Chapter 7

"Ehhh," Nadine groaned, rolling onto her back and staring up at her ceiling, her stomach churning. She kicked the blanket away from her legs, almost rolling off the couch in the process, catching herself just in time to save Ricky Ricardo's life. The cat looked up from the floor where he was sprawled out on his back, looking like he often did after having too much catnipeating too much. "Do not look at me like that."

The cat meowed in reply, rolling onto his feet and stretching, before jumping eloquently onto the couch and landing flat on her stomach.

"Ooof," she grunted, trying to push him away, but he dug his claws into her shirt, so she relented. She closed her eyes and started reciting an alphabetized list of anti-psychotic medications to focus on anything but her painful stomach where tequila was rolling around in waves.

"Stop Ricky," she moaned, swatting the cat tenderly on the head, whose only response was to paw at her even harder. "Haven't you ever had too much tequila?" He meowed again, nuzzling her palm, and then and nipping at her when she failed to pet him. "Yeah, need I remind you about the time you got into the catnip?"

He meowed louder this time. Or maybe it was a borderline hiss. Either way, he was obviously telling her to not throw bricks in glass houses, but at least she hadn't chewed a hole in the cupboard door in an attempt to get to some food. Instead, she'd taken far too many tequila shots and insulted her neighbor and Nikolas' investor in the worst possible of ways.

Okay, so clearly she was far guiltier than her cat.

"He was mean too, Ricky," she pointed out, her eyes fluttering closed as she recalled every horrible word Johnny had said to her. The cat nipped at her hand, eliciting another swat. "Stupid boys." She rolled onto her side, causing the cat to roll off off of her and onto the floor. "You always take up for each other."

Ricky's paw shout up from the floor, batting at her hand, and when she swatted at him, he took off through her apartment.

At least he was the kind of boy who knew when to go away.

She moaned into the couch cushion because she didn't have enough energy to scream, which was a good thing. Johnny was probably waiting to hear her scream through the walls, to cry even, and she wasn't going to let him get the best of her, even if he already had.

No one had ever said anything like that to her before, and she imagined no one had ever said the things she said to Johnny, and as Aunt Rayleen always said, liquor made the tongue loose and the only person responsible for that was the one drinking it.

Honestly, she didn't exactly dislike Johnny Zacchara, but she didn't like him very much other. He made it quite difficult, and if it wasn't for those strange moments where he actually did something nice like giving her cat milk or helping home (even if was just to insult her), liking him would be very impossible.

She might have actually been tempted to apologize if she hadn't meant what she said. Obviously, his desire to torment her stemmed from something, and maybe it was the fact that she didn't kiss his ass, which he was clearly used to people doing. The only thing she really felt guilty about was making it sound like she'd been nice to him just because she wanted his money, even if it was partly true.

Great, she was no better than anyone who had kissed his ass because they were on his payroll.

Actually, she was worse because she was kissing his ass to get on his payroll.

Sort of.

"Shit," she groaned, rubbing her hand over her face as she pushed herself up on her elbows, glaring at her door when someone knocked on it.

Now she was going to have face him in the middle of a hangover stupor. Her makeup was probably smeared, her hair in a mess of tangles, and she probably smelled like she bathed in tequila. Her nose wrinkled as she slowly sat up and put her feet on the floor, vaguely remembering leaning over a garbage can outside the bar.

So, maybe she had bathed in tequila.

She groaned again when the knocking persisted, and she hoped he was at least coming to apologize if he was knocking on her door this early in the morning. At least, she assumed it was early. Sunlight was streaming in through the curtains of her window, but it was soft, not as bright and sweltering as it often made the room in the afternoon.

"Coming!" she called out raggedly, wincing when she stood up. Her knees wobbled and her stomach continued to churn as she walked over to the door. She tried to comb out her hair with her fingers, her mouth suddenly going dry, and finally she figured to hell with it, and jerked open the door. "Oh…Nikolas."

"Don't sound so excited to see me," he teased, his eyes sweeping over her. His nose twitched as she waved him inside, but thankfully he didn't comment. He was far too much of a gentleman to insult a lady that way.

"Sorry, I just thought you were…" She shrugged, starting to close the door, but stopped when she noticed her doormat was missing. "I don't know what I thought." She shoved the door closed, telling herself that she'd solve that mystery later, though she didn't have to question where it was.

"Leyla called and told me you might be feeling a little hungoverhung over," he explained, slipping a bottle of aspirin from his pocket. "I thought I'd check on you."

"Thanks," she grinned, walking over to take the bottle from his hand.

Nikolas forced a smile as he scratched his forehead. "She, uh, also said you were hanging out with Johnny Zacchara." Nadine grunted, suddenly not liking where this was going. "Is it safe to say that your issues with him are over?"

She cringed, tossing the aspirin bottle back and forth between her hands. "Um, not exactly." He sighed exhaustedly, shaking his head, and she knew she had to say something before he lost all hope. "It's not all my fault, Nikolas! He's so…impossible!"

He looked anything but convinced.

"I can't help it. He started these issues by telling me I had to convince him why he should donate," she explained, crossing her arms over her chest. She knew she looked like a whinying teenager, but she didn't care. "He's an awful neighbor. Says the most awful things. And does the stupidest things like sticking spoons down the garbage disposal."

Nikolas just looked at her and she briefly wandered if he had ever actually used a garbage disposal.

Oh, the life of a Prince.

"Or he feeds my cat. Or tells me I want people to like me," she continued to rant. "He didn't have to help me home last night. Or tell me he was lactose intolerant. Or show up on my doorstep asking for-"

"Nadine," he interrupted, holding up his hand like he often did when he needed her to catch her breath. "Maybe Johnny just wanted to spend some time with you."

"What?" she asked dumbly.

"He's new in town," Nikolas explained, sounding as though this should have been relatively easy to understand. "You're a cute girl."

She tried to pretend that her heart didn't flutter the tiniest bit. So what if he was in love with a dead girl? He was still a Prince and when a Prince says – whatever, she wasn't even going into it.

"Maybe he just wanted to spend some time with you," he repeated, crossing his arms over her chest. "And if he does…"

"I am not selling myself for some stupid investor," she huffed, angry that he would even ask her to consider such a thing. "Even if I did flub the whole deal." She ignored the way he sighed as his eyes softened. "No."

**********

"Well, normally I'd say I was surprised that you were living in a dump," Claudia murmured, kicking around the numerous beer cans that littered her brother's floor. Occasionally she came across an empty bottle of liquor. "But I'm not. This just proves that you are incapable of taking care of yourself, John. Maybe I should send a maid over-"

"Just get out," Johnny grunted, laying his arm over his eyes as he shifted uncomfortably on the couch. Why he'd bought a piece of furniture that was so damn hard, he'd never know. Surely, Claudia was to blame.

"Did you have a party with your new townie friends?" she asked, leaning over the back of the couch and jabbing him in the stomach.

He sat up hurriedly, smacking her hand away. "What the hell do you want?" he asked, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward to hold his face in his hands.

Fuck, his head hurt.

"We were supposed to have breakfast today," she reminded him, sitting on the back of the couch and clucking her tongue. "To talk about you believe you aren't wasting your time and daddy's money." Her noise wrinkled as she leaned over and sniffed. "At least you're spending it on the top shelf stuff."

"Our father left the money to me," he reminded her, pushing himself up from the couch and starting towards the kitchen, knowing she'd follow. "You have more than enough money so stop pestering me. Go back to Milan, Claudia."

"And let you have all this fun in my absence?" she asked, leaning against the doorway of the kitchen. "I really think you should let me send a maid over."

"No," he grunted, digging through one of the cabinets for aspirin, and swearing when he couldn't any.

"Come on," she pressed, stepping past him to sniff poke around the dirty dishes that were piled in the sink. "This place obviously needs it, and I can send that cute, little blonde one you so much adored when you were living at the house."

"She was annoying," he spat, slamming the cabinet door closed, the sound exceptionally loud inside his head.

"Or maybe you prefer another weird, but cute – I guess, depending on what you consider cute, quirky. Yes, quirky. A quirky, little blonde who doesn't admire Bach as much as you," she murmured, arching her eyebrows as she stared at him. "Really, isn't that what this is all about?"

"Stop having me followed," he barked, tearing out of the kitchen, desperate to put distance between him and his sister before he physically hurt her. A man was capable of cruel things amidst a bad hangover.

"Stop doing things that make me have to babysit you," she groaned, following after him, her heels clicking annoyingly against his wood floors. "Pull yourself together. Take a shower. Put on a damn suit. And take back daddy's company."

"I don't want it," he growled, crossing the room to the corner where his piano sat. He sat down in a hurry, his feet finding the pedals comfortably as his fingers slid over the keys.

Claudia hated his piano.

Actually, she hated music period, which Johnny believed was because only a person with needed feelings could to understand music.

Claudia was lacking very much in that department.

She ranted on, her voice rising above the music, and the louder she bitched, the harder he played until, "Stop acting like a spoiled, rich shithead!"

His fingers slammed against the keys, the sounds reverberating through the apartment so loudly it was almost deafening. "I am not," he growled, jumping up from the piano so quickly that he knocked over his bench. "I am not a spoiled, rich shithead. If you think for a second that I want any of this – the fucking money, the fucking name, the fucking crazy ass legacy, not to mention the annoying sister who is about five seconds away from being hurt very badly – you're wrong."

Claudia stiffened, her lips curving in amusement as he stalked towards. "I. Don't. Want. This." His chest heaved as he stopped in front of her, his eyes snapping towards the door. "Now get out."

"Wow," she purred, laughing under her breath as she spun on heels and started towards the door. "That must have been one hell of a lover's quarrel."

Snarling, he grabbed the first thing he could and flung it towards the door, swearing when it fell several feet short, making a pathetic noise as it landed on the floor. He swore as he stalked over, his fists tightening at his sides as the bright, pink doormat came into view.

"Fucking cat," he hissed, kicking it against the floor, but it bucked against the wood, and nearly tripped him. Swearing again, he jerked it up from the floor and stalked to the kitchen, where he jerked open a drawer and dug around for a permanent marker. Smoothing the doormat out against on the counter, he pulled the lidp off the marker with his teeth, spitting it onto the floor as he leaned over and went to work.

Never before had he been so embarrassed in his entire life, which wasn't fair because everything she Nadine had said had been wrong.

Sure, there might have been a time when he would have used the Zacchara name and fortune to get by. It was enough to get him through private school and college, and it would probably buy him a PHD should he choose to actually get one, but those days were behind him. He didn't want acclaim and women based on his name, but more so his actions (and not just the kind that happened in the bedroom).

She was just like every other asshole that had misread him and judged him by his name, and she had a lot of balls to point fingers at him when she was so tightly wound and stupid herself.

God, women were just so stupid.

"Ha," he grinned, rocking back on his feet as he surveyed his work. The little music notes coming out of the cat's head and his silly little message scrawled messily across the bottom, which may count as a threat, but he hoped it didn't. She would be the uptight kind to press charges on him. "Ha. Ha. Ha."

He held his work out in front of him as he started for the door, knowing it was so petty and childlike, but it was ridiculous how much she'd gotten under his skin. All because he just wanted to have a little fun, maybe get a rise out of her, and maybe he did wanted to know what she saw in that stupid Prince.

He knew he should have been guilty, especially when pondered the possibility that she might cry. She was a nice person, the kind of girl that should never cry, but it wasn't his fault that she had to be so damned annoying. He might have even liked her before he learned what she really thought, though she'd probably never forgive him after what he had saidsay, but they were things she needed to hear.

And wWhat she had said to him were most definitely not things he needed to hear. They were stark judgments he'd been running from his entire life, and the last person he wanted to hear them from were her.

Pulling open the door, he peeked into the hallway, listening for her next door, but much to his surprise he only heard silence. There was no doubt that she wasn't home because if she was, he would have heard her talking to Ricky.

She talked to that damn cat about everything.

Smugly, he walked into the hallway and strode over to her door, carefully placing his handiwork on the ground. "Ha," he grunted again, no sound ever more satisfying than that. "Fuck you, Kitty."

**********

Nadine was never drinking tequila again.

Most people swore of liquor but never held to their promise. She was going to be the exception and never touch that damn devil drink again for as long as she lived. Nothing was worse than dealing with sick kids all day at the clinic after drinking a bottle of booze.

Nothing.

Their whines were whinier, their cries louder, and picking them up just hurt entire body, which she knew was her punishment courtesy of Nikolas. He had been anything but pleased with her that morning, so when he asked her to work that afternoon at the clinic – her only day off, she knew he was trying to punish her.

And he was doing a damned good job of it.

She spent most of the afternoon going over the previous night and trying to find a way to ease the tension between her and Johnny. Despite her personal feelings, Nikolas needed him as a business associate, and it wasn't right of her to screw things up. She owed him that much as his employee, which was why she rode the elevator to her floor with trembling knees.

Nadine was going to apologize.

It might not be a hundred percent authentic or even believable, but she was going to apologize for being unprofessional and suggest they kept keep their relationship focused on the clinic, even if it meant giving him a thousand reasons to donate.

She would do this.

She groaned when the elevator doors dinged, announcing the arrival of her floor, and she contemplated how easily she could just slip right past his apartment without stopping. How she could tell Nikolas she had tried, but he wasn't in, and how she could just – wait.

Frowning, she hurried towards her door when she saw that her bright, pink doormat had returned. She grinned, telling herself that maybe she didn't have to apologize because he was obviously doing it for her, and it felt nice to have won.

Or at least it did for a split second, because then she was actually standing in front of the doormat that had been gratified destroyed and Bach-ified with a stupid magic marker. And the message – ugh! – it was just the cruelest of all things, and she refused to let it go.

All resistance fled in an instance, and she found herself beating on his door, huffing loudly when he answered, a huge grin on his face. "That's it, Zacchara," she hissed, jabbing him in the chest with a slender finger. "This. Is. War."