Vows of Revenge

by Dani Collins

  “You’re doing me a favor. It’s a prototype. It needs to be tested.” He showed her how to log feedback for anything that didn’t work to her satisfaction. “If they don’t notify you of an update that fixes it within twenty-four hours, tell me. I’ll follow up. Look, it has a GPS so I can track you down wherever you are and join you.”

  “Or you could call me and ask,” she supplied with a chipper smile. “What about a cover? I don’t want to break it.”

  “It’s unbreakable and waterproof. If it’s not, my suppliers will answer for it.” He went on with nerdy enthusiasm about its space-age alloys and special screen, the airtight design and its ability to be compressed into a diamond if dropped under a steamroller. “If you lose it, we can track it to within a meter, but try not to lose it. I might misplace my temper if you do. And if you sell it, do not settle for less than a quarter of a million euros or I will be highly insulted.”

  “Roman!” she cried. “I can’t walk around with a phone worth that kind of money! And who is likely to buy a phone that costs that much?” she asked with sudden puzzlement. “Have you thought this through?”

  “Your half brother would easily pay that much for this phone,” he stated flatly, then quirked a brow as he added pithily, “When it goes to market it will retail for a few hundred dollars, competing with the rest of the smartphones. At the moment, however, the technology is fresh and incredibly secure to use. Far better than anything else currently available. My competitors would be extremely interested in breaking it down before it’s released.”

  “And you’re trusting me with it?” she asked with awe, hugging the hard shape to her breast. She swallowed back a rush of emotion, moved to tears. “I mean, the way we met...”

  “I trust you, Melodie,” he said, sounding sincere.

  She melted inside. Of all the gifts he could have given her, his trust was the most touching. It cracked the last of her resistance against letting him support her. She wanted rather desperately to stay with him and see where this relationship could go.

  That afternoon she used the credit card he’d given her for the first time—in a lingerie shop. She figured the purchase was really for him, and he was highly appreciative when she modeled it for him later.

  And since they were getting along so beautifully, when she sprawled atop him, her lacy underthings askew, and he said, “I have to be in Germany on Tuesday,” she lifted her head and said, “Do you mind if I charge a suitcase to the card? You’ve bought me too many outfits. They won’t all fit in mine.”

  “I told you what your limit was. Charge anything you like to it.” He tucked a wisp of her hair behind her ear. “But leave a few things here for when we come back.”

  “When will that be?” she asked with surprise.

  “I don’t know. Probably not until after the summer. I have some meetings in Italy next month and I thought we could spend some time on my yacht after that, but eventually we’ll come back here.”

  After the summer. The words sent a funny, exciting sensation into the pit of her belly. Maybe they did have a future.

  * * *

  Roman was in a perfect place. Of all the women he’d dated over the years, few had been such a good match for him on every level as Melodie. Definitely the sex was better than any man had a right to, sometimes playful, sometimes erotic, always intensely satisfying. Professionally, he couldn’t ask for a better partner by his side. She not only sparkled like a sapphire, lighting up a room, but she knew how to strike exactly the right balance of warmth with boundaries. Aside from the sparest of details such as where they might have eaten dinner or which part of a city they were staying in, she shared nothing of their private life with anyone.

  When they were alone she was equally capable of being a charming, amusing companion, yet always respected his retreat after questions such as, “Do you know anything about your father?” and “What were the foster homes like? Were you safe there?”

  No, he didn’t know anything about his father. No, he hadn’t always been safe. There’d been good ones and bad ones, the most important thing being that they had been impermanent. Buying the house in France, along with being a status symbol, was also his way of creating a proper home for himself. A place he could and always would return to. Why France? He liked the climate.

  He didn’t know why he couldn’t simply say that to her. Because he had long ago programmed himself to keep such things private, he supposed.

  And she seemed okay with the status quo, so he didn’t see any need to change.

  Until she had an issue with her phone and he wound up being called in to help troubleshoot. That was when he learned Melodie not only had been looking for work in Virginia, but also had even looked up one-way flight details for a week from now.

  The blood seemed to drain out from his toes, leaving him staring at a screen that didn’t make sense while his agile mind froze, needing a reboot. For a few long minutes he wasn’t even sure he was breathing. All he could think was She can’t leave.

  Despite his attempts to keep his feelings for her light, he was struck by how much she was coming to mean to him. It made his joints grate like sandpaper as he rose and went to find her where she was reading her tablet next to the pool off his penthouse here in Rome.

  He set down her phone on the table beside her, lowered himself onto the side of the lounger alongside hers and confronted reality in the way he’d learned to do. “You’re thinking of leaving?”

  Surprise flashed in her blue gaze before she glanced at her phone and said, “You looked at my browsing history?”

  “For the search-engine problems you were having. I wasn’t trying to spy.” He betrayed no hint of defensiveness. All his feelings were firmly buried in the sealed vault behind the barred door, in the bottom of the abandoned building that was his mortal coil. “The job board came up.”

  She tucked her chin downward, half sheepish, half admonishing. “I’m not used to being idle, Roman. It’s making me a little crazy, doing nothing. I enjoyed Berlin and obviously Rome has an amazing history...” She frowned at the view of the Coliseum amid the rest of the red-tile rooftops across the city. “But it’s not really as if I’m on vacation. Not with you anyway. You’re working. I thought I might be able to find something that I could do remotely.”

  Okay. He could see that, but “Why the flight, then?”

  “Oh, that was for a friend. She’s been traveling around Europe and thought she might be able to join us here for a few days if she could change her flight home.”

  The relief was so great in him he almost slumped forward, but he was highly experienced at not betraying his reactions. He only nodded. “You’re not planning on leaving, then.”

  “No.” She searched his gaze and, he was quite sure, found little of his thoughts. “Not unless you want me to,” she added hesitantly.

  “I don’t.” He could see the uncertainty in her, the need for reassurance. He felt a discord in himself, too, as if they’d had a conflict and even though it had been easily ironed out, something more was needed. Still, he only rose and said, “How do you feel about organizing the launch party for the phone? Marketing is already working on the timeline, but planning the event would be very much within your forte. Would you like that?”

  “If you would like me to do it, then, sure.”

  “I’ll inform them now.” He walked away, knowing he should have taken more steps to close the gap between them, but it had taken everything in him to face the possible dissolution of their arrangement. The spring of emotion at their staying together was too raw and concentrated to work through anywhere but in complete solitude.

  * * *

  Melodie nursed a let-down feeling until that night when she and Roman went to bed, practically acting like an old married couple in the way they brushed teeth and undressed, crawled in under the covers and snuggled clos
e for a kiss good-night.

  Their good-night kisses almost always turned into lovemaking, but tonight it turned into something that went beyond it. Roman was so hard, so urgent, he pressed into her almost before she was ready, making her flinch a little at the sting.

  He groaned an apology and seemed to gather his control at that point, ensuring her pleasure again and again while he possessed her, imprinting her with his scent and touch and branding kisses to the point where she nearly wept with joy and fulfillment.

  Later, in the sultry dark, pinned against him by arms that had closed tightly around her, she rubbed her cheek against his chest.

  “I wish you would tell me what you’re thinking and feeling,” she murmured.

  A long pause, then: “I know.”

  Part of her suspected he had told her exactly what was going on inside him, but what if she was interpreting things wrong?

  * * *

  Two days later Roman and Melodie moved onto his yacht, sailing toward Sardinia with the intention of visiting both that island and Corsica before making their way to his home near Cannes. At least now he was working from his office on board, inviting her to interrupt him at any time. They were closer physically if not emotionally.

  She told herself they just needed time. If she had any doubts about him, she just had to look at his actions rather than wait for words. Her life really couldn’t get much better than it currently was.

  “Is there any way to improve the camera features on the phone?” she asked him one evening over dinner, feeling like a spoiled brat since, really, the camera was already quite good. But she’d resurrected a hobby she’d enjoyed as a teenager and handed over her phone so he could see the shots she’d taken thus far. “It’s better than any other phone out there, I know. And part of me enjoys the challenge of getting what I want despite its limitations, but there are some things I’d like to try that just aren’t here— What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. These shots are very good. I tend to think of you being a natural in front of the camera. I didn’t realize you had such talent behind one.”

  “I don’t. It’s just something to keep me busy,” she dismissed.

  The next day a high-end digital camera showed up with a dozen lenses and other pieces of equipment.

  Melodie didn’t even bother scolding him. She was too delighted.

  She was happy. Happier than she’d ever been, so she ignored how tenuous things felt, not wanting to cause ripples.

  Which was why the call from her father a few days later nearly had her dropping her brand-new camera onto the deck. When her phone rang she was so distracted with trying to work out one of the high-tech menu options, she picked up the call very absently, expecting Roman was being too lazy to come and find her from his office.

  “Charmaine,” her father said, and she managed to catch the camera with her thighs and drop herself into a cushioned chair. Her stomach curdled. She hated that name. It was his mother’s name, and she’d been a horrible woman, bullying Melodie’s mother in a hundred ways, not the least of which being her insistence of being the namesake of her granddaughter.

  “What—?” she asked faintly, unable to compute. “How did you get this number?”

  “That doesn’t matter. The fact you have a new lover is the important piece here.”

  Her fingers were going numb, her mind racing. “It’s none of your business.”

  “Oh, I assure you it’s very much our business. Something we’re going to turn to our advantage.”

  “How?” she choked. “By stealing from him again? There is nothing you can do to make me do anything for you.” Hysteria edged into her tone. “You have nothing to offer me. Nothing to hold over me.” A distant memory came to her of Roman using a certain phrase. “Lose this number,” she spat. “I don’t ever want to hear from you again.” She drew her arm back, ready to throw her beloved phone into the sea.

  A hand caught hers from behind, nearly making her jump out of her skin.

  Roman.

  Oh, God.

  She knew instantly by his grim expression that even if he hadn’t heard everything that had been said, he knew who she was talking to. He would believe she’d betrayed him and this would all be over, everything they had—

  He pried the phone from her vice-like grip and ended the call, then moved so he stood facing her.

  “I didn’t call him,” she stammered out quickly, beginning to shake. “I don’t even know how he got the number.” Her vision blurred as she grew convinced he was about to reject her. It was like seeing the car coming, yet having her feet stuck in cement. “I’m sorry,” she started to babble. “I didn’t know what to do—”

  “Melodie,” he said firmly. “You did the right thing.” He set aside her phone and squatted in front of her, stilling her trembling hands as she tried to keep the camera in her lap. “Aside from the part where you nearly gave my prototype a burial at sea. Although it might have been a fun exercise using the signal to retrieve it.”

  “Don’t make jokes,” she said, fighting tears, clinging to his hands with cold fingers. “Maybe it was my neighbor, the one getting my mail and watering my plants,” she sniffed, brain starting to work as she realized Roman wasn’t going to throw her overboard. She swiped at the wetness tracking to the corner of her mouth. “She doesn’t know anything about my relationship with him. If he got hold of her, she probably would have thought it was okay to give him my number. Roman, I’m so sorry. I don’t want him badgering us, making trouble—”

  “He won’t,” he assured her, sounding so confident, the tears simply wouldn’t stay put behind her lashes.

  She laughed bitterly. “I don’t think of you as a naive man, but surely you realize that he’ll do awful things now, try to get between us. Why didn’t I see this coming?”

  “Melodie,” he chided, cupping the side of her face and brushing a thumb beneath her overflowing eye. “I’ll have the number changed. You won’t hear from him again. Now please stop crying. I don’t like seeing you upset by him.”

  “He’ll keep trying!” she insisted.

  “Let him try. I won’t let him near you. Believe me.” So commanding.

  “How could you possibly stop him?” she asked, accosted by the kind of hopelessness she’d thought she’d managed to escape for good, that feeling that a dark lord could leap out of the shadows to rake her through the coals of hell at any moment. “I don’t know why I didn’t see that being with you, of all people, would make him—” She would have to break up with him if she expected to find any sort of peace.

  Roman scowled, silently regarding her for a long, frustrated minute, before his brows lifted and a smile ghosted across his lips. “I’ll call our new friend, Nic Marcussen.”

  “What for? No. Please don’t! He already thinks I’m an idiot!” Day two with her new camera, she’d trained her lens on the dolphins dancing against the media mogul’s bow, completely unaware she was also snapping shots of his family. Apparently he was extremely protective of his children and had insisted on boarding Roman’s yacht ten minutes later, stealing Melodie’s memory card and returning it minus several of her best shots.

  Roman had not been pleased, but more because he could see how upset Melodie was, not because she’d got him off on the wrong foot with one of the world’s most powerful men. They’d actually wound up having drinks later when they’d both anchored in the same cove. Nic’s wife was a peach, but Melodie still felt as if she’d grossly invaded their privacy. It had been a good lesson in requesting permission before clicking the shutter.

  “He never paid you for the shots he appropriated.”

  “I didn’t want him to!” When Nic had offered to pay her the scale rate for news photos, she’d been horrified, wanting to erase the whole mortifying experience. “It was too much anyway. I’m just an amateur.”


  Roman gave her a patronizing look. “Your amateur shots are better than many professionals’, and you know it. And if you’d accepted his payment, you would be a professional yourself. Come with me.”

  She dragged her feet as she followed him into his office and watched as he called Nic on his tablet. “Melodie needs a favor,” Roman said. “Are you aware that her father is Garner Gautier? Have you heard of him?”

  “On occasion,” Nic said with reserve.

  “Sounds as though you know what kind of man he is. Melodie is thinking of writing a memoir about her childhood. Quite a tell-all.”

  “No, I’m not!” she cried, shaking her head vehemently.

  “You’re offering me exclusive rights to this memoir?” Nic asked.

  Both men ignored her protests, talking over her.

  “That’s right,” Roman continued.

  “Roman, no!” Melodie insisted. “I don’t want to profit from my family’s dirty laundry. My mother’s memory doesn’t need that kind of smearing and neither do I. No.”

  “I could give Gautier a call, ask him if he’d like to contribute his side of things?” Nic suggested.

  “You see where I’m going with this. I knew this was the right call to make.”

  Melodie didn’t. “Both of you, stop. I really don’t want all that to come out. There would be paparazzi, a complete media circus...”

  Roman clasped a reassuring hand on her arm. “It’s never going to come out, Melodie.”

  “Gautier is going to pay back your advance to me so I will kill the book before it’s written,” Nic explained. “And that figure would be...?”

  “Not a penny less than three million. Five would be better,” Roman said.

  “That’s blackmail,” Melodie gasped, pulling from his grip to cross her arms.

  “It’s a message,” Roman insisted. “He doesn’t have to pay, but he’ll understand the potential consequences if he comes near you again. If he does pay, well, think of all the programs that money could beef up at your mother’s clinic.”