Compromising Kessen (3 page)

Kessen’s mouth dropped open as she struggled to shake her head no. Words were not coming for the first time in days. Surely her father wouldn’t do that to her.

Her companion looked at her like she was an idiot. “Um, Kessen, isn’t that what they do? You don’t think your dad…?” He let the question hang in the air.

“He wouldn’t,” Kessen said, although her voice sounded weak.

“Would he?” Nick asked pointedly.

“Oh, my gosh.” Kessen gasped.

Nick clapped his hands and said, “You’re being sent to London to get married!”

“Who’s getting married?” Sammy swept into the reception area.

Nick laughed. “Guess!”

Kessen groaned. “Ugh, please do not guess.” She sent Nick a sharp glance before hugging Sammy. “It’s good to see you, but you shouldn’t be here. You have so much work to do today!”

“I’m not the one going to London.” Sammy crossed her arms. She was hard to argue with, what with being five-foot-two and totally adorable. Even in her flats Kessen still towered over her friend.

Nick pushed between the two ladies. “Oh, no worries, Sam. It’s only for a Season.” The British accent was back, but this time Nick was hiding behind his tiny wife.

Sammy looked perplexed. “You mean for the summer?”

“Americans.” Nick fake-coughed behind Sammy.

Kessen scratched her head and avoided eye contact. “No. A real London Season, where they have pretty dresses and balls.”

Sammy clapped her hands. “Oooh! How fun! And attractive men?”

“Hey!’ Nick interjected from behind her.

Sammy rolled her eyes and guided Kessen to the couch. “Do you think we could visit you?”

Kessen suddenly felt as if a weight had been lifted. “You guys would do that for me?”

“No.” Nick grumbled, plopping back down into his chair. “But I would definitely do it just so I could watch the train wreck in person.”

Sammy glared; Kessen giggled. “He spilled part of his coffee, so he’s a little testy.”

Nick sighed and picked up the magazine again. He had a weird obsession with women’s magazines, said it helped him understand how to deal with women.

He obviously wasn’t retaining the information.

Kessen glanced back at Sammy, who was returning email on her phone. “Sammy, go! I’m fine! I leave tomorrow afternoon, fly all night, and I’ll call you when I land. You guys can visit once I’m settled in.”

“Don’t worry, we will.” Nick laughed.

Sammy kissed them both goodbye on the cheek and left.

“Sometimes I hate you,” Kessen said to Nick.

Nick frowned. “You don’t mean that. Now how about I take you out for sushi one last time before you say goodbye to dentists, hugs, and spas forever?”

“After my appointment?” Kessen asked.

Nick nodded and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll meet you in a couple hours.” He obviously had better things to do than sit around and be miserable in the spa.

Kessen, although sad to be alone, was content to have some time to read. There was one final book in the Vandenbrook series she wanted to attack. She started reading from her e-reader and sighed.

The book told details of the duke’s love for his wife. He would write her love letters every day and lay them across her pillow. Fresh roses were always picked for her in the springtime, and he accompanied her to the opera as often as possible.

This made him the perfect man, because even women sometimes find it hard to sit through musical numbers in foreign languages.

Men weren’t made like that anymore. They were made more like Nick—not that Nick was bad. He was just so … well, Nick, and American, though she loathed saying it. Times had changed; people didn’t write long letters by hand anymore. They emailed. They didn’t update you on their lives; they updated their status. And if you wanted to know where your friend was at ten o’clock last night, or what they were doing right then, all you needed to do was check out their latest social media and respond.

On the outside it looked like life had gotten easier. Connecting was just one click away. Yet it wasn’t truly connecting; it wasn’t sharing. What she wouldn’t give to actually have a date on which the man didn’t constantly text his friend’s updates about how Kessen looked or what she ordered.

Chapter Three

The spa was grand, her nails and hair were perfect and her skin was restored to its glowing beauty. Lunch was also great with Nick, except he—like every other man on the planet—was busy texting his buddies the latest news about the stock market.

Kessen groaned, then silently wondered if she should download the e-reader application for her phone she could pretend to be texting but be reading instead. It might look odd for her to be staring at her phone for long periods of time.

“Kessen,” Nick interrupted. “Have you heard anything I’ve said?”

She swallowed some water and shrugged, allowing him to take it however he wanted.

“The news update said there was another attempted airline attack, that nobody was injured, but security for tomorrow is going to be tight. Just be prepared.”

Kessen gave a weak smile and nodded.

She wasn’t at all prepared for what took place at the airport that day. Lines were longer than she had ever seen them, and international flight security was the stuff of legends. She had been searched three times by the time she reached her gate and was actually exhausted by the time she boarded the plane.

Luckily, her dad loved her enough to book her first class, even though she normally didn’t fly anything but business. Flying first class had never been necessary, plus in her mind it was just that much closer to the cockpit. She was better off not knowing if they were going to crash into the ocean, but today she welcomed the plush seats and good service.

She took two herbal supplements, so her body could relax, and she could go to sleep. After dimming the overhead lights, she tried to get as comfortable as possible and prayed she wouldn’t have nightmares of what tomorrow might bring.

****

It was midnight, and Christian was not in the mood for arguing. Unfortunately that was exactly what was taking place in the middle of the street. Duncan, his best friend, was tirelessly going over the differences between Newberry and Co. and another giant American coffee chain. He had already put a severely long day in at the office; this was the last topic he wanted to discuss.

“How many times do we need to do this?” Christian pleaded.

Duncan bristled. “As many times as it takes for you to get it right! Newberry was nearly bought out this year; you need to know our strengths and weaknesses.”

“Why is that again?”

“Because you’re picking up Lord Newberry’s daughter tomorrow morning,” Duncan said, taking sudden interest in his shoes, or as Christian suspected, avoiding eye contact.

“What was that?” Christian asked, mainly hoping he had heard wrong and was hallucinating from lack of sleep.

Duncan lifted his watch. “Oh, look at the time! Must go! You understand. Cheerio!”

Christian pulled Duncan quite forcibly back toward him. “I’m picking up whom?”

The panic on Duncan’s face would have been amusing if Christian weren’t so upset about the topic of discussion. “Lord Newberry’s daughter. She’s been groomed by her father to take over European operations.” He cleared his throat. “Rumor has it he’s sending her here to learn about her English heritage before he allows her to fully take his place.”

Christian rolled his eyes and groaned. Babysitting was not what he had planned for the next few weeks.

“So, I have to pick her up and show her the sights, like some bloody tourist?” Christian struggled to keep his voice calm. He usually prided himself on his calm demeanor, but today had been a hard day for him—in the wake of his recent breakup, his father told him today that if he didn’t marry within the year, he would simply live forever and pray that rules of society would change enough to allow him to pass the title to someone other than his ungrateful son.

It was almost as if he lived in Regency times. It was frightening how set in his ways his father was, but then again the entire family was like that. They even had books written about their bloodlines. A lot of good it did them. If anything, it just sent more fortune hunters and wanna-be nobility their way.

Duncan frowned. “Cheer up! It’s not as if she’s some spoiled American brat; she graduated with honors from Harvard, of all places.”

“Brains don’t get you into Harvard; connections get you into Harvard,” Christian argued, feeling a sudden headache at the back of his head. “Have you seen her photograph?”

Duncan looked amused. “Everyone’s seen her photo, old man. It’s everywhere.”

Christian did not like where this conversation was going. He didn’t have time to worry about a spoiled American princess who wanted to inherit her daddy’s fortune. What he actually wanted was to go to a pub and drown his sorrows in a pint, but that never worked out right for him the next morning.

Duncan put both his hands on Christian’s shoulders. “Come now, how bad can she be? She’s obviously educated. She probably has good teeth, and it wouldn’t kill you to spend some time with a woman, especially after the disgraceful way Jenifer treated you.”

“How did you find out about that?”

Duncan’s answer was a shaking of his head “It’s not every day a Vandenbrook is dumped by a Hanford.” He smiled. “A match from heaven—that’s what it was, and you know it.”

“Oddly enough your sympathies are not alleviating my headache,” Christian said.

“Wasn’t trying to.”

Christian snorted. “How about I pay you to pick up the girl?”

“How about you set me up with one of the Hanford daughters and pay me to pick up the girl?”

Christian grimaced. “Done.”

Duncan tipped his hat. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

Christian’s only response was a low moan and a few words not appropriate for the rest of London society to hear. He did, after all, have a name to live up to.

Christian decided it was best to walk to his house rather than call for a car. He was in a foul mood—a mood which wouldn’t change despite his desperate attempts.

His job at Newberry and Co. had been something dreams were made of. He was VP of Marketing for the London branch, and although his father decided it was an acceptable job for someone of his title to possess, he hadn’t been thrilled to hear about Christian’s plans to continue working there after his internship ended.

He shouldn’t be surprised. His father tried to control everything in his life, from whom he dated, to whom he would marry, to what job he would have. His father had a desire for Christian to enter into politics. Christian, however, had other ideas about his future.

Marketing had always been his passion, so when an internship opened up at Newberry and Co., he decided to take it. Four years later, he was now the VP and couldn’t be happier, until his father’s proclamation.

It’s not that he needed the money or the title. He had plenty of money without his trust fund. It was the principle of the matter. After all, he was the only son. The dukedom was supposed to pass to him, not fall out of the family completely because of his stubborn father. Not that he was worried about his father finding the fountain of youth any time soon. It was the simple idea that everyone was aware of the discontent within his family. Besides, going down in history books as the one Vandenbrook who received the title and single-handedly destroyed the happiness in his family did not have any appeal.

The fact it would slowly kill his mother, who was already peeved at him for the situation with Jenifer, did nothing for his headache or indigestion.

He groaned as he approached his street. Kensington Palace Gardens The most sought-after street in the world, or one of them, at least. It was once called Billionaires’ Row because of the wealthy families who resided there. In all actuality, most of them were millionaires, but to most people it was basically the same thing.

He shared a house with his parents, still a thought that kept him up at night. It was incredible how much control they still had over his life at twenty-nine. “Settle down!” they would say each time he turned down another girl. “Find a different job!” they would say each time he came home late from work. “Marry a blue blood!” his father would yell each time he turned down another marriage proposal from a titled family.

Oftentimes, his life felt like the novels written about his family. Authors had no idea how close to the truth they were when they spoke about the heritage of his family. If anything, they weren’t painted nearly as mad as they actually were.

It was the only cheerful thought of the night. His family being humiliated in modern literature. It was enough to bring a large smile to his face. He decided to whistle all the way to his house, all the while imagining how poor Duncan was going to fare with the lovely Lady Newberry. Without a doubt, she would be a handful.

It was a wonder she didn’t already have her own silly American reality television show. She looked the part, with her bleached blonde hair and tall super-model figure. The sight of her appalled him, only because it made him realize how much he despised Americans in general—their incessant need for coffee, fame, and fortune. Did any of them sleep? Ever?

He doubted it. Of course, it had been ages since he had slept a full four hours, so he probably shouldn’t be passing judgment.

Tomorrow was going to be his monthly meeting with store managers. He liked to hold the meetings at the actual stores, so he could keep an eye on their marketing strategies and help them implement higher sales volumes.

His morning was to be spent at one of his favorite stores in the heart of London; if he was lucky, he would get to serve tea and coffee to guests. He did love customer service. As well he should; he would have a lifetime of interacting with people once he was officially the Duke of Albany.

He quietly let himself into the house and tumbled onto his bed. He had exactly five hours before he needed to be up and ready.

****

Kessen woke up to a flight attendant hovering over her with a bottle of water and two aspirin. Thank God for small favors, she thought, greedily grabbing both from her hands.