by Jennie Lucas
Staring at him for a moment, she shook her head with a sigh. “All right.” Her tone was resigned. “Since it seems I have no choice.”
Vladimir had truly expected this to be a quick stop en route to dinner at the best restaurant in the city. He’d assumed Bree would quickly select one of the most expensive necklaces in the store: the looped rope of diamonds, the diadem of sapphires, the emerald choker that cost the equivalent of nine hundred thousand dollars. But an hour later, she still hadn’t found a necklace she wanted.
“Six million rubles?” she said now, staring down incredulously at the ropes of diamonds patiently displayed by the portly jeweler. “How much is that in dollars?”
He told her, and her jaw dropped. Then she burst into laughter. “What a waste!” She glanced at Vladimir. “I won’t let you spend your money that way. Might as well set it on fire.”
He didn’t have nearly the same patience as the jeweler. “Money isn’t a problem,” he said tightly. “I have more than I could spend in a lifetime.”
“Lucky you.”
“I mean it. After you make a certain amount, money is just a way to keep score.”
“You could always donate the money to a charity, you know. If you hate it so much,” she said tartly.
He gave a low laugh. “I didn’t say I hate it. If nothing else, it gives me the opportunity to drape you in diamonds.”
“Against my will.”
“I know you will love them. All women do.”
“All women?”
That hadn’t come out right. “It’s a gift, Bree. From me to you.”
“It’s a chain.” She reached out a hand and touched the glittering diamond rope resting on the glass case, then said bitterly, “Diamond shackles for an honored slave.” She looked up at the jeweler. “No offense.”
“None taken, my lady.”
She looked at Vladimir. “Thanks for wanting to buy me a gift. But I don’t need a chain to remind me of my position.”
Vladimir felt irritated. He’d wanted to buy something that would please her, to distract her from the one thing he would not give: her freedom. “I am trying to make you happy.”
“I can’t be bought!”
“You already were,” he said coldly.
Bree gave an intake of breath, and her eyes dropped. “Fine. Buy it for me, then. Because you’re right. You can do whatever you want.”
Her voice dripped with icy, repressed fury.
This was turning into a disaster. Vladimir’s intention in bringing her here had been to make her cry out in delight, clapping her hands as she threw her arms around him in joy. But it seemed no cries of joy would be forthcoming.
He forced his clenched hands to relax. “I think we’re done.” Turning away from the jewelry case empty-handed, leaving the disappointed jeweler behind them, Vladimir put his hand on her back. It was an olive branch, an attempt to salvage the evening. “Fine. No diamonds. But you will enjoy dinner.”
“Yes,” she said. “Since you are telling me to enjoy it, I must.”
They were very late for their reservation. But when they finally arrived at the restaurant, adjacent to an exclusive hotel on the Nevsky Prospekt, he had the satisfaction of seeing Bree’s mouth fall open.
Art-nouveau-style stained glass gleamed in a wall of windows. Shadowy balconies and discreet curtained booths overlooked the center parquet floor, filled with tables covered with crisp white linen. White lights edged the second-floor balustrade, and tapering candles graced the tables with flickering light as uniformed waiters glided among the planted palm trees, serving rich, powerful guests.
The maître d’ immediately recognized Vladimir. “Your Highness!” Clapping his hands, he bowed with a flourish and escorted them to the best table.
“Everyone is looking at us,” Bree muttered as they walked across the gleaming parquet.
Relieved she was finally talking to him again, Vladimir reached over to take her hand in his. “They’re looking at you.”
As they were seated, Bree’s cheeks were pink, her eyes glowing in the flickering light of the candles and warmth of the high-ceilinged restaurant. Soaring above them on the ceiling were nineteenth-century frescoes, country scenes of the aristocracy at play.
When the waiter came, Vladimir ordered a short glass of vodka, then turned to Bree. “What would you like to drink?”
She tilted her head. “The same.”
“It’s vodka.”
“I’m not scared.”
“Are you sure?” He lifted a dark eyebrow. “You don’t strike me as much of a drinker.”
She shrugged. “I can handle myself.”
Her bravado was provocative. He looked at her beautiful, impassive face, at the way her dark eyelashes brushed her pale skin, at the way her stubborn chin lifted from her long, graceful neck. He wondered what she would say if she knew what he was thinking.
“Your Highness?” the waiter said in Russian.
Vladimir turned back to him and gave the order. After the man left, Bree said abruptly, “Where did you learn Russian? It wasn’t at school.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t,” she admitted. “But I know you and your brother grew up on the same land that now belongs to Josie—or will, in three years.” She tilted her head. “It’s funny we never met. Both of us growing up in the same state.”
“That land was in our family for four generations. A thousand miles from anything. You know.” He drummed his fingertips on the table, looking for the waiter with the vodka. “So we kept to ourselves. My father spoke Russian with us. He was proud of our history. He homeschooled us. In the long winters, we read Pushkin, Tolstoy.” Vladimir’s lips twisted. “It was my mother who made sure our home had food and wood. The land is our legacy. In our blood.”
“Why did your mother sell it to my father?”
His body tightened. “I was desperate for money to start our business. Kasimir absolutely refused to sell. He’d made some deathbed promise to our father. But I knew this was the only way.”
“You had nothing else to sell? You couldn’t take a loan?”
“Mining equipment is expensive. There is no guarantee of success. Banks offered to loan us a pitiful amount—not nearly enough to have the outfit I wanted. We’d already sold the last item of value our family possessed—a necklace that belonged to my great-grandmother—to help fund college in St. Petersburg. Spasiba,” he said to the waiter, who’d just placed their drinks on the table. Reaching for his vodka, he continued, “So I talked to my mother. Alone. And convinced her to sell.”
“Behind your brother’s back?” Bree’s eyes widened. “No wonder he hates you.”
Knocking back his head, Vladimir took a deep drink and felt the welcoming burn down his throat. “I knew what I was doing.”
“Really.” Bree’s cheeks were pink, but her troubled gaze danced in the flickering candlelight. “Do you know what you’re doing now?”
“Now?” He set his glass back on the table with a clunk. “I am trying to make you happy.”
Her eyes were impassive. “Without letting me go.”
Reaching across the table, he took her hand in his larger one. “I have no intention of letting you go. Ever.”
“Why?” She swallowed, then glanced right and left at all the well-dressed people around them. “You could have any woman you want. Even the gorgeous secretaries at your office...”
“But I want only the best.” His hand tightened over hers. “And the best is you.”
She stared at him, then shook her head. “I can see how you twist women’s hearts around your little finger.”
“There’s only one woman I want.” He looked at her beautiful, stricken face over the flickering candle. “I’ve never forgotten you, Breanna. Or stopped wantin
g you.”
He felt her hand tremble before she wrenched it from his grasp. She reached wildly for her untouched glass of vodka and, tilting back her head, drank the whole thing down in a single gulp.
That gulp ended with a coughing fit. Reaching around her, he patted her on the back. Her face was red when she finally managed a deep breath, wheezing as she quipped, “See? I know how to handle vodka. No problem.”
Somewhat relieved by her deliberate change of subject, Vladimir laughed, his eyes lingering on her beautiful face. He’d said too much. And yet it was oddly exhilarating. The adrenaline rush of emotional honesty put skydiving to shame, he thought. About time he tried it.
The waiter returned to take their order, and Vladimir requested a dinner that included Astrakhan beluga caviar and oysters, vodka-marinated salmon and black risotto, steak in a cream sauce and a selection of salads, breads and cheeses. Bree shook her head in disbelief when the exotic food started arriving at the table, but ninety minutes later, as she gracefully dropped the linen napkin across her mostly empty plate, she was sighing with satisfied pleasure.
“You,” she proclaimed, “are a genius.”
He gave her a crooked grin, ridiculously pleased by her praise. “I’ve come here a few times, so I knew what to order.”
“That was perfect.” She rose to her feet. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“Of course.” Vladimir watched her disappear down the hall toward the ladies’ room, and realized he was sitting alone at the best table in the most famous restaurant in St. Petersburg, grinning to himself like a fool. Feeling sheepish, he looked around him.
His gaze fell on a face he recognized, of a man sitting alone in a booth on the other side of the restaurant. This particular man in this particular place was so unexpected that it took him thirty seconds to even place him, though they’d spent many hours across the same poker table over the past two months. The Hale Ka’nani hotel manager, Greg Hudson. What was he doing in St. Petersburg?
Perhaps the man was on vacation. In Russia. In winter. Telling himself he didn’t care, Vladimir turned his chair away, so the man was out of his sight.
Today was the best day Vladimir had had in a long time. Even though leaving subordinates to handle the merger so he could spend time with his mistress was reckless, irresponsible, foolish. Even though he’d likely lose a fortune retaining all the employees of Arctic Oil. Even so.
Instead of feeling guilty, he kept smiling to himself as he recalled how Bree’s eyes sparkled when she was angry at him. The way her body had felt, pressed against his in the mirrored dressing room of the boutique. She was fire and ice. She was life itself.
“Hawaii has changed you completely.” His doctor had been shocked by the test results that morning, when Vladimir stopped on the way to the office. “You’ve recuperated from your injury better than I ever dreamed. Even your blood pressure is improved. What have you been doing? Yoga? Eating bean sprouts? Whatever it is, clean living is making you healthy. Keep it up!”
With a laugh, Vladimir glanced down at his empty vodka glass and half-eaten plate of beef rib eye drenched in sauce. Clean living? No. Good living. It wasn’t yoga and bean sprouts. It was laughter, good company and lots of sex.
It was Breanna.
Vladimir shifted impatiently in his chair, craning his head to look past the waiters and candlelit tables toward the wood-paneled hallway. His lips rose in unconscious pleasure when he saw Bree coming back down the hall.
Then a dark figure came out of the shadows to accost her. Seeing Greg Hudson, Vladimir rose to his feet. Bree looked surprised, then angry, as the man spoke to her. Vladimir clenched his jaw as he strode rapidly toward them. Hudson’s eyes went wide when he saw him coming. Turning, he ran out of the restaurant.
“What did he say to you?” Vladimir demanded.
Bree turned with a carefully blank look on her face. Her poker face, he thought, but he could see her lips trembling. Her gaze dropped. “Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“He...” She licked her lips. “He told me he’s in St. Petersburg to collect a debt, and happened to see me.” Her eyes carefully remained on the gleaming parquet floor. “He said he’s going to be very rich in a few days, and he would pay a lot of money to be my next lover. He wondered if there was some kind of waiting list.”
Anger made Vladimir’s vision red. He started to turn, his hands clenched. “I will kill him.”
“No. Please,” Bree whispered. She put her hand on his arm. “Just take me home.”
People in the restaurant were staring at them, whispering behind their hands. “But we already ordered dessert,” he said tightly. “Chocolate cake. Your favorite.”
“I just want to go.” Her cheeks were red. “And forget this day ever happened.”
Forget this day ever happened? The wonderful day he’d spent with her—the hours he’d spent watching her laugh, telling her the truth, buying her things, trying so hard to please her—as he’d never tried to please any woman? “I don’t want to forget.”
She looked away. “I do.”
Shoulders stiff, Vladimir went across the restaurant and tossed thirty thousand rubles on their table. Getting her leather coat, he wrapped it around her shivering shoulders and led her out into the cold, dark night. As his chauffeur drove their limousine home, Vladimir looked out at the snowy streets of St. Petersburg. It had been the best day of his life, but it had ended with Bree in tears.
He wanted to blame the fat little hotel manager. But he knew there was one person at fault for the way she’d been so crudely insulted as a woman who could be bought and sold at any man’s will.
Vladimir himself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE next night, Bree paused as she got ready for the New Year’s Eve ball. She looked wanly out the tall curved window of their bedroom.
The wintry Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea looked nothing like Hawaii’s warm turquoise waters. It was even worse than Alaska’s frigid sea. Even in the weak, short hours of daylight, the Russian waves were choppy and gray. But the sun had set long ago, and the world was dark. The black, icy water here could suck the life out of you within seconds if you were dumb enough to fall into it.
Kind of like falling in love with a man who would neither love you back nor set you free.
Bree closed her eyes. Yesterday, the workaholic tyrant had been neither workaholic nor a tyrant, playing hooky from work to entertain her. Letting people keep their jobs in his merger. Tipping that saleswoman at the boutique. Getting rid of the men who’d threatened Bree and her little sister. And more.
I’ve never forgotten you, Breanna. She would never forget the stark vulnerability in his blue eyes. Or stopped wanting you.
Bree trembled with emotion, remembering. Thank heaven she’d been able to cover her reaction by gulping that nasty-tasting vodka. She should probably be grateful for Greg Hudson, too. His words had brought her back to reality with a snap.
Bleakly, she opened her eyes. She was alone in their bedroom, with one leg propped up on the bed, pulling on sheer black stockings as she got ready for the New Year’s Eve ball. Her beautiful haute-couture princess gown was on the bed, waiting to go over her new black lace bra, panties and garter belt. Vladimir had bought out every expensive store in the city. “I am trying to make you happy,” he’d said. But she couldn’t be bought that way. Only two things could make her happy, and they were the very things he would not or could not give her. Freedom. Love.
I am selfish to the bone. I will never put someone else’s interests ahead of my own.
She couldn’t let herself fall for him. She’d loved him once, and it had nearly killed her. She’d lost everything.
Never again. Unless they were equals, loving him was only a different kind of bondage. Especially since, in the eyes of the world, Bree was nothin
g more than his whore.
Hadn’t meeting with her ex-boss proved that?
“Well, well, what a pleasant surprise,” Greg Hudson had drawled, stepping into her path in the hallway last night. “If it isn’t the poker-playing maid herself.”
She’d been shocked to see her former boss’s beady eyes and sweaty face. Instead of a tropical shirt, he was dressed in the required jacket and tie, probably borrowed from the restaurant, since they didn’t fit his lumpy body.
“Mr. H-Hudson,” she’d stammered. “What are you doing in St. Petersburg?”
“Call me Greg.” He came closer, crowding her space in the darkened hallway. “I’m here to collect a big debt. Thought I’d celebrate at the best restaurant in town.”
“You left the Hale Ka’nani?”
His expression darkened. “I got fired. The hotel’s owner found out I took a bribe.” He tilted his head, his eyes sly. “Didn’t you ever wonder why I hired you and that sister of yours?”
Bree sucked in her breath as all her old worries came back. “Someone bribed you to hire us? Who?”
Leaning forward, he wheezed, “Even he didn’t think I’d be as successful as I was. In a few days, I’ll be paid, and given a huge bonus. I’ll be rich enough to pay you directly, for services rendered. I want to be on your waiting list. Name your price.” He’d stroked her upper arm, and she’d caught the scent of whiskey, heavy and sour, on his breath before he saw Vladimir and turned away. “Come to me when Xendzov is done with you.”
Bree’s face burned as she remembered the humiliation of that moment. She’d been completely unprepared for it. And even more unprepared for the suspicion that had slithered into her soul ever since.
Who would have paid Greg Hudson to hire the Dalton sisters at the Honolulu resort?
All night Bree had stared up at the bedroom ceiling in the dark gray light, going through countless scenarios in her mind. It could have been one of her father’s old enemies. Or...it could have been Vladimir himself. To make her his prisoner forever, to enjoy at his will.
I’ve never forgotten you, Breanna. Or stopped wanting you.