Mad, Bad & Dangerous

Chapter Fourteen

Middle of the afternoon, and the bar of the up-market hotel was deserted but for a few wealthy-looking older women and their suspiciously young and handsome escorts. Every so often a pair of them would disappear in the direction of the rooms upstairs. The place was a shiny-fronted brothel, but Kett didn’t particularly care.

Her stomach churned with the knowledge of what she’d just done. Of how she’d been offered something wonderful and deliberately turned it into something horrible. The Curse of Kett had come upon them both.

It was better this way. Hurt him now and let him go on with his life.

But she couldn’t get his face out of her sight. The hurt, the anger, the betrayal on Bael’s face. She’d made him betray her, and now she couldn’t forgive herself.

“Another drink, signora?” asked the handsome bartender. His name was Giacomo and he had pronounced himself dedicated to cheering her up.

Kett pinched the bridge of her nose and blinked at the man, trying to focus. All she wanted to do was get incredibly drunk and forget what she’d just done-to Bael, and to herself.

Actually, all she really wanted to do was curl up somewhere and cry, but she’d never let herself do that before in her life and she wasn’t about to start now.

“Sure,” she said. “Keep ’em coming.”

***

Don’t tell her.

It was the first thought in Bael’s mind after Marisa had shut the door behind herself and fled, clutching her clothes. If he didn’t tell Kett, then she’d never know and she’d believe she was his mate-

He closed his eyes. She didn’t believe it now.

She’d never wanted to be his mate, she’d spent every second fighting him. And Kett fighting was damn hot, so he’d never minded, but now…

Now he’d be lying to her, and not just some small lie of omission but a huge, fundamental lie. How did you go from We were meant to be together to I shagged a barmaid?

He paced. He punched the wall. He turned himself into an eagle and went flying around the city, but it didn’t help. None of it helped.

He’d betrayed Kett. He wasn’t her mate, and she should know. Imagine twenty years down the line, he thought, she’s been with you, resenting being tied to you, hating you and all the time she could have been free.

Did he want her to be so unhappy?

At least give her the choice. Tell her you made a mistake, and let her decide whether or not to stay with you.

He turned himself human again and set out to track her across the city. He’d gotten halfway there when it occurred to him that Kett was almost certainly going to ask him how he knew he’d made a mistake, and sooner or later Marisa was going to come up in conversation. He cringed, automatically covering his groin. Well, maybe if he told it carefully…

She drugged me, right, and I woke up in bed and she was sucking my cock-

She’d still never believe it, even if it was the truth. Maybe if he took Kett back to the inn and introduced her to Marisa, then…then Kett could threaten Marisa and the truth would come out. Kett loved threatening people. Happy ending for everyone.

He found her at a brothel-which slightly confused him, but then she’d said she was on business for Chance, who had once been a courtesan-and followed his nose past the scents of sex, cigarettes and alcohol to a room on the upper floor. Squaring his shoulders, taking a deep breath and preparing to look as sorry as he damn well felt, he opened the door.

***

The place was filling up now, more and more beautiful men and women negotiating the price of their affection with a crowd who seemed to treat prostitution with the same casual attitude as an after-work drink.

Kett had been in the bar for several hours, her glass never emptying. Like Bael’s tankard, she thought miserably, only this time no one was pouring sleeping powder into it. Currently she was drinking a highly toxic local spirit that had once, apparently, been introduced to a lemon, and then corrupted it horribly into a drink so potently alcoholic that a single drop made the bar surface steam.

Kett knocked it back in one and rested her head on the bar. She still didn’t feel drunk enough yet. Depressed as hell, yes, but not actually drunk.

“Signora,” said the bartender, and she lifted her head. “Something else?”

She focused on him. “You’re not Giacomo,” she said.

“No, signora. He takes clients in the evenings. I am Rocco.”

“Fill ’er up, Rocco,” Kett said, holding out her glass. “Whatever’s next.”

What was next was a horribly sickly concoction, also apparently made from lemons (how did they do it? They were halfway up a mountain, it was freezing, how did they possibly grow lemons here?). Kett took a sip and made a face, but the bartender had already moved on to serve a large group of men in business wear, apparently fresh from work and ready to make trouble.

Time was, Kett might have joined them. The first thing she used to do on arriving in a new town was check out the bars, and who frequented them. She rarely went home alone. A different man every night.

She didn’t even know how many there’d been.

Now she looked at them with some revulsion. Loud, brash, rude. One of them pinched the backside of a waitress and they all guffawed. Kett rolled her eyes. They were in a fucking brothel, and pinching a woman’s butt made them giggle like schoolboys.

Turning her attention away, she saw Giacomo, shirtless and cool, sitting at a table with a composed older woman. Kett knew her type, the neglected wife looking for some thrills.

Standing up, Kett picked up the glass of vile sugary lemon and carried it to Giacomo’s table. Her footsteps were steady. She didn’t waver once. Kett didn’t know whether she’d inherited the ability to hold her drink from her father or whether it had just come of long practice, but she should have realized that even two hours of drinking spirits wouldn’t have gotten her drunk.

Setting down the small glass, she caught Giacomo’s eye then walked away. Five minutes later, Giacomo got up, let himself behind the bar and set out a bottle of wine and a large glass in front of Kett. He left, saying nothing.

Kett tried a glass of the wine. It was good, at least by her low standards. Probably not local.

She drank it all, watched Giacomo leave with the well-dressed woman then poured another large glass.

It warmed her in a way the spirits hadn’t. Maybe the Sisilians were on to something here. But it still didn’t make the hurt go away. Kett wasn’t a stranger to pain, but she’d never felt guilt like this before.

When the bartender caught her attention and said, “Signora, Signor Giacomo has finished with his client,” Kett nodded, gulped the rest of the wine and got up before she changed her mind.

Giacomo was waiting for her in a large, pleasantly decorated room upstairs. He was naked, handsome in the low lighting, and Kett wordlessly stripped as he stood still, watching her.

“Signora,” he began, as she moved to the bed.

“Kett,” she said.

“Kett.” He inclined his head formally. “Are you sure?”

She looked up into his dark eyes, calm and utterly foreign. He was nothing like Bael.

“Make it go away,” she said.