Working Stiff:Casimir (Runaway Billionaires #1)(69)

Beyond Arthur's arm, back in the seats, Maxence had opened his eyes and  was staring at them. He blew out a very deliberate breath and slumped in  his chair.

"You scared me shitless, you assholes." Arthur jiggled them some more,  as if ensuring they were real. "A sniper and firebombs in one damn day."

Rox gave up and wrapped her arms around Arthur's waist, hugging him back.

His arm loosened around her neck, and his hand relaxed down to the  middle of her back. "I saw the footage. It looked like a coordinated  terrorist attack. That's what they're calling it, you know. They're  denying that it was aimed at one person and are bringing in federal  authorities."

"But we're fine," Casimir told him, pounding him on the back. "We're fine, and we're here now."

Arthur released them, almost throwing himself backward, and straightened his shirt cuffs under his suit jacket.

Rox stumbled but grabbed a seatback to steady herself.

"Jackasses," Arthur muttered.

Casimir reached over the seats, extending his hand to Maxence, who stood and calmly shook his hand.

Maxence said, his voice low and cultured, "I'm very pleased to see you."

"And you. Thank you for the use of your men."

Maxence waved it off. "I was gratified to hear that they had secured you and that you were en route to the plane."

Arthur edged past them and walked up to the front of the airplane,  leaning into the cockpit. He told the pilot, "Get us out of here."

The engines whined, winding up.

Rox found a seat and stowed her purse that held, as far as she knew,  everything that remained of all her possessions in the world. Her other  possessions were supposed to be in storage, moved there by the property  company that owned her apartment building, but she hadn't been able to  take that key and look, yet. Everything that she had taken with her had  probably burned up or been soaked in the fire at Casimir's house.                       
       
           



       

Three more security men climbed the ramp, each holding one of her cats.  They held the beasts securely, one arm around their bellies and the  other hand grabbing the scruffs of their necks. The cats looked  terrified and simultaneously insulted at the indignity. Pirate was on  the verge of snarling.

A flight attendant swung the door closed with a thunk and spun the ship's wheel to secure it.

The three security men lowered the cats to the floor, releasing them.

All three cats swarmed Rox, piling onto her lap and shoulders and purring hard.





VAN ORANJE-NASSAU VAN AMSBERG





Casimir lowered himself into the seat beside Rox, stretching his legs  under the table and under the chair across from him until his ankles  touched the bottom of it.

Not enough leg room, as always.

No wonder Maxence and Arthur had claimed the couch in back with the television where they could stretch out.

He commandeered Pirate from Rox, dragging the huge ginger cat onto his  own lap and petting the beast's broken ears. The stumps felt crispy  along the edges, and Casimir was careful to be very gentle as he sank  his fingers into the cat's deep fur.

Well, this had to be done. "Can we talk after we change planes in  London? We'll be alone at that point, or at least Arthur and Maxence  won't be around."

"No," Rox said, her sweet brown eyes stretched wide with anger. "We need to talk now. I feel like I don't even know you."

"You know me," he said quietly. "You know me better than anyone else in the world. I've never lied to you."

She rolled her big, brown eyes and scoffed, "You need to talk to Maxence about sins of omission."

He nodded and stroked Pirate, who was crouching on his lap. He had known  exactly what he had omitted all these years. Time to make reparations.  "Ask me anything."

Rox had a beautiful, heart-shaped face, even when her little jaw was  grinding her teeth in anger. She asked, "What's your real name?"

"Casimir Friso van Amsberg."

"Really?"

He bit his lip. "My baptismal name is Casimir Friso David Constantijn  Christof, and my surnames are theoretically van Oranje-Nassau van  Amsberg, but that almost never comes up."

"David?"

"As is traditional, I'm named after my four godfathers."

"Holy cow. That sounds like Dumbledore. He had ‘Brian' in the middle of a whole bunch of weird names."

He nodded, staring at the cat in his lap. Rox had pressed him to read  the Harry Potter books years ago, and he had read all seven of them. He  liked her fun, fanciful taste in books. "I suppose it's incongruous."

"What country are you really from? Are you British?"

He glanced at her, watching to see if she thought that. "I am Dutch. I haven't ever lied to you."

"And yet you have a longer name than anyone I've ever met, and I didn't know half of it."

He bit his lip. "Van Amsberg is the name of my great-grandfather, who was German. I told you about him."

Rox waited, stroking the cats in her lap. Speedbump buried his face under her arm.

He finished, "And Oranje-Nassau is the name of my House."

"House," she said.

"Like the House of Windsor or Romanov or Hannover."

"So you're not House Hufflepuff."

A smile lifted one side of his mouth. "Nothing wrong with Hufflepuff. They're loyal. There's a lot to be said for loyalty."

"I would have totally pegged you for a Ravenclaw."

They'd had this discussion dozens of times, and it always came out the same way. "But Ravenclaws are evil."

"No. They're just smart. And kind of evil. And you're a lawyer. So yeah,  you're definitely a Ravenclaw." She looked down at the cats. "Are  Arthur and Maxence some sort of royalty, too?"

"Arthur is not a member of a royal family, and we never allow him to  forget it. Maxence plans to renounce everything for the Church."

Casimir heard a man's cough behind them that sounded like "asshole."  When he glanced back, Arthur was laughing at them, as always.

Rox was still staring at him, watching him. "And yet Arthur's plane has three crowns on the tail fin."

"Not crowns. Coronets."

"Oh, and I suppose that there's a difference."

"There's a difference."

She grabbed Casimir's right arm and pushed up his sleeve, baring his  forearm with the three-shield tattoo. Her hand warmed his wrist. "Three  coronets, then. Just like your tatt."

The plane jerked and rolled backward, pulling away from the terminal.                       
       
           



       

He turned his arm over so that the morning sunlight streaming in the  porthole window shone on the ink on his skin. "The blue shield with the  three coronets is Arthur. The red and white harlequin pattern stands for  Maxence. The Dutch lion on an orange field is mine."

"For the Orange Nassau house."

"For Hufflepuff."

"Oh, stop." She backhanded him on the shoulder, just like always. For  years, he had prodded her so that she would slap his shoulder and grin.  He loved every time she did it.

He explained, "We got them just before we left school. It's a pledge of  mutual support. The centerpiece between the three shields," a triangle  filled with what looked like a tangled rope, "is a Celtic knot that  symbolizes friendship."

"And that's how your sister knew to call them." She inspected the tattoo more closely. "It looks kind of faded."

The ink under his skin had blued somewhat in over a decade. "It was done twelve years ago. We were seventeen."

The plane coasted to a stop and reversed, rolling forward. Outside the  round window of the airplane, domed hangars and industrial buildings  cast black shadows on each other in the morning sunlight.

"So the Dutch lion symbolizes the royal house." Rox bit her lip.

So tempting. This conversation must go well so that he would get the chance to bite it again, perhaps tonight.

She asked, "So what should I have been calling you, all these years?"

"Casimir."

"No. Really."

"It's my name. It's what my mother and sisters call me. Arthur calls me  ‘Caz' because he can't be bothered with three syllables."

From several rows behind them, Arthur snorted.

"It doesn't matter what my last name is. It doesn't matter what family I  was born into. I don't plan on ever going back to the Netherlands  except for family functions. I will not live there." He hadn't quite  meant to allow that sharp edge in his voice.

Her eyebrows rose. "You don't like the Netherlands?"

He scratched the gnarled scar and new burn on his cheek. In his head, he  was insisting that it itched, but the blistered, charred skin still  burned. "I prefer living elsewhere, quietly."

Rox turned toward him in her seat, upsetting Speedbump and Midnight, who  grumbled before they settled down on her lap again. "Tell me why."