by Jennie Lucas
As the chauffeur drove the car away towards the distant barn that was used as a garage, Kasimir went to the front door and found it was unlocked.
Surprised, he pushed open the door. He walked into the dark, silent foyer. The house was silent. As the grave.
Where were the bodyguards?
“Hello?” he called harshly. No answer. With a sickening feeling, he suddenly remembered the guardhouse had been empty, as well. With no one minding the door, anyone could have walked right in and found Josie sleeping, helpless and alone.
He sucked in his breath. This was a safe area, but he had plenty of enemies. Starting with his own brother. If somehow—somehow—Vladimir had found out he was here…
“Josie!” he cried. He ran up the stairs three steps at a time. He rushed down the hall to their bedroom. If anything had happened, he would never forgive himself for leaving her.
He knocked the door back with a bang against the wall. In the flickers of dying firelight from the old stone fireplace, he saw a shadow move in the bed.
“Kasimir?” Josie’s voice was sleepy. She sat up in bed, yawning. “Was that you yelling?”
Relief and joy rushed through him, so great it nearly brought him to his knees. Without a word, he sat down on the bed and pulled her into his arms. In the moonlight from the window, he saw her beautiful, precious face, her cheeks lined with creases from the pillow, her messy hair tumbling over her shoulders, auburn in the red glow from the fire’s dying embers.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Kasimir didn’t answer. For long moments, he just sat on the bed, holding her. Closing his eyes, he inhaled the scent of vanilla and peaches in hair, felt the sweet softness of her body pressed against his own.
“Kasimir?” Her voice was muffled against his chest. He finally pulled back, gripping her shoulders as he looked down at her.
“Where are the bodyguards?” he said hoarsely. “Why are you alone?”
“Oh… That.” To his surprise, she shrugged, then gave him a crooked grin. “They got in this big fight, arguing over which of them got to watch some huge sports event on the big screen in the basement and which poor slob would be stuck watching me. So I told them in Russian that I didn’t need anyone watching me. I mean—” she gave a little laugh “—I’ve been sleeping on my own for a long time. My whole life. I mean—” she suddenly blushed, looking at him “—until quite lately.” Drawing back, she looked at him. “You aren’t mad, are you?” she said anxiously. “I promised them you wouldn’t be mad.”
“I will fire them all,” Kasimir said fervently. Pulling her hard against his body, he pressed his lips to hers in a kiss that was pure and true and that he wished could last forever—but he feared would be their last.
This time, she was the one to pull away. “You don’t really mean that,” she said chidingly. “You can’t fire them. They had to obey me. I’m your wife.”
“Of course they had to obey you,” he growled.
“Good,” she sighed. She pressed her cheek against his chest, then sat up in sudden alarm. “The phone line got cut off when I tried to talk to Bree. Was she mad? Did you cut the deal with Vladimir? When will I see her?”
Kasimir looked down into her beautiful, trusting face, feeling heartsick. “She’s safe and happy and you’ll see her in three days.” His jaw clenched, and he forced himself to say, “But there’s something I need to tell you.”
Josie shook her head, narrowing her eyes with a determined set of her chin. “I have something to tell you first.”
“No—”
She covered his mouth with her small hand. She looked straight into his eyes. And she said the five words that for ten years, he’d never wanted to hear from any woman.
“I’m in love with you,” Josie whispered.
With an intake of breath, he pulled back, his eyes wide. He looked at her face, pink in the warm firelight. “What did you say?” he choked out.
Josie’s eyes were luminous as she looked up at him with a trembling smile. Then she said the words again, and it was like the home he’d dreamed of his whole life. “I love you, Kasimir.”
“But—you can’t.” He realized his body was shaking all over. “You don’t.”
“I do.” Her eyes glowed like sunlight and Christmas and everything good he’d ever dreamed of. “I knew it last night, when you held me in your arms. And I had to tell you before I lost my courage. Because even if you’re mean to me, even if you push me away, even if you divorce me and I never see you again…” She lifted her gaze to his. “I love you.”
Standing up, Kasimir stumbled back from her. Pacing three steps, he stopped, clawing his hair back wildly as he faced her in the moonlight. “You’re wrong. Sex can feel like love, especially the first time. When you don’t have enough experience to know the difference…”
Pushing aside the quilts, she slowly stood up in her plaid flannel nightgown. “I know the difference.” Her eyes pierced his. “Do you?”
His heart started to pound.
He didn’t want to think about how being with Josie was so different from anything he’d ever experienced before. Couldn’t. “Don’t you understand what kind of man I am?” he said hoarsely. “I’m selfish. Ruthless. I’ve spent ten years trying to destroy my own brother! How can you love me?”
Coming towards him, she put her hand over his. “Because I do.”
A tremble went through him then that he couldn’t control. Outside, through the windows, the sky was turning lighter as dawn rose pink and soft. It was New Year’s Day.
“You should hate me,” he whispered. “I want you to hate me.”
Reaching up, Josie cupped his cheek, her palm soft against the rough bristles of his jawline. “You don’t have to be afraid.”
He stiffened. “Afraid?”
“Of loving me back,” she said quietly. She took a deep breath. “You want to love me. I think you already do. But you’re afraid I’ll hurt you or leave you. What will it take for you to see you have nothing to fear? I’ve never loved anyone before, but I know one thing. I will love you,” she whispered, “for always.”
Their eyes locked in the gray shadows of the bedroom. The icy wind rattled the window, and the fire crackled noisily.
“There. I’m done.” Tears shone in her eyes as she gave him a trembling smile. “Now what did you want to tell me?”
And just like that, Kasimir suddenly knew.
He couldn’t tell Josie the truth. Because he wanted her in his life. No, it was more than just wanting her.
He couldn’t bear to let her go.
Kasimir’s throat ached. But even if he lied to her now, he wouldn’t be able to keep the truth from her for long. In three days, when he took her to Morocco for the exchange, she’d discover what he’d done. That he’d been keeping her prisoner all this time. Even she could not forgive that.
Unless…
Was there any way he could keep her as his wife? Any way he could keep her in his bed, with that innocent, passionate love still shining so brightly in her eyes?
Slowly, Kasimir lifted his hand to stroke the softness of her hair. “What I wanted to tell you is…” He took a deep breath. “I missed you.”
Josie sighed in pleasure, closing her eyes, pressing her cheek against his chest in an expression that was protective, almost reverent.
In the warmth and comfort of her arms, Kasimir closed his stinging eyes against his own weakness for the lie. Then, in the wintry Russian dawn, against the cold blank slate of a brand-new year, he lowered his mouth to hers for a forbidden kiss. And then another. Until they were tangled together, and he was lost.
* * *
Josie had been feeling hurt, with an aching heart, when he’d left her in his tuxedo, to go to the New Year’s Eve ball without her. Then she’d been struck by a thought so sudden and overwhelming that it had made her stand still.
Her husband, for all his wealth and power, was completely alone.
Josie couldn’t imagin
e having no family, except a brother who was an enemy. She knew that Bree, for all her overbearing ways, still loved her fiercely. The two sisters had each other’s backs—always. But who had Kasimir’s back?
No one.
Who loved him on this wide, lonely earth?
Nobody.
Realizing this, Josie’s wounded heart had abruptly stopped aching. The tears had disappeared. He had no one who believed in him—no one he could trust. No wonder he’d devoted his life to the success of a business that had never been his childhood dream, to earning money he didn’t really need, and most of all—to destroying his only family. His brother.
No wonder his moral compass was so askew. No wonder, when they’d spent the night together in bed and she’d given him her heart, as well as her body, he hadn’t known how to react.
But he’d never been loved as she could love him.
Kasimir expected her to stop caring about him the instant he did something cold or rude. Well, he didn’t know the type of woman he was dealing with. Josie had been ignored and dismissed her whole life. She’d never once let that stop her from believing the best of people and giving them everything she could.
She knew Kasimir had darkness inside him. She accepted that it was part of him. But as long as he was honest with her, honorable and true, she didn’t care. Everyone had flaws. She did. It wouldn’t stop her from loving him, the only way she knew how to love someone.
All the way.
Josie loved him. Come what may.
At that simple decision, peace had come over her. The bodyguards, who’d been arguing over who would be stuck watching the crying woman instead of the two-hundred-inch projector screen in the basement, had been astonished when she’d suddenly stopped pacing and told them in clumsy Russian to go watch the game. She’d gone alone to the kitchen. She’d made herself some Russian tea. After speaking briefly to her sister, who sounded very shocked indeed that Josie had married Kasimir, she’d brushed her teeth, put on her nightgown and gone to bed. Rehearsing what she would tell him, she’d waited for her husband to come home.
She’d fallen asleep, but it didn’t matter. She hadn’t used a word of her little rehearsed speech anyway. She’d just taken one look at the gray bleak shadows on Kasimir’s face, at the tight set of his shoulders, and spoken the truth from her heart.
Now, pulling back from his sudden hungry kiss, Josie looked at him. His eyes seemed haunted, tortured, dark as a midnight sea. But he cared for her. She could see it. Feel it. Reaching up, she cupped his cheek. He put his rough hand over hers, then pressed his lips to her palm in a lingering kiss so passionate that her soul thrilled inside her body.
And looking at him, she felt no more trembling fear. She felt only the absolute knowledge, down to her bones, that her love for him was meant to be.
This time, Kasimir was the one who was shaking, as if he felt her words of love like a physical blow. She tried to imagine what his life had been like for the last ten years, unloved and alone—never knowing what it was to be protected and sheltered by another human soul.
Starting today, and for the rest of his life, he would know. She would shelter him. Protect him.
Beside the bed, she pulled the black overcoat off his unresisting body. She removed his tuxedo jacket and dropped it to the floor. Pushing him to sit on the bed, she knelt and unlaced his black Italian leather shoes, then she reached up for his black tie.
He grabbed her wrist. “What are you doing?”
She exhaled, then leaned up, smiling through her tears.
“Let me show you,” she whispered.
His eyes widened. His hand numbly released her.
Pulling off his tie, Josie undid the top button of his white tuxedo shirt, then the waistband of his black trousers. She removed all his clothes, one by one, then pushed him back against the bed. Looking down at him, she yanked her long nightgown up over her head. She kicked off her panties. For a split second, she shivered in the cool winter air as they stared at each other, both naked in the flickering firelight, against the misty gray dawn. Then she pulled the goose-down comforter over them.
Beneath the blanket was their own world. She wrapped her arms around his hard, shivering body, trying to warm them both. She kissed his forehead. Then his cheek. Then…
Suddenly, staying warm was not a problem. She felt hot, burning hot, with his naked skin against her own. She kissed him, clutching him to her, and a growl came from the back of his throat.
Putting his hands on both sides of her face, Kasimir kissed her back fiercely, possessively, almost violently. Rolling her body beneath him, he kissed slowly down her neck, running his hands over her naked skin as if it were silk. As if he wanted to explore every inch of her.
Insane, intoxicating need overwhelmed her. If he couldn’t say the three words that she yearned to hear, she needed to feel his love for her.
“Take me,” she whispered. “Now.”
He sucked in his breath, searching her eyes. Then, gripping her hips, he pulled back, then thrust inside her, filling her so deeply, all the way to the heart.
She gasped, gripping his shoulders. He wrapped his arms around her, pressing his hard body against her own, and she felt the heat of his breath against her skin as he rode her slow and hard and deep. She cried out, clutching him to her. Drawing back, he looked straight into her eyes, holding her gaze as he plunged one last time, deep, so deep, that she shuddered all around him, as he shuddered inside her.
Afterward, tears ran down Josie’s cheeks as she felt his strong arms around her, keeping cold winter away. She loved him so. And when Kasimir reached for her again a brief time later, to show her his love again and again, she knew that fairy tales were true. They had to be. Because even if he couldn’t speak the words, he loved her. His body proved it.
They were in love. Weren’t they? That meant everything would be all right. Didn’t it? So they’d be together forever.
Wouldn’t they?
* * *
Two and a half days later, in the rustic, dark-walled study of the country house, Kasimir dialed Bree Dalton’s number with shaking hands. When she did not answer, he gritted his teeth and called a number he hadn’t called for ten years. A number he knew by heart.
Kasimir had waited till the last possible moment to call. For three days now, he’d racked his brain to think of a way to keep both Josie and his revenge. But Bree expected her sister in exchange for the signed contract. There was no solution. Only a choice.
But such a choice. Kasimir had already sent his bodyguards with the luggage to the nearby private airport, where his jet was ready to take them to Marrakech. But then, five minutes ago, outside in the snow with Josie, watching her sparkling eyes as she made a snowman, he suddenly knew the answer.
He wanted Josie more than anything else. So the solution was screamingly obvious.
He would give up his revenge.
He would take Josie to some place where her sister and Vladimir would never find her.
He took a deep breath as Vladimir answered his phone.
“It’s me,” he ground out.
“Kasimir,” his brother replied in a low voice. “About time.”
Vladimir didn’t sound surprised to hear from him. Strange. And stranger still that after ten years of silence, it seemed as if no time had passed between them. He sounded exactly the same.
“You might as well know, I tried to blackmail Bree,” he said abruptly, “into signing your company over to me.”
“She already told me,” Vladimir replied. “Your plan to turn us against each other didn’t work.”
Kasimir stopped. “You already know? So what do you intend to do?”
“I am willing to make the trade.”
He sucked in his breath. “You’re willing to give up your billion-dollar company? For the sake of a woman who once lied to you?” His jaw hardened. Vladimir must really love Bree. “Too bad. I’ve changed my mind. I no longer have any intention of divorcing Josie, for any price
. You can keep your stupid company. In fact…there’s no reason for us ever to talk. Ever again.”
“Kasimir, don’t be a fool,” his brother said tersely. “You can still—”
Kasimir turned his head as he heard Josie coming in from the snowy garden. He hung up, dropping his phone into his pocket.
“Why did you run off like that?” She was laughing, wearing a white hooded coat, halfcovered with snow. “We’re not even done. The poor snowman only has one eye.” Puppy-like, she tried to shake the snowflakes off her coat. Her eyes sparkled like a million bright winter days, and the sound of her laughter was like music. “Ah,” she sighed. “I’ve missed winter!”
He’d never seen anything, or anyone, so beautiful. As he looked at her, his heart twisted with infinite longing.
And he realized: he loved her.
His eyes narrowed, and he knew he wouldn’t let anyone take Josie away from him. He’d keep her. At any cost.
“I have something to tell you,” he said softly. He pulled off her white hooded coat, covered with snow, off her shoulders and dropped it to the floor. “It’s important.”
Josie gave him a teasing, slow-rising smile. “Hmm. Knowing you…” She tilted her head, pretending to consider, then lifted an eyebrow. “Does that something involve a bed?”
“Ah. You know me well,” he answered with a wicked grin. “But no.” Growing more serious, he gently used the pads of his thumbs to wipe away the snowflakes from her creamy skin, and those tangled in her eyelashes. Looking down into her eyes, he saw eternity in those caramel-and-honey-colored depths. And he whispered the words in his heart. “I love you, Josie.”
Her lips parted in shock. Tears filled her eyes as a sob escaped her. “You love me?”
He cupped her cheek. “Will you stay with me and be my wife?” He gave her a crooked, cocky smile, even as his hands trembled. “Not just now, but forever?”
“Forever,” she breathed. A single tear streamed down her cheek. “Yes,” she choked out. She threw her arms around him. “Oh, yes!”
He pulled back from her embrace to look down at her. “But there’s just one thing.” He looked down at her. “If you stay with me as my wife—you must never see Bree again.”