Kate sat there recalling the most shameful day of her life. A day when her own mother had said that Kate would one day end up as a whore and now she was practically making her one.
“Would you get the next instalment?” her mother asked again.
“Yes,” she croaked and listened to her mother’s sigh of relief. Kate rung off and shakily stood.
She would not let Isaak see her terror, so she took a deep cleansing breath and then walked to the mirror. Her cheeks were bright red now, as if her mother’s cold hands had just slapped them again. Kate looked herself in the eyes and, a decade later, repeated her response to her mother’s filthy prediction. “You’re wrong,” Kate said, mustering the same conviction she had that terrible day. “I’ll never be a whore.”
When she returned a coffee was waiting for her and so too was Isaak.
“So,” Isaak said when she took a seat back at the table. “Will you attend the funeral with me tomorrow as my fiancé?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You had a choice as to whether or not you signed the contract,” he pointed out.
“I signed the contract with a man I both respected and admired,” Kate said but Isaak ignored the slight and responded in Russian.
“Niznaya brodo, nyeh suizio vwodo.”
“And what does that mean?” Kate challenged, her mind still searching for a way out.
“If you don’t know how deep the river is, don’t step in,” Isaak translated. “There is no getting out of it, you either repay the money or the marriage goes ahead. Anyway, surely I am a better prospect than my uncle.”
“Meaning?”
He just smiled at the blush that spread up her neck and met her rosy cheeks. “I see you have had all the necessary health checks; I shan’t put you through that again. I will go and have the tests.”
“Tests?”
“It will be nice,” Isaak mused, “not having to worry about condoms for once.”
He thought her a whore too.
He had her backed into a corner but what Isaak did not know was that, when backed into a corner, Kate came out fighting in her very own way.
She was no pushover and there was a way out. It was then Kate saw it—there was no place in the contract that specified they must have sex. It merely stated that they share a bed while staying at a hotel and Ivor had said it was just for appearances’ sake.
Her head felt as if was spinning as it moved towards giddy relief.
She could pay her family debts one final time and she knew, absolutely she knew, that Isaak would be the one terminating the contract, possibly as soon as their wedding night! When he found out that sex wouldn’t be occurring, he would ask for an annulment, Kate was sure. Even if he didn’t end it that quickly, the clause in the contract that specified no straying would soon prove a problem. Not for Kate—she could very happily survive a celibate year but if Isaak’s reputation was anything to go by, then she would be free from the contract any time soon.
“Could I still work?” She checked, for that had only been a verbal agreement between herself and Ivor. “I love my job and I don’t want to quit.”
“Of course you cannot work.” Isaak said. “I expect you to be busy in the kitchen preparing my okroshka.” He saw her frown,
“Okroshka?”
“Cold soup,” Isaak said. “And I cannot abide it. I was joking.”
His small joke did not turn her taut lips, and Isaak took her hand and he prised open her fingers, placed the ring in her palm, and then closed her fingers around it.
“Of course you can work,” he said, his voice softer now. “You are not being sentenced to a year in prison.”
Kate just sat there.
“Sleep on it. Right now I will get you home.”
He saw her right to her door and as she opened it, his hand came on her shoulder and she jumped in nervous tension. “I’ll be here at ten.”
“I haven’t said yes.”
“You haven’t said no though,” Isaak pointed out.
Chapter 3
The morning was as grey as her mood as Kate dressed for Ivor’s funeral. Her teeth chattered too much to bother with lipstick and she didn’t even attempt mascara because tears kept trickling out.
Her family had offered no further solution; in fact, when Kate had called her mother again she had expressed relief that Kate was going through with the wedding and that they would now get the next two instalments.
“Oh, Ivor,” Kate said.
She didn’t want to be cross with her friend and certainly not on the day of his funeral. If he had known how exposed the contract would have left her…
Kate pushed those thoughts away. Today was about Ivor, not the mess she now found herself in.
The doorbell rang and Kate opened it to a somber man.
He wore dark glasses and when he saw her black attire and that she was wearing the ring, he gave a small nod. “We need to leave now.”
“I’m ready.” Kate’s voice was clear, her mind made up; yes, she would go through with this.
Her way!
Isaak waited as she went and returned with her handbag and locked the door closed behind her. She was dressed in a soft woolen black dress with boots, and her hair was tied up more neatly than it had been yesterday. He thought she might be wearing the earrings that Ivor had gifted her but instead she wore simple diamond studs.
They were driven and were mostly silent but as they approached the Russian Orthodox church where dark crowds were gathering Isaak turned to her.
“We will be here a fortnight on Saturday for our wedding.”
“Can’t it be a registry office?” Kate asked, appalled at the thought of making false vows in a church but Isaak shook his head. His mother had been deeply religious; anyone who knew the family would know that any wedding would take place in a church.
“Walk slowly out of the car,” Isaak said. “I want the press to see the ring.”
They had had their lenses aimed at Roman. He too was wearing dark glasses and his face was grey with tension as they approached.
“This is Kate.” Isaak introduced her.
Roman glanced at the glittering ring. “Is there something you forgot to tell me?”
Isaak had not wanted to trouble Roman with the details of his uncle’s estate and so he gave his brother a grim smile. “We did not want to rub our happiness in your face at a time when you are grieving but I wanted Kate here with me today.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Roman said in Russian. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
“Doveriye ko mne.” Isaak gave a wry smile and told his brother to trust him.
“What did he say?” Kate asked as they moved into the church.
“He wishes us happiness.” Isaak responded as Roman, walking behind them, actually managed a brief smile at his brother’s smooth lie.
They took their places right at the front of the church, so close that she could smell the lilies on the coffin and Kate looked around as the pews filled, anything rather than staring at the coffin ahead. She saw a few of her students and gave them a watery smile, which was returned.
“Who are they?” Isaak asked.
“They’re friends of your uncle.” She tried not to cry as she recalled the laughter and good times that had been shared in her classes.
Isaak frowned, for it would seem that she really had been a part of his uncle’s life. It unnerved him a little, but then he corrected himself. He was not jealous of Ivor and had no qualms sleeping with her also.
Or possibly he did.
He could not think of that now.
It was a long service and in Russian and so Kate stood and knelt as others did. Isaak stood and knelt rigid beside her. He rarely displayed emotion and certainly not for public view, but he had loved his uncle very much. He counted the lilies on the coffin checking that it was an even number, a tradition in Russia for a sad occasion such as this one. Over and over he counted them, just so that he could hold on to his emotions bu
t at the end of the service, as they left the church, it was the zvon that almost finished him.
Every ring of a bell in the funeral perebor hit Isaak like a fist to his gut. In the Russian orthodox tradition, each bell struck once to indicate the stages of life. There was so much that Isaak did not know about the man he loved. A man who had left Russia and made his fortune but had often returned. A man who had saved his nephews from their brutal beginning and had given them their start here in London.
He stood at the graveside and could hear Roman’s harsh breathing as he surely recalled his wife’s funeral. Then he heard Kate’s quiet tears as the coffin lowered down. Was it for show or did grief briefly unite them? Neither was sure, yet he took her hand.
For Kate, at first the contact was welcome—Isaak’s hot dry hand around hers actually anchored her, but in the next second it was shocking, not that it was Isaak, but more that a touch consoled when it never had before.
The wake he did not inflict on her, instead Isaak’s driver took her to her home and again Isaak walked her to her door.
“Can I come in?” he asked. “And go over a few details.”
She didn’t answer but held the door open and Isaak stepped in.
“Much tidier than your office,” he said, looking around and liking the full bookshelves and the intricate rugs on the floor and the scattered cushions softening a heavy leather sofa.
“I don’t need to hear your opinion on my housekeeping skills.”
“No,” Isaak said.
“What was it that you wanted to discuss?”
“I’ve just looked online and already the word is spreading about our engagement. Have you told your family?”
“I have.”
“You will need some money to prepare for the wedding. If you give me your account details…”
“That won’t be necessary. Don’t worry, Isaak, I shan’t embarrass you.”
“We leave on the night of the wedding for four nights in Paris at the specified hotel. Do you want any of your stuff moved to mine while we are away?”
“To make it a little more homely!” Kate gave a bitter laugh. Oh Isaak, she thought, I doubt we’ll even make it through the honeymoon. “No thank you.”
“Very well, if you have any questions then just contact me.” He gave her his phone number and asked for hers.
Reluctantly she gave it to him.
“It would help if you could tell me how you met my uncle, perhaps that could be how we were introduced. I will need something for the press release.”
“Of course,” Kate answered, she just wanted him gone. Today had left her drained. “Your uncle and I met at the library.”
“And you just started talking?” Isaak frowned.
“No,” Kate shook her head. “I hold classes at the library. I’m a genealogist,” Kate explained and Isaak felt a prickle on the back of his neck as Kate continued. “Ivor wanted to find out more about his family history.”
“And?”
“I helped him. Those friends you saw me smiling at took the class with him. Ivor had been coming along for more than a year.”
“And that’s it?” Isaak asked, waiting for her to elaborate and tell him about their trip to Russia but Kate didn’t.
“That’s it.”
“And what did Ivor find out?” Isaak asked.
Kate merely shrugged.
“Kate?” His voice demanded but she just gave him a black smile.
“Where on the contract does it state that I have to tell you that?”
“It doesn’t.”
“Then I shan’t.” She showed him to her door. “I’ll see you at the wedding.”
Isaak walked off, his heart hammering in his chest, for once shaken.
He loathed his family history and did everything he could to keep it hidden.
Isaak returned to the car that would take him to his uncle’s wake, but his grief was pushed aside for a moment and as he looked back at Kate’s house, he was seriously unsettled.
Just how much about his family did Kate know?
Chapter 4
The bells rang a magnificent wedding zvon.
Kate stood on the church stairs beside her new husband. Her mother’s three strands of pearls that had been gifted to Kate as a wedding present felt as if they were choking her. That her mother had taken over the organising and had even given her pearls as if it were a real wedding hurt Kate deeply.
That her brothers could shake Isaak’s hand and congratulate him made her feel ill.
This, Kate vowed, would be the last time she would help them.
In respect to Ivor, and to Roman’s late wife, the reception would be a short one but the gorko, which translated to bitter taste, was the main part she had been dreading about the day.
The wedding she had managed to get through. The honeymoon would be a pleasure, for she couldn’t wait to see Isaak’s reaction to her news but it was the one kiss she had agreed to with Ivor that was causing butterflies for Kate now.
“You look very beautiful,” Isaak said as they took their seats at the reception table. He had already told her once as they stood in the church door holding candles, but he said it again for she did.
And yet, Isaak had thought when he had first seen her, the dress, which belonged in her family, wasn’t quite the right style for her subtle shape and he missed the freckles on her nose that had been removed by the makeup artist. Her hair had been smoothed and carefully pinned when Isaak had preferred her in curls.
“Soon they will shout gorko,” Isaak said, “and then—”
“Your uncle explained what would happen.”
It had been the part she had dreaded for her and Ivor’s lips had never met, but it was tradition for the newly married couple to down shots of vodka and kiss for a long time to take away the taste of bitter.
She was dreading it for different reasons now.
The thought of kissing Ivor had revolted but the thought of kissing Isaak deeply unsettled Kate in different ways.
It terrified her in fact.
Deny it all she might but there was no mistaking he was an incredibly attractive man and Kate actually didn’t like her body’s response to him—it was a part of her that she had quashed many, many years ago and she had no intention of resurrecting it for a man who paid.
Two crystal glasses were filled with vodka.
Kate drank it down in one and pulled a face.
“Now we smash the glasses.” Isaak smiled at her pained expression as she tried to swallow down the strong liqueur.
They threw down the glasses, and they shattered in many, many pieces.
“That means we will have a long and happy life,” Isaak said, pulling his bride into him and feeling her tension. He tried to make her smile, “or a long and happy year,” he whispered into her ear.
The vodka burned her tongue, her chest, and her stomach but she would take another shot more readily than the mouth that was nearing hers.
It was a kiss worth three million, yet all she wanted to do was run, except his hand was on her waist and the other cupped her chin and his deep blue eyes held her nervous gaze.
“Relax,” he whispered and then his mouth dusted hers.
He was very, very gentle, just nudging her lips at first as the crowd urged them for more.
Kate told her lips to move but it was more the hand on her waist that disconcerting. She could feel the warmth and the slight pressure that was slowly shifting her closer into him.
Then his mouth opened a fraction and softly he slipped in his tongue.
He felt her startle, which she did, for it felt like an invasion.
At first.
Wet, warm, he stroked her tongue intimately as his hand guided her in to the lean length of his body.
“Gorko,” the crowd urged and the ringing of spoons on glass were drowned by her heartbeat as her mouth finally gave into him.
His kiss burnt not just her chest or her lips now, for there was a fire spreading low in her
stomach, a fire she had glimpsed but once and now it returned to the stir of his tongue.
Isaak felt the trip in her, the resistance that faded, and at the first glimpse of her passion triumph surged. Yes, Isaak thought as her kiss deepened, as the audience cheered and clapped for they could stop now, yet they continued on. He kissed her harder, his tongue sworded hers, but then she halted things and pulled back startled.
Deny, deny, Isaak thought as he looked at her cheeks, flushed despite the makeup and he watched Kate run her tongue over shining wet lips. “Now we dance.”
It was a slow torture for Kate.
Her breathing had not settled from their kiss and now his palm pressed into the small of her back as they swayed slowly on the dance floor.
Her scent had become pleasingly familiar, and Isaak lowered his head and breathed in the light floral notes. It was really the only part of her that he recognised today. He recalled their kiss, that moment just near the end of it where their minds had engaged and yes, he wanted away from the wedding party.
He wanted to better acquaint himself with the mystery that was the bride in his arms.
She could feel his erection against her stomach, and it revolted her that so easily he could harden for the woman in his arms that he considered a whore. Yet, again, there were the feelings she had briefly encountered in their kiss, a rare yearn for passion, for this beautiful groom to be hers, for this lie to be real.
She tripped a little and his hands steadied her.
“I am looking forward to our honeymoon,” Isaak said, his hand pressing her to him, his mouth lowering so she could feel his breath on her ear. “I am looking forward to tonight.”
Kate pulled her head back and smiled into his eyes as she answered Isaak, but it was a smile of spite for what was to come. “So am I.”
Chapter 5
She was still in her wedding dress when they arrived at the heliport in Paris and were then driven towards Place Vendôme where they would be staying for the duration of their honeymoon.
Kate doubted they’d even be staying one night!
When they passed the Louvre, Isaak looked to his wife, and he might as well have been in the museum and staring at the Mona Lisa for the slight smile on Kate’s face had him curious as to what was going on in her mind.
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