* * *
Ilya observed his new wife with amusement. She was working hard to hold herself completely aloof, and yet the endearingly pretty flush of pink on her cheeks and her chest suggested she was just as attracted to him as he was to her. It would prove to be an interesting marriage, he decided. But would it be one that endured? His grandmother seemed to think so. He had yet to hear her reasons as to why, but Ilya knew that he and Yasmin at least had flying in common. The fact that they flew in direct competition with each other was another matter entirely.
Her gray eyes darted from one group of people to the next as they circulated through the room after the announcement of their arrival. He’d felt her entire body go rigid as they’d been introduced as Mr. and Mrs. Horvath.
“I’m not taking your name,” she whispered fiercely as they finally settled at the head table.
“I didn’t expect you to,” he said to defuse her irritation. But mischief prompted him to add, “Would you prefer I took yours?”
Surprise chased the exasperation from her face. “Seriously? You’d do that?”
“If it was important to you,” he answered sincerely. “I want this marriage to work, Yasmin. I don’t yet know your reasons for entering into it, or why we’ve specifically been matched together, but I’d like to think the experts got it right and that we can make an honest go of this. I want a future that includes a family with the kind of companion I can’t wait to see, whether it’s when I wake or just before we fall asleep at night.”
He hesitated. Was that too much, too soon? Judging by the startled expression on her face, perhaps it was. He’d surprised himself with that declaration, too. Still, he was the kind of guy who said what he wanted. He didn’t hold with beating around the bush, and it was true. He wanted a family of his own. A wife who would be his partner in all things.
The reception continued with speeches interspersed between courses of the meal. He noticed she barely touched her food. And only one person stood up to speak for Yasmin. A woman Ilya recognized from the airfield—Yasmin’s office manager, he recalled—who sat in her colorful sari at a table with a handful of others from Carter Air. His wife had no family here, he realized in surprise. He knew the grandfather who’d raised her had died a few years ago, but why hadn’t her parents come today? Was their absence a sign of something deeper missing in her life? Did her reason for marrying stem from a need to create a family of her own?
He knew part of his reason in approaching his grandmother for a bride came from his wish to continue the family tradition of handing control of the corporation over to an heir or heirs. But finding the right woman had eluded him. He’d been engaged once, in college, but that had ended disastrously.
Ever since his father’s death when he was sixteen, and his mother’s subsequent withdrawal from parental duties as she went on a new quest to find love, he’d missed that feeling of being a piece of a small, tight-knit family unit. Yes, he’d had his grandmother, his aunts and uncles and cousins, but it wasn’t the same as what he’d lost and what he craved to be a part of again.
He looked at Yasmin and felt a pull of sympathy. Her family life hadn’t been much better. Ilya had met her irascible grandfather once and was surprised that Jim Carter and Eduard Horvath had been such great friends many years ago. They couldn’t have been more different, from what Ilya could tell. His late grandfather had been a charismatic and driven man who always had an eye to the future and to expansion. He had lived, laughed and loved hard. On the flip side, Jim Carter had been quieter, withdrawn even, and his reluctance to embrace change had set Carter Air back in many ways. While his work ethic had never been in question, he’d lacked the vision and the willingness to expand and adapt to new horizons the way Eduard had. Their very differences had been what had made them such a great team until they’d fallen out over his grandmother and become enemies.
Yasmin, it seemed, had her own way of doing things with a liberal dose of her late grandfather’s caution sprinkled in. Ilya knew one thing for certain—she was a damn fine pilot. He’d seen her in her vintage Ryan PT-22 Recruit at airshows and she’d taken his breath away. The Ryan had a reputation as an unforgiving aircraft but she handled hers as if it was a simply an extension of herself. Which made her an intriguing package, indeed, and begged the question: How many more layers would he uncover as he got to know his unconventional bride?
Three
Ilya leaned over and murmured in Yasmin’s ear, “Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves.”
Yasmin nodded, trying to ignore the frisson of awareness that tracked down the side of her neck as he spoke.
“Everyone except you,” he added dryly.
“I’m fine,” Yasmin insisted even as she clenched a fist in her lap.
She might be fine, but she hated being the center of attention like this. As if she was on display for approval by every member of his family. His cousins seemed nice enough, but she sensed a lot of confusion and perhaps even some veiled hostility from some of their parents’ generation. And then there were the questions—like, where were her parents? Didn’t they approve of her marriage?
Truth be told, she hadn’t even been able to get hold of them to let them know about the wedding. They were somewhere in the wilds of South America the last she’d heard—chasing whatever dream they’d come up with this time. A traditional life filled with predictable choices was definitely not for them. Who knew? Maybe they would have approved of her adventurous approach to marriage, although she doubted it. Her father had tried to fit in to the mold her grandfather had cast for him but the two men had never been close, and in the end her father had left Carter Air, following his dreams with the woman he fell in love with and only returning long enough to leave his daughter in his father’s care so she’d have stability and regular schooling.
She was grateful to her parents that they’d done that for her, even if her granddad had not always been the easiest man to live with. The transient life was definitely not her thing. She was more like the old man than she liked to admit—needing order, consistency, control. All of which had made today very hard to handle.
Ilya interrupted her thoughts. “Let’s get out of here.”
She turned to face her husband. “Can we do that?”
“I don’t see why not. It’s our wedding day. We can do whatever the hell we want, can’t we?”
He held out a hand and she took it. His fingers closed around hers and he gently tugged her to her feet. Was this when their marriage would truly begin? In the honeymoon suite upstairs overlooking the marina and Puget Sound? Her stomach tightened into a knot of anxiety. As powerful as her attraction to him was, she knew she wasn’t ready for this. Wasn’t ready for him.
They managed to slip through one of the French doors to the patio outside. The earlier rain had passed, leaving the evening air damp and cold, heavy with the scent of woodsmoke. Ilya hastened to drape his jacket around Yasmin’s shoulders again. She was grateful for the warmth as she followed him across the patio to another door that led to the hotel’s main foyer.
“You know your way around,” she observed. “It was all I could do today to negotiate my way from my room to the wedding.”
He flashed her a smile. “You probably had other things on your mind.”
Yasmin tried to ignore the way his smile made the corners of his eyes crinkle. It made him look even more impossibly handsome and made her wonder anew just how they were going to approach this first night together. She doubted she would have been as nervous had her husband been anyone other than the man standing before her now.
She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath.
“Let’s go do this, then,” she said with all the enthusiasm of an unrestrained wing walker heading into a double barrel roll.
Ilya laughed. “You don’t need to sound quite so keen,” he commented, as they headed to the elevators.
&n
bsp; “I’m sorry,” she said, blushing furiously. “I’ve never done this before. I’m not quite sure what the protocol is.”
“It’s okay,” he assured her, his voice deep and even. “It’s been a difficult day. Certainly not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?” she asked as they stepped into the elevator.
“Not you, that’s for sure. Not that I’m complaining,” he added hastily.
“Well, I wasn’t expecting you, either, if that’s any consolation.”
“Yeah, I think that was pretty obvious by your reaction,” he teased.
Yasmin felt her lips tweak into a smile. It was the first genuine moment of humor she’d appreciated all day.
“You have a beautiful smile,” Ilya commented as the doors swished open and they stepped out on her floor.
Their floor, she reminded herself. And just like that, the butterflies were back in her stomach and commencing an aerobatic maneuver. She suddenly wished there had been some kind of handbook issued explaining what happened next. Her smile died as the little voice in the back of her head told her she was an idiot. It was their wedding night. What did she think would happen next?
They reached the door to the honeymoon suite and Ilya produced a keycard from his pocket.
“My cases were brought up here during the reception,” he said as they walked inside the beautifully appointed room. “I told them not to unpack.”
“Not to unpack?” Yasmin repeated. “Aren’t we supposed to be honeymooning here?”
“Did you particularly want to? I’m happy to stay if that’s what you prefer but we have other options. We could disappear to Hawaii or even hide out at my home overlooking Ojai. The choice is yours.”
Yasmin considered his words carefully. As much as she loved Washington, she felt like a fish out of water here with Ilya. Perhaps if she was back in California, in more familiar surroundings, this unusual marriage of theirs might begin to feel more usual.
She looked around the sumptuous suite where she’d felt like an outsider from the moment she’d arrived. She wasn’t used to this world of wealth and glamour.
“No,” she answered simply. “I don’t want to stay here.”
“So which is it to be? Hawaii or back to my place?”
He made it sound so simple. But then again, in his world, maybe it was.
“Let me change and pack.”
“Do you need help?”
She was on the verge of refusing when she remembered the dress’s multitude of hooks and eyes that Riya had helped her with.
“Thank you,” she answered, turning her back to him. “Perhaps if you could undo the hooks for me?”
She heard his indrawn breath before he answered. “Sure. They look tricky. Let’s see what I can do.”
Yasmin braced herself for his touch. And there it was. He tucked his fingers into the top of her bodice and deftly worked the hooks and eyes apart. His hands were warm—didn’t the man ever feel cold? She held the front of her dress against her.
“You’re wearing a corset,” he said as the back of her dress parted to reveal her undergarments. “Can you manage that on your own?”
Yasmin closed her eyes a moment. Having him undress her was proving to be sheer torture. “Perhaps if you can just undo the first few inches? I can manage the rest.”
Ilya didn’t answer. Instead, she felt his hands at her back again as he slowly worked his way through the fastenings. Yasmin dragged in a deep breath as the corset loosened and took a step forward.
“Thank you. I’ll take it from here.”
There was a tightness to her voice she couldn’t hide and her heart hammered in her chest like a trapped bird. Curiosity pricked at the back of her mind; she wondered what it would be like if she turned around to face him. If she let her hands drop from where they held her bodice and just waited to see what would happen next. Fire raced along her veins again, licking tiny flames of need into aching life.
“Take your time,” Ilya said. “I’ll be waiting for you right here.”
She felt him step away from her, heard the sound of leather creaking as he settled into one of the easy chairs. Yasmin forced herself to walk steadily to the bedroom. Once inside she closed the door behind her and released the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She shook with reaction, fine tremors rippling through her body. If he hadn’t withdrawn from her, she would have done it—she would have turned around.
She’d never been that kind of girl. Never one who followed her impulses. All her life she’d been focused and hardworking. She knew the consequences of not completing things to her best ability—knew, also, the rewards that came with achievement. So what had come over her that she was prepared to put all that aside and virtually throw herself at the stranger who waited on the other side of the door? The stranger who was her husband, she reminded herself. Did that make it right? She doubted it.
Yasmin let the gown fall to the carpet in a whoosh of expensive fabric, the hand-sewn crystals on her bodice winking at her reproachfully as she stepped out of the gown and toward the bed. Her hands worked feverishly on the final hooks securing her corset as she kicked off her slippers. When she was finally free of the garment, she let it drop to the floor, too. She rushed into the bathroom and turned on the shower, then shimmied out of her stockings and lace underpants.
Warm water coursed over her, flattening her short-cropped hair to her skull and washing her body free of the tension that gripped her. She wasn’t that blushing bride who’d so intently embarked on this morning’s adventure. That person had been a dreamer, not the doer Yasmin had always prided herself on being. And the man waiting for her outside the bedroom? He was beautiful and appealing and all of the things that made her body react with unseemly eagerness. But he was also the enemy, and she’d do well to remember that.
* * *
Ilya began the final approach, relieved to see the helipad next to his house in the hills overlooking the Ojai Valley coming up ahead in the darkness. Yasmin sat next to him in the cockpit—silent, watching, stifling a yawn every now and then. He knew how she felt. The day had been exhausting, but they were nearly home.
They’d barely spoken since leaving the hotel. She’d taken longer than he expected to pack, and the woman who’d eventually emerged from the bedroom, dressed in long, dark pants, a cream linen blouse and battered leather flying jacket and wearing no makeup, had been a far cry from the bride he’d begun to undress.
His hand clenched on the controls, his fingers tingling as he remembered what it had felt like to undress her—how soft her skin was, how enticing her scent as they’d stood so close. It had taken every ounce of his considerable control not to lower his mouth to the curve of her neck where it flared into the feminine line of her shoulder. But he hadn’t wanted to frighten her. If this marriage of theirs was going to work, he’d take it as slowly as she needed. He had a feeling it would be more than worth it.
He wondered what had brought her to Match Made in Marriage and made a mental note to check with his grandmother. Or maybe he should ask his wife. From now on, in all things she should be his first port of call, shouldn’t she? In all things but their businesses.
Following the directions of the staff member marshalling him from the ground, he landed the chopper on the helipad.
“Welcome home, Mr. and Mrs. Horvath,” Pete Wood, head of his air crew, said as he came forward to open the chopper door on Yasmin’s side. “Watch your head, Mrs. Horvath.”
“Call me Yasmin, please,” Ilya heard his wife say tightly as she unlatched her harness, took off her headset and stepped down from the chopper.
He fought back a small smile. It gave him a surprising sense of pride to hear her called Mrs. Horvath. His wife. It sent a pulse of something powerful through him. As though he was a part of something new and exciting and uncharted. And in many ways, he was. He�
�d never been married before—hadn’t even lived with a woman—which made the rest of his life with Yasmin pan out ahead of him as very much the great unknown.
How hard could it be? he reassured himself as he completed his shutdown procedures and then removed their suitcases from the rear of the chopper.
“Thanks for coming to marshal us in, Pete.”
“No problem, sir. Congratulations on your marriage, both of you,” Pete said with a beaming smile in Yasmin’s direction.
She ducked her head shyly and a slight smile curved her lips. Ilya had noted that reticence around his family, too, and wondered if it had been just them. It looked as though she was like that with everyone—everyone connected with him, at least.
“Can I take your bags for you, Mr. Horvath?”
“No, it’s okay, Pete. You head on home now.”
Pete tipped his cap to Ilya. “Call me if you need me.”
Ilya gave him a smile. “I’m officially on honeymoon. Hopefully I won’t need to call you again until I’m back at work in two weeks’ time.”
“Sure thing, boss. Happy honeymooning.”
Ilya walked over to Yasmin, who stood on the outer perimeter of the helipad. Behind him he heard Pete start the helicopter back up.
“If you don’t want to be blown about, we’d better start walking toward the house. We’ll take that path there,” he suggested, nodding toward a path off to one side lined with garden lights.
“Are we stranded here?” Yasmin said, her eyes not straying from the helicopter.
“Does that bother you?”
“Should it?”
Ilya laughed. “No, it shouldn’t, and no, we’re not stranded.” He gestured to the multicar garage off to the side of the house they were now approaching through the garden. “You can take your pick of vehicles in there should you feel the need to flee.”
Tangled Vows Page 3