by Cait London
“I was just telling Mrs. Hightower how the reception can be held near the pool, if she likes—”
Mikhail frowned at Ellie. He had given her strict orders that there would be no wedding cake in the Amoteh’s pool water, no broken champagne glasses on the tile floors.
Over the head of the sobbing woman who was actually holding him tightly, Mikhail’s gaze slowly went down Ellie’s body.
Ellie hurried to explain her unusual combination of clothes. “Mrs. Hightower understands that I was working with swimsuits when she arrived—trying to understand the sizing. She said she doesn’t mind that I’m dressed like this.”
Those sea-green eyes darkened, taking in the gray suit jacket over her midnight blue maillot bathing suit and the triangular pareo tied at her hips, the fringes brushing her legs. He stared at her feet in the flip-flops and then slowly repeated his journey upward to her lips. The sensual heat inside Ellie rose immediately; she could almost feel him holding her, within her—linked…. More than their bodies had touched, and that brief moment had terrified her.
For a brief moment, Ellie knew that he wanted to pick her up and carry her away. The gesture would be primitive, possessive and pure Mikhail. The impact of his raw sensuality took away her breath and warmed her body, quivering along her skin as though his lips were skimming—
Not that she was a passive partner in his arms. Mikhail called forth a certain savagery within her, the need to claim him….
Locked in Mikhail’s dark sensual stare, her blood heated, pounded through her. She ached for the touch of his hands, for his lips, for his breath curling over her skin.
But more than that, she ached for the sense that with him, she was finally home.
She struggled back to the business matter at hand. “Of course, the reception will close the pool to guests at that time of year, so there will be an extra charge.”
Mrs. Hightower nuzzled Mikhail’s chest and he saw that he was at Ellie’s mercy. She had picked the perfect time for blackmail. “I see no problem with that,” he said as lightly as his frustration would allow.
Ellie beamed and reached for Mrs. Hightower, easing her away. The woman was still reaching for Mikhail as Ellie stood in front of him. She wrapped her arm around Mrs. Hightower’s shoulders and guided her away from Mikhail. “Let me show you the rooms, Mrs. Hightower. I’m certain the wedding party will be well pleased. We’re having several weddings this summer and each one will be very special. Amoteh has a lovely little white church, or you might want to use our facilities for the wedding. Our ballroom is equipped to hold a really big crowd, but we do have manicured gardens and an outside ceremony would be lovely.”
Relieved that the woman was moving away from him, Mikhail slapped the file he had been holding against his thigh. Ellie’s flurry of proposals included those tennis and golf pros that he had already refused.
But then, thinking was difficult when Ellie’s shapely backside was swaying elegantly, the fringe a seduction. He could almost feel those slender feet smoothing his calves as her legs cradled his body, moving against him. He could almost hear those soft little cries, taste her—
Mikhail realized that Jarek was standing beside him. “So is everything working out with Ellie?” Jarek asked lightly.
“Mmm. She’s sweet really. Very skilled at handling difficult situations. Smart…smells like wildflowers, soft—she’s got the cutest little girl smile when she’s trying to get her way….” Mikhail turned to see Jarek’s wide grin. Mikhail had done his share of teasing Jarek as he pursued Leigh and now it was his brother’s turn to repay the favor. “Lay off.”
“Did she tell you about her plans to start marketing Stepanov lemon oil polish? Mom and Ellie were working on the promotion earlier. Get ready for a furniture oil sampler to be added to the Amoteh’s bath and body products.”
Mikhail groaned and left in the wake of his brother’s roaring laughter.
“A stone path would be more picturesque for weddings than the heavy timber walkway in the garden. And a koi pond is a must. You could use the coins thrown in it for wishes for a charity.” Ellie braced herself against the wind sweeping over the golf course as she argued with Mikhail three days later.
The wind riffled through his hair as he scowled down at her. “More pool cleaning bills.”
“Super-size goldfish and good fortune, Mikhail. No outdoor wedding is complete without a stone walkway, a rose garden, a trellis for portraits and a goldfish pond.”
Locked in his budget and manager mode, Mikhail was never more tempting, a real challenge to get to the passionate man beneath, Ellie thought. Because she had to tease him, she batted her lashes and cooed, “You know I’m right, Mikie.”
Mikhail’s snort said he differed, but there was that dark gleam in his eyes that said he enjoyed the slight flirtation. “You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”
She felt strong and good and fiercely clean. “Immensely.”
“Good.”
The sunlight tangled between them as Mikhail reached to smooth the windblown strand from her cheek. “That’s good,” he repeated quietly, gently. “You’re good at what you do—smoothing potential wrinkles, working with difficult wedding planners, organizing social dinners and events. That’s what you did, wasn’t it? Moved in to soothe whatever friction Paul created with his bullying? You picked up, delivered and eased any tension in his business and his private relationships. You were the linchpin in your family, moving between Paul and Hillary. Always Hillary. This must be terribly difficult for you, fighting a sister you raised and one that you still love.”
Ellie swallowed tightly as a myriad of bitter memories swept through the pine-scented wind. “Paul paid me well. I arranged his parties, chauffeured and entertained his business associates, and he paid me. You know him, Mikhail. It was business, not that I was his beloved daughter.”
“You could have left at any time, but you didn’t—because you loved Hillary.”
“She was ten years younger. Her mother left immediately after her birth. Of course I loved her.”
“Of course,” Mikhail agreed softly. “I have friends in Paul’s business circle, and I made a few calls to see why someone as good as you would have ruined a business deal that was almost cinched. You’re far too good to let go of prime information at a cocktail party that could possibly botch a big real estate deal. Hillary was tipsy at the party and angry with Paul. She deliberately found the potential seller and told him that after the property was purchased, Paul was going to sell off what he didn’t need at a multi-million-dollar profit. You covered for her, didn’t you? In that time and in others, so that Paul wouldn’t disinherit her. You knew he needed you to cover for him, glossing over his roughshod techniques, so you stepped in to protect Hillary. But when Tanya came, you knew that you had to act.”
Ellie fought tears, tangled by the painful past. “I’d rather not replay this whole mess, Mikhail.”
He took her hand to his face, pressing it there with his own calloused one. “Know that I care. Know that I am here.”
Mikhail stood in the Stepanov showroom, watching the women in the parking lot below. He cuddled the infant in his arms and kissed Katerina’s curls. “If your father wasn’t in the kitchen, wooing Georgia into making a surprise dinner for your mother, I’d be down there with Ellie.”
But as a very private man who locked his past away, he knew that Ellie might not want him at her side. Mikhail rocked Katerina against him, and admired the woman he loved. “Of course I love her. Of course, Katerina. But we are in a storm, and she fears for her child. Now is not the right time.”
While Paul hadn’t made his move, Hillary had arrived in a bright red SUV with a heavily muscled woman in a sweat suit.
Clearly arguing, Hillary’s expression was hard and fierce, while Ellie’s pale face was rigid, her hair flying around her. The diamonds on Hillary’s hand flashed in the sunlight as she slapped Ellie’s face, and the muscular woman moved in to hold Ellie’s arms.
Mikhail
was on the move immediately, easing Katerina into Jarek’s arms as he passed. Jarek skillfully placed the infant into the soft carrying sack in front of him, tucking her blankets around her. He held her close, protectively, a father comfortable with nurturing his child.
“Call the folks,” Mikhail said. “Tell them to keep Tanya inside and I would appreciate you being there, too.”
“Done,” Jarek said firmly, and checked Katerina’s blankets before leaving the resort.
Outside, Mikhail moved quickly toward the scene where Hillary was screeching, “Where is she? You tell me right now, Ellie. I’m taking her.”
The sisters were alike in appearance, but Hillary’s harsh lifestyle showed in the bitterness of her mouth, in the glitter of her heavily mascaraed eyes. The smell of alcohol bit into the fresh salt air as she turned toward Mikhail, who was quickly walking toward them. “You. Daddy will take care of you. He’s making plans, so you’d better give me my daughter right now.”
Mikhail fought the fury inside him and stared at the woman holding Ellie. She frowned and slowly released Ellie. “We came for the girl,” she said.
He placed his arm around Ellie and she shrugged him away, her eyes lashing at him. “I can handle this.”
There was blood on her cheek, a tiny slash from Hillary’s ring as she turned back to her sister. “I’m working here, Hillary. I needed a job and I have one. Tanya is well and happy. That’s all there is to it.”
“I always knew you two had a thing for each other. I never understood it, but I knew that it was there by the way you kept digging at him. Now you’re using him and he’s going to lose his precious resort. Daddy said so. Or maybe he’s using you. Maybe he’s just the same as dear old Dad and needs you to make him look good. That’s what Daddy thought—that you made him look good…because you were classy and I wasn’t. He wasn’t proud of me. He didn’t want me around until now that I’ve got a chance to bring in a man with money and power…. And Tanya is going to cinch the deal for us…. I need a drink. Come on, Freddie—”
Mikhail blocked Hillary’s path toward the Amoteh. “No.”
She pointed to the sprawling resort. “Dad owns that, you know. I get free Mignon International accommodations wherever I go, and free drinks.”
“Not here, you don’t. Consider the Amoteh and grounds off-limits.” Mikhail caught the open hand Hillary sailed at him. “You may leave now.”
“You’ll be sorry…both of you,” Hillary shot at Ellie as she climbed into the SUV. She slammed the door and roared out of the parking lot, headed for Amoteh.
“There you have it,” Ellie said quietly. “Family loving time, Lathrop style. I’ve got to see about Tanya.”
“She’s at my parents and Jarek knows that Hillary is around. She’s safe, Ellie.”
She was shaking and pale, as she watched the SUV drive toward a local tavern and pull into the Seagull’s Perch parking lot. “It’s good she’s got someone with her. She needs someone to take care of her. When Hillary hurts or she’s mad, she drinks.”
Love and the frustration wrapped in her quiet words. Mikhail caught her chin and turned her cheek for his inspection. “You’re bleeding.”
“Leave me alone,” Ellie ordered bitterly as her hand pushed his away. “Don’t touch me.”
Mikhail stilled, feeling as though a sheet of ice had slid between them. Locked in the past moments, Ellie did not turn to him, did not let him comfort her. She stood shaking and in pain and she didn’t want him to touch her, this woman he adored, whose smile filled him with pleasure, whose tears made him ache.
Her eyes held him, soft and damp with pain she could not release, her lips trembling and vulnerable. The past held her, cold and bitter, and he was helpless against it.
“I have to go to my daughter,” she whispered desperately as she began moving toward the wooded path leading to the Stepanovs. “I have to know that she is safe.”
Mikhail stood in the cold wind, watching Ellie run over the path. In her pain, she had not turned to him….
Seven
That night, after Tanya was asleep, Mikhail knocked on the door to Ellie’s suite. When she opened it, he towered over her, his expression grim. His white dress shirt hung open, and his hair was rumpled as if he had been running his fingers through it.
“Let me see your face,” he ordered, framing her chin between his thumb and finger and tilting it to the light. A fierce hot wave of unspoken anger hit her as his eyes glittered, green as emeralds.
“I’m not hurt.” She stood rigid, unused to a caring touch.
“How many times have you been hurt and no one took care of you?” he demanded roughly as his thumb smoothed the small injury.
Memories of past pain flashed by Ellie as she closed her eyes to him. Her pride was slipping away, humbled by his attention. “I’m not a victim. I never have been. The only thing that matters in this is Tanya’s safety.”
“Of course,” he said more gently as he smoothed her cheek. She was beginning to understand that his big hands conveyed his emotions better than his words. When he cherished and enjoyed any of the craftsmen’s work, a flower, or a child, his fingertips traced and his eyes followed the flow. Now he had focused on her, his touch gentle, explorative.
“Mikhail?”
“What?” His deep voice was uneven and harsh and she knew what he needed, to hold her and to protect her. She sensed him waiting to be asked.
When her lips moved and the words she wanted didn’t come, Mikhail’s expression tightened, a shadow crossing the stark masculine planes. He nodded and closed the door between them.
After a sleepless night, endlessly replaying Hillary’s bitterness, the fear that Tanya would be taken, and haunted by the pain in Mikhail’s expression, as if he’d taken a slap, Ellie braced herself to face him.
At eight o’clock in the morning, Mikhail was unapproachable—cool, crisp and businesslike, a man of steel, and not the lover she had known. While going over schedules and plans in his office, Ellie attempted to break through that veneer. “I’m sorry that I involved you in this, Mikhail.”
His angular face was all shadows and planes, a muscle contracting in his jaw as he slashed a signature across papers. She ached to smooth the slight shaving cut on his cheek.
Was he regretting making love with her?
Those dark green eyes pinned her and Mikhail leaned back in his chair, studying her. He tossed his pen onto the papers. “Anything else?”
There was so much she wanted to say, but Mikhail’s expression wasn’t encouraging. Just below the cool surface, he was simmering with anger. “I…no, thank you.”
The muscle in his cheek contracted and his lips tightened. He picked up the pen and began studying the paperwork on his desk, clearly dismissing her. “Then we both have work to do, don’t we?”
As Ellie walked with Tanya on the beach later that day, her mind was on Hillary’s violence and Mikhail.
Mikhail’s head had gone back as if taking a slap when she’d said, “Don’t touch me.” She’d hurt him.
She was ashamed of what he had just seen, of Hillary, the little sister she had always tried to protect, drunk and abusive. It wasn’t easy for Ellie to blend her life with Mikhail’s, to understand that he needed to protect her. A sensitive, emotional man beneath his steel exterior, Mikhail as a person with needs and unexpected vulnerability was new to her.
On the beach, sandpipers scurried in a zigzag line and waves tipped by foam caressed the sand. Seaweed, dark green against the brown sand, shifted almost sensually with the kiss of the water.
Ellie inhaled the salt scent into her, listening to the gulls, and she should have felt a measure of peace—she didn’t. She felt as if Chief Kamakani’s curse still prowled the land he hated, and danger lurked nearby. Ellie briefly scanned the shore and the pier and higher on a boardwalk, near the piers lashed together with cable, a big man stood—Lars.
Poised against the blue sky, he seemed to be watching Tanya. Lars had already proven
to be a dangerous man, and only a few people were on the beach in the late afternoon. Ellie hurried Tanya up the rough wooden steps to Amoteh’s tourist street, where there were more people. Filled with artists’ seascapes and colorful bouquets of stat-ice and wind chimes made from seashells, the shops were still open and Tanya was delighted to enter the toy store.
Caught up in the little girl’s excitement over a miniature tea set, Ellie forgot about Lars and enjoyed the cluttered store. The owners, elderly sisters, chatted about weather and toys and Ellie purchased a small teddy bear for Tanya. The sisters were still chatting happily as Ellie left the store, Tanya holding her hand.
The cheerful sisters eased Ellie’s tension, and she forgot about Lars as she stopped to talk with Lisa Peterson, a maid at the Amoteh. She’d just bought material for her daughters’ Easter dresses, and missing her own sewing, Ellie admired the delicate rosebuds on the fabric.
One glance told her that Tanya was gone and fear electrified Ellie. Hillary wasn’t above kidnaping…. “Tanya!”
From two stores down the street, Tanya answered immediately. “Mommy!”
Hurrying toward the sound, Ellie’s heart froze as she saw Lars holding Tanya, a lollipop in the little girl’s hand. “Put her down,” Ellie ordered fiercely.
“He’s going to show me some puppies, Mommy, but I said I’d have to ask you first,” Tanya said as Lars seemed to debate releasing the child.
Every nerve in Ellie’s body prickled as Lars’s expression changed to defiance.
“Put her down now,” Ellie ordered again, surprised that she could sound so cool and firm when fear and temper were raging inside her.
Lars’s small eyes narrowed as he glanced around the street to find several people watching them. He lowered Tanya to the ground, none too gently. “You’re pretty small to be ordering a man around, but then I ain’t no Mikhail Stepanov either to let a woman run my life, Ms. Lathrop of the fancy, la-di-da money. You’re the same as any other woman, and don’t you forget it.”