The Gift: A Novella

by Sandra Marton

He called up the first message. He was right. It was from the minister of state, reminding him that he had to “deliver” her to him on Christmas Eve.

  Deliver. As if she were a package, not a woman.

  Kaz deleted the message. He deleted all of them. He cleared the phone of everything from Sardovia, turned the damn thing off and dumped it on his night table.

  Then he walked out of his bedroom, took Katie in his arms, and spun her in circles until she squealed.

  “How do you feel about snow?”

  She gave him a solemn look. “I love snow when it’s deep and new, and if it’s right for making snowballs…” The solemn look became a wicked grin. “Then it’s perfect.”

  He laughed, and took her across the street, to Gramercy Park.

  The bluestone pathways had been cleared, but the snow on either side of them was deep, a pristine white blanket that covered the grass, shrubs and trees. The big Christmas tree that had gone up weeks ago looked like part of the stage set for “The Nutcracker.”

  Kaz slipped his arm around Katie’s waist as they strolled along.

  “When I was a kid in the Bronx, I used to live for snow days.”

  “The Bronx?”

  “Uh huh. Not your usual stomping ground, right?”

  She smiled up at him. “I went to the Bronx Zoo in fourth grade. Does that count?”

  “A school trip?”

  She nodded. “Miss Chapman’s School for Young Ladies,” she said, and giggled. “Can you even imagine a place with a name like that?”

  “Well, I bet it didn’t hold a candle to P.S. 40.” Kaz grinned. “But yeah, I can. It was probably a lot like The Academy for Stuck-Up Future Tycoons that I got shoved into when I was ten.”

  Katie poked him with her elbow.

  “It wasn’t called that!”

  “It should have been.”

  “How did you end up there?”

  Kaz hesitated. He never talked about his past, certainly not about his childhood. But this was Katie. His Katie.

  “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she said softly.

  “No. I do want to talk about it. With you, anyway.” He took a deep breath. “See, my mother raised me alone.”

  “Oh,” she said, with sadness in the single word.

  “No,” he said quickly, “it was OK. Most of the kids in our neighborhood were being raised by single moms. I mean, it wasn’t great, but she did the best she could. She never talked about my father and I never asked. And then, one day, I came home from school…”

  He told her everything. All of it. When he’d finished, she stood still and turned toward him.

  “The king is your grandfather?”

  Kaz laughed. “Some claim to fame, right?”

  “No wonder my father and his friends don’t like you, Kazimir! They’re afraid of you!”

  “Of me? Hey, I’m just the guy who runs the Sardovia Fund.”

  “Exactly! You control the treasury.”

  “Sure, but—”

  “And you’re the king’s grandson.”

  “Trust me, sweetheart. There’s no love between us. I remind him of my father—who, by all accounts, was a useless piece of—”

  “You and the king share a bloodline.” Katie made a face. “I know. It’s all such nonsense, but it’s a royal bloodline. That surely matters to some people.” She sighed. “People like my father probably panic over the thought that one morning the king will wake up and say, “‘My grandson, Kazimir, will rule in my place.’”

  Kaz shook his head. “Never gonna happen.”

  The light in Katie’s eyes died. “No,” she said softly, “but—but can you imagine if it did?”

  * * * *

  They spent the day lazily, having fun, not ever mentioning the reality that lay ahead.

  They built a snowman. A snow fort. They had a snowball fight. Katie won, because when Kaz tumbled her onto the ground, she managed to dump a handful of snow inside his collar and down his back.

  “A dastardly deed,” Kaz said, and punished her with a kiss that left her aching for more—so he took her to his penthouse, undressed her with a slowness that left her pleading, and made love to her in his big bed.

  When they got hungry, he tugged Katie into his lap and sifted through the hundred and one take-out menus a Manhattan bachelor was certain to collect.

  “Mexican?” he said. “Steak frites? Lobster?”

  Katie hung her arms loosely around his neck and rubbed her nose against his.

  “A hamburger. No, a cheeseburger. Fries. Onion rings. And a vanilla malted.”

  Kaz gave a deep sigh.

  “A girl after my own heart,” he said dramatically.

  Forget the drama.

  What he’d just said was, without question, the absolute truth

  * * * *

  When evening fell, Kaz announced that they were going out.

  She asked where; he said it was a surprise.

  “You have to tell me,” Katie insisted. “So I’ll know what to wear.”

  Jeans or sweats or a Chanel gown, he wanted to say. What she wore wouldn’t matter to him, but he knew enough about women to know how they were when it came to things like that.

  “Something special,” he said.

  “You mean, dressy?”

  “Yes.”

  But it was all he’d tell her.

  Kaz had had his driver transfer Katie’s luggage to his penthouse. To the master suite. A little before seven, she commandeered his bathroom and his bedroom.

  “No peeking,” she said.

  He paced the living room, hands tucked into the pockets of his dark trousers. He was wearing an open-necked blue shirt. No tie. His suit jacket was tossed over a leather chair.

  He’d made a reservation for eight o’clock at a place that had opened a couple of months before. It was the kind of restaurant he’d figured you could find only in cities like New York or Paris: elegant and luxurious, with great food, and service that was neither over-reaching or over-bearing.

  Michelin had given it three stars…

  “Kaz?”

  He spun around, looked up the staircase. Katie stood at the top, one hand on the railing, and he knew, in an instant, that tonight the restaurant would have more stars than even Michelin could imagine.

  It would have Katie.

  His eyes, his heart filled at the sight of her.

  She wore a strapless midnight-blue gown with a slit up one side of the long skirt. Strappy gold sandals peeped from under the hem. Her only adornment was a narrow red silk ribbon, tied in a bow at her waist, unless you saw her hair as an adornment.

  He surely did.

  It hung loose, shimmering like platinum as it flowed over her shoulders.

  He went to the foot of the steps and held out his hand. She smiled as she came down the stairs to him. She took his hand, then went into his arms as he wrapped them around her.

  Kaz shut his eyes and held her close.

  Katie was beautiful. More than beautiful. She was lovely; she was what any man would want; she was what he had waited for his entire life.

  And he knew, in that moment, that he was in love with her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Dinner was perfect.

  The food. The wine. The staff, from the captain to the sommelier to the waiter, were always there when needed, but never when Kaz and Katie wanted to be alone.

  The room was perfect, too, lit by tiny white fairy lights, the walls draped with crimson and gold silk. A Christmas tree stood on a small balcony, its green branches hung with delicate crimson and gold globes.

  But nothing was half as perfect as Katie.

  Kaz couldn’t take his eyes from her.

  The glow from a pair of white tapers lent a soft illumination to her face. And he couldn’t get enough of that face. Her violet eyes. Her pink mouth. The flush of color in her cheeks.

  He wanted to sweep everything off the table, take her in his arms and make love to her
.

  Or maybe what he really wanted was to lift her into his arms, sit down with her in his lap, hold her so close to him that their hearts beat as one.

  In the end, of course, he did neither.

  Instead, he watched her. Just watched her. The delightful animation in her face; the way she lifted her champagne flute to her lips. He watched, and listened, and smiled at her stories of a childhood split between Park Avenue, the Hamptons, Paris, and Sardovia.

  She’d been a solitary little girl.

  Her mother had loved her as a sort of adorable toy, and had left her to the care of nannies and tutors. Her father had been a cold and distant figure until she approached womanhood and he began to see her as a useful bargaining chip.

  She made the stories seem amusing.

  He understood the pain behind them.

  It was not the same as his pain, but his childhood had also been designed for the benefit of others—his grandfather, his mother, the various ministers who had tried to use him for their own purposes.

  And while he had long ago accepted what had happened to him, he could not accept what had happened to his Katie, or what was about to happen to her now.

  Somehow, they avoided mentioning it.

  They didn’t talk about tomorrow. The flight to Sardovia. The betrothal ceremony. But the unspoken denial of reality ended when they left the magic of the restaurant and stepped into Kaz’s Mercedes with his driver behind the wheel.

  The car moved slowly through the night, past shops and streets decorated for holiday joy.

  There was no joy inside the car.

  Katie, who had fallen silent, began to tremble.

  Kaz, seated with his arm around her shoulders, drew her closer.

  “Another few hours,” she whispered, “and it will be time.”

  There was no point in asking what she meant. She would be flying to a man and a ceremony that would define the rest of her life.

  “I’m not going to let it happen,” Kaz said in low voice.

  “You can’t stop it. Nobody can.”

  “I can. And I will.”

  “Kaz. My mother—”

  “Surely she wouldn’t want you to marry a man you don’t love.”

  “She wants me to have a life she believes will be right for me. If she were well, I’d tell her how wrong she is. I’d never, ever go through with this. But she isn’t well, Kaz, she won’t ever be well and—”

  “No more,” Kaz said, and silenced her with a kiss.

  When they were alone in his penthouse, he poured brandy into crystal snifters and handed one to Katie. They stood behind the glass doors that led onto the terrace, with the city streets and the park far below them.

  He sipped his brandy.

  She looked at hers, then set it aside.

  “Another hour,” she said softly, “will be the day before Christmas. Christmas Eve Day. And in another few hours…” She put her hand against his heart. “I wish I had a gift for you.”

  “You’re all the gift I could ever want. Even that scarlet ribbon at your waist… I don’t think anyone ever created a more beautiful Chistmas wrapping.”

  “Then unwrap me,” she said. “And make love to me this one last time.”

  “Don’t,” he said sharply. “Don’t say that. Don’t think it. I’ll find a way, sweetheart. I promise, I’ll find—”

  She put her hand lightly over his mouth.

  “Make love to me,” she whispered.

  Kaz put down his glass. He kissed her slowly. Tenderly. Then, his eyes never leaving hers, he untied the bow at her waist, let the satin ribbon slide through his fingers before letting it fall to the floor.

  Another gentle kiss.

  Then he turned her so that her back was to him, nuzzled aside her hair and kissed the nape of her neck.

  Her soft moan of pleasure radiated through him.

  Slowly, he undid what seemed like a thousand and one indescribably tiny hooks and eyes, pressing his lips to each bit of bare skin as he unveiled it. The gown fell to her waist. To her feet. He helped her step free of it and then he turned her toward him again.

  The sight of her almost stopped his heart.

  She was more than beautiful. She was exquisite.

  Spike-heeled gold sandals. Stockings that stopped at her slender thighs. A black lace thong with a tiny scarlet bow at each hip.

  No bra.

  Only her lovely, uptilted breasts with their pale apricot nipples, just begging for the heat of his mouth.

  But first…but first…

  Kaz dropped to his knees. Kissed her ankles. The soft skin behind her knees. She sighed his name as he cupped her hips and brought his face to the soft golden curls at the juncture of her thighs.

  He blew gently against those lovely curls.

  And found her with his mouth.

  She tasted of everything sweet and perfect and when she came, when he tasted her essence on his tongue, he knew there could not be anything more wonderful than this…

  Except, perhaps, the feel of her in his embrace as he rose and swept her into his arms.

  The taste of her lips as he kissed her.

  The softness of her voice as she whispered of her need for him.

  He carried her to one of the big white sofas. Placed her on it. Took off his jacket, toed off his shoes, unzipped his trousers while she watched.

  “Hurry,” she said, and he cursed, tore off the trousers, his socks, his boxer briefs, and came down to her.

  She wrapped him in her arms.

  He slid his hands under her.

  “Look at me, Ekaterina,” he commanded.

  And he entered her.

  She moaned.

  Long, slow strokes. Silken strokes. Strokes of silk over steel.

  “Katie,” he whispered, and she looked into his eyes and smiled, and what he saw in her eyes was in his heart. “Katie,” he said again, and together, they flew into a midnight sky ablaze with stars.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Eventually, they made their way upstairs, to his bed, where they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  Kaz woke a couple of hours later and knew he would not get back to sleep again.

  Katie was restless, tossing in her sleep, murmuring words he couldn’t understand. He knew it had to be the stress of knowing what tomorrow would bring and knew, too, that he could not, would not let what had been arranged for tomorrow take place.

  He moved carefully, slowly, until he could sit up without waking her. Then he bent down and brushed a kiss over her tangled hair, stepped into the dressing room just long enough to grab a pair of sweatpants, and started for the door, pausing at the last second to go back and scoop his cell phone from the night table.

  He headed downstairs.

  He needed a plan, one that would salve Katie’s conscience about her dying mother even as it forced both her father and his grandfather into acceptance of the fact that there would be no betrothal ceremony and no wedding.

  He found his abandoned snifter of brandy, took a drink, then carried the glass into his study where he turned on the desk lamp and settled into a big leather chair.

  There had to be a way to do this. There had to be.

  Beep.

  What the hell…

  Dammit. He’d turned off his cell phone. Why was it ringing? He must have hit it accidentally when he picked it up.

  Beep beep.

  Kaz muttered a curse and glared at the thing. Sardovia. Surprise, surprise, he thought bitterly. OK. He’d have to deal with this sooner or later. He took a breath, then took the call.

  “Kazimir!”

  It was his grandfather. The king. Apparently, Kaz’s lack of contact was causing worry.

  “Kazimir! You do not answer your phone? You do not take messages? These things are your duty, boy. You are—”

  “I know who I am, Grandfather. I also know that I am not a boy. And I know why you and your ministers have been calling.”

  “I am impressed,” the king said,
sounding not at all impressed. “You are a mind reader as well as a financial expert.”

  Kaz ignored the comment. “You want to remind me that I am to bring Ekaterina Rostov to court on Christmas Eve.”

  “Indeed.”

  “I’ll bring her, but only because she sees it as her duty, her obligation to her dying mother.” Kaz’s voice roughened. “But I tell you right now, her father’s plan to marry her to Dmitri is done with.”

  “You do not tell me what will happen in my court, Kazimir.”

  “Listen to me, Grandfather. She will not marry my uncle. How in hell could you have engineered such a thing?”

  “I do what is best for Sardovia. That means that Ekaterina Rostov is to marry my heir.”

  “Because?”

  “Because it will unite two factions. Because it will put an end to Rostov’s scheming. Because it is best for our people.”

  “You want me to believe you give a damn about what is best for the people?”

  “It I did not, you would have grown up in poverty and without an education.”

  “I would have grown up exactly as I have.”

  “Perhaps—but you would surely not control Sardovia’s purse strings. You would not have the power you have today.”

  “Is power all that matters to you?”

  “I govern our people, Kazimir. I do it as best I can. I make the best determinations I can. And that is why Ekaterina Rostov will be wed to my heir.”

  “She will not! I will not let it happen!”

  “Such an interesting attitude. Have you taken a personal interest in this woman?”

  “Goddammit, old man—”

  “You overstep yourself, Kazimir! You are my grandson, and you must not speak that way to me! It has been decided. The woman will marry—”

  Kaz slapped the cell phone to silence.

  It had all been decided. A woman’s future. The course of her life. And wasn’t it amazing that at such a bleak moment the king had for, the very first time, called Kaz his grandson?

  Meaningless, of course. It was just a word. Perhaps the king believed the use of it would make him malleable.

  Kaz got to his feet, walked to the window, tucked his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants and stared blindly into the night.

  Now that he thought about it, it had been a conversation loaded with firsts. The old man calling him his grandson, and that almost casual reference to Kaz’s power. The truth was that he did have power. The most important kind.