by SR Jones
I resist the temptation to smash my phone to shreds, and instead console myself with the thought that Allyov is about to make a deadly mistake in tying his enforcer closer to him.
We land in St Petersburg, finally, and I head to where Amber, Amanda, is still sleeping. I wake her by gently shaking her shoulder.
“Ilya?” She licks her lips and moans a little.
“Yes, Amanda. We are here.”
“At the hospital?”
“No, not quite yet. We are going there straight away. A car is waiting for us. But you need to know something first. We aren’t in England anymore.”
“What?” She sits up fast and winces as she reaches a hand automatically to her head.
“Try to remain calm,” the doctor tells her.
She frowns at him, then turns her livid gaze on me. “Ilya, what the hell is going on?”
“You aren’t safe.” I decide not to sugar coat it. “I brought you back to Russia with me. For now, anyway.”
“Russia?” She starts to shake her head. “Oh my God. You’re nuts. Take me home right now.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry. One of Allyov’s men killed the man who took you, and Allyov wants you out of the country.”
“Why?”
“You’re officially missing. You turn up, the police will interrogate you. Interview you. We don’t know if witnesses saw you being taken, and if someone did and they come forward, you’ll have to admit to the police you got kidnapped. Then what? They’ll ask about your attacker.”
“I’ll lie.” She licks her lips again and gestures for the doctor to get her a glass of water, which he does, handing it to her.
“Amanda, listen.” I try to be as calm and reasonable sounding as possible because she’s probably terrified right now, but this has gone beyond my crazy whim to bring her home with me. Allyov will get rid of her if she dares return home, of that I have no doubt. He’d never leave a loose end like her around. “You have to listen to me. Allyov doesn’t want you back in the UK. He sees it as far too big a risk, and a man like him doesn’t tolerate risks to what he does. He’s given you half a million pounds.” Fuck it, I don’t like him giving her money, but if it makes her feel safer right now, I’m willing to use it. “It will be wired to a bank account here, in a day or two, along with fake ID. You don’t have to stay with me long term, but you can’t go home. Ever.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “But my things. I have photographs of my mum … certain things that are important to me. I want to see my brother.”
“I can get your things here,” I tell her gently. “I think you should stay with me until you are recovered, and then you can decide what you want to do. But you’re going to have to start over again. Think of it like witness protection, okay?”
I reach out to brush a hair from her forehead, but she pushes my hand away. “No, not okay.”
I sigh, but don’t say anything else on the subject for now. What is there to say? Instead, I try for conciliatory. “Come, we need to get you to the hospital. You need a scan.”
The doctor and myself help her to stand and guide her from the plane to the waiting SUV with blacked-out windows that one of my men has idling by the bottom of the steps, waiting for us.
Not me.
Us.
The last time there was an us, my wife was still living. Am I really going to keep Amanda with me? Even if she wants to stay, do I want her there permanently?
“Live your life when I’m gone, Ilya. Don’t spend your time mourning. You’ve been the best husband to me a wife could wish for, so please, find someone new to love. It’s not a betrayal.”
Those had been her last words to me. Could I love Amanda in time? I think in a crazy, lust-fueled way, I’m already falling for her.
The first moment I saw her in that club, with her wavy hair, red lips, and cocktail dress, I felt moved by her. Not just because of her beauty, but the way she held herself. The poise she possessed. Tiana had poise and grace. Amanda does too. They’re rare qualities.
I’ve been lonely as fuck for a long time, and the idea of having a woman waiting for me when I get home is beyond appealing.
Amanda doesn’t have anyone either, but I can’t treat her like a stray dog I’ve befriended and just expect she’ll stay no matter what. The thought of being alone again in that house is so depressing, I almost decide I’ll keep her locked up in my castle no matter what.
Maybe I will.
6
Amber/Amanda
I have the scan, and I’m not worried about the results. I have bigger issues. I’m in shock.
Total shock.
Firstly, Ilya has a ridiculous amount of money and power because he landed a private jet in Russia after coming from the UK, and no one checked our passports, or anything. Then he took me to a private clinic, and I doubt the results of this head scan are going to be sent to the bloody NHS back home. No, this will all be hushed up too. He is powerful beyond anything I had understood.
Secondly, Allyov has basically ordered me out of the country and told me never to return home on pain of death.
I’m the victim here. I got taken, through no fault of my own, and he’s banishing me. Who does he think he is?
A mob boss, stupid, that’s who he thinks he is, my inner bitch answers.
Fuck my life, how did I end up here?
Bad taste in men, dear, the inner bitch continues.
“The scan is clear, but you have a concussion and some severe bruising. You need a few … weeks rest.” The doctor casts a furtive glance at Ilya before he says weeks, but I notice it and wonder what that’s about?
“You will come home with me. I have a nurse arriving in two hours, from an agency to care for you,” Ilya says. “Dr. John will stay a few days in the city, so he can check on you.”
Dr. John. I bite back the snort I want to give at that. Fucking screwed up mob doctor is what this guy is.
“You will rest with me, and I will care for you.” Ilya nods.
It’s not an offer. It’s a command.
I don’t have the strength to argue with him right now. Besides, where will I go?
Drained and despondent, I follow Ilya to the chauffer driven car once I’ve got the meds the doctors at the medical center want me to take.
In some ways, I should be happy. I get to be wealthy without doing anything. Allyov is wiring me a fortune! To me, at least. I get a new identity. I don’t have to constantly bail out my brother because he thinks I’ve vanished, or will soon enough. I wonder if he’ll care?
In some ways it’s what I’ve dreamed of. In others, it’s terrifying. And my brother might be a massive pain in my arse, but I want to know he’s okay.
As I settle into the plush seats of Ilya’s car, I turn to him. “I want to give my brother some of the money Allyov is sending me. I know I can’t let him know it’s from me, so how can I do it? I need to know he’s going to be okay. He’s the only family I have left.”
Ilya frowns. “I’m not sure how we could do that without arousing a lot of suspicion. Knowing your brother, from what you told me, he’ll spend it immediately and in a flashy way. It might be better to set up a trust that pays him a certain amount a month. We could do that through a shell that won’t be traceable, but we’d still need a cover for it. Let me think about it.”
“Okay.” I turn to stare out the window.
The buildings are awful. I’ve never seen such endless rows of desolate looking tower blocks, one after the other, after the other. I sigh. I don’t think I can live somewhere like this. It would sap my soul.
“The center is beautiful,” Ilya says, as if he reads my mind. “St. Petersburg is one of the most stunning cities in the world; this is the bad part.”
“It’s endless,” I say before realizing that might be insulting to him and his country.
He doesn’t take offence, merely nods. “It is a huge area. The way we come, from the airport to my home, we have to go through it.”
“Is y
our home in the beautiful center?” I ask.
“No, it’s in the country, set in ten acres of land, outside the center.”
Ten acres? Wow. I knew he was rich, though, didn’t I?
My head hurts, and each jolt on the road makes it throb. I only want to sleep, to rest, and hopefully wake the next day with an actual plan.
I must have dozed off because I jerk awake as the car comes to a stop. I turn to look out the window, and my mouth drops open.
Lit up like something out of a fairy tale is the most stunning house. It’s gray stone with huge windows, some of which are stained glass. The drive is illuminated with old-fashioned streetlamps, and through some of the windows I spot massive chandeliers, spilling their light out into the dark night.
This is some fairy tale shit. Real Beauty and the Beast stuff right here.
The door opens, and a small man smiles warmly at us.
He speaks in Russian to Ilya, then turns to me. “Welcome, Miss Amanda. I have a room made up for you next to Master Ilya’s room. A nurse is on her way to care for you in the coming days. One of the maids has drawn you a bath.”
One of the maids? One of?
Dear God.
We enter the hallway. I turn to my right and am transfixed, utterly transfixed.
The room to the right of us is huge, with a stunning, patterned parquet floor. Long windows line every wall of its perfect rectangular shape. The bottom half of the walls are wood paneled to compliment the floor, and the top half are painted a deep, dusky, rose pink. One of the biggest chandeliers I’ve seen sits dead center of a soft gray ceiling, in a round circle painted to look like clouds almost.
Lining each window are heavy curtains made out of what looks like raw silk. They too are gray with rose gold accents and gather in deep folds. Long rope pulls hang down the right side of each pair of curtains. The room is empty, which strikes me as odd.
I’m so struck by it, I forget the shit show of my life for a while and wander into the space, staring at it in awe.
“We restored this room last.” Ilya’s voice follows me, echoing under the high ceiling. “My wife wanted a ballroom, and this room, the great room, was perfect for it. That’s why there’s no furniture. She wanted to hold a ball, but sadly—” His voice catches, and he clears his throat. “Sadly, she passed before we could.”
I turn to him. His eyes are dark with sorrow, and despite this mess I am in, my heart twinges for him.
“I’m sorry, Ilya.” My words are truthful. I am sorry.
“Come. I will show you the rest of the house. Well, not all of it, you’re too sick to see everything, but I will show you the main rooms you need to know about.”
Firstly, he takes me downstairs to a large kitchen, where a woman is baking. She waves at me and says hello to Ilya warmly. He explains she’s the cook, there’s a butler of sorts, the man who greeted us, and two maids. Plus, four cleaners come once a week for a whole day and clean top to bottom. There is also a part-time gardener who comes three times a week from the nearby village.
We head back up the stairs, and he takes me into the dining room. It’s almost as opulent as the ballroom and houses a long, rich wooden table. It doesn’t look comfortable for a couple to sit around and eat their meals, and I wonder if Ilya and his wife ate here often?
“Through here is where we used to spend much of our time.” Ilya leads me through a door, into another hallway, this one with gray and white patterned tile floor, more stained-glass windows, and deep green painted walls. Then we enter a room that I realize immediately is, or was, the living, beating heart of this grand house.
Unlike the others, it’s carpeted, in a soft gray carpet. The furniture is modern, and they must have stripped the wood paneling out and had the walls re-plastered. They are painted a neutral off-white. Some modern art adorns the walls, there’s a huge sectional sofa, a massive TV, what looks like a state-of-the-art sound system, and in the short part of the L shape of the room is a small, round dining table with comfy upholstered chairs.
It’s not exactly cozy, due to the size, but it is comfortable.
“You want to watch TV, you can do it in here, or in the smaller den, which is upstairs, or in your room. All the bedrooms have TV.”
At the talk of bedrooms, a yawn escapes me. I’m exhausted.
“Come, I’ll show you the pool, then take you to your room.”
Ilya leads me down another corridor, this one without windows, and if I’m honest, a bit spooky, and pushes open a heavy glass door. I stop.
I simply stop and stare.
Holy hell, this is insane. I turn to Ilya. “Did you … do this?”
He laughs and shakes his head. “Nope, it was like this when we bought it. I had to have it renovated as some of the tiles were cracked and some other small things, but it was one of the best-preserved rooms in the place.”
“With all due respect … it’s insane.”
He chuckles. “It is something else, isn’t it?”
The pool is huge and deep. The tiles carry the Greek key pattern in blue and gold, which shimmers beautifully under the water. The same pattern works its way around the rectangular poolside. There’s a jacuzzi at one end too. The walls of the pool room are a pale, creamy marble, shot through with gold veins, and there are statues of gods and goddesses dotted around in the corners and alcoves. Three oversized palms finish the over-the-top space.
The whole place glitters and shines.
“I’ve never seen a room like this,” I tell him.
“Me either. To be honest, this house isn’t entirely to my taste. But God, my wife loved it, and I wanted to make her happy. Now, I don’t want to sell it because I put my soul into renovating it, and it’s true to when it was built in 1890.”
“I didn’t realize it was so old. It reminds me of the 1930’s.”
“Yeah.” He grins. “Makes me think of the kind of home someone like Howard Hughes would live in. Come, let me show you upstairs. The official guest rooms and bathrooms are all renovated as they originally were, but the four rooms that were intended by us as family rooms are much more comfortable.”
He leads the way up what appears to be solid marble stairs, and we find ourselves in another hallway, leading off in two opposite directions. He turns right, and I follow. We pass one room and another, then there is a turn in the corridor, and three more doors, on either side of us, and one at the end of the corridor.
“This is your room.” He points to the one on the left. “I’m at the end. There’s everything you need in there: bathroom, TV, mini fridge with snacks and drinks, and fruit, etcetera. You don’t have any clothes, so I’ll lend you something to wear; a t-shirt and some sweatpants should work for tonight, and tomorrow I’ll get some of the stores to send a selection of clothes over for you to look over and pick from.”
Of course, because God forbid, we go shopping like mere mortals.
“The nurse should be here soon. If you wish to take a shower before she arrives you can, and then hopefully you will get a much-needed rest.” He pauses and reaches out to tilt my chin up. Despite everything, his touch is reassuring. “I know you must have a lot of questions, and a lot of things you want to discuss, but try to rest for a few days, and then we can talk. Okay?”
I nod. I can give it a few days, but we do need to talk.
An hour later, I’m showered, wearing a deliciously soft pair of Ilya’s sweatpants, a t-shirt which drowns me, and some cashmere socks. No underwear as the panties I had on are drying in the bathroom. I’ve been thoroughly checked over by the nurse who arrived ten minutes ago, and now I’m in bed. Ilya lent me his iPad and told me to download anything I want to read.
I can’t read; my mind is whirling. My head is swimming. My stomach is sour, and my heart hurts.
God, this headache is the worst.
I turn on the TV and get a load of Russian channels. Frustrated, I get out of bed and open my door, I go to the room Ilya told me was his next door and knock. There’s no
reply, so I figure he must be downstairs, but then I hear banging and a curse.
Not thinking, I open the door, enter the room, and stop halfway in.
Ilya is walking out of his bathroom, stark naked, with a towel in one hand as he rubs his wet hair. The action makes the muscles in his arm bunch in the most delicious way.
He really is the most divine man I’ve ever laid eyes on.
“Erm, I’m sorry. Heard a noise.”
“Dropped a bottle as I got out of the shower,” he says. “Smashed it, there’s shampoo everywhere now.”
I glance at the floor as he crosses to the dresser and starts to rummage through the drawers. I can’t help but peek, though, as he takes out sweatpants and pulls them on.
They’re soft gray, and they hang low on his sculpted abs, clinging to his thighs, and giving me the best outline of his not exactly small dick when he turns around. My mouth waters, but I tear my gaze away from his sinful body and to his face.
I swear sweatpants like the ones he is wearing should be illegal. They show everything, and there’s something deliciously erotic about the way they juxtapose their soft material with his hard body and the pale gray with his olive skin. They’re like sinful lingerie for men, or at least men built the way Ilya is.
He looks at me, and his mouth twitches up in a sexy, one-sided smirk. He damn well knows I like what I’m seeing.
“Did you want something?” he asks.
“Oh, yes, the TV. I can only find Russian programs, which totally makes sense as we’re in Russia, but do you have any DVDs I can watch?”
“I have all the streaming services; come, I’ll show you. That way you can pick what you want to watch.”
He takes my hand in his, so warm and reassuring. I want to sink into him, let him hold me, and soothe me, and make it all okay, but I don’t.
I don’t understand what we are now. I’m here in his home, but I’m not his girlfriend. Am I his prisoner? His pity project? Neither option is good.
“Tomorrow morning, the ladies are coming from our best department store with clothes for you to look at, okay?”