Pregnant By Her Older Billionaire 3: A BWWM Older Man Younger Woman Romance (Matthew and Cara)

by Katie Dowe

  He did a quick sprint towards the laundry chute and just then another armed guard came round the corner. He shot him too before he sent the girl down to the hamper and waited a few minutes before he dove in as well.

  Once he was on the ground floor, he climbed out of the hamper and put on one of the staff uniforms. He covered the girl up with sheets and towels from another hamper and began pushing it towards the exit. Thanks to Mikhail getting a house that was more like a hotel, an exit plan was easier than Kostya had ever anticipated. So having this in mind, jacking one of the catering vans that was parked outside the service exit was as easy as ever.

  He was sighing his relief as he drove down the street away from the Volkov mansion but the conversation he’d heard Mikhail and his goon have kept playing like a broken record over and over in his mind. He was still thinking about it when his boss called him.

  “Da?” he said when he picked up.

  “Is it done?” his boss asked.

  “Yes.”

  He wanted to tell his boss about the auction but somehow he could not bring himself to do it because he could almost hear what his reply would be. He would be getting in between another man’s business.

  “But these are kids…probably most of them are barely teenagers and they were going to be sold into a life of sexual slavery,” he thought. It was too much for him to take in at that moment. Too much for him to even imagine that those kids would never have a normal life. When he got home that evening, he put the girl in bed and sat with her until she woke up late the following afternoon. She was scared and looked discombobulated. After explaining to her that she was safe and away from the men that had taken her, he handed her a bowl of soup.

  “Do you know anything…remember anything about how you got to Moscow?” he asked.

  “Moscow? As in Russia?” she asked, surprised and he nodded. “The last thing I remember was talking to a guy at a party in Bristol…my parents took me there to visit my cousins.” she shook her head.

  “Do you know what day it is?” Kostya asked.

  “The second…I was at my cousin’s graduation party on the second.”

  Kostya shook his head.

  “Actually, today is Tuesday, the fourteenth.”

  “But what happened?” she asked.

  “The men who took you must have given you something so that they could get you out of the UK,” he said and a tear rolled down her cheek.

  “I want to go home,” she said in a soft voice.

  “I know…but I have to make sure you are safe enough before I take you back, okay?” Kostya asked and she nodded.

  “Did you see any other girls where they kept you?” he asked and she shook her head.

  He sighed. This was going to be harder than he thought.

  “Okay. I hope you like chicken soup,” he said with a smile. “I’m not the best cook in the world but you need to get your strength up.”

  “Thanks,” she said in a small voice.

  “I have to go for a few hours but I promise I will be back…” he started before the girl shook her head.

  “No, don’t go. You can’t leave me here…” the girl said holding Kostya’s hand a little too tightly.

  “Listen…what’s your name?”

  “Ashley.”

  “Alright Ashley. This is the safest place you could be in right now. I just have to make sure that the other girls have a chance…like you have.” He put his hand on hers. “I promise you, Ashley. I will be back.”

  She nodded.

  “What should I call you?” she asked.

  “Kostya,” he said with a smile.

  *****

  As it turned out, finding the other girls’ location was almost impossible. He could not go to the authorities with his half-baked information. And the chance local authorities would actually follow up were close to zero. The mafia had their hands in everything illegal and they made sure they sailed through by bribing their way through the local police.

  But after checking out all the possible locations for where the girls could be, Kostya wanted to give up. But then something came to mind. The girls were from all over Europe. Not just Russia. That was how the human traffickers usually did their business. Which meant that this was more than just a local matter. Interpol could be involved. And just like that, he had the perfect idea. He got one of the burner phones from his glove compartment and looked up the Interpol tip line.

  “Damn…France,” he thought when he saw that the only number he could get was a French one. “Well it will have to do.”

  He was taking long deep breaths as he called the number.

  “There is going to be an auction today in Moscow…girls as young as twelve years old being sold off as sex slaves,” he started.

  “Sir, would you hold up…” a woman on the other end tried to say but he could not afford to slow down.

  “I don’t have an exact location but if you do a simple research you will see that there are a number of high end people making their way to Moscow…princes, crime lords…just make sure you keep a close look at the incoming flight manifests. Fourteen young girls from all over Europe depend on you.”

  “How can we trust the information you are giving us is true?” the woman on the other end asked.

  “One of the girls was taken from Bristol on a family vacation two weeks ago. Her name is Ashley. I got her but the others are in another location…That is all I can say for now.”

  He hung up before the woman had another chance to say anything. He then tossed the phone and drove back to the safe house he had left Ashley at. By this time, he was trying to figure out how to break the news to the innocent girl that her parents were gone. He suspected that her parents had probably noticed her being taken and put up a fight. But the Volkov Goons had ensured that her parents wouldn’t be a problem. There was no other way to explain the sudden disappearance of an entire family in Bristol. He had seen the story on the news but until then, he had not thought anything of it. The only way to make sure Ashley had a shot at a normal life was getting her out of Moscow and away from the UK.

  Present day…

  Vasili had not had strong feelings for anyone for a long time and he could feel himself being drawn to Malia. But at the back of his mind, he kept on wondering how everything would work out especially when he had to come clean about his past because he knew that he could not keep who he was a secret forever. Especially from someone that he was falling for which was crazy since he had only known her for a few days. But hell, people married for a lot less.

  Chapter 4

  Thursday could not have come fast enough for Vasili and what he did not know was that Malia had been looking forward to their date too. When his town car pulled up in front of her building, He had been in this position before, taking women out on a first date but there was something about this particular one that made him nervous.

  Perhaps it was the fact that he had never been with a woman as sophisticated as Malia was. Or the fact that it had been almost six years since he had been in this position. Whatever it was, he was as nervous as he could get. By the time he got to Malia’s door, his heart was racing. He forced a smile when she opened the door.

  “Hey,” she said in a soft voice.

  “Wow,” he breathed in a long low voice. “I mean hey.”

  She pushed a stray strand of her freshly straightened hair back.

  “Congratulations Vasili,” she said as she grabbed her clutch bag. “You have managed to get me dressed up for something other than work.”

  “Is your life always about work?” he asked and she shrugged.

  “Mostly. I am single handedly handling all the new accounts from Africa. I don’t have a lot of time for much else.”

  “Maybe you should,” he said as he looked into her eyes.

  “Maybe I should…what, exactly?”

  “Make time for other things,” he said in a soft voice as his eyes ran down Malia’s body and she smiled at him. “Because the world des
erves to take a woman like you in,” he added. He was looking right into her eyes and for a moment, she held his gaze before she held the back of her neck nervously.

  She was not sure if she had gone beyond what was expected of a first date. She was a curvy black woman and she had decided not to go with the obvious short dress for a first date and instead did a long bodycon cut-out sleeveless dress.

  “Wow,” he said again. “You really do look amazing.”

  “I could say the same about you,” she said as she looked at his gray suit and burgundy shirt.

  “I don’t think having you standing by me is going to be doing you any justice,” he said. His eyes were still running up and down her body.

  “I didn’t ever picture you as one to sell yourself short,” she said and he smiled.

  “I usually don’t. And honestly until I met you I didn’t but…you are this sophisticated woman. Definitely not what I am used to.”

  “And what are you used to?” she asked as she looked into his searching eyes.

  “Like I said before, not this.”

  There was a long silence between them before he finally took her hand and began walking into the restaurant. Malia could not help but notice how empty the restaurant was as they made their way across what she knew was usually a very busy establishment.

  “Are we early or something?” she asked and Vasili shrugged.

  “Why do you ask?” he asked.

  “Well, because we are literally in an empty five star establishment.” She looked at him. “Did I maybe miss something?”

  “No,” he said. “I just wanted a situation where I would have you all to myself without worrying about the couple having a fight at the next table or the woman who was insensitive enough to bring a screaming toddler to such a fine establishment.”

  A smile played on her lips. It was not that no one had ever done something like this. It was that she had never had someone explain it the way he had, because heaven knows she had dated the who’s who on the Forbes Richest list. She stopped in her tracks when she saw a table right in the middle of the restaurant. The lights in the entire restaurant were dimmed and there were a couple of candles on the table that gave the table illumination. It was as if it had some kind of spotlight on it. In all her years dating all the powerful men, she had never seen anything like what she was looking at that particular moment. It was at that moment that she realized where she was.

  Vincenzo’s Kitchen.

  It was a new restaurant in town, the newest actually and it was almost impossible to get a reservation there. So getting the entire restaurant to himself was something she just could not fathom.

  “I hope you like it,” he said. “I was very hands on in the planning.”

  “This is…amazing,” she said in a whisper. She turned and looked at him. “I never pictured you to be this kind of man.”

  “And what kind of man is that?” he asked.

  “The romantic setting kind of man.”

  “I think every single person has that bone in them.”

  He slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her close.

  “Maybe you are the one who brought out mine,” he said in a low voice. At the moment, he was standing so close to her. So close she could feel his breath on her neck. She wanted to throw every fiber of the lady she had in her and just hold his neck, pull him down and exhale into his mouth as her tongue sought out his own. And what she didn’t know was that he was thinking the same time.

  “You are so sexy,” he whispered and she smiled.

  “Are you always so direct?” she asked and he began leading them to the table.

  “When you have lived the life I have lived, you learn that life is not as long as you would hope. That you have to live your life, seizing every moment as if it was your last.”

  He pulled her a chair and she sat down before he walked around the table to his side.

  “You mean in Russia?” she asked and he looked at her raising an eyebrow.

  “Someone did their homework,” he said and she shrugged.

  “Apparently it is not a very big secret,” she said. “Francois was actually the one who told me about it.”

  “I always thought I hid it well enough for people to at least consider that I am from the Czech Republic or something.” He smiled. “But it seems like I am just an open book.”

  He opened the bottle of 1977 Chateau Margaux on the table and poured them a drink.

  “This is one of my favorite red wines,” he said as he took a long sip. “Actually, my all-time favorite red wine.” He swirled his glass and inhaled deeply. “I don’t think you can ever go wrong with this particular wine.”

  He looked at her and gestured for her to take a sip. She swirled her glass and took a sniff before they both took a sip.

  “This is amazing,” she said in a soft voice. She was almost whispering.

  “Trust me to only bring you the best.”

  She smiled and took another sip just as the chef walked over to their table.

  “Mr. Zakharov, Miss Jones. Good evening,” he said as he looked at them.

  Malia raised an eyebrow. She did not expect the chef to know her name.

  “On the menu tonight is a marinated slow cooked Italian steak. Well done, as Mr. Zakharov suggested,” he said. Two waiters brought their food and Malia had to admit, she’d had some pretty awesome steak in her day but what she was looking at seemed amazing. She could tell that it tasted as good as it looked.

  “No wonder this place is near impossible to get into,” she thought.

  “Bon apetit,” the chef said before he walked away.

  “You ordered for me,” she stated and he nodded. “Do you do this for every woman you take out?”

  He smiled.

  “I actually don’t do the whole wining and dining thing.” He picked up his fork and knife. “I have never found someone I could trust, a hundred per cent.”

  She began cutting a piece of her steak.

  “Trust?” she asked and he nodded. She took a bite of her steak and tapped her plate with the tip of her knife. She wanted to let him know she had noticed that he hardly traveled alone. It was always him, his driver who, as far as she could tell, was not just any driver and for tonight, two not very subtle men who were on opposite ends of the restaurant. As far as she could tell, they were all armed. And maybe she was over thinking everything. After all, she did have her own security detail. She wanted to dig into his story. Find out what he was about but at the same time she could not bring herself to ask what was on her mind without looking like she was trying a little too much. She took another bite and then a sip of her wine.

  “So, you know a whole lot about me but I am still trying to figure out who Malia Jones is.”

  She smiled.

  “I barely know anything about you,” she said shaking her head.

  “Well, to be fair at this minute, you are kind of on the up and up.”

  She smiled.

  “If you say so,” she said as she took another bite of her steak.

  “So, what do I need to know to know who and what Malia is all about?” he asked and she shrugged.

  “Have you tried the internet? They seem to know a whole lot about me, sometimes more than I know myself.”

  “Well, to be honest, I cannot deny the fact that I didn’t check you out but all I found is your company profile and the something about you being a groupie in Drake’s party?”

  “I didn’t even know that I was at that party. And to make it worse, I was all the way in Perth at the time.”

  He frowned and took a sip of his wine.

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t think it was a big deal. Besides, you don’t really strike me as a groupie kind of person.”

  She laughed and nodded.

  “Like I said, sometimes I feel like social media is out to destroy me.” She shrugged. “I freak out every time I get an alert with my name on it.”

  “I have a feeling that happens a lot?” he a
sked and she nodded.

  “Apparently, I have a look alike out there who took selfies with Tom Cruise.” She pulled her phone out of her purse and clicked on something before handing it to him. “At the time, I was attending a convention in Switzerland.”

  “Anyone who knows you can see that this isn’t you,” he said in a soft voice. “I mean, her eyes are too close together and she is way bigger than you. She could almost be considered plus size.”

  “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “In that photo she was bigger but the last one she was smaller. One morning I was looking at front page tabloid photos of how I shared my natural weight loss ideas.”

  He smiled and she took another bite.

  “It’s what I have to live with but,” she reached for her glass. “I try not to concern myself with gossip.”

  For the rest of dinner, she had sought to get much more information on him but Vasili was vague. It was almost like he didn’t want to divulge any information. By the time they were leaving she still knew so little about him. All she could tell was that he was a very private man and a little paranoid when it came to issues about security. She would have wanted to probe deeper, ask more questions but something about him made her realize that she wanted to know him more. She wanted another chance to share a meal with him. Another chance to look into his eyes: the eyes that told almost no story at all. At the back of her mind, she could not help but wonder if the feelings she had were all about trying to wipe Mark out of her mind. But she still wanted to know him more.

  *****

  When they left the restaurant, they made their way to his town car. She did not know why but she was feeling a little nervous as he led her out to his town car. He looked around briefly and opened the door for her. She smiled and got in before he climbed in after her.

  “I should be honest about one thing though,” he started in a soft voice. “I don’t want to take you home.”