Man Candy

by Tia Siren

  He looked me squarely in the eye and said, “It cannot be as cold as it is up here.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Rebecca

  Well, to say that my morning didn’t go anything like I’d thought it would would be a gross understatement. I’d thought Nick would get out of bed, join me at the breakfast table, drink a little coffee, maybe have a bite of my Pop-Tart, and then bend me over a chair and take me from behind. Then we’d get in the shower and play “I’ll wash yours if you wash mine.”

  Instead, Nick now hated my guts and I felt like a total douchebag. And I couldn’t blame him. But in my own defense, how was I supposed to know that he was being sincere?

  I mean, my god, how often did a Russian prince stumble into a dive bar during a snowstorm looking for a wife to make a baby with?

  Not to mention the fact that I’d only had one man in my life and he’d turned out to be a lying prick who beat the shit out of me. And Nick was so macho with his “you’re gonna suck my cock” crap…

  Okay, strike that. I actually liked that part.

  Shit. Way to go, Becca Boo, you fucking idiot. Way to go.

  * * *

  I sat there at the table sipping the last cup of coffee while Nick took a hot shower and got dressed. I resisted the urge to spy on him again. You’ve done enough, chided the little voice inside my head. Leave the poor man alone.

  Nick came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel and went directly into the bedroom to get dressed. I heard the bedroom door close and lock. A few minutes later he came out of the bedroom wearing the sweats and T-shirt from the night before and a pair of running shoes.

  He had his leather jacket over his arm and his suitcase in his hand. I assumed his expensive suit was stuffed in the suitcase. I was sure a prince would have a backup Armani or two in the car.

  Wow, that was nasty.

  You have no right to be nasty, Rebecca.

  Stop it.

  “Do you think the roads are cleared yet?” he asked as he put on the leather jacket and zipped it up. I could tell that he was forcing himself to be polite. He didn’t look at me as he spoke. He busied himself with putting on his gloves.

  “I think so,” I said, offering a smile he didn’t see. “I heard Carl’s snow plow go by a few minutes ago, so the road to the Overlook should be clear.”

  “Fine. Then I’d better go.” He picked up the suitcase and moved to the door leading to the stairwell that went to the kitchen below.

  “Yes, I guess you’d better.”

  He opened the door and stared down the darkened stairwell for a moment, as if he were staring into an abyss he was being forced to go down into. He spoke again without looking at me.

  “I’m not the man you left with before, Rebecca,” he said solemnly. “I would never do anything to hurt you.”

  “I know that.” I took a deep breath and released it slowly as tears filled my eyes. “It’s just that, well, I can’t just leave this place…”

  “I understand,” he said quietly. He turned his head to look at me and our eyes finally met. The machismo and bravado had left him for the moment. There was a great sadness in his eyes that I knew I had caused. It made me feel like shit. A single tear ran down my cheek.

  He said, “You can’t live your entire life barricaded in this bar like it’s some high castle because you were hurt once before. The world is passing you by, Rebecca. You just have to give it a chance.”

  Before I could say anything, he went down the stairs and got into his car.

  I went to the window and watched him drive away.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Rebecca

  The moment Nick left, my old life came roaring back and I fell into my routine. I cleaned the kitchen, took a long hot shower, got dressed, and opened the bar in time for the lunch crowd to straggle in.

  When I said lunch crowd, I meant the five or six regulars who came in for their recommended daily allowance of grease, hops, and barley. The same five or six would be back for dinner and, if the weather permitted, drink until it was time to close.

  As I served the lunch crowd their usual beer and burgers, I caught myself glancing out the window. I knew Nick was a proud man. He was a freakin’ prince, for Pete’s sake! He wasn’t going to come crawling back to try to convince me to leave with him. I’d had my shot. I’d fucked it up. As usual.

  Besides, why would he want some barmaid from Snowcap, New York, when he could have a real princess or, at the very least, a Hollywood actress or a Victoria’s Secret model!

  I wasn’t ugly, but I was no Grace Kelly. And I sure wasn’t the kind of woman Nick Rostov was used to having by his side or in his bed.

  After the lunch rush (rush, who was I kidding?) I checked the satellite receiver and was relieved to find that my phone, TV, and internet were working again.

  There was no phone, cable, or cell service this far up in the mountains, so I’d been happy as a pig in mud when I’d found out I could get it all via satellite—at least when the weather was clear.

  I fired up my laptop and Googled the name Nick Rostov.

  “Son of a bitch.” I sighed as the search returned over a hundred thousand results. Nick’s gorgeous face popped onto the screen in a dozen photos. In the largest photo he was wearing an expensive suit, his hair was perfect, and his smile would have put George Clooney’s to shame. He was standing on a red carpet next to Jennifer Lawrence. Seriously? Jennifer Lawrence????

  The brief description next to his photo said: Nikolay II, prince of Kosnovia. Nikolay II is the reigning monarch of the principality of Kosnovia and head of the Princely House of Rostov. Prince Nikolay is the son of Anatoly II, king of Rostov, and the former Katarina Andropov of Ukraine.

  “Wow…” I said with a sigh. “He really is a prince.”

  My eyes scanned the page of headlines that had Nick’s name prominently featured. Some of them were gossip reports linking him to a bunch of different starlets and models. A few were press reports from various events he’d attended around the world.

  Then, the last headline on the page caught my eye. The link had been posted six months ago by a reporter for the London Times. It read: Rostov Dynasty Predicted to Soon Fall.

  I clicked the link and read through the story with a hand over my mouth. The story was about the people of Kosnovia demanding that the monarchy be put to an end. The country was ruled by a parliament patterned after Great Britain’s, but the monarchy was still in place and still owned much of the land and controlled much of the wealth. Kosnovia was having all kinds of economic issues now, and the people saw the royal family as an outdated, unnecessary, and costly waste of money. Parliament was set to take up the topic at its spring session.

  “Holy shit,” I said. I closed my eyes and recalled the conversation I’d had with Nick.

  He’d said, “My father thinks a royal wedding and a royal baby would endear the monarchy to the people again. Especially if I were to wed an American woman.”

  “Why an American woman?” I had asked.

  “My father believes the shallow Americans would stand with the Rostov family if the heir was half American. Like Princess Grace of Monaco. No one even knew where Monaco was until the prince married the Hollywood starlet.”

  “Whatcha doin’, Becca Boo?”

  I looked up to find Carl standing in the doorway, shaking the snow off his coat. I glanced at the clock. It was only seven.

  “What are you doing here so early?” I asked, closing the laptop and tucking it beneath the bar.

  “I skipped lunch,” Carl said as he dragged his feet to the bar. He rubbed his hands together and pretended to shudder. “And it’s colder than a witch’s tittie out there. I need to fill my belly with a little Budweiser antifreeze.”

  “When have you ever touched a witch’s tittie?” I asked.

  He slid onto a barstool and gave me his toothless smile. “I was married four times, Becca Boo,” he said. “I know all about witches and their titties.” He folded his gnarled hands on the bar and pushed his bus
hy eyebrows up. “How about a burger and fries and a mug of beer to wash it down?”

  “Coming right up.”

  Carl always made me smile. I yelled his order through the pass-through and then filled a mug with beer and set it in front of him.

  He took a loud slurp and sucked the foam off the tips of his moustache. Looking around the bar, he asked, “So, did that young man get off okay last night?”

  I blinked at him for a moment.

  Did he get off?

  Yes. Several times. Thank you for asking.

  I picked up a bar rag and started wiping the bar with it. I said, “Yes, well, actually he spent the night here and left this morning once you had the roads cleared.”

  Carl gave me a sly grin. “Spent the night, huh? Well, I hope y’all were able to stay warm in the cold.”

  “You’re a dirty old man, Carl,” I said, giving him a scolding look.

  “I used to be a dirty young man,” he said with a sigh. “But time and age took care of that.”

  I leaned back against the beer cooler and folded my arms over my chest. “Carl, did you talk to him at all while he was here?”

  Carl licked more foam off his lips and bobbed his head. “Little bit. Seemed like a nice young fella. Full of bullshit, though.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “I hope you didn’t fall for his line about being a prince.”

  I frowned at him and played dumb. “He said he was a prince?”

  Carl gave me a thoughtful nod. “Said he was a prince from somewhere in Russia. Damn Ruskies. Can’t believe a word those bastards say. There ain’t no princes left in the world. Everybody knows that.”

  “What else did he say?”

  Carl scratched his bearded chin and closed one eye to think. “He said in his country, when a man wants a woman he just grabs her and takes her home with him. Can you imagine that? They just kidnap the girl and force her to marry them. I told him if he tried that stuff over here it would land him in jail faster than he could say ‘kiss my ass, comrade.’”

  The cook yelled “Order up!’ and I grabbed Carl’s burger and fries from the pass-through and set it in front of him. He doused the fries with ketchup and then picked up the burger between his hands and brought it to his mouth. Before sinking what was left of his teeth into the burger, he paused to give me an inquisitive look.

  “That Ruskie didn’t try anything on you, did he, Becca Boo?”

  I smiled and shook my head. “No, Carl. He was the perfect gentleman.”

  I let Carl eat in peace and went to stare out the front window. The night sky rolled with gray clouds just a few feet above the treetops. The threat of more snow was on the horizon.

  I wondered what Nick was doing at that moment.

  I wondered if I would see him when he passed by tomorrow on his way back to New York.

  Probably not.

  And that was probably for the best.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Nick

  Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you could meet hot chicks at an economic summit in the middle of winter in fucking Overlook, New York. Or anywhere else for that matter. There were no hot and horny economics groupies. The only women who attended these things were old, dried up academic bitches who looked down their noses at me as if I were a five-year-old trying to sit at the grown-up table.

  I was sure that if I plied them with enough booze and blew the dust off their rusty old cunts, we might have had a good time. But that was not going to happen, especially since I was in a mood that the word “foul” did not begin to describe.

  Nevertheless, I tried to push through my speech for the good of the summit and Kosnovia. I had not been invited to this summit because I was a handsome prince. I had a masters in economics from one of the most prestigious universities in the world. I probably knew more about Eastern European economics than anyone else in the room.

  But as I stood at the podium sharing my thoughts on the potential effects of Brexit on the Russian economy, all I could think about was the night I’d spent making love to Rebecca.

  Thank goodness I was standing behind a podium, because my cock chubbed a bit at the thought of seeing her lying beneath me, pushing her pussy into me as she came the third of fourth time.

  I forced the image of Rebecca’s face from my mind and managed to make it through my talk unabated.

  The audience offered polite applause that I barely heard.

  I left the papers for my speech on the podium and walked off toward the bar.

  I needed a drink.

  I needed lots of drinks.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Rebecca

  “Penny for your thoughts, Becca Boo.”

  I looked up to find Carl smiling at me. He’d finished his burger and fries and his mug was empty. He picked up the mug and shook it at me. “Can I get one for the road?”

  “You do know that you shouldn’t drink and drive,” I said, holding the mug under the tap to fill it with beer. I set the mug in front of him and removed the empty plate and set it on the pass-through.

  “My dear, I have built up an immunity over the decades,” he said, holding up the mug and smacking his lips. “I haven’t been legally drunk since 1982.”

  “What happened in 1982?” I asked.

  “Divorced my third or fourth wife,” he said, giving me a wink. “I came in here to celebrate, as a matter of fact.”

  “I thought you might have been celebrating my birthday,” I said with a sigh. “I was born in ’82.”

  “I know,” he said, nodding with the beer mug at his lips. “I was here the night your mother went into labor right about where you’re standing.”

  I frowned at him. “You remember my mother?”

  “Course I do,” he said with a wave. “I knew your parents even before they opened this place.” He tapped the side of his nose. “Plus, this old nose can sniff out a bar within fifty miles. I was probably one of the first customers in the door.”

  I leaned over the bar and rested my chin on my fist. “So, do you know why my mother left?”

  Carl’s weathered face seemed to sag at the question. His forehead wrinkled. His bushy eyebrows twitched above his eyes. “I don’t like to get in anyone’s business, Becca Boo.”

  “Bullshit,” I said, giving him a look. “You’re in everybody’s business.” He smiled and rolled his eyes. “Tell me about my mother, Carl. I don’t even remember her.”

  He took a long sip of beer and licked his lips. He spoke quietly, reverently. “Your mother was a beautiful girl. She worked her butt off behind the bar while your daddy manned the kitchen. You remind me of her. Blond hair, green eyes. She also had your sadness.”

  I frowned at him. “My sadness? I have a sadness?”

  He shrugged. I’d never seen Carl more serious. “Maybe sadness ain’t the right word. She’d get this longing in her eyes sometimes, like she was dreaming of some faraway place.”

  “Did she ever talk about leaving?” I asked.

  He looked around the room to make sure no one was listening. He shrugged. “She might have said something about leaving, on occasion.” He cradled the beer mug between his bent fingers and glanced up at me. “You’re asking me why she left, ain’t you?”

  “Yes. I’d like to know,” I said with a sigh. “I have no clue why she left. I’m just wondering if it was because of me.”

  “Let me ask you something first,” he said, staring at me from beneath his eyebrows. He tapped a fingertip on the bar. “Why are you still here?”

  “I don’t understand the question,” I said, scowling at him.

  “It’s a simple question. You’re pretty; you’re smart; you got a good head on your shoulders. What the heck are you still doing here? In Snowcap, behind that bar?”

  I thought about the question for a moment. The only answer I could come up with was the one I gave myself every day when the question came to mind.

  I said, “This is my home. This was my dad’s bar. I can’t just leave them behind.”

  He leaned in
and shook his head at me. “Do you really think your daddy meant for you to spend your life behind that bar serving drinks to old coots like me?”

  “I don’t know what he expected me to do with my life because he died before I could ask him,” I said, looking down at the floor beneath my feet. “My dad died on this very spot, Carl. I can’t just walk away and pretend that never happened.”

  “If your daddy died in a car accident, would you keep the wreckage around to remind you of him?”

  “What? No. Of course not.”

  He shrugged. “Same thing. Staying here just because your daddy died here is not a reason. It’s an excuse.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He blew out his cheeks, filling the air between us with the smell of onions and beer. “All I’m saying is, your daddy never expected you to keep this place going. And deep down, I think you know that. You’re using this bar—and your daddy’s death—as an excuse not to leave because you’re afraid.”

  I caught myself before telling him to go to hell. I took a deep breath and held it for a moment, and then I said, “What am I afraid of?”

  “You’re afraid of what’s out there,” he said, pointing toward the window. “You left once and came back hurt. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t leave again.” He picked up the mug and sighed into it. “You can’t be afraid of what’s out there, Rebecca, because it could be a hell of a lot better than what you have here.”

  “When did you get so smart?” I asked, smiling at him.

  “I’ve always been this smart,” he said with a goofy face. “I just never share my smarts with any…” His face went blank. For a moment I thought he was having a stroke.

  I reached across the bar and put my arm on his hand. “Carl? Carl? What is it?”

  “I remember,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “I’ll be damned. I remember why I call you Becca Boo.”