by Lucy Ellis
Plato’s big hand slid down her hip, over her bottom. ‘I will help you look.’
‘Somehow I don’t think that’s going to speed up the process. You go and explain to Mrs Padalecki that I’m going away for the weekend. She’ll be concerned if she doesn’t see me coming in and out.’
‘I think I am already having far too much to do with Mrs Padalecki,’ commented Plato, but his hand moved away and Rose found she could concentrate a little better.
‘What time is the flight?’ she asked a tad breathlessly over her shoulder as she padded barefoot down the hall. She couldn’t quite believe she was doing this.
Plato frowned. ‘Rose, we won’t be flying on a commercial plane. Malenki, I have a jet.’
‘Oh, yes. Of course you do,’ Rose said, rolling her eyes. ‘What was I thinking?’
CHAPTER NINE
PLATO glanced at the delicate profile of the woman sitting beside him, his hand tightening around the wheel of the Ferrari. She had such a soft look about her, and it was playing havoc with his more cynical side. Did she know what she was getting into? For that matter, did he?
The intensity of whatever this was between them made what should be a straightforward weekend in Moscow feel more like a leap into the unknown. He’d been telling himself since he issued the invitation that this didn’t need to be anything other than about right now. He’d give her a taste of Moscow…him…and send her home happy. Da, she was a traditional sort of girl—but not so traditional she hadn’t leapt into this car with him.
A more knowing hardness entered his eyes. He could put his conscience on ice. Rose was a smart girl. She’d proved at every turn she knew what she was doing.
She had her laptop open on her knee and was intent on the screen. He would have preferred her attention on him. She was saying something about Sasha’s ad being up on YouTube. He smiled to himself. She really was proud of this little internet business of hers. Another reason she wouldn’t want to be away too long…
‘Clever. It won’t do Rykov any harm.’ He paused, then decided it couldn’t hurt to tell her. ‘He’ll be signing with an NHL team tomorrow.’
‘You’re kidding?’ A big smile broke across Rose’s face as she turned to him. ‘That’s fantastic—or is it? It means he won’t be playing for the Wolves.’
‘No, it’s great news,’ he responded, trying not to get too distracted by that smile. ‘He deserves it.’
‘Doesn’t it ever bother you? Training up these great players and then losing them to Canadian and American teams?’
‘No, that’s the point, malenki, that’s why I do it. Take Rykov. He comes from a town without much to offer a kid. He’s not academically minded. He probably would have ended up in the mines with his father. But he’s got this skill. He can play hockey.’
‘It’s a way out and up,’ said Rose. ‘I get it.’
He glanced at her again. She was a smart girl. He liked that about her. Beautiful and smart and…funny. He really liked the funny. He wondered idly what her reaction would be if he told her what he’d come from, how he’d made his own way up and out. Would she judge, or would she respect the outcome? He caught the drift of his thoughts. Why in the hell did he care? He wouldn’t be seeing her again after this weekend.
‘Wait a minute.’ She turned those big blue eyes on him. ‘Did you factor all this in when you let Sasha loose on me?’
Da, smart. ‘I would have given you a couple of players regardless, but I have to say when it came to making the choice of who to send your way Rykov’s future was at the forefront of my mind.’
‘I wish you’d told me that at dinner,’ she said a little awkwardly, surprising him. ‘I wouldn’t have lost my temper. I’m sorry for calling you names and making threats and…other things.’
Was she apologising to him?
Plato shrugged. ‘And missed the fireworks? I enjoyed it, malenki.’
Rose beamed. ‘Sasha was my first choice anyway. I forgive you.’
Yes, she was every inch a woman. Making absolutely no sense whatsoever. And now it was his fault again.
‘Excellent news,’ he said.
‘So is that your story? Was sport your way out?’
‘No. I played, but it was never in my future.’
A poor boy from a mining town, destined to a life of crime to survive. How did you explain that to a girl like Rose? You didn’t. That was the short answer. As far as most women were concerned he was the sum of his parts, able to give them what they wanted in the short term. It was all about now.
In the process of reinstalling her laptop in its case at her feet, Rose looked up at him, a smile spreading across her face, deepening her dimples.
Plato jerked his attention back on the road as the car drifted slightly. Did she have the slightest idea what she did to him? Probably, his cynicism intervened. For all that down-home charm Rose laid out, it was clearly a distraction designed to smooth over what lay beneath her surface: a fiery, passionate young woman clearly prepared to take what she wanted. He’d seen her in action at the press conference, and she hadn’t been shy to make her own sexual demands this morning. He could still feel the confident glide of her hand taking his measure.
Da, she wasn’t a shrinking violet, and he liked that. It was a big part of why she was with him now.
‘How about you, Rose? What’s in your life?’
‘What would you like to know?’
Star sign? Favourite colour? How long until she dropped this country girl act and allowed the real Rose out to play…?
‘I guess workwise I finished my supervised internship in Houston two years ago,’ she said brightly.
Work—da, she liked to talk about that. ‘What is this internship?’ he asked patiently.
‘It’s part of the degree course you do to qualify as a psychologist—kind of like a medical resident. You have to earn your dues. Long hours and not much pay.’
‘You are a psychologist?’
‘Why, yes.’ Rose looked at him curiously. ‘Should I be amused or offended by how surprised you sound?’
Plato grinned. ‘I was distracted by the fact you were writing your cell number on my hand, Rose.’
She looked a little uncomfortable. ‘You needn’t make it sound indecent.’
Indecent? His English was excellent but every now and then Rose’s idioms had him paging through the Oxford English Dictionary he’d drilled himself in during his teens, when he’d come to realise language was one of the keys to a better future.
She had a way of choosing an old-fashioned word and it was a distraction. It sent his thoughts down a different, softer path. He almost believed she hadn’t meant it to be a provocative act, rounding up twelve elite athletes and pressing her pen to their palms.
‘I wasn’t the one wielding the pen, detka,’ he observed dryly.
She lifted that round little chin of hers as if determined to brazen it out. ‘Not very professional, I know, but it got the job done.’
There it was again. The sweetness.
Da, it had got the job done. She’d taken him by surprise on that rickety old bed, and he wondered if that was part of the job too. Had she targeted him from the first? He didn’t mind a bit of feminine manipulation, and Rose had already proved herself perfectly capable of it. It didn’t fit, though. The whole walking into her house, throwing her onto that bed and making out with her like an eager adolescent this morning had been driven by him. Even if she hadn’t left that message on his phone last night he would have stopped by. Nothing bar a natural disaster would have stopped him pulling up outside her house this morning.
Which troubled him—because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this susceptible to a woman. She wasn’t his usual type. Not that he really knew what that was. Maybe it was the little roadblocks she’d thrown up. Women usually made it pretty easy for him, and nothing about his pursuit of Rose had been easy thus far.
Rose’s enthusiasm once he’d had his hands on her this morning had
been a nice surprise. Da, very nice. And he was hard again now, just thinking about it. Where the hell he’d got the idea to slow things down he wasn’t sure…although deep down he suspected it had something to do with Mrs Padalecki and the open door, and the damn vacuum cleaner and the essential sweetness he had sensed in Rose from the start. Yeah, he really liked the sweetness. Except it troubled him. What if the country girl was the real Rose after all?
‘I don’t mind not very professional,’ he said, his voice a little husky. Chert, he didn’t want professional at all. He wanted her mind off that business of hers and focussed on the good time he was going to show her. Instead he found himself saying, ‘How did you get into the matchmaking business?’
‘All I wanted to do since I was a little girl was get married.’
Plato wondered if he’d groaned aloud. How in the hell had he got himself into this? If he had a working brain cell left he’d turn this car around…
‘I’m kinda famous at home as a matchmaker,’ Rose continued cheerfully. ‘I mean, I was doing it there before I made it my profession. I matched up my daddy with my favourite schoolteacher when I was eight years old.’
She glanced at him and began to laugh, the sound so sweet and infectious he couldn’t not look at her. She bit her lip. ‘Your face. It’s okay, cowboy. I’m certainly not looking for a husband, and even if I was you wouldn’t be it.’
‘Excellent news, detka.’
She gave his shoulder a little shove. ‘You don’t have to sound so pleased about it.’
‘I’m devastated. Is that better?’
She gave him a wise look and opened her handbag, retrieved her lipstick and began to apply it using a little compact, chatting as she did so. Telling him about her practice, her private clients, her hopes to open an office in the city for Date with Destiny once it took off.
Everything she said spelt out her intention of building a life in Toronto, hammering down his certainty that this was just a weekend out of her busy schedule. Plato began to relax, to allow himself to enjoy her again.
There was a lot to enjoy. Somehow Rose had turned the simple application of lipstick into an erotic act with a few slow strokes, a little rub of those lips and the barest hint of her pink tongue over the gleam of her teeth. Plato felt his body respond with predictable speed.
‘How did you end up in Toronto?’ he asked, his thoughts pleasantly engaged by those ruby lips.
‘I stuck a pin in a map.’ She grinned at him, as if knowing how unexpected that sounded. ‘I hit a riverbed, but Toronto was the closest major city, so here I am. There’s a young population, the dating scene is surprisingly diverse, and I saw an opening for a marriage brokering business.’
The dating scene? Plato’s imagined use of those sweet lips came to a screeching halt as he had an unwelcome flashback to Rose sashaying around that reception room with her little bag and curving ruby mouth, moving from athlete to athlete until she turned those big blue eyes on him.
‘You date a lot, Rose?’ His virtual growl brought her head around in surprise.
‘I do my share,’ she said with a little shrug.
What in the hell did that mean? He caught the dawning look of uncertainty in her eyes and tamped down his unwarranted surge of jealousy. What on earth was wrong with him? She was a beautiful single woman in a populous city. It would be impossible for her to step outside that front door of hers and not trip over a line of eager guys all ready to do whatever it took to take her to dinner…to bed.
Just like him.
‘How in the hell are you still single?’
‘I don’t know how to answer that,’ she said, looking a bit taken aback.
He couldn’t blame her; he had no idea why he was making a big deal out of this. His reputation was hardly spotless.
Rose tried to think of something to say, because she did know how to answer him—it was just he would never believe her.
She thought of her teenage years when she should have been dating, the victim of four well-meaning, overprotective big brothers. Years she’d spent matchmaking for other people instead. Then had come her college years, when her social life had consisted of dinner parties, fundraisers and functions on the arm of the wrong man—a man she’d chosen specifically to avoid her brothers’ interference. A man who along with his family had bullied her and chipped away at her self-esteem until her confidence in herself as a woman had been at an all-time low. Her gradual climb back to normality over the last couple of years had been hard, until now she could date and socialise like any other girl. Yet somehow she was still single.
She wasn’t about to tell Mr Bored, Built and Between Blondes any of that. Except she wasn’t really thinking of him that way any more. He was Plato to her now. Plato with the gentle hands and deep voice and protective instincts.
‘I’m very busy with work,’ she prevaricated, which made a mockery of how easily she’d dropped everything to leap into this car with him. Nor did he look convinced.
‘Da, the destiny date,’ he said slowly, as if considering it. ‘And you make a comfortable living from this?’
It was a sore point. ‘Not really. I have a small client list I brought from the practice I worked in when I first came to Toronto and I see them on a private basis. It pays the bills.’
‘You prefer this matchmaking?’
‘It’s an honourable profession.’ She hated the defensiveness she could hear trickling into her tone.
‘You like happy endings?’
‘I like to give people the tools to make smarter decisions about who they love,’ she corrected, telling herself he wasn’t being patronising. Telling herself not to lose her temper. She’d already done too much of that around this man.
‘Da, you believe in fairy tales.’
‘That goes to show you know nothing about me,’ she retorted hotly, losing her temper anyway. ‘I can assure you, Plato, I know personally how ugly the relations between men and women can be. I choose to educate, not to feed people fairy tales.’
‘What is this ugly?’
Rose folded her arms. ‘I don’t want to talk about this. You clearly don’t take my work seriously.’
‘Who has mistreated you?’ he demanded abruptly.
‘I was speaking generally, not specifically,’ she prevaricated, looking away.
‘You said personally.’ He spoke over her. ‘What is this personal?’
‘None of your business.’ The speed she had begun to take for granted had dropped away, and Rose realised in horror he was pulling over onto the shoulder of the road.
‘For land sakes, Plato,’ she squeaked, ‘what are you doing?’
He cut the engine and angled his body to face her. ‘Who has mistreated you?’
It must be a cultural difference, thought Rose, backing up fast. This macho, looking-after-my-woman thing. Except they did it in Texas too, and her romantic disasters could all be traced back to it.
‘Plato, I really don’t appreciate being strong-armed like this…’
In the silence, the stillness, Plato was suddenly right there, examining her as if looking for signs of domestic violence. This was silly. Except he looked so fierce…and concerned.
Well, heck…
‘I was engaged to a man for four years. We had our problems.’ She moistened her bottom lip. ‘I guess you could figure that, seeing as I’m not with him any more.’
‘What did he do to you?’ His voice was low, tough.
‘Do to me? Kind of what you’re doing now,’ she muttered.
‘Sto?’ Fine lines bracketed his eyes, and his slanting Slavic cheekbones lifted as his face drew taut.
‘Putting on the pressure.’ She fidgeted, opening and closing the clasp on her handbag. ‘Look, this is my personal business. I hardly know you well enough to—’
‘You said ugly,’ he cut in. ‘Naturally I am concerned.’
Was he? She looked into his eyes and her heartbeat stumbled.
Rose Harkness, don’t you go falling
down a mountain over this man. He’s big and overbearing and you may as well never have left Texas if you do!
‘It’s as boring as watching paint dry,’ she grumbled, opening up her bag. ‘But here we are, if you’re so darn curious. This is as ugly as it got.’
She thrust the folded segment of newspaper at him. Never taking his eyes off her, Plato unfolded the paper. He flicked his gaze over it. Rose knew the headline by heart: ‘Fidelity Falls Beauty Queen Throws Over Hilliger Heir.’
The text was brief and to the point.
William Randolph Hilliger III, son of Senator William Randolph Hilliger II, loses pre-selection and fiancée overnight. Miss Harkness was unavailable for comment.
‘I’ve read about your past in the tabloids this week,’ she said, endeavouring to inject some normality into her voice. ‘Well, here’s mine. All five minutes of my fame.’
‘Tabloids? You researched me, detka?’ She was about to deny it when he said, ‘This is you?’ The hint of a smile softened the line of his firm mouth. ‘Miss Dairy Queen? How old were you in this picture?’
‘Eighteen.’ She’d been plumper then, and the long dress had been too tight, but the sash hid the worst of it. Her hair had been styled into a sixties beehive. She was posed on the back of a hay truck.
‘Cute,’ he said, handing the cutting back. ‘So who is this Third?’
‘Bill,’ she said firmly, ‘was a guy I met in my first year at college in Houston. I hadn’t dated much before then…actually I hadn’t dated at all.’ She saw the look on his face and hurried on. ‘I come from a small town—Fidelity Falls, like it says in the article—and I’ve got four big brothers. It kinda made things…tricky.’
Understatement, Rose.
‘All I wanted to do since I was a little girl was get married,’ she told him again, and then broke off, looking a little flustered. ‘I’m not doing this right. I’m explaining it wrong.’
‘Keep going,’ said Plato.
The smile she kept glimpsing was starting to bother her. She knew how it must seem to him—the small town, the pageant picture, the early engagement. Country bumpkin. But she wasn’t going to hide where she came from. Not any more.