He had to end things with Kat; even if telling her goodbye would tear him up inside.
He hugged her warm, sleeping body closer, fighting back the lump in his throat. Giving Kat up would leave him less of a person than he’d been before she came into his life. It would break his heart. But he would survive.
That’s what Sergei did. He survived.
It was all he knew how to do, for better or for worse.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Two weeks later
Kat
Kat struggled to hold on to her signature smile—the calm yet excited, earnest yet playful, competitive yet good sportsmanlike grin that had made her one of the final two contestants on Real-Life Rules to Catch a King.
She had a chance of winning, but the victory would be a hollow one.
Who cared about winning a stupid reality show when you were nursing your second broken heart?
“All right, Kingdom City, the moment you’ve been waiting for is only seconds away. Who will be declared the new Queen of reality television? Who will walk away with the million-dollar grand prize, and maybe even a proposal from one of our eligible judges? Find out when we return for the thrilling finale of Real-Life Rules to Catch a King!”
Kat sighed. Geez, the host was annoying.
It made her want to throw up—preferably on reality show stooge, Brian Withers—but she managed to restrain herself. It was almost over. The votes were tallied. All that remained was the final announcement of the “big winner.” Surely they would get around to that after this last commercial break.
The producers had drawn out the season finale for two hours already. Kat and her opponent, Maria del Gato, were on a stage in front of a studio audience of thousands, forcing smiles while the season was recapped in tedious detail on a big screen behind them.
Kat watched herself win eight out of the ten challenges, indifferent to the fact that she’d worked so hard for nothing. Normally it would have infuriated her, but she couldn’t seem to care. She shouldn’t have been surprised, really. The producers had said there would be a twist.
What a twist. It was so uninspired it was laughable.
In the end, the outcome of the show had come down to your basic popularity contest. The producers had allowed the show’s viewers to call in and vote for which of the women they thought deserved to win, even if that woman had already been dropped from the competition in an earlier episode.
Maria del Gato—a sweet woman widowed at twenty-five with three children—was chosen as contestant number one. It didn’t surprise Kat. Hell, she would have picked Maria to win if she had known it would be a matter of public opinion. Maria was a great lady, a kind person, and a kick-ass mom. She deserved a break.
What did surprise Kat, was that she herself—Katarina, the would-be murderess—was selected as the second contestant.
No matter how well she had behaved, she would never have believed that people would vote for a convicted felon. If she had been interested in her future, it would have given her a lot of hope.
It was funny really, the man she had once hoped would improve her chances in this stupid contest was the one who had taken the thrill of victory away from her.
She should be happy. She had proven herself, even if she didn’t win the grand prize. She would be welcomed back into the public relations field with open arms. She had already received tentative offers from two firms even before she was voted in as a finalist.
Kat had achieved exactly what she’d aimed for—a second shot at a real life.
Too bad she planned on turning it down.
She had tickets on the last train out of the city tonight. She had sold everything she owned, even her health club membership, and had enough money left to last her a few months. If she won the million dollars that would solve the money problems, but even if she didn’t, she had to go. She couldn’t do it anymore. She couldn’t live in the same city as the man she loved—and hated—so much it was physically painful.
Kat would never forget the way Serge had woken her with a cappuccino in one hand and her packed suitcase in the other, smiling as he said how much he had enjoyed their time together, but that it was time for her to go. She had done an admirable job of swallowing her shame and hurt and gracefully accepting both coffee and suitcase, even though he was the one who had insisted she bring things over.
He’d refused to let her go home to her own apartment, wanting to spend every moment together.
He had even told her he loved her.
She knew he had, though she suspected he would deny it. She’d been learning his language in secret since their first night in the shower. She was already fluent in two languages and conversational in two more, it wasn’t unusual for her to pick up new words and phrases quickly. Once she understood some of what he was whispering in her ear, she’d been even more inspired to keep up her study sessions. If being referred to as “my love” and “my heart” and “my perfect little cabbage” in his mother tongue didn’t count as some sort of profession, she didn’t know what did.
Looking at him now, however, it was hard to believe he had said any of those things.