by Nic Saint
She frowned darkly. “I’m not the foreigner around these parts, buddy. You are.”
He gestured to the window, inviting her onto the balcony. “Then be my guest and shout your anger from the rooftops, my dear. I’m sure you will find the view extremely arresting.”
She waltzed over to the window to look outside, his invitation adding to her frown. “I’ll show you,” she muttered under her breath, and when she stepped onto the balcony and stared out at the panorama that was afforded her, he could hear her sharp intake of breath, and the hissed admission, “What the fuck!”
A thin smile graced his lips as he joined her. Placing a hand on the small of her back, he gestured to the scene that unfolded before their eyes and enjoyed the look of surprise on her face. “Well? Aren’t you going to scream your indignation to the world? Call the American police to come save you from this brutish Russian thug?”
She pointed feebly at the skyline. “This isn’t LA, is it?”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”
“Then where the hell am I?”
“Why, Moscow, of course. Where else?”
Her legs buckled, and he had to hold out his arm to steady her. As he led her inside, he saw that she would need something stronger than the coffee he’d ordered. Something a lot stronger. Confused, she allowed him to sit her down on a beautifully upholstered chair in the salon, and when he poured her a finger of Scotch, shook his head at the task he’d set out to accomplish.
The more he got to know this woman, the less likely he thought she would do all that was required of her. She was headstrong, willful, annoying, rude and extremely foul-mouthed. How he had ever thought her the perfect candidate for the scheme he had in mind, he did not know. But then again, he had no other choice, and he would see to it that she was ready.
When the time came for her to play her part, she would do so willingly, or his name wasn’t Dimitri Loginovsky.
He brought her the drink, and she took it eagerly, then gulped half its contents down in one swallow. His lips tightened disapprovingly.
Apparently she was a lush, too. But of course.
As he studied her profile, he had to admit she certainly looked the part. Ignoring the disheveled hair, the runny makeup, and the rumpled outfit, she was a knock-out beauty. Her classic features revealed a long line of excellent breeding, and he knew she’d do well before the cameras. Her skin was flawless, her hair golden, her cornflower eyes large and appealing.
A movie star! They’d exclaim. The new Grace Kelly!
If she got with the program, of course. Still, he had to try, or else his brother had a completely different program in mind for her. One she wouldn’t like at all. And neither, for that matter, would he.
She was, without a doubt, the most gorgeous woman he’d ever bedded. Well, technically he hadn’t actually bedded her. Yet. Though from the way she behaved she seemed to think they’d actually done the deed already.
He decided to leave her in the illusion that they had slept together. He certainly wished they had, for she was delectable, pure and simple. But contrary to what she might think of him, he wasn’t the person to take advantage of a vulnerable young woman the way some would.
As his eyes trailed down the soft swell of her bosom to the alluring curvature of her hips, the rush of heat he felt at the sight of her intensified. He squelched it. Now was not the time to indulge. He had to focus and stay on target.
She’d finished her drink and gave an unladylike hiccup. With a disapproving frown, he picked up her empty glass and returned it to the bar. At this rate, he would need a drink himself soon.
“Listen, buddy!” she called out. “Hey! Vladimir!”
“Dimitri,” he corrected frostily.
“Yeah, whatever. How the hell did I get from Los Angeles to Moscow? Explain me that, will you? I don’t remember taking a plane.”
“You wouldn’t remember, for you were passed out.”
She frowned. “Oh.”
“Now if you could please get freshened up? We don’t have much time.”
Ignoring him, she shook her head, then held up a finger. “What the heck am I doing in Russia?”
He smiled. Now that was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? He walked up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “All will be explained to you, if only you will—”
She jerked herself away from his grip and rose to her feet. “Yeah, yeah. If I’ll take a shower.”
“And have some breakfast.” He gestured to the tray that stood on a small piecrust table near the window, a chair invitingly drawn back. “I’m sure you must be starving. You haven’t eaten since…” He checked his watch. “Going on thirty-six hours now.”
Abruptly, he turned away before she could bombard him with more questions and left her to her shower and her breakfast. Quickly opening the door and closing it behind him, he wondered if leaving her alone was a good idea.
In the state of mind she was in, she was liable to do damage both to herself and the room. But then the scheduled meeting with his brother couldn’t be postponed. Roman didn’t like to be kept waiting. And he’d want to know how much progress he’d made. He’d have to lie, of course. Ariel Cole wasn’t ready for the next stage in the proceedings. Far from it, in fact.
CHAPTER 3
The moment the brute left the suite, Ariel returned to the window, to see if her eyes hadn’t deceived her the first time. Stepping out onto the balcony, she discovered to her dismay and rising sense of panic that they had not. The scene that spread before her eyes was as unfamiliar as any. She saw high-rises that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Manhattan, contrasted with the red-brick architecture of the Kremlin with its spires and cupolaed domes shimmering in the morning sun.
She shook her head. This wasn’t really happening. Not to her, Ariel Cole from Tennessee, currently sharing a flat in Inglewood, Los Angeles. Her fingers gripped the balustrade until they stood out white against the wrought iron, and then her mind returned to the man who had brought her here.
Dimitri Loginovsky, he’d called himself. She stared down at the ring on her finger. It was ornate and ostentatious. Probably the most expensive piece of jewelry any man had ever given her. Frowning, she raised her hand to her face and studied the gem with renewed interest. Like Dimitri, she’d never laid eyes on it before. She was sure of it.
Returning indoors, she streaked over to the laptop he’d shown her, and once more studied the pictures of her recent union. It simply couldn’t be true. It was a lie—all of it. Anxiously searching for signs of heads photoshopped onto bodies, she found none. Whoever had doctored these, had done a magnificent job. The only other explanation was that they were real. But she refused to believe that.
She would never marry a man like Dimitri, even when absolutely hammered. She knew she couldn’t handle alcohol well, but even then she’d never been so plastered she’d blacked out. And she would certainly never sleep with the man. She’d once sworn a sacred oath to save herself until the right one came along, and not even alcohol could make her forget that pledge to herself.
As she sat back and stared at the pictures scrolling slowly before her eyes, she knew that whatever Dimitri had done to her had nothing to do with a drunken prank. People got drunk and married in Vegas all the time, but at least they had some recollection of the night’s events.
She didn’t remember a thing. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to think back to the last thing she did remember. Suzy’s party, she decided. Of course. Suzy’s birthday party. Every year on her birthday, Suzy invited all her best friends and organized a unique event. This year, they’d all donned Minnie Mouse ears and had decided to crash any celebrity party they could find, which wasn’t that hard if you lived in LA.
She vaguely remembered shaking Liam Hemsworth’s hand, and having a dance-off with Iggy Azalea before being asked to leave. They’d roamed the streets in search of other venues they could grace with their presence until finally they’d ended up
in some new underground club. She’d had too much to drink, and had asked Suzy to take her home, as she wasn’t feeling too well.
There had been a brief interlude, where they’d argued for a bit, Suzy and the others accusing her of being a party pooper, and finally she’d left the gang to find her way home on her own. That’s when she’d hailed a taxi, and had promptly dozed off in the back of the cab.
And then she’d woken up in Dimitri’s bed.
It didn’t make sense.
His story didn’t make sense at all.
Somehow, he must have drugged her and kidnapped her and brought her to Moscow. There simply wasn’t any other explanation.
She gazed at the ring on her finger once again, his so-called proof that they were now husband and wife, and sniffed disgustedly, then started removing it. Placing it on the computer keyboard, she decided that whatever else happened today, she wasn’t going to go along with his crazy scheme.
Sneaking over to the door again, she tried the handle. Locked. Of course.
Then she started looking around the suite for a second door. It was hard to believe there would be only one. She wandered the suite in vain, searching for a way out. Oddly enough, it seemed the front door was the only one.
Thinking hard, she then came up with the perfect solution. The moment Dimitri returned, she would rush him and knock him out, then she would make good her escape from this infernal place, and find a way to contact the American Embassy.
Stealing over to the door, she glanced around for some object she could use to incapacitate the bulky he-man who had become both her husband and her jailer. When her eyes fell on a small statue of Vladimir Putin, she gripped it firmly. She would teach this foul kidnapper a lesson. Perhaps Russian women enjoyed this kind of treatment, but not Ariel Cole.
Taking up position beside the door, she stood with the statuette heaved over her head, anxiously awaiting her captor’s return.
Five minutes passed, and still the infernal man hadn’t shown his face a no-show. Her arms heavy, she’d already lowered the statuette, letting it rest atop her head. Now she lowered it even more. Dang, the thing was heavy.
Only now did she acknowledge the wisdom of Dimitri’s words. She should have taken the opportunity to grab a bite to eat. She was starving. And the alcohol she’d imbibed on an empty stomach hadn’t done much for her either. She wasn’t used to drinking, Suzy’s birthday bash and the Walter, Walters & Peterson’s New Year’s party about the only occasions she knocked back a drink.
Her eyes wandering to the table where Dimitri had placed the food tray, she considered quickly darting over and stuffing something in her mouth before returning to the door.
She placed her ear to the door, and, hearing nothing, decided to go for it. Darting over, she snatched up a piece of toast, shoved it into her mouth, then grabbed a slice of cheese and hurried back. Munching down on the meager breakfast, she almost smiled at the situation she was in.
The moment she was back in the States, she would tell the story of her Russian adventure to her friends and colleagues. She was sure they wouldn’t believe her. She could hardly believe it herself!
Just then, she heard a sound outside. A rustle, as if someone was coming. Swallowing down her meager breakfast, she tensed her muscles, heaved the makeshift weapon high above her head, and eyed the door with the intense gaze of the matador getting ready to fight the bull the moment he comes charging into the arena.
The door swung open. She slammed down Putin. A cry sounded. Angry eyes bored into hers. And an old man with a fat head and a crumpled hat eyed her furiously.
Oops.
For only a second, she stood stunned, then her survival instincts kicked in and she shoved the old guy out of the way and hurled herself toward the open door, intent on making her escape.
And she would have made it, if not a large body had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and had stopped her in her stride, strong arms enveloping her and swooping her up from the floor and carrying her, kicking and screaming, back into the room.
When finally he’d thrown her onto the bed, she discovered it was Dimitri, and he looked royally pissed.
CHAPTER 4
“What is the meaning of this?” the short man demanded heatedly, and Dimitri had to admit he had a point. He stood clasping his hat in one hand, rubbing the other over the spot where Ariel had hit him.
Easily pinning her down on the bed, he questioned perhaps her methods, but not her intentions. She wanted to escape; of course she did, and beaning him was the first thing that came to mind.
“You’re quite the devious little minx, aren’t you?” he muttered as he wrestled the statuette of his president from her grip and hurled it across the room where it wouldn’t hurt a soul.
“And you are a foul brute!” she spat.
He tsk-tsked. “Is that the way to speak to your husband?”
“You’re not my husband!”
He raised an eyebrow at this. Then his eyes dropped to her hands, and when he noticed the absence of the ring he’d slipped on her finger, he smiled inwardly. Yes, quite devious indeed.
Abruptly, he let go of her hands, and when she balled them into fists and struck them against his chest, he didn’t even flinch. He called out to his guest to take a seat, then he grabbed Ariel by the arm, and half dragged, half walked her over to the bathroom.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing!”
Unceremoniously shoving her into the shower, he abruptly opened the tap, and when the icy water poured down on top of her head, ignored her startled cries and started roughly undressing her.
“I told you to take a shower and get ready to meet my parents,” he grunted as he tore her blouse from her body, then yanked down her skirt over her hips. When she was only dressed in bra and panties, he stood panting, just as wet as she was, and glared at her as she held her arms before her chest.
“I hate you!” she cried out.
He slammed the shower door shut, and yelled, “Welcome to marriage, honey bunch!”
Shaking his head, he grabbed a towel and stepped from the bathroom. He knew he shouldn’t have lost his temper. He had to humor her—seduce her. Not give her one more reason to hate him. But how do you seduce a woman you’ve just kidnapped? He probably should have given this assignment a little more thought. But then he’d never dealt with this type of situation before, and delicacy wasn’t exactly his forte, nor was seducing young American women.
God. This was hopeless, wasn’t it? He was so out of his depth it was ridiculous. But the alternative was even worse. If Roman had his way…
“I’m sorry, doc,” he told his indignant visitor. He gave the man a grimace. “She hasn’t adapted to married life the way I would have hoped.”
“You better get her under control, Dimitri,” spoke the doctor a little frostily. “I’ve always been a loyal servant of the family, but I’m not in the habit of being assaulted.”
“Of course not, Leonid. You’re quite right to be upset.”
“She could have killed me, you know.”
This, Dimitri doubted. Though the weapon she’d chosen was a sturdy one, she lacked follow-through. Still, he had to admire her pluck and resourcefulness.
“I think you will find that American women in general are very difficult,” the doctor opined, his face betraying his disdain.
Dimitri poured the man a thimbleful of vodka and handed it to him. The doc accepted the tumbler gratefully, his hand still holding onto his head, as if afraid it might drift away from his neck.
Looking up at him, he added for good measure, “You should have chosen a Russian bride, Dimi. Much more affable and eager to please. These American girls are too selfish and devoid of the spousal instinct to treat a man the way he should be treated. Like the Lord of the Manor. The ruler of the home. It’s this infernal feminism. It’s ruined the entire population. Take my word for it. You should get rid of this one and choose a nice Russian girl instead.”
Dimitri listened to the
diatribe without a word. It told him that Leonid hadn’t been apprised of the plan. And that the little spitfire he’d chosen as his bride was a lot more interesting than the women the medical man extolled the virtues of. She might not be as eager to please as a Russian bride, but she was one hell of an interesting woman. Full of fire and zest. And in any case, he didn’t have a choice in the matter. Good thing the doc didn’t know the whole story. The stuffy old weasel would be appalled.
The shower was finally turned off, and he had to fight an inclination to waltz in and check up on her. Ostensibly to see if she hadn’t tried to escape through the air duct, but in reality the sight of her barely-clad body had rekindled his initial attraction and stoked it to new heights.
His mind flew back to the club where he’d picked her up. As she stood gyrating on the dance floor, he’d wondered briefly if this goddess was really the woman he’d be taking home with him that night. She looked so innocent. So pure. He’d felt a pang of guilt. But he couldn’t back out now. The alternative was even worse. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her as she enchanted the dance floor and her golden hair lit up under the pulsing spotlights. Then the drugs he’d discretely deposited in her drink had taken their effect.
As planned, she’d insisted on returning home immediately, and when finally she’d left the club, the transport he’d arranged was waiting. From the moment she passed out in the car, the chain of events that had been set in motion two weeks before, had led to her eventual departure from the land of her home, the family’s private jet taking her on a night flight to Moscow.
When she finally emerged from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her head and another one around her body, he did a double take. She looked exactly like in the picture now. Fresh-faced and enticingly beautiful. No trace of the makeup that had made her seem older, or the darkness around her eyes from the drugs affecting her system.
As she walked up to him, a swing to her hips and a mocking expression on her pretty face, he briefly wondered what she was up to now. He could deal with anger and indignation. He didn’t know if he could deal with cheekiness.