A Prince's Ransom: Kidnapped by the Billionaire (14 page)

Her smile faltered a little bit when she looked at Brigitte again—but she didn’t know anyone else here and it would be more awkward to go and stand in a corner somewhere. No, she needed to prove that she was perfectly capable of handling herself.

“Lady Brigitte, Lord Lowery, a pleasure to see you both again,” she said, greeting them with a soft nod as she drew closer.

“And a pleasure to see you, Katherine,” Brigitte replied with a smile before looking over her dress. “Such a lovely gown! That color suits you very well.”

“Ah, thank you. I had some help selecting it from Princess Élise, but I definitely think it makes a lasting impression.”

“Indeed it does,” agreed Jacob, allowing his eyes to linger on the detailing of the top. It was amazing how that habit didn’t really change between classes of men, only in how obvious they were about it, Katherine thought. But she let him look without a word, smiling at him congenially.

“Of course, you both look extremely attractive this night as well. That color is perfect next to your hair, Brigitte.”

“Ah,
merci
, it is one of my favorite colors,” she answered with a smile, but before she could say anything else, a movement behind Katherine attracted her attention.

Kat knew already who had arrived. She took a deep breath before turning around to look toward the servant—and Eric. Of course it had to be Eric, looking incredible in a precisely tailored black tuxedo, with his hair somehow neat and perfectly disarrayed at the same time. His blue eyes were intense but his expression neutral as he looked over his guests, before they finally came to rest upon Katherine. Something flickered in his look that she couldn’t place, but even as a fresh wave of tears tried to press at her eyes, she forced herself to smile at him confidently.

“His Highness, Crown Prince Eric Jean-Francois Devillers, III!” the servant shouted. Instead of Eric bowing to everyone in the room, everyone else was bowing or curtsying to him. Katherine followed suit, glad for the excuse to look away from him. What right did he have to be so damnably perfect with the sort of man he was? She would prove him wrong… one way or another, she would prove him wrong.

After a long moment, she straightened up to standing with the others, and Eric came toward the crowd with a light, polite smile. He started towards her, but she abruptly turned away from him, looking back toward Brigitte and Jacob.

“Excuse me,” she told them quickly, and then moved to disappear into the dispersing crowd as the ball began. An orchestra began playing on the far side of the room, and around her Katherine could hear men asking women to dance.

But she was trying not to rush, not to make it obvious how she was escaping the prince’s approach. She knew he wouldn’t make a scene by following after her, even if he might have wanted to merely out of curiosity about what had upset her. She still had an unmistakable urge to cry, and she eyeballed a passing servant who was carrying a tray of wine… no, no, she would
not
make a fool of herself tonight by indulging in alcohol. That would be a mistake and she needed to be able to keep her head.

“Pardon me, Miss Saunders,” someone said in a thick French accent. She turned to find a handsome if slightly round blond man who was smiling at her politely. “Might I, ah, bother you for a dance?”

Katherine blinked slightly, startled that someone had asked her to dance, but she smiled. “It would be my pleasure, sir.”

The man’s smile broadened and he took her hand; she had no idea who he was, but it didn’t much matter as he led the way toward the other couples who were starting to dance in the center of the room. She realized belatedly that she had wandered from where the dining hall was to the proper ballroom in her attempt to get away from Eric, and here everyone else was gathered along the wall to watch as they didn’t have proper partners themselves.

“I must warn you,” she added nervously. “I am not very good at dancing—I don’t have much experience.”

“Ah, I am sure you will do splendidly,” he answered, one of his hands catching her waist. Katherine thought back to what she had seen in movies when she put one hand on his shoulder while her other hand was caught in his grasp. She looked toward one of the nearby couples, trying to see the woman’s feet beneath the voluminous folds of her dress, before looking back up at her partner again with a smile. He nodded at her reassuringly, and then started leading her.

It took about ten seconds for her foot to smash down on his, and he winced. She apologized, making herself breathe when they started moving again. Okay, follow his movements, but backward—right foot forward, her left foot back. Uh, heels off the floor? No, no, that wasn’t right. Well, maybe, it meant she didn’t stumble quite as much but it felt really weird to be moving that way. Wait, what was he—no, no, don’t spin, don’t
spin
!

Katherine’s breath caught in her throat as he let go of her waist and the momentum of their dance sent her outward. She barely managed to stop herself from being launched into another couple on the dance floor, and when he pulled her back in, she heard him repress a moan of pain when she slammed into him. “I—I’m sorry!” she gasped, swallowing hard. “I did warn you that I wasn’t—perhaps I should just…”

Before she could finish, her eyes widened when she saw a gloved hand tap on her partner’s shoulder. He was still recovering from her slam, but he managed to turn around to see who it was. His eyes widened to realize that it was his prince, and he quickly drew back from her and bowed to Eric.

“Might I cut in?” the prince asked nonchalantly, already aware that there was no way his request would be refused. The blond Frenchman nodded rapidly and darted away, probably to look for a more capable dance partner, but also seeming to want to get as far away from Eric as possible. He looked at her, though, catching her in his arms before she could actually draw away herself, and starting to move without her having the chance to prepare herself. Katherine closed her eyes tightly when even just the first few moments of the dance were so much easier with this bastard leading her instead.

“You looked as though you could use a bit of rescuing,” he mused, obviously very aware of the way she was staring at his chest instead of looking up at him, but she didn’t stop doing so.

“More like he needed rescuing from me,” she muttered. “I told you that I didn’t know how to dance like this.”

“You seem to be doing fine now,” Eric pointed out, lightly amused. She clenched her jaw a little bit and said nothing. Some part of her wanted to mess up and take a misstep just so he wasn’t so damnably smug. “You look lovely tonight, ma chérie. That dress is exquisite on you.”

“Thank you.”

“Is something wrong, Katherine? You do not quite seem yourself, which certainly cannot only be caused by the dress.”

“I’m fine,” she answered briskly. “It’s just painfully obvious that I don’t belong here and that I shouldn’t have ever been here to begin with.” She glanced up at him for a moment, long enough to see the frown on his face, before looking away again. Eric didn’t say anything despite how he tensed slightly against her, his displeasure palpable, and for a long moment they just danced. Katherine could feel eyes on her from all around the room—on them, more accurately—everyone probably having wanted to know who the prince would dance with first. Most of them had probably expected that he would pick Brigitte, though. The impending engagement didn’t seem like a particularly well-kept secret.

Despite Katherine’s nerves, every movement with him was effortless. Almost annoyingly so, something inside of her responding to him instantly so that she never even got close to stepping on his toes. Maybe he was just a better partner than the other man had been, but after what she had overheard, that didn’t make it any less frustrating. And surely people were now whispering how handsome a couple they made or something. Or how strange she looked with him, this tiny American girl… yeah, that was a lot more likely. She didn’t belong with a guy like Eric, and she never would. More than that, Eric didn’t deserve her, if anything about what Brigitte and Jacob had said was true. They hadn’t known she was there, so there didn’t seem to be another explanation but that it was true.

“What has gotten into you, Katherine?” he spoke at last, breaking the silence between them. “Only a few hours ago you could not wait to try on your dress, and for Élise to assist you in getting ready. Now you seem entirely too perturbed for a girl dancing with a prince at a ball.”

Her eyes flashed and she looked up at him darkly. “Yes, because that’s the part I should be focusing on, right? How lucky I am to be dancing with a prince at a ball? And not any of the rest of it. Not the fact that you basically kidnapped me and that you’re holding me captive against my will, not the fact that you’re trying to convince me to marry you for your own gain—and definitely not the fact that you have taken advantage of other naïve girls like me before, right?”

Those icy blue eyes burned down at her immediately. “What are you talking about?
Other naïve girls like you
? I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about, Katherine, and certainly there is no merit in such baseless accusations.”

“Baseless accusations!” she scoffed. She tried to pull herself free of him and escape, but his grip tightened at the attempt and held firm. “I’ve got a few bases. How about the fact that I overheard Brigitte talking about some Italian girl you dated a few years ago? Who you didn’t care about when she publicly humiliated herself?”

“You heard of Isabella—Katherine, might I point out that whatever you heard, you yourself were not there to witness the situation? You’ve no idea what I did nor what Isabella did, nor what actually happened. All you have to go on is the gossip of a woman who—”

“A woman who is perfectly charming and prepared to marry you even though she expects you to cheat on her,” she interrupted swiftly. “You’re very, very good at lying to my face, Eric. I know you are, because I can feel it. I know when you’re saying something in just the right way to make me reconsider my opinion without quite knowing
why
I’m reconsidering it. You’ll say anything in order to make yourself look better, to look like the good guy, the nice guy, the guy who is trying to do what is right, when I know better. From the moment I met you, I knew what kind of guy you were. But you’re supposed to be a prince, you’re supposed to be better than the clods and jackasses who just care about getting what they want from a girl—”

“Enough,” he growled, cutting her off. They had started to move faster without her realizing it, no longer in sync with the music, but no one seemed to notice even though they were still staring at the two of them. “I’ll not deny that I have long since learned the art of being persuasive, Katherine, because it is something I am quite good at. However, my silver tongue does not mean that every word that falls from my lips is inherently a lie. What have I lied to you about, for certain?”

“No, I’m not going to answer that, you’ll just talk yourself out of it somehow! And you’ll say that everything you’ve said before wasn’t a lie—just enough of a half-truth to get you the outcome you want instead of actually giving me a chance to come up with it on my own. But I’m not stupid, Eric. I’m not! Whatever else I am, whatever else you see me as, I’m not stupid. I know what you’re doing, and the worst part… the worst part is that you might’ve actually managed to do it because I wanted to believe that you were better than that. That when you called me those lovely things and tried to ease my fear of heights that you actually cared.” Tears stung at her eyes, and all at once she jerked herself harshly enough that she did manage to free herself—mostly, she realized, because she had startled him.

“Katherine—”

“I would give anything for the guy you pretend to be to actually care about me, Eric. Do you realize that? But I’m not going to just stand here and allow myself to be played and lied to and to have the truth twisted around me until I’m not sure what’s real anymore. I’m not letting you do that, because you don’t deserve the chance.”

The prince’s eyes subtly shifted around the room before looking back down at her. She knew she was starting to make a scene, but despite her earlier conviction to be perfectly well behaved tonight to prove him wrong, this wasn’t something she could help. She couldn’t pretend that she wanted to be around him tonight, that she wanted to dance with him—that she wanted to give him another chance to try and take her heart when he was inevitably going to break it That’s all guys like him ever did. Perfect in every way, too perfect to be real. Because he wasn’t.

He was trying to maintain his poise as he took a step toward her and sought to catch her hand again, likely to try and resume dancing until the song actually ended. But Katherine drew further back and turned away from him, quickly making for the edge of the crowd. She remembered, when Élise had shown her the way to the ballroom the day before, that there was a doorway that led out onto a large, two-tiered balcony, and without quite running or shoving through people, she tried to find it. She needed some fresh air. She needed to be away from Eric. And she couldn’t look behind her to see if he was following after her or not right now, because what did it matter if he was? More lies would only follow.

Tomorrow, she would make him take her back to her hotel. She would go back to Pennsylvania at the end of next week. She would stop pretending that any of this made the slightest bit of sense.

Everyone had been staring at them as they had started to argue, although she hadn’t gotten so loud that they had overheard things they shouldn’t. They parted for her instantly when she approached, so that it wasn’t difficult to make her way to the door, forcing herself to breathe and not to cry. That only became harder when she pushed through the door and finally looked behind her to see where Eric was. He had been following her, but someone had intercepted him. He was still trying to get past, to follow after her further. She turned away and moved toward the edge of the balcony, realizing she was shaking.

“Katherine?” Brigitte’s voice made her flinch—as if she needed anything else right now—and she looked toward the statuesque redhead. But she couldn’t force a smile to her lips this time. “Are you alright? You look quite troubled.”