Page 16 of Bossy Wicked Prince

“Don’t be silly. You have to go around the trash cans and get past the gnomes first.”

“The—what the fuck?”

I can tell he’s met Freya and Sven, drinking tea at their mushroom table. I picked my garden gnomes up at the thrift shop for five bucks. Apparently, they’re not charming enough to stop Nate’s grumbling.

“Who the hell lets a lone woman live in a first-floor apartment, especially inthisneighborhood?” he mutters.

“Someone who doesn’t think women are helpless little damsels in need of constant saving.”

I don’t know why I’m bothering to defend Steve, my super really is an ass, but I am. “If you’re so worried, better get back to your Porsche before someone breaks in and steals your tie.”

Nate scoffs, but he keeps following me. He’s so close that he runs right into me when I come to an abrupt stop.

Because my patio door is completely shattered…

5

NATE

Cat tosses bags of frozen broccoli on the kitchen table as she rummages through her freezer.

“Damn it,” she mutters. “They took it.”

“Took what?” I ask.

“My rent money. I get tipped in cash.”

She looks so defeated, I decide not to tell her that the freezer is one of the first places a good thief looks. If her joke of a building manager didn’t allow so many basic security lapses, it wouldn’t have mattered.

Cat called her super as soon as she saw the broken door. She didn’t put up a fight when I insisted on staying with her while she waited for him to come. She even let me do a sweep of the apartment looking for intruders while she waited outside. If she was letting me take the lead, that meant the break-in seriously shook her.

“It’s going to be okay,” she says quietly to herself, pacing her tiny kitchen “I’ll be fine. I’ll figure this out.”

She breathes deeply in and out, making her breasts rise and fall. I look away as soon as I catch myself staring at them. Fuck,what’s wrong with me, ogling her when she’s this upset? I turn away, giving her a little privacy.

Automatically, my eyes flit between the two apartment entrances. Front door, still locked and secure. Back door, still barely a door. Cat’s too distressed to watch out in case the intruders return, so I have to be on alert for her.

Not that there’s any valuables for them to come back for. I’ve already searched everywhere–kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom, closet. All 500 square feet of the place. The bedroom was just big enough for Cat’s queen-sized bed and small end table, which the thieves overturned.

I’m guessing that’s how her vibrator ended up on the ground, the base cracked, the batteries falling out. I nudged the whole mess under the bed with my shoe and pretended I never saw it.

When I turn back to face her, trying to come up with something—anythingto say, she stops and gasps, her amber eyes meeting mine.

“Oh shit. Sorry, I didn’t even offer you a drink or anything.”

Cat opens the fridge. “I have—well, Ihadsome Gatorade. There’s water.”

She pulls out a bottle and holds it out to me.

I shake my head and grunt. “I’m good.” And she doesn't need to be playing hostess in the middle of a fucking crime scene.

Even though half the furniture has been turned over and a few dishes are smashed on the floor, the place still feels strangely welcoming. Cat leaned into the apartment’s small size, putting a few cozy armchairs in the living room, draped with fuzzy throw-blankets. I can imagine her and a friend curling up in them to chat and listen to music from her ancient-looking record player. There’s a little window seat looking out on the back patio, with a built-in bookshelf under it filled with pink and blue titles I don’t recognize.

Every free square inch not occupied by furniture is full of houseplants. Some are green and thriving, blooming out of their pots. Others look half-dead, carefully propped up by popsicle sticks, like they’re being coaxed back to health.

I already knew Cat loved flowers. On her walks home, she always stops by a little flower shop to look at the displays and chat with the owners. Her favorite are some pink ones in the front, based on the way she always stops to smell them. She never buys any, though.

There’s a knock on the door, and Cat walks right toward it. Fuck, I could throttle her for being so careless—if the trespassers came back, they could have a gun at her temple in seconds.