or will I be kept in some backwoods cabin that your mate won’t know about? Will we have our own kids, Kon? Tell me, what will I tell our bastard children when your legitimate kids pass them in town?
“Is there even a town?! You want me to go to Siberia?! Siberia. You want me to leave everything to go to Siberia with you and be your fucking mistress?”
It had been a stupid, spur of the moment idea that slipped out of my mouth before my brain had time to stop it. I didn’t blame her for being upset. I had just been trying to grasp at straws. “No, Grace. I don’t want that. Any of it. I’m sorry for suggesting it. I just…don’t want to leave you.”
“Then don’t.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Seems a whole lot simpler than dragging me to Siberia and tucking me away somewhere to be your lifelong side chick.”
I bristled. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Would you introduce me to your friends and family?”
“It’s not—”
“That simple?” She snorted and turned away. “It is. It is as simple as you st
aying if you wanted to. I get it. I’m side chick material. She’s wife material.”
“Grace, stop.”
“No, you stop. Stop acting like I’m more than I am.”
I growled, grabbing her shoulders. “More than you are? Grace, to me you’re everything. Everything.” She pulled out of my grasp. God, I felt like a complete fuckhead.
We walked the rest of the short trip, Grace mumbling angrily to herself.
When we got to the door of her van, she turned. “I think I need to be alone tonight, Kon.”
My head was throbbing. My stomach was churning. My heart was aching. I nodded and watched as she entered and clicked the lock in place. I’d go home, sleep for a few hours, and then come back to talk to her. When she was sober. Definitely, when she was sober.
23
Grace
I barely slept an hour. My head was pounding out a painful rhythm that made my eyes want to cross. It was still dark out when I slipped out and headed to Gray’s house. His shower was calling my name.
I passed Alexei on the way up the stairs. He was on guard duty. I nodded to him. “Hey.”
“There’s the little outlaw.” He grinned. “What are you doing out and about so early?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Kon know you’re walking around in the dark all by your lonesome?”
I frowned. “Like he would care. He’s about ten minutes from being mated to Atilla the Hun-ess, isn’t he?”
Alexei just kept on grinning. “We’ll see.”
I waved him off, not feeling like my normal happy self, and went inside. I barely got in the door before Gray was in my face, gun drawn. “Put it away.”
He sighed. “Jesus, Gracey. What are you doing here?” He cringed away from me. “Smelling like a bad night out at a Mexican cantina.”
“I came for your shower. Is that going to be a problem?”
He held up his hands. “Don’t bite my head off, little sis. Go ahead and shower. We’ll talk after.”
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