Page 45 of One Bad Knight

Woof.

Bear had waited long enough. I leaned over, grabbed his leash, and hit the door opener. It groaned open and it was as if air had been let back into the garage.

Without waiting to see if Gatsby followed, I strode out with Bear, ready to walk for as long as it took to work off the emotions he’d shaken up inside me.

Though a traitorous part of me whispered,why didn’t your uncle acknowledge you?

17

Gatsby

Imilled about the grand ball room before the party started, staying out of the way while Kat got ready upstairs. Tonight, the function was hosted in Senator John Hart’s very own home. This would be one of the biggest gatherings before the election results were tallied.

After we had walked Bear, we spent some time at the studio where Kat tried to paint, but she eventually gave up, saying she felt too self-conscious and blocked. So she decided to work out of the coffee shop below the studio for a while, as she said she needed to update her social media about what happened at the art show.

As she worked on her laptop, her expression became grimmer with each passing minute. I peeked over her shoulder and saw she was looking at the site for Harvard Law School. Her knee jiggled as she downed a second cappuccino. At last, her Krav Maga class came. She told me under no uncertain terms she would kick my ass if I got in the way of her sparring sessions, since I threatened to cut off the fingers of the next person who touched her. She had worked her way up to full-contact sparring.

I stayed outside the dojo but kept a close eye on the trainer and her partners through the front window to make sure their touches didn’t linger inappropriately. Pride swelled in me as she repeatedly dominated her opponents. Kat seemed to take out her pent-up frustration in each match. It could have been built up from the two cappuccinos, the anger and resentment I had ignited earlier, or to make up for the failed match on the street with the She.

Kat took two classes back-to-back, and then it was back to the house so she could get ready for the event. The way her skin glistened with sweat, and the ferocity in her expression made it damn near impossible to keep myself from pinning her down in the back of the car and working her in other ways until she screamed. But since our conversation in the garage this morning, she wore a big damn neon sign over her head that spelled out “Fuck off.” So, I kept my distance.

In the ballroom, Kat’s uncle snapped at the caterers. Dave seemed more than happy to jump down the caterer’s throat after his father stepped away to chew out his campaign manager. Apparently, his speech writers did a shit job, and he was on the verge of firing everyone.

I made sure to stay out of his line of sight as I lurked about.

“They’ll never let you stay,” a man’s voice said from behind me. I knew he was there; it just didn’t matter.

“Oh yeah?” I asked, turning to face Gabe. Where Dave was all sharp angles with the flat eyes of a shark, Gabe was soft and round. Dressed in his expensive suit, it almost did the job to draw attention away from his receding hairline.

Slipping his hands in his pockets, Gabe came to stand next to me, to watch the rush of preparation. “You don’t belong, you know.”

I didn’t answer that. Of course I didn’t belong. I didn’t belong anywhere.

“Do you want this life?” I asked, jerking my chin at the scene.

“Of course,” he said. There was a tightness in his voice that someone else might miss. As if he were trying to convince himself. He didn’t fool me, though. The way he kept his head down at the breakfast table. The way he perfectly went through the motions of agreeing and going along with his father and brother. Kat didn’t seem to notice, but then he worked to detach from her as best he could. And of course, he would do his best to put as much distance between her and him. After what happened with his mother, he couldn’t afford to get close to another female in his family.

“Do you remember your mother?”

Gabe stilled.

Finally, he said, “I was very young when she… left.”

“Not as young as Kat.” I turned to face him. “Do you miss your aunts?”

“Aunts,” he said, recognizing I’d used the plural. I wasn’t only referring to Kat’s mother.

His hands came out of his pockets. Gabe’s already white face paled, making his eyes appear even darker.

“Gabe,” John snapped at his son from across the room. “Are you going to help me fix this speech, or just stand there all day?”

John’s gaze lingered on me, distrust openly swimming from him. Then he turned it off as he went back to directing the event setup.

It wasn’t long before people began milling in, and servers rushed around with trays of champagne.

I began to grow anxious. It was taking too long for Kat to come down. Just as I was about to go check on her, a murmur rippled through the room. When I turned around to follow its origin point, I found Kat descending the staircase.

The woman would look painfully sexy in a paper bag, and she was model perfect in the designer gowns she wore to her uncle’s events all week. But now… she was a gorgeous sex vixen. The strapless black dress pushed her small but perfect breasts up like a corset. The dress flared out at the hips, falling in black waves around her. But a dangerously high slit exposed her bronzed leg. On either arm she wore black lace gloves that went up past her elbows. Gold wraps from her heels wound up her legs, like godly restraints.