Bad Nerd Rising (34 page)

“That’s debatable.”

Aleksi nearly fell off his
bed. “What did you just say?”

“I said that’s debatable.
You haven’t asked her to marry you, so until you do, she’s up for
anyone’s grabs, isn’t that the American term?”

He glared at his friend.
“She is not up for anyone’s grabs but mine.”

“Maybe you’d better announce your engagement
then.”

“Tia wouldn’t look at another man now
anyway.”

“I’m sure she wouldn’t.
It’s not her you need to worry about. It’s all the roués who come
through here who’ll see that nice little unmarried morsel and want
her.”

Like he didn’t have enough
problems. How did a man ask a woman to marry him from his
bedchamber? It wasn’t romantic at all. And far below what his
princess deserved.

***

“Where did this data come
from?” Tia asked Helena as she reread the results another
time.

“It came via the post
today. None of us knew you sent out vials of water to be tested at
an independent lab.” Her voice almost sounded accusatory, but
overwhelming relief overrode it.

“It’s standard operating
procedure. I didn’t like to take chances with results this
important. In the excitement of recent days, I forgot I sent
these.” She tapped the data sheets as relief swelled.

“We’re grateful you did
because those tests reveal the wells are fine,” Jorge said behind
them.

“Yes, I see that. Why did
our data read like it did while this came up fine?”

“Who sampled the wells for
the tests you sent out?” Maria asked as she trailed
closer.

“We did,” Jorge
answered.

“Who sampled the wells for the tests we
ran?”

“The water
technicians...
Oh my
.” Helena’s eyes widened.

Maria perked up. “Could
they be our problem?”

Tia frowned. “Have the
wells continued to show contamination?”

“Yes, they have.” Helena
shuffled several reports and set them all out on the bench so they
could see them.

“Why don’t we go test these
wells?” Jorge suggested. He tugged on his ear.

The four of them agreed and
grabbed their testing materials before they prepared to leave the
lab. “Why didn’t we think of this?” Tia asked.

“Don’t be so hard on
yourself, Tia. We did train these techs on proper water testing
techniques,” Helena said.

“We tested those samples,
and they were fine,” Jorge added.

“Yes. The testers shouldn’t have been the
problem, but I’ll personally be relieved if that’s all this
is.”

“So will we,” Maria muttered as the four of
them paraded out of the lab.

“Either way, we’ll know in
a few days.”

“Let’s hope,” Tia
replied.

***

“So how are you going to ask her?” Emerson,
as usual, was being a pest.

Aleksi sent him a death
glare, which he ignored, as usual. “Who says I’m planning to ask
Tia to marry me?”

Maks choked on the sip of
coffee he’d taken. It didn’t help Aleksi’s cause. “Thanks,
pal.”

Both of his friends grinned
unrepentantly. “He’s going to say, ‘Tia, you’re marrying me,’ and
not give her a choice,” Maks decided.

“Nah, he’ll ask her over
breakfast. ‘Tia, will you marry me? Excellent.’ Then he’ll go back
to reading the paper and ignore her.” Emerson added his bit and
Aleksi contemplated calling the palace guards to come and throw the
pair out. Then he realized the guards would add their two cents,
and then he would be the one who’d have to leave the room. Since he
had a lot of work to catch up on, and it was
his
office, that wasn’t a good
option.

“I have a principality to
run,” he growled.

This created more guffaws,
but his friends did take the hint and eventually left. He sighed
and opened the secret drawer in his desk. There he had placed a
family heirloom he removed from the jewelry vault. His father had
long ago showed him the secret drawer and the ring he now inspected
in the morning sunlight.

The diamond, emerald, and
sapphire heirloom reminded him of Tia. Of her beautiful blue-green
eyes he loved so much. He knew the ring would look perfect on her
finger. His grandmother had worn it, and she would have been
pleased to see the ring on Tia’s finger. Especially her wedding
finger. He knew she’d have enjoyed Tia very much.

They were cut from the same
mold. He had a difficult time believing this same woman had offered
Aleksandr such a difficult time in choosing his bride. She
certainly had proven very grandmotherly when it came to Aleksi.
That special lady had never told him no.

Maybe that’s why he
selected this particular ring for Tia. It held excellent memories
for him. And he wanted to create new ones with Tia.

Now he just had to figure out how to ask her
to be his bride.

***

“I have the last of the
samples from this building. Did you finish up the other samples?”
Tia asked as she hurried up to the rest of her team.

“We have all of them,” Maria answered.

“Excellent. All right,
let’s go back and test them.” Tia bit her lip.

“It’s going to be fine.” Helena patted her
consolingly.

“It has to be,” Jorge muttered.

Tia took a deep breath and
followed them back to the lab. For some reason, her stomach kept
rumbling ominously and she felt like sweat had broken out across
her forehead.

She’d been fine yesterday,
and the day before, as a matter of fact. Right before Nick climbed
on the plane for his seminar, he slipped in that she looked glowing
and happy.

That had been two or three
days ago. Aleksi was up and about, and while still weak after four
or five days of being so ill, he appeared to be improving. The
palace had resumed normal activities. They could even stop boiling
the water soon if today’s results were as good as they hoped. This
was their third day of testing, and by today, they should have
plausible data to allow them to determine once and for all whether
the wells were contaminated.

She figured the acid test
on whether she was sick or not would be determined by how her
stomach reacted to the odors of the lab. If it responded poorly she
probably had caught what Aleksi suffered, if not... Tia took a deep
breath before she entered the lab, but her stomach didn’t respond.
After she set her sample kit on the bench she moved over to the
incubator that held the first day’s tests and removed a stack of
Petri dishes.

“How do they look?” The others crowded
around her.

“These plates look fine,”
she said and handed random plates off. Eager hands took them from
her, and she heard her lab mate’s consensus.

“The wells are fine.”
Maria’s voice sounded relieved.

“No more boiling water,” Helena said
gleefully.

“We better retrain those
techs,” Jorge muttered.

***

“That was the only problem?
The techs didn’t sample properly?” Aleksi stared at Tia in
surprise.

“After we cleaned the
wells, yes. The problem then was poor sampling techniques. Jorge
has already set up a re-training session for them.”

“So Rurikstani doesn’t have
to boil the water any longer?”

“That’s correct.”

He couldn’t help the grin
that spread across his face. “This is excellent news,
Tia.”

“Yes, I know. We did it. We
fixed your wells.”

“So what is wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you not meeting my
eyes?” He reached out and tilted her chin with his finger. When
their eyes collided, he saw trepidation there.

“That was the good news. I
have some bad news as well.” She bit her lip. He hated to see such
abuse, so he leaned forward and salved the abused flesh with his
tongue.

Tia seemed to lose her train of thought.

“What is the bad news?” He
had to keep the litany up in his brain so he wouldn’t lose his
thought processes, too. That would be bad.

“Um, the bad news is that you’re going to
need a team to keep monitoring those wells.”

“For how long?”

“Indefinitely.”

Hmmm, this information he
could use. He leaned against his desk and surveyed her for a
moment. She still had trouble meeting his eyes.

“I see no problem in
this.”

Her eyes widened. “You
don’t?”

“No.” Aleksi stood and
walked around his desk to that secret drawer. “It actually plays
into my sales pitch.”

She frowned. “What are you
trying to sell?”

“Rurikstan. Me.”

He plucked the ring from the drawer and
strode around the desk before he dropped onto one knee in front of
her.

“You?” Her eyes grew
soft.

“Tia Morrison, I think I
have loved you since the first moment I set eyes on you. I do not
want you to return to America. I need you. Please marry me.” Okay,
so that all came out way too fast and a little clipped. He still
held the small jewelry box open so she could see the ring he
selected for her.

Tia gasped and pressed her
hands to her heart. “You love me?”

“I have for as long as I
can remember. It just took me a long time to discover
this.”

“And contaminated wells.”

“And contaminated wells.
Wells that prove I have need of a professional to oversee for the
rest of her life.”

Tia grinned at him and
leaned forward to kiss him. He nearly dropped the ring. Instead, he
placed it on his desk as he rose to his feet and tugged her into
his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck and
clung.

When they finally parted
lips, he stared her down. “You did not answer me.”

“What?” She sounded dazed,
but a smile kept flitting around her lips.

“Are you planning to marry
me?” He held his breath, which wasn’t very comfortable.

“Of course I’m going to
marry you. I realized I loved you while you were sick.”

He couldn’t speak, so
instead he drew the ring out of the box and slid it onto her
finger. As he guessed, it fit perfectly.

“Aleksi, this ring looks
like it’s really expensive.” She fretted and looked scared. “Plus,
I don’t like pink, am allergic to makeup, and I’m not graceful in
high heels.”

Now she spoke too fast.

He tugged her close again,
then picked her up and sat down in her seat, with her in his lap.
“It is okay, Tia.”

“It is?” He felt her
swallow.

“Yes. We shall ban high
heels, pink, and makeup.” He held up a hand, palm up. “No problem,
as you Americans says.”

“We can do
that?”

“Of course. You will be the
princess. You can do anything you wish. Actually, the people of
Rurikstan love you because you fixed their wells. They will follow
whatever you do.”

“I’m not sure I want that kind of
power.”

“My mother will help you.
And there’s Sara and Karis, and Helena and Maria...”

“Yes, there are plenty of
people to help me, aren’t there? Nick told me my niece, his
youngest daughter, will come and show me how to walk in high
heels.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, Starla is adept at
those sorts of things. Are you sure about this ring?”

“It was my grandmother’s.”
He smiled at it and then her, when she made a sort of choked
gasp.

“Aleksi, I can’t wear your grandmother’s
ring.”

“Why not? She would have
enjoyed the fact that it is yours now. I have great memories of
her, and of this ring. That is why I chose it for you.”

“I’m not sure you should
trust me with this ring.”

“I’m sure.” He could almost
see her resistance melt. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He couldn’t help but kiss
her again. “Oh, there is one other small problem I have that only
you can fix.”

“What’s that?” she
whispered. Her eyes shone with love and he wanted to pocket the
feeling so he could pull it out and look at it whenever he felt a
little down.

“I have this little heir
problem.”

“Oh?” Her eyes
narrowed.

“Yes. I also must produce
an heir, or Rurikstan’s fate remains in question.”

She pretended to tap her
chin with her forefinger. His grandmother’s ring, now his fiancée’s
ring, winked at him in the sunlight.

“I might be able to help you out with that
problem.”

He decided to play along.
“What do you charge?”

She leaned forward and
whispered something naughty in his ear that made him grin. “I
should have told you about this problem back in your lab when I
approached you about the wells.”

“You knew about that
problem then?” She sounded surprised.

“Oh yes. I wanted you to
fix both problems for me.”

“Even then?”

“Even then.”

Aleksi liked how her eyes
brightened and glistened. He thought he also caught a glimpse of
awe in their blue-green depths. He really loved her eyes. And
her.