Russian Persuasion

by Laura Hart

  “Have I committed an unforgivable faux pas?” he asked with an amused look on his face. “Have I hopelessly offended your ideas of women's rights?”

  “I don't know,” she mumbled. He was watching her intently, and what she wanted most at that moment was to disappear under the table.

  “Well, look at it this way,” he continued, his eyes twinkling under his dark eyebrows. “I have no idea what you blog about, but perhaps you can get a column from all this by writing about the Neanderthal you had lunch with.”

  Oh god, did this man also have the ability to read minds? She should have never accepted his invitation to lunch. She glanced at her watch and said, “I really do need to be going. I have an appointment at four, and I have to finish my notes before then.”

  Max suspected her appointment wasn't the only reason she was eager to leave, and that idea intrigued him. She seemed to be uncomfortable with his comments about spanking, but she wasn't a shy little thing, so he didn't understand why she hadn't simply taken him on, if you will. Yet again, though, his manners didn't allow him to pursue the matter, at least not then, so he simply asked for the bill, paid it, and then walked her to the door of the restaurant.

  “Where's your car?” he asked as they paused in the corridor.

  “It's by Neiman's, so it's not far. Thank you very much for everything—the tour of your shop and the tea, and now lunch. You've been really nice.”

  “You have my card, so feel free to use it,” he said, being intentionally casual. “I've thoroughly enjoyed your company, so I hope you'll allow me to call you sometime.”

  “You don't have my number,” she blurted out somewhat tactlessly. Then, frowning slightly at her own bluntness, she quickly added, “Sorry, that didn't sound very polite.”

  “Are you telling me you'd prefer I didn't call?”

  Yes! Tell him that's exactly what you mean! screamed her brain at full volume, but her mouth ignored the internal shriek, and she was horrified to hear herself say, “No, you can call if you want.”

  They parted company then, and Max walked back to his shop with a smile on his face. Sadie Duval was a fascinating bundle of contradictions and one of the most interesting women he'd met in a long time. He fully intended to get to know her much better.

  They Say Opposites Attract

  Over the next several days Sadie worked hard to put Max out of her head, but the more she tried, the more he was very much in her head. He was so different from the men she knew—so suave and self-assured, so easy to be with, so… so dangerous. Oh, not dangerous in the traditional sense, but dangerous to her world and the way it was ordered. It was like a stranger had arrived to save her at the beach and then, instead of leaving again, had hung around to turn her thoughts and feelings upside down.

  His looks and manners were enough to do the latter by themselves, but when he'd started talking about spanking, that had been the final straw. If she had lived in the nineteenth century, she could have had the vapors and fainted dead away, but since she lived very much in the twenty-first century, she'd had to sit there and pretend like everything was normal.

  No wonder she couldn't get him out of her mind! If she'd had a thousand guesses about what subject he'd bring up, spanking wouldn't have been on the list. She couldn't believe that he could so casually use the word itself and smilingly say that a woman he didn't even know needed to be spanked. What kind of world did he come from anyway? It was obvious that it was one of comfort and sophistication, but beyond that, she knew absolutely nothing about his life in St. Petersburg. Were women there spanked as a matter of course, or was it just Max and his ideas? How could she possibly get him out of her mind when all she could envision was him calmly taking a woman over his knee and spanking her?

  A woman? No, not just a woman or any woman, but she herself—Sadie Duval. The image in her mind's eye of Max taking her over his knee was driving her crazy. It made her tummy clench and her private area tingle. Damn him! Why did he have to be so irresistibly sexy, and why did he have to announce that he believed in spanking? The ground under her feet had been wobbly ever since their lunch three days ago.

  She'd even been struggling to write her blog since then. Max had somehow thrown a wrench into the gears of her life, and she wasn't sure what she was going to do about it. To be honest, she'd thoroughly enjoyed spending time with him, at least until he'd wandered unknowingly into her closest-held secret. She'd enjoyed having tea Russian style, hearing about malachite, and seeing the enamel tray the tea had been served on, and she'd also enjoyed his easy talk while they'd eaten lunch. He was charming, seemingly without effort, but then she knew from her brief travels with her father that Old-World men held a special fascination for her.

  Oh god, what was she going to do? She looked back at her laptop and tried to type.

  * * *

  Sadie wasn't the only one who'd been thinking about the Galleria encounter. Max had thought many times in the last several days about the charming young woman with whom he'd had lunch. She was an enigma, and he liked a good challenge. She was obviously bright and even more obviously very attractive, but she had strange reactions at times, like when she'd stopped dead in her tracks and said, “No,” to the idea of his paying for lunch. It had been just that one syllable, but it had been said with conviction: “No.”

  Then there was her strange reaction to his comment that their unpleasant neighbor in the restaurant should be spanked. He could have sworn that she was embarrassed—certainly not his intention—but she didn't say a word in response. She just sat there quietly with the faintest tinge of blush in her cheeks but no argument or rebuttal. Strange.

  He'd known after the beach encounter that he'd be calling her, so he'd tracked down her number and put it into his phone. Now, he took the phone out of his pocket, pushed her number, and waited.

  Sadie looked at her buzzing phone with a slight frown. The screen said Unknown, so she hesitated before answering. “Hello?”

  “Good morning, Sadie Duval. This is Max Orlov.”

  Sadie caught her breath, and she could feel her heart beat faster. Oh god, it was him.

  “Sadie, are you there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did I catch you at a bad time? You sound out of breath.”

  “No. It's fine.”

  Max smiled to himself. She was obviously going to make him work hard for this, but he'd worked hard before. “I enjoyed our visit the other day, and I'd like to see you again. May I come to Galveston to visit you?”

  Tell him no, silently screamed Sadie's head, but once again another part of her overrode the warning system. “You just want to come visit?”

  Max chuckled. “Well, I rather thought we might get something to eat. Just a casual day, maybe visit the beach or whatever you'd like. What do you think? Are you free today?”

  “I can't go away for too much time because I'm housesitting for Harmony, and she has lots of animals. You're not allergic to cats, are you?”

  Max laughed again. “No, no animal allergies.”

  Sadie hesitated, and after several seconds Max said, “Sadie? Are you still there?”

  “Yes. I guess it's okay.”

  “Are you sure? You sound hesitant.”

  Tell him no, shrieked her brain yet again, but still her mouth wasn't listening. “No, it's fine.” She gave him the address and then hung up.

  Oh god, what had she done? She sank down on the sofa and sat there, confused. What was happening in her life? Why did she feel such fear and such excitement at the same time? You'd think she was fourteen and a novice with the opposite sex. She got up again and went into the bedroom to check herself in the mirror and change clothes.

  An hour and a half later Max arrived, and, as Sadie had feared, he looked every bit as gorgeous as he had at their other two meetings. Today he was casual, in Dockers, a polo shirt, and Topsiders, and the way the polo shirt fit his body clearly showed a well-muscled chest, leaving no doubt as to his masculine credentials.


  “Hi,” she said weakly as she stood aside so he could enter the house.

  Max smiled, taking in this very unique Sadie Duval that had so accidentally come into his life. This morning she looked fantastic in a pair of khaki shorts that showed off her tanned legs and a navy top that skimmed her slim figure. She'd pulled her hair back and tied it with a small navy-and-red striped scarf, giving her a very young look.

  “This is a beautiful neighborhood,” he said as she closed the door behind him. “How old is this house?”

  “It's from the 1890s, but of course it's been changed over the years. It used to be my grandparents', but when they moved to a retirement village, Harmony inherited it. It's kind of big for one person, but she doesn't mind. It gives her plenty of space for all her projects.”

  Max followed her back to the kitchen. “Would you like some tea?” she asked and then quickly added, “Not your kind of tea. I mean iced tea.”

  Max looked amused. “Yes, thank you.”

  She poured them each a tall glass of tea, added a sprig of mint, and then reached into the refrigerator again and took out a small covered bowl with lemon wedges. “Here's lemon if you want, and here's sugar.” She pushed a small plate towards him that held two bowls, one with sugar and one with packets of sweetener. She saw him watching her and added, “It's do-it-yourself around here. No fancy tea ceremonies.” She handed him a long-handled spoon and a small paper napkin.

  “Do-it-yourself is fine,” he said, still looking amused. He picked up his tea and took a drink, then added a lemon wedge and one spoonful of sugar.

  “Do you want to sit on the front porch?” she asked, not really sure what to do with Max now that he was there. “Or we can go out on the back terrace.”

  Max sensed she was ill at ease and opted for the front porch. Yet again he was curious about her and her reactions. He guessed her to be around thirty, but she was acting like he was the first man she'd ever been with, which, given her looks, he was quite sure wasn't the case.

  “So, who's this Harmony whose house we're enjoying?”

  Sadie gave a small laugh, surprising Max. “She's my mother, but she's not like any mother you've probably ever met, and she doesn't like the word 'mother' or any of the other similar terms.”

  “Well, that's interesting. Did you always call her by her first name?”

  It was Sadie's turn to look amused. “Oh, Harmony isn't her first name, at least not in the legal sense. Her real name is Sarah Louise, but believe me, she is not a Sarah Louise. She's a Harmony. She chose that name back when I was in junior high, so it seems normal to me now.”

  “So, she just renamed herself?”

  “Essentially. She's a free spirit and has gone through different periods of her life, kind of like Picasso. He had a blue period and a rose period, and Harmony has had her Persian period, her French period, her Buddhist period, and lots more. Right now, she's off studying the Mayan gods.”

  Max shook his head slightly. “An American woman who had a Persian period and studies the Mayan gods. She sounds quite fascinating.”

  Sadie sighed. “The Persian period would have been more fascinating if it hadn't coincided with her having a child. Sadie is my face-saving nickname for the name she gave me—Sadira, which is the Persian word for a lotus tree. At least that's what she claims, but the dictionaries only partially back her up.” She rolled her eyes and took another drink of her tea.

  Max laughed. “Your family may well qualify as the most interesting I've met here in America.”

  “Oh, believe me, you have no idea.”

  “Is your father equally unconventional?”

  “Not really. He’s very professorial, so you can imagine that he and Harmony weren't the world's best match.”

  “I don't know. They say opposites attract.”

  “They can say that all they want, but I think it takes a special kind of opposites for it to work.”

  “You may well be right,” he conceded, thinking to himself that he'd like to have a chance to find out how well his and Sadie's opposites would match up. Out loud he asked, “Are you hungry?”

  “A little,” she admitted. “Harmony left a bunch of stuff in the refrigerator. We can see what's there.”

  “I was thinking about eating on the beach, or at least near it. What do you think?”

  Sadie shrugged. “I usually just sit on one of the benches along the seawall, but we can go somewhere else if you'd like.”

  “A bench is fine. As I recall, they were quite large.”

  “Do you want to pack some things from the kitchen?”

  Max smiled. “I came prepared, hoping you'd eat with me. I already have a picnic basket in the car.”

  Sadie blinked in surprise and laughed. “Are you kidding me? Should I trust a man-packed picnic?”

  “You'll have to wait and find out.”

  Sadie got up to close up the house. “Where are all these animals you warned me about?” Max asked as he watched.

  “They're mostly cats, and they tend to nap this time of day. Also, a couple of them don't much like strangers, so they probably won't come out while you're here.” They carried their glasses back into the kitchen, and Sadie started gathering some napkins and silverware.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I figured we'd need these,” she replied, putting them in a bag.

  “We don't.”

  “You remembered everything?” she asked with a skeptical smile.

  “Wait and see.”

  She hesitated, so he added, “Trust me.”

  It wasn't something Sadie did very often with men except with her father, but something about the way Max said it made the request so simple, so she left the bag on the counter and followed him out of the house.

  You Fascinate Me, Sadie Duval

  “That's a great looking Porsche!” Sadie exclaimed as they walked toward Max's car. She pronounced it as one syllable—Porsch.

  “Porsch-uh,” he corrected her, pronouncing it with two syllables and slightly emphasizing the second. "It's pronounced Porsch-uh."

  “It's not spelled that way, and everyone I know pronounces it Porsch.”

  “Then everyone you know pronounces it wrong,” he said as he looked at her with raised eyebrows, a smile playing ever so lightly around his mouth. “And it's spelled completely correctly. Don't forget it's a German word, and in German, that last e is pronounced.”

  The look on Sadie's face said she didn't totally believe him, so he took out his phone and then said, “If I'm right, you have to promise not to say anything about the lunch I brought.”

  “Oh god, what did you bring? I totally don't want bear meat sandwiches for lunch!”

  Max laughed. “No bear meat, but do you agree to my condition? If I'm right, no comments about the lunch.”

  Sadie hesitated and then shrugged her shoulders. She suspected that Max was going to prove right just because he was the kind of guy who knew about such things, but, for whatever reason, she couldn't just surrender. “All right, but what if I'm right?”

  The look on Max's face made it more than clear that he didn't think that was a possibility, but he said good-naturedly, “If you're right, you can name your prize.” He looked up the word and then laughed. “It seems that the company even made a YouTube video for American consumers telling them how to pronounce the name. Would you like to watch it?”

  “No,” she replied shortly. Just then Max's phone started saying, “Porsch-uh, Porsch-uh” over and over as he repeatedly hit the pronunciation button of his dictionary program. He was watching her as he did, a smile of amusement on his face.

  “Fine, you've made your point.” She screwed up her mouth and glared briefly at him as she reached for her car door.

  “Allow me,” he said as he reached over her and opened the door for her.

  “I can get my own door,” she replied as she tried to brush his hand away.

  “I never thought for a moment that you couldn't,” he answered smoothly
, holding tightly to the door handle.

  “So why are you treating me that way?” She slid into the car, noticing the buttery-soft leather interior that matched the deep blackish-burgundy color of the car.

  “What way?” he asked as he closed her door and walked around to his side, so as soon as he was inside the car, she answered, “As if I needed someone to open the door for me.”

  “You think I opened your door because I thought you needed help?”

  “I think you opened it because men like to be in control.”

  This is going to be a very interesting day, thought Max to himself. “I opened your door because it's a sign of courtesy. You're a guest in my car.”

  “Yes, a female guest. You wouldn't have done that if I'd been a man.”

  Max smiled. “You're right, but why does it offend you for me to open the door for you? It's a compliment. It says that I think you're worthy of special treatment.”

  “But women don't need special treatment,” she argued. “When people think that women need special treatment, they don't give women all the opportunities that men get.”

  “And which opportunities would those be?”

  “Equal pay in the workplace, for one, or the right to compete for all jobs, not just the clean and safe ones.”

  “So, should I assume you harbor a secret desire to be a driller on an oil platform?”

  “Hardly.”

  “What is there about your life that's more limited because I opened your car door for you?”

  “It's not just about me,” she replied, “and anyway, symbols are important.”

  “Well, how about if we agree up front that I find you totally competent and not in need of special help,” he said, but then couldn't resist adding, “unless, of course, we're talking about purse snatching.”