Bad Boy Prince: A British Royal Stepbrother Romance by Vivian Wood Page B

Kit?” I ask, amused.
    “Rex is back,” she whispers. “Did you see him?”
    “That I did, Kitten,” I tell her.
    She burrows into the crook of my arm, happy as a fucking clam, and goes to sleep.
    Me, on the other hand? Good thing I have a lot of training functioning on very little sleep, because I don’t see any happening for me.
    Not tonight, not with Kit in my arms.

6
Kit
    T he first thing I see when I open my eyes is a steaming mug of fragrant coffee, hovering in front of my face.
    The second thing I see, once I sit up, is Rex’s smug fucking face.
    “Oh, god damn it,” I immediately say. Ignoring the coffee, I flop back on the bed and pull one of the pillows over my head to block him out of my vision.
    Except, when I inhale, it smells unmistakably of him .
    “FUUUUUUCK!” I scream into the pillow, thrashing a little for good measure.
    When I’m done, I heave a big breath and sit up again.
    Rex’s smirk has morphed to an expression not unlike that he’d give a misbehaving child.
    “Do you want the coffee or not?” he asks, growing impatient.
    I reach out and take it from him. I glance at it and wrinkle my nose, but I don’t say anything. I sip it and let the warmth wash through me.
    “What?” he asks. “You don’t like coffee anymore?”
    It was one of the things we bonded over in school. We both used to sneak off school grounds and run into one another at the closest coffee shop, both jiving for some caffeine.
    “I do. I just… I drink it black, usually.”
    Rex’s dimple flashes.
    “I seem to remember you drinking the girliest, sweetest lattes they had. Triple peppermint mocha frappa-whatsits,” he teases.
    “You remember that?” I ask, frowning when I realize that he’s fully dressed. Not just dressed, but wearing a vest, dress pants, and a button up with a tie. Damn, he does clean up nicely . “Where are you going?”
    “Not me, we . We have been summoned to the palace. I called Marj and had your suitcase brought over,” he says, glancing at me. “Much as I like you in my pajamas, Kitten.”
    “Rex…” I growl.
    “ Don’t fucking call me that ,” he says, doing an unflattering imitation of me. “Get dressed. Actually, take a shower, Grandmother will be livid if she gets within a foot of you. There’s vodka coming out your pores, Kitten.”
    I close my eyes and take a big sip of the coffee. It’s super sweet, but at least it’s coffee .
    When I open them again, Rex is shoving a towel into my free hand.
    “We have to be at the palace in an hour,” he says. “Get fucking moving.”
    I set my coffee on his bedside table, jump up, and grab my wheeled suitcase. As I head for the bathroom, he stops me.
    “Go to the guest bathroom,” he says, looking at me with derision. “This is my flat, not your university dorm. Jesus.”
    I flush, but I’m not about to give him the fight he’s so clearly angling for. I don’t have time for it. No one, and I mean no one , is late to see the King and Queen.
    And yet, somehow, when we step into the anteroom where we’re supposed to wait… we are late. I run a hand down my white peplum dress, the only thing in my suitcase that was presentable enough for being called to stand before Courtland’s sovereign rulers.
    It’s not my fault we’re late, not really. The water ran cold, the dress had to be de-wrinkled, my makeup took forever. Then we had to stop for gas…
    None of which the queen will care about, I’m pretty sure.
    Then there was the silence in the car. I can tell that there’s something on Rex’s mind, something other than our being summoned to the castle.
    That bit can’t be new to him; I admit that I’ve stalked him a bit online here and there, and it seems like he’s been in trouble just about every minute since I left. I imagine that his grandparents have given him more than an earful about it, not that Rex seems to have paid a lot of attention.
    Still, he snapped at me repeatedly on the way to the palace, so now