Null and Void

by Susan Copperfield

  “A declaration of war,” I replied, relaxing in my chair. “One I mean to win. Jessica, can you arrange for the cream of the crop to come to Texas? You take visiting dignitaries on trail rides, right?”

  The queen smiled. “I see you’re learning how the game is played. Why yes, I can invite them to come to Texas to discuss their participation in the auction. When would you like them here?”

  “How soon can you make arrangements?”

  Jessica checked her phone. “I could probably get a few here for the weekend. It’s domestic political season, so most are staying close to home. We could hit a trail ride on Sunday for a few hours, then have a dinner meeting with a tentative proposal. Think you can whip something up for me?”

  “Only if you take me out on Saturday so I know what to expect, and if I can do it with this stupid boot on.”

  “I’ll make it happen. We’ll rig a special stirrup for your boot, and Pat and I’ll take you out on Saturday. You’re going to be sore on Sunday,” she warned.

  “I’m already sore. How much worse can it get?”

  “You’re going to regret asking that on Sunday.”

  “You’re probably right. If you can rig a ride for Sunday, I’d appreciate it. And, heaven help me for even suggesting this, but extend an invitation to Princess Ambrose, and tell her if the princes approve, I’ll permit them all to attend her auction.”

  “That’s risky. Very few like Princess Ambrose.”

  “I’m sure a beautiful, cunning queen like yourself can talk the princes into cooperating, and you can assure them the agreement will put the power in their hands; she won’t be able to bid on them.”

  “I think I can work with that. I’ll have the horses loaded onto the trailer tonight and shipped to the ranch we do the trail rides. Erase your plans for this weekend, Mackenzie. We’re going out of town.”

  I didn’t have any plans for the weekend, not with Mireya away, and I welcomed the chance to be too busy to breathe; it beat sulking at home obsessing that my little girl was overseas without me.

  If I wanted to leave for the weekend without worry, I needed to make miracles happen. With a few hours left in Wednesday, Thursday, plus Friday, I could get enough done to leave without worry. I’d have to skip my Saturday pity party for one, but it was worth it for a chance to talk Pat out of yams and chicken. At eight in the evening, I ordered Geoff to go home.

  He refused.

  One spectacular screaming match later, the bastard handcuffed me to my desk so I couldn’t escape, called for backup, and gloated from the doorway.

  “You jerk,” I hissed, shaking the cuffs so he could hear the metal rattle. “I wasn’t going to run. I need to work. How can you expect me to work with one hand?”

  “You can reach your keyboard with both hands.”

  Thanks to the metal bracket beneath the desktop, he was right; the cuffs gave me just enough room to reach my keyboard.

  “This is cruel and unusual punishment.”

  “I was given orders. You’re to stay right there until my replacement arrives. When you’re in this sort of mood, you get flighty. You’re not getting away from me again this week.”

  “I stand by my claim. This is cruel and unusual punishment.”

  “Maybe if you hadn’t let Her Majesty talk you into running off yesterday, you wouldn’t be handcuffed to your desk right now.”

  “All I said was that I’d be working late. You should go home.”

  “I will as soon as my replacement arrives. In fact, I’ll be going home for two extra days plus the entire weekend, and I’ll enjoy the time off. I’ll be back on duty Monday morning. Her Majesty thinks I’ve earned a few days off, and she wants to get you used to having new agents around.” Geoff looked far too pleased with his announcement. “If I had left, you would’ve run for the hills to get out of riding for an entire weekend.”

  I grabbed my stapler with my free hand and held it up. “I have three more of these in the drawer. Douglass gave them to me just so I could throw them at people who annoy me.”

  “The three in your desk are empty, flimsy, and you couldn’t hurt someone with them even if you tried. That one isn’t any better. If you want a weapon, try the phone. It might do some damage if you hit me with it. However, having seen your aim, I’m perfectly safe, no matter how many staplers you’re armed with.”

  Geoff was a jerk, and worse, he was right. I sighed, set my stapler down, and grabbed my mouse, muttering curses and returning to the daunting task of figuring out how I could showcase nine bachelors in a secondary auction without eclipsing the main auctions or making it overly complicated.

  My best idea of the lot involved a talent show where every woman got two minutes to impress the princes, and if she garnered enough attention, she’d go to the next round. To line the pockets of charities, the women could even bribe the men with donations for a chance to have a few more minutes to prove she was interesting.

  The winners would get dates, and I didn’t care how many dates the princes wanted to go on as long as they fulfilled their obligations to the women they selected. To make it fair to the women, each night of the auction, a prince would take a woman on a date.

  To make it fair for those who couldn’t afford the hefty price tag, the eligible bachelors and bachelorettes could sponsor anyone interesting they met at the masquerade.

  I had no doubts men and women would pay a fortune for a chance to go on a date with a royal, and I’d seen the type of money the men were willing to throw around to take a woman to bed for a night.

  The real challenge would be taking my thoughts and distilling them into something I could get nine royal bachelors to agree to. If I could get nine bachelors to agree to a talent show, then the possibility existed I could open a mirroring event for interested princesses looking for a date.

  Jessica would probably murder me if I asked for a second collection of eligible bachelorettes. If I started the men’s auction an hour before the women’s, the princes could strut their stuff for the princesses if they desired, too.

  I liked the idea enough I jotted down a note to bring it up to the congress.

  I expected them to crucify me for going off the beaten path and overcomplicating it. I could imagine them asking why men and women couldn’t just bid on each other for dates. If I opened part of an auction for a dating free for all, each date to take place the evening following the auction, every restaurant in the city would be booked out.

  The congress would like that a lot. A free for all would be a lot easier to plan, too.

  Or I could do it all and say goodbye to sleeping. I had a few months to plan and schedule everything. If I started right away, I could refine the idea enough in a week to present to congress so they could laugh me out of the building.

  The handcuff made it difficult to run my hands through my hair and yank on it, but I managed, banging my forehead against my desk. Cursing myself for having bitten off more than I could chew didn’t help. I’d gotten what I needed most.

  That I hadn’t needed it all frustrated a scream out of me. His Royal Majesty had done more than play me. He’d played the entirety of the Texan congress, forcing the world to change and using me to do it. He’d done it, hovering right out of reach, invading my dreams, and nudging me along, provoking me while protecting his interests.

  My interests.

  Our interests.

  Damn it all. When I put himself in his shoes, I wondered what it was like to miss everything, to be a father who couldn’t watch his child grow, all so that other families could be reunited with their children. I doubted I could handle it.

  I loved my daughter too much, and I would’ve done anything to stay with her. I would’ve crawled to Montana through ice and snow if necessary. From the first time I’d held her, she’d become my world. The thought of having her taken away from me had driven me into doing so much. I’d worked for years, putting in extra hours searching for ways to end the prejudice and guarantee she couldn’t be taken fr
om me.

  We’d all been played in a move of absolute brilliance.

  Mireya’s father had orchestrated change, demanding me as the price for Montana’s participation in an auction Texas had wanted to win to boost its economy and global prestige. I’d needed only one thing, and to elevate itself, Texas had done it. My hospitalization had made it happen sooner, but it would’ve happened.

  I wouldn’t have participated without the guarantees Senator Forester had promised me.

  Texas’s twists to my proposed legislation, piggybacking null rights with the tightening of child trafficking laws, would change the world for the better.

  A lot of children would be going home to their families because Dylan—no, William—had stayed away.

  It was going to take me a long time to get used to thinking of him as William.

  Sighing, I gave my hair another tug, wondering how I’d balance putting Mireya’s father up for auction, preserving my dignity, and figuring out how I’d cope with the next few months of my life. If I made the auction complicated, I wouldn’t have time to breathe.

  “I’m off, Mackenzie. Try not to give yourself a concussion,” Geoff said from the doorway. Keys jangled. “Here are the keys for the car and the cuffs.”

  I lifted my free hand and waved. “Have a good weekend, Geoff.”

  “You, too.”

  While curious to see who’d gotten saddled with me, I banged my head on my desk a few more times. I needed a sound idea before tomorrow, as the number one frustration in my life would inevitably call either begging for forgiveness or driving me insane.

  Things had been complicated before I’d realized I’d fallen in love with a damned king.

  I thumped my forehead into my desk again. At least the RPS agent replacing Geoff wouldn’t care too much about my outbursts, should I have them. I would. It was inevitable. Until I worked my way through years of fear and accepted why he’d done and why, I’d be nuisance to everyone around me.

  “What the hell am I supposed to do with a stupid king, anyway?” I demanded, groping across my desk for my stapler. I halfheartedly bounced it across my desk, and it clattered to the floor.

  “Marry him,” the stupid king in question murmured in my ear.

  First, I would strangle the stupid king. Once I finished with him, I would hunt for Geoff and continue my reign of violence for handcuffing me to my desk so I couldn’t run away from the stupid king hell-bent on marrying me.

  Since him murmuring in my ear wasn’t bad enough, he dared to breathe down my neck. I hadn’t been able to forget the feel of him lurking behind me, and I held my breath and froze so he wouldn’t stop.

  He waited, just like I expected of him.

  I forced myself to breathe. “I’m selling you at auction, and I’m not buying you. You put yourself in that situation, so you just need to go prance for the women of the world on the man-meat market. You asked to be put on the man-meat market.”

  His chuckles truly did terrible and wonderful things to me. “The man-meat market? That’s delightfully crude. You suffered the indignity of being put up for auction. It’s only fair that I’m put up on auction, too. It’s a lovely symmetry. This time, however, I’m playing for keeps. I have a woman to win and a daughter to reward with siblings.”

  “This woman can’t afford a stupid king who is also a jerk.”

  He chuckled again, and I shivered from head to toe. He blew on the back of my neck, and I sucked in a breath. “I’ve already decided I’ll graciously accept the dowry of goats lovingly drawn on your behalf. I can’t reject the efforts of an artistically challenged congress. No amount of money is going to change my mind. A queen could offer me her kingdom and her fortune, and I’d still choose you and those damned goats.”

  I wouldn’t tell him the goats had a monetary value that could easily put my auction value in the millions if every member of congress paid the ridiculous amounts of money each one was worth. “Just be glad they’re not real goats.”

  William took hold of my left hand and toyed with the handcuff trapping me in my office. “I see your bodyguard was serious about your tendency to run off. He really handcuffed you. And here I was hoping the handcuffs were for a more pleasant pursuit, not just to keep you from running off.”

  “I wouldn’t let him use my phone, and he knew if he got distracted even for a second, I would’ve been out the door.”

  “On a broken foot.”

  “It doesn’t hurt anymore. The boot just gets in the way.”

  “If I release you, are you going to run?”

  “Maybe. I’m thinking about it.”

  At the rate he kept chuckling, I wouldn’t be able to run. He’d have to scrape me off the floor. “Someone told me all I had to do to lure you into a vehicle with me is whisper in your ear and laugh. Shall we put this to the test?”

  “You’re supposed to be groveling.”

  “Do you know why I did what I did?”

  I sighed. “You told me. In my dreams.”

  “I loved you so much I developed a new talent,” he confessed. “I regretted letting you go from the start. You wanted to make something of yourself so much I couldn’t undermine your efforts. All I could do was beg a favor and pull some strings and get you out of New York.” His tone turned wry. “I was terrified you’d actually go to Canada.”

  “Because they marry nulls like me off to the highest bidder with decent talents.” I snorted. “It’s because I have good hips, isn’t it?”

  “Trust me when I say your marital status has been one of my top concerns ever since I left New York. Then Mireya came along, and let’s just say my brothers and sisters may have supported kicking me out of my own palace for the weekend.”

  “Does Jessica know you’re here?”

  “Not exactly. I told your RPS agents they couldn’t tell her. Neither were happy to leave, but at the same time, if I can’t protect you, no one can. My RPS agents are miffed because I left them in Montana. Well, I’m sure they’ll be miffed as soon as they figure out I left Montana.”

  A phone rang, and it played a funeral march. “Speak of the devil. That would be someone from the RPS.”

  “Shouldn’t you answer that?”

  “I’m not particularly interested in answering my phone right now. I have more important things to do. First, I need to decide if I should cuff you to me or set you loose. Both have advantages.”

  His phone stopped ringing for all of a few seconds before it started chiming a country tune.

  “You could turn your phone off.”

  “I have to leave the phone on in case Mireya calls.”

  “Isn’t it in the middle of the night in France?”

  “She’s very serious about keeping her calls a secret. It’s criminal how cute she is.”

  I slumped and groaned. “I haven’t even told her I’m marrying her off yet. This is a nightmare.”

  “Having a criminally cute daughter is never a nightmare. Has she told you she’s willing to negotiate on the number of siblings? She’s talked her way up to six so far. It was one on her first day. For the record, I made non-committal sounds of interest.”

  “You’re supposed to be groveling.”

  “I’ll get there. I can’t grovel until I decide what to do about the handcuffs. Right now, I have you exactly where I want you, incapable of escaping me. I warned you, Mackenzie Little. I told you I’d be coming for you. I was going to wait a little while longer before showing up, as I was finding your efforts to dodge my calls amusing. It’s your own fault. Admiring the competition was devious of you. I couldn’t let that stand.”

  I was grateful my position hid my expression so he wouldn’t witness me smiling my triumph. “You flew in from Montana because I was looking at pictures of single princes?”

  “I flew in from Montana because you’d avoid sleeping to dodge me, exhaust yourself into a stupor, and then fall off your horse this weekend. I also flew in because I wanted to make it perfectly clear I’m not letting you ge
t away from me again. Mireya wants us to be a family, and what she wants, she gets.”

  I gave it less than a week before I was the proud mother of a spoiled rotten brat. “If you spoil her, I will make you suffer for a lifetime.”

  “I happily accept my punishment of a lifetime of suffering, especially if it means I don’t have to get a hotel room for tonight unless you’re with me.”

  He really needed to stop murmuring in my ear and breathing on my neck. If he didn’t, I had doubts we’d make it the several blocks to my condo before I jumped him. “You need to stop that,” I whispered.

  “I should, but I don’t want to.”

  Blowing on my ear launched me out of my seat, and the handcuff tethering to my desk kept me from making it far before William wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me to him, my back pressed to his chest. “Jerk!”

  “I’m giving you two choices, Mackenzie Little. You can come along quietly, or I can take you by force. Either way, we’re leaving. I have plans, and they don’t involve staying in this tiny office where someone could walk in on us.”

  Had any other man said such a thing to me, I would’ve struggled, screamed, and fought back, but because it was him, I debated my options. I’d wanted him to grovel.

  I’d consider a good chase the equivalent to a heartfelt grovel, if he put effort into it. “Uncuff me.”

  “I’m thinking about it. Thing is, I’ve been warned you have this tendency to run, and I don’t want waste energy tonight running.”

  His slight emphasis on running made it clear what he wanted to do instead, and my anger stood no chance against my developing case of raging hormones. “Then what do you want to waste your energy on?”

  I should’ve known he’d target my weakness, pressing his lips to the side of my throat. “Nothing I have planned will be a waste, that I promise you.”

  The feel of his mouth, which was just as I remembered, ruined the little hope I had of resisting him. I’d try, but I’d fail, and I’d fail happily. “If I let you near me, you’ll get me pregnant. Mireya said so.”

  “That’ll make your auction organizing challenging. You said you were on birth control. It might work.” His tone turned wry. “Maybe. I wouldn’t count on it. There’s a silver lining in the cloud.”