Shadow Alpha

by Carole Mortimer

  Chapter 15

  “I really hope, for your sake, Grayson, that you have a very good reason for being naked in bed with my sister!”

  Kat had been very slowly drifting back into consciousness after the deepest, most restful sleep she’d had in a very long time. Possibly years.

  Because of Dair.

  On the couple of occasions when she had woken in the night, it was to find his strong arms securely around her, her head on his shoulder as it was now, and she had known she was safe, instantly falling asleep again with a smile curving her lips.

  Hearing her brother’s voice, when Gregori couldn’t possibly be in Venice, let alone at Dair’s secret palace on the Grand Canal, was a little strange…

  Maybe it was a side effect of the meds still in her system? A hallucination—

  “Oh fuck off, Markovic!” Dair’s chest grumbled beneath her ear. “Kat’s a big girl now, and she certainly doesn’t need her big brother’s permission to go to bed with a man!”

  Now Dair was answering her hallucination…?

  “I asked you to find her, and if necessary bring her home, I did not ask that you seduce her too!”

  Gregori again.

  She would have to see a doctor once they were back in England—

  “Me seduce her?” Dair drawled mockingly. “I hate to burst your bubble, Markovic, but Kat did the seducing last night.”

  “And the night before that?”

  There was a slight pause before Dair answered. “I believe that may have been a lot of both of us.”

  Kat accepted that the lingering meds in her system might make her imagine that she was seeing and hearing people who weren’t there, that she might even have conversations with them. But in this case, it was Dair who was having a conversation with Gregori. Which must mean—

  She tensed as she slowly turned to glance over the top of the sheet covering her, eyes widening as she saw her elegantly attired brother sitting in the chair by the doors still opened out onto the balcony.

  She quickly dived back under the cover of the sheet again.

  She wasn’t hallucinating.

  Gregori really was here.

  Not just here, but actually sitting in the bedroom where she and Dair were in bed together.

  And the two men were having this conversation.

  Something was seriously, seriously wrong with this scenario.

  “Dair!” Kat raised the sheet over her head just enough that she could see the strong column of his throat, and his clenched jaw. “Dair, please tell me that—”

  “You might just as well come out from beneath that sheet, Katya,” her brother drawled derisively. “I’ve been sitting here for half an hour now waiting for the two of you to wake up, listening to your little contented purrs as you lay in your lover’s arms.”

  “You wouldn’t have had to see or hear anything if you hadn’t let yourself in here, Markovic,” Dair growled, not at all happy that he’d been made to feel wrong-footed. Again. And for the same reason. Kat. She was going to be the death of him, of both of them, before this was over.

  Where the hell were his men? They were supposed to be standing guard outside, should have seen Markovic and at least stopped him from entering the palace. If Gregori’s men had harmed either one of them…

  It wasn’t helping the situation—or Dair’s mood—that Gregori Markovic was impeccably attired in one of those dark bespoke suits he favored, with a crisp white shirt and perfectly knotted grey tie, as well as meticulously groomed and freshly shaven; he looked like a fucking male model newly stepped off the catwalk.

  Whereas Dair couldn’t remember the last time he’d combed his hair, let alone shaved. He was also, as Gregori had already remarked, stark naked beneath this sheet, and badly in need of a shower.

  And Kat’s ‘contented purrs’ belonged to him, damn it.

  Gregori gave an unconcerned shrug. “I assure you I didn’t break in. Your men were only too happy to allow me entry once they saw I had Lijah with me. But if they had proven uncooperative…” He gave a feral grin.

  Dair recognized that grin for the danger it was. He should—he had a grin just like it.

  Maybe that was one of the reasons he had developed a grudging liking for the older man. That, and the fact that Gregori obviously loved Kat.

  Even so… “I already regret making that invitation—”

  “You invited him here?” Kat forgot all about her embarrassment as she held the sheet to her and sat up in the bed, turning to look accusingly at Dair. “When? How?” She gave a shake of her head. “The two of us have been together day and night since we left New York, so how could you possibly—”

  “TMI, Kat.” Gregori winced.

  She glared at him. “I was talking to Dair!”

  Her brother’s brows rose at her vehemence. “Katya…?”

  “Your little Kat has developed claws, Gregori,” Dair drawled mockingly. “I’d turn over and show my back to prove it, but—”

  “You will do no such thing!” Kat’s cheeks were ablaze with color.

  “You see.” Dair grimaced at Gregori. “I didn’t stand a chance once she started ordering me about in that strict no-nonsense voice.”

  “I do see, yes,” her brother drawled, obviously bemused.

  Dair gave a grin, obviously enjoying himself. “She likes it when I take charge too, of course—”

  “Dair!”

  “Now you are the one providing TMI.” Gregori rose decisively to his feet. “Enlightening as this conversation is, I believe you and I have somewhere else to go, Grayson. My men are waiting at the airport to accompany us. As I said, I also brought Lijah with me, as you requested, as someone that Katya knows and is comfortable with to stay here and protect her—”

  “You can both stop right there.” Kat had finally found her voice again, her previous embarrassment forgotten as she realized there was more going on here than Gregori escorting her back to England.

  She had thought, once she got over her initial shock of realizing Gregori really was here, that Dair had arranged—she still had no idea how—to just hand her, and the responsibility of her, over to Gregori.

  And that had hurt.

  It had hurt a lot.

  But listening to the rest of their conversation—Gregori’s men waiting at the airport, leaving Lijah here to guard her—she now knew that these two men were planning on doing something else entirely.

  She looked at Dair accusingly. “Exactly when did you and Gregori have this cozy little chat?”

  He gave a pained groan. “God, you make me hard when you talk to me in that schoolmarm voice!”

  “Dair!”

  “Grayson!”

  “What?” He raised innocent brows. “I was only trying to explain why I won’t be able to get out of bed for the next few minutes.”

  Kat gave a groan as she heard her brother chuckle. She now included him in her glare. “Don’t think for a moment that I don’t realize the two of you are deliberately trying to distract me! And it isn’t working. I want to know when you spoke to my brother.” She pinned Dair with that determined gaze. “And exactly where the two of you think you’re going without me.” She included Gregori in that censorious frown.

  Her brother shrugged. “Dair telephoned me late last night—”

  “While you were sleeping,” Dair explained as Kat frowned. “And you know exactly where we’re going, Kat,” he added seriously.

  Yes, she did, and if her brother and her—her what? Exactly what was Dair to her? Her lover? Her boyfriend? Both those terms implied a certain permanence, and Kat had no illusions about Dair still being in her life once all of this was over.

  She gave a shake of her head. “Not without me you’re not.”

  “Katya—”

  “I love you very much, Gregori,” she interrupted softly. “I will be forever grateful to you for asking Dair to help me.” She repressed a shudder at the thought of what might have happened to her if he hadn’t.

&nbs
p; “I think you should know, Katya, that my enquiries have shown that Sergei Orlov’s legal wife was found dead in a hotel room in Las Vegas some five weeks ago,” Gregori told her quietly.

  “You really did tell him everything during this sneaky telephone call to him last night!” She turned to Dair accusingly as he lay back against the pillows, his chest completely bare, the sheet having fallen down to his waist, his arms—God, his arms were just so strong and hot.

  She had known that Sergei’s patience with her intransigence had been coming to an end, and that Ivan was a cold-blooded bastard. He wanted a grandson, his heir, and if Kat was no longer willing to provide that, with Sergei’s previous wife out of the picture, Kat would have needed to be replaced with a woman who would.

  Was she surprised to learn of the death of Sergei’s wife?

  She was sorry, but not surprised.

  Without Gregori’s concern, and Dair’s rescue, Kat didn’t rate her own chances of being allowed to live for too much longer as having been very high.

  “I really am very grateful to both of you,” she assured them again, her voice husky. “But this is my fight, not yours—”

  “There you are wrong, Katya,” Gregori spoke in that voice that warned her he was talking as the head of the Markovic family rather than just her beloved older brother. “What the Orlovs did to you is unforgivable, the insult to the Markovic family equally so.”

  Dair looked at Gregori not Kat. “Would you mind leaving us for a few minutes, Gregori?” The playful banter had gone and been replaced with a cold intensity. “You could go down to the kitchen and have coffee with Lijah.”

  Gregori gave a hard smile. “You have an interesting choice in associates.”

  “I trust Lijah with my life,” Dair answered challengingly. “And Kat’s,” he added softly.

  The two men eyed each other for several long seconds before Gregori gave a terse nod. “You have ten minutes, no longer, after which I’ll leave for New York without you.” He crossed the room in long strides before bending down to kiss Kat warmly on the brow. “It’s good to have you back, my Katya.”

  Kat reached up to touch his cheek lovingly before he straightened, gave Dair a terse nod, and left the bedroom.

  Dair waited only long enough for Gregori to close the door behind him before throwing back the sheet and getting out of bed, feeling at far too much of a disadvantage being completely naked.

  He hadn’t been lying about his hard-on either, his cock jutting up thick and engorged as he moved to pull on his boxers and jeans before turning back to face Kat. She had used the same time to also get out of bed and pull on and fasten the peach-colored robe.

  Which immediately made Dair remember her in that robe last night as she ordered him how and where to make love to her, causing his cock to swell even more painfully.

  A reaction instantly dampened by the stubborn expression on Kat’s face.

  Dair prepared himself for a fight. “You aren’t coming with us, Kat.”

  Temper colored her cheeks. “I’m thirty years old, Dair, and I’ll go where I damn well please!”

  “Kat—”

  “I also think that a couple of days of amazing sex doesn’t give you the right to even think about telling me what to do,” she continued determinedly.

  Dair arched one dark, speculative eyebrow. “Amazing sex, hmm?”

  “Stop trying to distract me, Dair.” She gave an impatient shake of her head. “Because it isn’t working.”

  That hadn’t exactly been Dair’s intention—if anyone was being distracted, then it was him. The sex between the two of them was amazing, unbelievably so.

  But after last night, after that incredible sexual chemistry had sent them up in flames again with the slightest touch, and then the two of them lying in bed together afterwards, with Dair spilling his guts out about Karin McLeer, he was more convinced than ever that there was something more going on here. He felt a connection to Kat that he had never experienced with any other woman—

  Oh stop prettying it up, Grayson, and admit the truth to yourself, at least!

  He was in love with Katya Markovic.

  There, he’d acknowledged his feelings, inwardly, at least.

  Saying it to Kat wasn’t an option. Not yet. As far as Kat was concerned, she had thought she was married to Sergei until just two months ago, and five years of believing she was the other man’s wife couldn’t be forgotten just because she had discovered she had never been married to the bastard at all. She had also lost a baby those same two months ago.

  She didn’t need Dair the Barbarian staking a claim.

  What she did need was time to heal, to forget, before she could even think about another serious relationship. And Dair was serious. Very much so.

  He was going to do everything he could to ensure that Kat was given all the time she needed in which to heal.

  Which was why he had waited until Kat had fallen asleep the night before and then eased gently out of bed to go and telephone Gregori Markovic. In order for Kat to be free of the terrible burden she was carrying around with her, Gregori needed to know the truth about Kat’s non-existent marriage, then the two men needed to go and talk to Sergei and Ivan Orlov, after which Kat would be free to return to England with her brother.

  It was here that Dair’s plan grew a bit hazy.

  A bit? This was where Dair stumbled a lot.

  What did he know about ‘wooing and winning’ a woman? Fuck all, was the answer.

  Then he would have to damn well learn, and quickly, because once this was over he intended on being in Kat’s life. Not as an affair, but permanently.

  His mouth tightened now. “You aren’t coming with us, Kat, and that’s final,” he added firmly as he could see she was about to argue the point again; just the thought of Kat anywhere near Sergei or Ivan Orlov sent shivers of alarm down Dair’s spine.

  Those bastards had almost destroyed Kat once, they wouldn’t be given the opportunity to so much as try again. Gregori hadn’t said much during their telephone conversation last night, but Dair had been left in no doubts, from that icy silence, that the other man’s retribution would be short and not very sweet.

  After this morning, Gregori probably had a damn good idea how Dair felt about all of it. Including Kat.

  He wouldn’t be surprised if the bastard had planned for this to happen when he chose Dair to go and find Kat; Gregori may be more urbane than his father, but just as wily.

  “You love it here, Kat,” he tried a different approach. “You like Lijah, too, from what I can remember.” His jaw tightened as he remembered those feelings of jealousy he had suffered when Kat and Lijah had stood talking together so comfortably yesterday while he checked out the jet.

  Feelings that had no place here and now, not if he wanted Kat to be safe while he was gone. He knew Lijah would ensure that happened.

  “I’ll ask him to look into taking you to one of those masked balls you asked me about,” he added cajolingly. “Lijah looks better in a tux than me, anyway.”

  Kat doubted that very much. Dair was so tall and muscled, imposingly so, and she had no doubts he would look magnificent in a tux.

  Besides which… “I’m not a child you can offer a treat in the hopes of distracting me. I’m coming with you and Gregori—”

  “No-you’re-not!” Dair grated fiercely.

  Kat remembered that same fierceness from the night before, when Dair had told her she wasn’t going anywhere without him. Well this was a two-way street, and if she wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without Dair then he wasn’t going to New York without her either. Especially not to see Sergei and Ivan.

  Her jaw tightened. “I’m grateful for all that you’ve done for me, Dair—”

  “Define ‘grateful’?” he growled.

  Kat eyed him warily, sensing a leashed fury inside Dair now that was likely to break free at the slightest provocation. The problem was Kat had no idea what that provocation might be.

  “Did you
have sex with me out of ‘gratitude’, Kat?” Dair’s voice was dangerously low.

  “No!” Kat gasped. “Did you have sex with me out of pity?” she challenged in return.

  “Fuck, no.” He looked taken aback at the suggestion.

  They were both breathing hard, glaring, the tension between them tangible.

  Kat was the one to finally break as she ran the moistness of her tongue over the dryness of her lips. “This is my problem, and I’m coming with you, Dair, and nothing you or Gregori have to say is going to shake my resolve.”

  Dair continued to frown his frustration with her pigheadedness for several long seconds, and then he gave a defeated sigh. “If you go—if you go, Kat,” he repeated firmly as she began to smile, obviously sensing she had won this argument. As she seemed to win most of them. “Then you have to accept, as do I, that Gregori will be the one doing the talking.”

  And Dair didn’t like it one little bit; he would much rather rip Sergei’s head from his shoulders, for what he had done to Kat, but he knew there was an etiquette to these things, a hierarchy he would have to accede to. For now. Gregori was Kat’s brother, and her closest male relative, as well as head of the Markovic family. Dair was hoping to change at least one of those things, but for the moment he had to just appreciate the fact that Gregori was even allowing him to be present at the meeting he had arranged to have with the Orlovs.

  “Sergei was my husband— Well, not really,” Kat frowned, not quite sure what Sergei had been to her; given a choice, a real choice that didn’t involve the Markovic and Orlov families, she would never have chosen to live with him. “I think the past five years give me the right to say what the hell I like, to him and Ivan!”

  Dair gave a grimace. “Try telling Gregori that.”

  “Oh I intend to.” Kat nodded. “Besides, I think Sergei is in more danger from you than he is from me.” There was no missing the fact that Dair’s body was leashed and ready for battle, the defined muscles in his chest and arms clearly tensed, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

  He shrugged. “As long as Sergei keeps his mouth shut, and lets Gregori and Ivan do the talking, there should be no problem.”