Chapter 12 #4
A single bullet hole marred the side of his temple—the other side of his head was gone.
Noise imploded into the room on the rush of feet and then Richard was over her shouting. He had his hands pressed against her chest but she couldn’t make out the words.
Fuck that hurts.
Hurt worse, ten times worse, than her shoulder popping out of the socket. A hundred times worse than the bullet grazing her a month before.
Still, so much better than Richard being shot.
“Hurt?” she managed to spit the word out on a bubble of blood. She couldn’t breathe and it made it impossible to talk.
“Help is coming. You stay with me,” he ordered. “Dammit you do what I tell you this time. Why the hell did you do that?”
“You?” she fought again. “Hurt?”
“No, I’m not.” Another man joined Richard in her periphery and he added something to her chest. The pressure sucked at her, blackness dragging her down. “Dammit, Kate, why did you do it?”
“Had to protect…” And the world narrowed to two sharp pinpricks. She couldn’t breathe.
You’re okay.
That was worth a bullet or two.
RICHARD
Intermittent calls for doctors and nurses punctuated the silence in the private waiting room.
He’d ridden to the hospital in the ambulance, and Armand’s security followed.
It didn’t surprise him to find another half dozen in place at the hospital or that more filtered in as Armand arrived with Anna on his arm.
They were dressed for a formal event, but his best friend ignored the bloodstains covering Richard’s chest and arms for a hard hug.
“You’re okay.” The shaken words might have sounded like a weakness in a lesser man, but Richard recognized the relief in his best friend’s voice and the fierceness in his grip. He gave the man a moment, then pulled back. Anna leaned in and gave him a hug, no words required.
“Kate?” she asked softly. As she pulled back, pink stained her white gloves. Some of the blood on him—Kate’s blood remained wet.
“She’s in surgery.” He focused on the cream-colored wall behind her. The scene—the gun firing, Kate being hit by bullets meant for him—replayed in constant, shuttering clarity in his mind. Not once, but twice in as many months the woman he loved took a bullet for him.
Loved.
Love. The woman I love.
He loved her and some part of him recognized it, but the rest of his mind hadn’t been ready to embrace the concept.
She slotted so neatly into his life, the perfect complement from work to home and back again.
The smoothness of the transition had been so damn seamless—even in her anger over his “absences” and his ducking of security, she belonged.
Why the hell didn’t I see it before?
“They need someone to make some decisions, I’ve been trying to reach her mother, but I haven’t gotten an answer yet.
” He needed to think and he couldn’t past the roaring.
You? Hurt? The bubble of blood on her lips, the frantic worry kindling in her voice as the light faded in her eyes. Had to protect…
She’d done it on purpose. No matter how many times he tried to analyze what happened, he’d seen her step right into the path of that bullet.
A soldier, she’d been in the army—she didn’t stumble or make a mistake.
The decision came in a split-second. She’d looked from the gun to him and then she was just there.
Scrubbing his face with his palms, he swallowed the scream working to break loose out of his throat. No, she is not going to die…
“Richard, what can we do?” Anna’s hand was on his arm, her face a concerned mask. Of course she was concerned, Kate had worked with her. They’d been friends. Are friends, dammit. Are.
“I don’t have any ties to her that let me do it.
” He’d been telling them about Kate. Telling them what he needed.
“Can you call her mother? Her father? She has a brother in Germany.” Beany baby.
I couldn’t say Ben when I was little and it came out Bean.
They called him String Bean, but one day I called him Beany Baby and it stuck.
“His name is Benjamin. He’s in the army.
Maybe call them? I can call them.” He touched his pockets, looking for his phone.
“I’ll do it, Richard. I’ll do it.” Anna squeezed his arm and turned away. She paused at Armand’s side and hissed. “Tell him. He needs to know. You tell him.”
He didn’t have his phone. No, he’d dropped it at the house when the man showed up at the door. He’d put a gun to Kate’s head and Richard had dropped everything. You want to shoot me? Fine. Shoot me.
Fierce. His Kate had been so fierce. He hadn’t seen a glimmer of fear in her eyes until that moment.
Just like when they’d been shot at on the street, she’d focused all of her concern on him.
“Richard,” Armand’s hand was on his shoulder. “Come on, sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit. They need someone who can make decisions for Kate.” He was repeating himself.
“I know. Peterson is taking care of it. Come sit down.” Armand didn’t take no for an answer—he walked Richard over to the seat. No one came into the room. Anna had apparently taken her phone outside.
“Is Anna okay? She shouldn’t be alone.”
“She has her detail with her, she’ll be fine. Richard, I need you to focus.”
Of course she did. Armand protected the woman in his life. She didn’t take bullets for him, he wouldn’t allow it. He didn’t allow anyone close to him to get hurt, not if he could…
“Miranda quit. Just up and quit. I’m supposed to be back in the office tomorrow and she called me on the way here to tell me she came into an inheritance and she’s off to do the world cruise and traveling she’s always wanted to do.
What the hell am I supposed to do now?” He was sick to death of being stuck in his house and he’d finally gotten the all clear from the doctor.
He’d agreed to wait until Monday only because he wanted Armand’s babysitters off of him.
“Anna’s assistant might be a good fit, you met her once—Kate Braddock?” Armand grinned. “Anna doesn’t need her as much with the scholarship off the ground, I can talk to her see if she’d be interested.”
“If she is, it would save my life.”
He turned slowly and stared at his best friend. A man he’d known since college—the prince who wanted to be like everyone else, but he’d never been ordinary. Powerful and intelligent, he’d grown only more so after his father died and he’d inherited the role of grand duke and head of his family.
Someone has to make decisions for Kate.
I know. Peterson is taking care of it.
Peterson. The royal family’s security chief and Armand’s left-hand man in the United States. Armand was ruthless, cunning, and possessed enough deviousness to get his way when he wanted it. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to protect the people he loved.
Paying off an assistant and installing a bodyguard right under Richard’s nose so that he’d be protected whether he liked it or not? Not even a stretch.
“You son of a bitch.”
“Yes.” Armand nodded once. “I did what I had to do, to keep you safe. You didn’t want a security detail, wouldn’t hear of it until after Kate got hurt. She was part of Anna’s—”
Richard bounded to his feet and paced away.
Of course Kate was a bodyguard. She had the requisite skillset.
She’d been military and she joked about how she kicked that Kuwaiti prince’s ass.
She was always watching, observing, and tracking the movements of people around them.
When she walked into a room, she assessed it.
She anticipated his needs and she made changes.
They’d been subtle at first, but little by little she’d brought him to heel.
He’d joked about her managing him, but that’s exactly what she’d done. Managed him and the situation because Armand hired her to be his bodyguard. And his “sneaking” out and shedding his security—it had infuriated her.
“Richard.” An olive branch wrapped in an order tied to an obligation.
“Go to hell.” He did not want to hear the excuses or his bullshit about having to protect the people around him. As if his title gave him the right to make decisions about people, to put Kate into harm’s way.
“I’ve been there. I was there just a few months ago when they pulled you out of your car.
They had to peel back the metal, Richard.
I saw the car afterward. It’s a miracle you survived.
I sat in this hospital and I prayed for hours that you would come through that surgery and once you were out, it was still touch and go.
You lost a spleen and a kidney. Yes, I’m a bastard.
I hired that woman and I told her that her only job was to keep you alive.
I didn’t care how she did it, or what she had to do—”
Richard spun and slammed his fist right into Armand’s big, damn mouth. The prince staggered. Two of the security men started forward, but Armand waved them back.
“You told the woman I love that her only job was to take a bullet for me because you decided that. You didn’t have the right, Your Highness.”
“I had every right.” Armand’s eyes blazed and he got right in Richard’s face.
“You are my best friend, my brother. You can be pissed at me all you like, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
You’re alive because of that woman in there and I pray she survives so I can kiss her hand and thank her for saving you. ”
“Saving me? You damned me, Armand. I fell in love with a lie! A lie you hired and paid because you have to be in control of everything. I’m your best friend? No—I’m your ex-friend and in the morning, I won’t be your attorney anymore.” He pivoted to walk away.
Armand grabbed his arm. “You don’t want to do this right now. You’re upset and you’re not thinking clearly.”
That was a joke and it was on him. Richard laughed.
“You know, I think I’m seeing clearly for the first time in a long time.
Everybody lies to get what they want. My father, you—Kate.
Everybody lies. I am sick to death of the lies.
Now get your hand off me or you will need your security put your face back together.
” He cut a cold look at him. Needed the cold.
Needed to shut it all out. “Because I’m done. ”
Armand released him and Richard strode away. He was at the door when Armand called, “Stay long enough to see her.”
“Why?” He turned and spread his arms wide.
“Her job is done. Be sure you give her a bonus. That’s three bullets she took for our friendship, Your Highness.
This…” He swept his hand over himself. “This is her blood. My consolation prize for being the idiot who fell in love with her. Congratulations. I’m alive. ”
Turning around he stared into Anna’s tear-filled eyes. “Richard, don’t do this. Don’t walk away.”
“Your prince is that way. Good luck. You’re going to need it.” He ignored the flash of hurt in her eyes and cut around her. He had to get the hell out of that hospital and away from them and the lies.
I love her. I’m a fucking idiot. I’m in love with a lie.
The truth should have set him free, but all that knowledge brought was more pain.