you. Your life insurance is paid up, right?”
“That’s not funny.”
“You think I’m joking? I am mad enough to kill you, Freddy!”
“I’m sorry,” he squealed.
Her fury seeped out of her. “How could you do this?” she mumbled, collapsing onto a stool in front of the counter.
Of all people, Freddy should know better. But the fact that their gambler father had lost all his money and died of a stroke at fifty apparently hadn’t taught him anything.
“I didn’t mean to. Claire, you gotta help me. If I don’t make good, the Rat King is gonna send the Nutcracker after me.”
She gaped at her brother. “The who is going to send the what?”
“The Rat King’s a bookie. The Nutcracker is his enforcer.”
Torn between wanting to burst into hysterical laughter or scream, she stared at her imbecilic sibling. “The Nutcracker?”
“Yeah. He got his name because if you don’t pay, he, uh…”
Claire waved a hand. “I think I can figure it out.” Considering she’d often thought her brother needed to grow a pair, she wasn’t sure the collector would be cracking much.
“I can’t help you,” she stated calmly.
Freddy’s eyes rounded into saucers. “What?”
“I have barely enough to cover my expenses for the rest of the month. I’m counting on a big holiday season to make this place pay. My lines of credit are totally tapped out.”
“You could rent the upstairs apartments….”
“No.” The argument was a familiar one. “They’re one step up from needing to be condemned.”
“Come on, it’s Midtown. People would pay five grand a month for the location alone. Screw the peeling paint on the walls!”
It wasn’t just peeling paint. Her great-uncle Harry had left her the run-down property, but no cash. Her mother’s life insurance had given her enough money to get the first-floor shop renovated, along with the apartment behind it, where Claire now lived, but nothing else. The upstairs units—two on each level, going up three floors—were uninhabitable. Squatters living up there had had the good sense to move out, driven away by the frigid air that poured through the cracked windows. Then there were the holes in the walls, the mildewed bathrooms and the drooping wallpaper. Not a pretty picture. Someday, when the shop was thriving, she’d have enough money to continue the renovations and make the whole building a lucrative investment. But not now.
The only way she could get any money out of this place would be if she agreed to sell it to the investor who’d been coming around a lot in the last month. Yet the idea of giving up her chance to build a future for herself made her heart clench. Especially if she had to do it to bail out her idiot brother.
Claire got so tired of taking care of him… of everyone. When their mother had gotten sick, Claire had been the one to nurse her. When her father had lost his money, she’d started working to help support the family. When they were both gone and it was just her and Freddy, she’d become a mother to a teenager, when she wasn’t much past her own teenage years.
She was tired. So damn tired of being the caretaker. It had been such a long time since anyone had taken care of her, she honestly didn’t remember what it felt like.
“Freddy, even if I would consider renting them, I couldn’t get the permits. Everything above this floor is a ruin.” Seeing him about to speak again, she threw a hand up. “And no, I’m not renting under the table. Legal trouble is the last thing I need.”
“So what am I supposed to do?” he asked, sounding petulant.
She bit her tongue to prevent herself from suggesting that he grow the hell up, be a man and deal with his own problems.
“What about a payment plan?” she asked. “You could promise to give him a certain amount of your paycheck every week….”
Her brother rolled his eyes. “Bookies don’t finance.”
“You’ve got no other options. You have to at least ask.”
If the “Rat King” said no, then she’d go into full panic mode and start considering selling organs on the black market. She could think of a few of Freddy’s that could be spared, like his useless brain.
Otherwise… was she prepared to give up everything she’d worked so hard for to save her brother’s bacon? Again?
Oh, God, she hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She just had to pray that in this magical season of giving, the rat discovered he had a heart, and the nutcracker went on vacation.
But she wasn’t counting on it. This might be the time for miracles, but Claire had stopped believing in those long ago. She’d never been the type to fantasize about some rich Prince Charming galloping in on his white steed to take care of all her problems. And she sure didn’t expect one now.
“MY PRINCE, please reconsider. We can’t possibly live here.”
Philip Nadir, crowned prince of the Kingdom of Selandria of the Dry Lands, heard the dismay in the voice of his loyal but fastidious companion, Shelby, and smiled. “Of course we can, and we shall. This will do quite well,” he said as he watched his bodyguard, Phateen—also called Teeny—enter, muscling a mattress through the doorway. “Perhaps we should leave that until Shelby clears away the debris on the floor?” he suggested, remembering the condition of the small sleeping chamber, which he’d seen on a tour of the building yesterday.
“Until who clears away the debris?” the man squealed.
“Are you saying I should do it?”
“Of course not, my prince. But I can’t be expected to…”
Quirking a brow, Philip stared at Shelby, who was almost as spoiled as Philip was accused of being, and harder to please. A cousin, Shelby had come to visit when they were children, and had never left. Most looked upon him as a servant; Philip called him friend. But he could be—how did they say it?—high maintenance.
“Do you want to go back to Elatyria?”
A rueful frown pulled at the other man’s face. He had been adamant that he be allowed to come along on this quest—Philip’s last chance to find a woman he could love, who would love him for himself—but so far he wasn’t acting very happy about it.
“No, Your Highness. But surely a scullery wench…”
“We’re supposed to be poor, struggling students. Poor people can’t afford to hire, uh, I believe the term is cleaning ladies.”
Shelby huffed. Never having been to this world before, he was having difficulty adjusting, daunted by the tall buildings, the crowds, the frantic pace and the lack of subservience.
Philip,
