The Russian's Proposal (Friends Forever Book 3)

by Elizabeth Lennox

  Stranger and stranger, she thought. “And your assistant assumed that you would want to visit butterflies?” she asked, her tone conveying her disbelief.

  His lips pressed together for a moment and she saw a bit of color tinge his cheeks. “I may have asked my assistant to find places that you would enjoy,” he finally admitted.

  The joy that burst through her heart at his words was unlike anything she’d ever felt before. That this hard, uncompromising man would actually direct his assistant to find things that she would like was…amazing! And completely endearing.

  Her smile widened as she looked across the table at him. “I think walking through a butterfly farm would be wonderful. Thank you,” she whispered to him, delighted with his honesty as well as his thoughtfulness.

  An hour later, the boat docked and she placed her hand in his as he helped her off the boat. She didn’t really need the help, but she let him anyway, simply because it felt good to have her hand in his. When she was firmly on the dock, she smiled up at him, thrilled when he kept her hand in his as they walked down the long walkway towards his car.

  When he pulled up outside of a small structure that looked more like a trailer than a sturdy building, she wasn’t overly hopeful. “This is it?” she asked, her tone skeptical. Then again, why would any place here in the Caribbean have a great display of butterflies? It wasn’t as if the islands were easy for butterflies to reach. Then a horrible thought occurred to her and she stopped. He immediately looked down at her in concern and she bit her lip.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She looked over at the building, then back at him with a worried expression. “This isn’t the kind of place where they pin the butterflies up on the wall and we look at dead ones, is it?”

  He chuckled even as he shook his head. “Since I’ve never been to a butterfly farm, I have no expectations. But that’s not how this place was advertised.”

  She looked over at the innocuous door, then back up at him. “Okay, let’s find out what’s inside.”

  In the front room, there were trinkets with butterfly themes and various butterfly ornaments, porcelain and metal butterflies to put on a wall that would brighten up a room and lots of butterfly paraphernalia. Sergei paid for tickets and Katia wandered over to the only other door in the building and…

  “Oh my!” she gasped as she peered through the glass doors. Behind the small building was…it was a massive space covered in netting but with early evening sunshine spilling throughout the whole area. Plants and flowers were everywhere, but the most amazing sight was the number of butterflies flitting through the sunshine.

  “Hurry!” she urged as Sergei slipped his wallet back into the back pocket of his shorts. “Oh, please!” she begged and grabbed his hand to pull him through the glass doors. They were in a sectioned off room with another separation, this one just a screen door with a wooden frame but she understood that this was used to keep the butterflies from going into the ticket area. “Sergei, this is amazing!” she whispered, hugging him and unknowingly pressing her breasts against his arm.

  She also wasn’t aware of Sergei’s surprised, hungry look down at her, or the almost silent groan as he followed her through the door into the main part of the butterfly exhibit.

  They stepped through and she lifted her eyes up, looking around at all of the brightly colored butterflies. Blue, pink, purple, striped, yellow, and black butterflies…they were everywhere! She’d never seen so many butterflies in one area and they were all flitting around, tasting the various potted flowers.

  She walked along the stone pathway, not really paying attention to the leafy trees as she focused only on the glorious butterflies that were everywhere.

  Suddenly, Katia felt Sergei’s strong arms around her waist and she froze. “Stand still,” he whispered, his voice low and sexy and so shockingly close to her ear.

  “Why?” she asked, trying to be casual about his arms around her, but…well, that was pretty hard because she didn’t feel very casual about his arms around her, touching her like this. Very gently, she put her hands on his forearms, thinking that casual touch should be permissible. But in the next moment, she gasped when a tiny butterfly landed on her shoulder. “Wow!” she laughed. A moment later, another butterfly landed on her arm. As she and Sergei stood still, the butterflies came and went, landing and investigating her colorful clothing, then flitting off again. It was one of the most surreal moments of her life and she was thrilled to be sharing it with Sergei.

  “Had enough?” he asked, his voice a low rumble.

  She nodded and he straightened. Katia tried to hide her disappointment by looking away, but then she felt his hand on the small of her back and it actually slipped around her waist. Loving the sensation of his touch, she leaned into him, trying to tell him that she didn’t want him to stop.

  When they’d walked full circle and were back at the screen door, she sighed and looked up at him. “Thank you, Sergei, that was…” she stopped as she looked at the netting that made up the ceiling, her mouth falling open in shock. Because perched there was one of the biggest butterflies she’d ever seen.

  “That’s not real, is it?” she asked, pointing to the spot just over his shoulder.

  Sergei turned and looked up, then back down at her. “That’s the Atlas butterfly. It has a wing span of about ten inches and is one of the largest in the world.”

  Her mouth fell open as she continued to stare up at the huge butterfly. “I had no idea that there was a butterfly that huge!” she told him.

  He laughed and moved behind her. But then his arm wrapped around her waist again, pulling her back against his chest and she was completely distracted from the massive butterfly. It wasn’t nearly as interesting as Sergei’s heat!

  “You ready to go?”

  With his question, images of him kissing her…and a lot more…flashed through her mind. Was she ready? Possibly! Another shiver went through her and she looked at him over her shoulder. The look in his eyes told her nothing about his intentions but she nodded anyway.

  He once again took her hand and led her through both doors. Once they were out in the main room again, the person who had been selling the tickets handed her a beautifully wrapped box. “What’s this?” she asked, taking the box and following Sergei out of the building.

  When they stepped outside again, she realized that the sun was much lower in the sky than she’d thought. Where had the day gone? She looked around, then down at the wrapped box, confused about so many things. She wanted Sergei to kiss her again, but was she ready for more? Clutching the box in her hands, she stared at him as he moved off to take a phone call. He was speaking in Spanish and Katia suddenly realized that she didn’t know very much about him. He might be the sweetest man she’d ever met, and the most virile, interesting, and amazingly kind man. But what did she truly know about him other than he had superior sleuthing skills and had found her before her father could?

  Katia knew that he was kind and generous…but what was his favorite color? What kinds of foods does he prefer? Where did he grow up? And how? Other than the superficial details, the man was a completely mystery.

  But she wanted him. She definitely wanted…more from him. Until this morning, he’d only given her chaste kisses but the way he’d kissed her on the ship earlier, that had been wonderful and…terrifying! She’d never been the kind of woman to have sex with a man she didn’t know. Hence, the reason she’d never had sex before. She hadn’t ever allowed a man to get close to her, needing to constantly be on the alert and ready to run at a moment’s notice.

  He ended the call and turned back to her. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes. Fine.” She was nervous, wondering if he was going to make love to her tonight. He hadn’t touched her last night, sleeping in a separate room, but…they were married. Didn’t that make it okay? Especially since they both wanted the same thing!

  But her heart pulled back a bit, wondering if she was going to get hurt. As sh
e looked up into his crystal blue eyes, she realized that she was definitely going to get hurt. But maybe that pain would be worth the joy of experiencing the magic of being in his arms. And yeah, she knew that being with Sergei like that would definitely be magical. He had a look about him, a look that told her he knew a woman’s body extremely well and could give her pleasure beyond anything she’d ever imagined.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked her gently as he slid his phone back into a pocket.

  Katia stared up at him, her head tilting to the side. “I was thinking that you’re a mystery.”

  He chuckled and led her over to the car, holding the door open for her. “Not so much a mystery. I’m pretty basic.”

  She smiled a moment before he closed the door. “I doubt that very much.”

  He drove expertly through the winding streets of George Town, the capital city of Grand Cayman. It didn’t take very long to leave the city behind and drive along the road that skimmed the edge of the island. The ocean pounded against the rocky beaches as he drove to the north side of the island where the villa was located. “Are we heading to your house?” she asked as they rounded a corner in the road.

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t own property on Grand Cayman. And I thought it would be better to rent a place instead of advertising where we were. Until everything is in place and I have confirmation from my transition team that your father is out, then I didn’t want to be too obvious.”

  Makes sense, she thought. “Thank you for today. It was incredible.”

  He looked over at her, but she couldn’t see his eyes clearly because of the dim light left over from the setting sun. She suspected that, if she could see his eyes, he might be winking at her and she shifted uncomfortably. A wink from a man seemed…a bit patronizing. He didn’t think of her as a child, did he? She was twenty-three years old! Not a child!

  “How old are you?” she blurted out before she could think better of asking the question.

  “I’m thirty-two. Why?”

  She shrugged and turned to look out the windshield but it was darker here, more shadows as the moon inched higher, so there wasn’t much to look at besides the road in front of them. “I was just wondering about our age differences.” She stopped for a moment, considering her next comment carefully. “And wondering about the other differences we might have.”

  He looked at her again before focusing back at the winding road. “You think our differences are vast?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. We certainly have something very important in common.”

  “Our hatred of Sosta?”

  She shifted again, holding the wrapped box in her hands, careful not to mess up the bow. “It seems so wrong to hate my father. But I do. And yes, that would be the biggest issue we have that is similar.”

  “What Sosta put you through as a child seems to validate your anger towards him.”

  “What were your parents like?” she asked, needing to change the subject. Her father was never a good topic of conversation and she felt both weepy when she thought about her mother’s passing at his cruel hands and angry at her father’s corrupt activities that had led them to this point in each of their lives.

  “Why do you want to know?” he replied and she noticed his fingers tightened on the steering wheel.

  She watched him carefully for a moment, then sighed. “You don’t have to tell me anything about them if it makes you uncomfortable. I understand that this is a difficult subject for you.”

  There was a long silence and Katia suspected that he was going to ignore her question. Looking out the side window, she tried to come up with another topic of conversation. So she was startled when he spoke.

  “My mother was beautiful, and probably why Sosta wanted her so badly. She’d gone to the market on the wrong day. It was the day he was doing something in one of the buildings across the street from the market and he saw her. She was kind and sweet.” She watched his fingers tighten almost spasmodically on the steering wheel. “She loved parties and would bake these elaborate birthday cakes for me every year. I remember one of them was a train, complete with an engine, a caboose, and even passenger cars. She would stay up after I went to bed at night to work on them. Every morning for the week before my birthday, I’d jump out of bed and race to the fridge to see what she’d done the night before. At first, I didn’t know what it was going to be, but towards my birthday, she started to fit all of the rectangle cakes together.” He paused again and she waited, holding her breath to hear whatever he might tell her next. “They were just rectangular cakes, but she had the most amazing imagination and used frosting and small pieces of candy to decorate each part of the train, connecting them with licorice.”

  She smiled, warmed by the story. “She sounds like a wonderful woman.”

  His jaw tightened and Katia knew that he was remembering other things about his mother. “She was.”

  Hearing him tell the story made her feel special. It was like she knew a secret about him, something that he’d never shared with anyone else. “And your father?”

  He laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “My dad loved my mom and was great. He used to take me fishing on the weekends. He’d say we were going for the whole weekend, but it always rained. We’d drive out to the spot he’d chosen and get the tent set up, the fishing poles ready, and whatever bait we’d need. Every time, he would check the weather forecast. No rain was ever predicted, but…well, summer weather is always a bit unpredictable and a summer storm would build. It happened so often that my mother would have dinner ready for us as soon as we walked through the door on the first night.”

  Katia laughed, thinking that even the rain would be fun. She loved summer storms and the passion behind the thunder. “I guess it was too dangerous to stay out in the storm.”

  He shrugged. “Hard to fish when the water is all stirred up too.”

  They pulled into the driveway of the villa at that point and she sighed, wishing that they had another fifty miles to drive so that he would tell her more stories. They seemed so idyllic, so unlike what she experienced with her parents. Her childhood was filled with rules and isolation. Fear. Fear of her father’s temper or whatever other punishment he might mete out to her.

  They stepped into the cool interior of the house and she turned to say something to him but he walked away. “I have some phone calls to make. I’ll see you at dinner.”

  A moment later, she was standing alone in the beautiful, tiled foyer as she stared at the closed door to the office area. Katia tried not to be hurt, but she couldn’t hide her disappointment as she made her way up the stairs to the bedroom where someone had put her suitcase. She set the beautifully wrapped present on the edge of the bed, trying to figure out what to do now. Unfortunately, nothing brilliant occurred to her.

  Lifting the wrapped box up, she carefully pulled the bow and the wrapping paper. When she pulled open the box, tears formed as she found the most beautiful butterfly she’d ever seen. The wings were made of some sort of material that sparkled as she turned it in the moonlight. It was delicate and carefully constructed, with antenna and colors that took her breath away.

  He’d bought her a butterfly!

  Sergei mentally berated himself for telling Katia those stories about his parents. Why the hell had he done that? And why had he even told her anything? He never told anyone about those memories of his family. Hell, he never even thought of them. He didn’t allow himself to dwell on the past. Thinking about his parents was too painful and he hadn’t opened his mind to those memories in years.

  He focused on the present and the future, ensuring that he was five or ten steps ahead of Sosta at every moment. It was a constant game of chess and he was winning. He excelled at this chess game. Every move and countermove was perfectly orchestrated.

  Every decision on Sosta’s part had been countered by a counter attack by Sergei. Sosta’s business partners had started pulling away from him years ago, as soon as Sosta
began losing ground, caused by Sergei’s machinations. It had even taken Sosta years to figure out what Sergei was doing and several more to find out who was behind all of the financial setbacks.

  Now wasn’t the time to become soft, he reminded himself. The end was near, he could taste it! He could feel Sosta’s fury! He didn’t even need to read his staff’s daily reports to know that Sosta was going ballistic.

  So why was he telling Katia, a woman who had nothing to gain or lose in this race other than the destruction of her father, stories about his childhood? She had no reason to need any history from him. And those stories had been buried in his mind for decades!

  Fishing! Damn, why had he even thought of that story? The rain had been miserable, they’d been hungry because, as usual, they’d planned to fish for their dinner. Yeah, they’d brought snacks and sides for their meal but since the rain had arrived, it was impossible to start a fire. Cooking wasn’t possible.

  Looking out the window at the ocean, he tried to block out those memories – his father cursing as the thunder boomed in the distance, their laughter the last time they’d tried to go fishing and the rain moved in. They’d just unpacked everything and set up their tent when the rain started. Fat, heavy drops of rain at first. But the look Sergei had seen in his father’s eyes…the way they’d both sighed with resignation. And then the mad rush to toss everything back into the truck before the deluge started. They laughingly jumped into the seats after packing everything up, the water droplets splashed all over the dashboard when his father shook his head, caused both of them to laugh even harder.

  “Chert voz’mi!” he cursed, spinning away from the window. “Hell!” Sergei repeated in English. He had work to do and a mission to finalize. His entire staff was working around the clock, literally, to ensure that Sosta Valissi couldn’t gain access to any of his company assets. Sergei had armed guards surrounding the man’s homes, so that he couldn’t get in now that his legal team had successfully claimed all of the residences through the court systems.