by Ellen Lane
It was like she was lost in her own little world.
Chuckling softly, Yuri prompted her lowly. “I trust everything is to your satisfaction, Ms. Gardner?”
“Oh yes…” Charlotte breathed - and, to his shock, Vladimir thought he heard the edge of tears in her voice. “It’s absolutely perfect.”
He cleared his throat, breaking free of his own haze. Watching her was a little too absorbing for him - and it would be better if he gained the upper hand sooner rather than later. “Charlotte, we need to be at the Dansk center tomorrow afternoon, but I’d like to get breakfast and discuss things. Meet me in the restaurant downstairs around nine.”
“Mmmhm.” He couldn’t tell if she heard him or not - she was so relentlessly absorbed in her surroundings that she might not have known if the world was ending around her.
“Goodnight, then.” She didn’t reply - and Vladimir didn’t quite expect her to. Instead, he merely followed Yuri from her suite before the elder man broke the silence with a soft laugh.
“She is quite in tune with her art, Ms. Gardner.”
That was certainly one way of putting it. “Indeed, she is. I only hope she can bring herself to leave her suite by tomorrow morning.”
Yuri smiled. “I’m sure that if you were to tempt her with the rest of the city, the two of you could come to an accord.”
“If all else fails.” It was the second time in twenty-four hours that Vlad found himself so restlessly irritated - the second time it was hard for him to put a finger on what irked him so relentlessly.
“You have the penthouse suite, as always, Mr. Kensley.” Yuri led the way down the hall to the corner and opened it for him. As impressive as the deluxe suite had been, the penthouse was even more so. Vlad was floored every time he saw it - the careful detail put into the work on the ceiling and walls, the impeccable placement of the furniture and the fresh flowers arranged in the sitting room. Though he was a man who liked his showers, he knew that a gigantic marble bathtub was waiting for him down the hall, all but trumpeting its charms.
But all of that seemed, somehow, diminished. “Thank you very much, Yuri. I’ll be getting a bit of rest now.” He was, perhaps, dismissing his old family friend with a bit too much abruptness, but Yuri, ever professional, said nothing. He merely inclined his head respectfully.
“Certainly sir. I’ll see that your usual papers are brought up tomorrow morning. Have a pleasant evening.”
And with that, he was gone, leaving Vlad alone with his thoughts.
Which only made his irritation worse. It was, he realized, as if the moment they landed in Russia, Charlotte had become a different person. Everything and everyone enchanted her - except for him, of course. He was still her overbearing, logical-beyond-all-else superior - so it made sense that he would hold even less appeal for her now.
Appeal.
Months ago, the very thought would have made him laugh. Who the almighty hell cared about appeal? They were here to do a job. Charlotte had never been to Russia, so it made sense that she would be enchanted by everything around her. Was he going to be jealous of the entirety of St. Petersburg simply because she liked it so much? It was ridiculously childlike.
And yet, here he was. Wanting a woman he shouldn’t want, and completely out-of-control in a situation that demanded nothing but his strictest, coldest attentions.
As his brother Ethan might say, he was very clearly up shit creek, without a paddle in sight.
**
It took Charlotte quite a while to come down from the high of being halfway across the world. She lay awake in the heavenly bed in her suite for half the night, convinced she was going to wake up back in LA, still working for the same firm that had hired her right out of school.
Still miserable.
After a number of painful pinches, she accepted that this was really happening to her. She was really in St. Petersburg, about to work on the second biggest project she had ever tackled, and she was really in the old Lion Palace, which had been nearly flawlessly renovated into one of the most beautiful hotels she’d ever had the pleasure of setting foot in.
Kensley Enterprises, she realized, must like to treat their employees in style. This suite couldn’t have been cheap, and she had been assured that all her expenses were going to be taken care of.
Truth be told, she’d done her best to sleep on the plane trip over because being in a private jet was a bit much for her to handle. It was a thing of luxury, with its comfortable leather seats, kitchen, and even a working shower. That, of course, she had taken advantage of, though she had no choice but to slip right back into the clothes she’d worn before when she was done.
Though she had known that Vladimir Kensley, Jackson Kensley, and the entire Kensley family were all rolling in dough, this was the first time she had seen any of that come to bear. That jet probably cost more than she would ever make in her life, and she didn’t even want to imagine how much this hotel room might have cost.
But she did.
She thought about the hotel room, the jet, the amazingly kind Yuri Vasiliev and everything that awaited her here because it was easier to think about all of that than it was to remember the way that Vladimir Kensley had all but yanked her away from the window - into the heat of his body - and forcibly warmed her.
Charlotte had absolutely no idea what to do when it happened. All at once, his hands were moving briskly over her skin, her entire body had broken out in goosebumps, and desire rose so thick in her throat that her mouth dried.
He smelled good - far too good for a man who had been travelling for the past eight hours. And despite not wearing a thick coat of his own, he was ungodly warm.
There was no way she was going to be able to delude herself into not wanting him for three whole weeks. Not if she was expected to work closely with him every day. When she was as close to him as she had been in the car, all her bluster deserted her in favor of raw desire, and it was all she could do to talk to him.
Because all she could think about was him kissing her the way he’d kissed her in his office - and this time, they wouldn’t stop.
With a low groan, she covered her face with a pillow. Maybe she could call Lila every day and pour her frustration into her best friend...but that, she knew, wasn’t fair to the masseuse. Lila had her own issues to worry about, and here, Charlotte knew she would have to spend the majority of her time convincing the good people of Dansk that they’d made the right choice.
Jumping Vladimir in front of him definitely wouldn’t be perpetuating that ideal.
But she would manage. Somehow, she would manage the three weeks, and when they got back to LA, it would probably only be another two or three months before they hardly needed her at the jobsite. She would have done her duty, she’d have the money she needed to start her firm, and she’d be through dealing with Vladimir fucking Kensley.
But she still had three weeks.
Three weeks of being in the same room as him, of taking his orders and hearing that already ridiculously sexy voice of his speaking in low, fluent Russian. God, for all she knew, he was just counting to a hundred, but it was enough to wet her panties straight through.
Only three weeks. Only three weeks.
God help her.
Charlotte spent a decidedly sleepless night before rising early to take advantage of the amenities in her suite. She ran the huge bathtub full of hot water and luxuriated for over an hour, scrubbing herself clean of all the travel grime from the previous day. It took her a while to decide what to wear, but she decided that she would change into something more suitable for work after breakfast. She donned a long-sleeved black top, the heaviest black jacket she had brought, and a pair of slacks with pumps before assessing her reflection critically in the mirror.
She caught herself about a minute in, her full mouth pulling into a frown. What on earth was she doing? This wasn’t a date. Vladimir Kensley didn’t give a damn how she looked - and even if he did, she reminded herself, all those little c
ogs in his brain could turn his sex drive on and off at will. He was, as he’d so keenly reminded her, an adult. One kiss between them meant nothing to him - the fact that the sexual tension between them could be cut with a knife meant even less.
Which meant that she was left to bear the brunt of it all.
Lucky her.
She reached the dining room downstairs at ten minutes til nine and was unsurprised to see Vladimir already there. He stood near a table, deep in conversation with the hotel manager, and the young woman took a stuttering breath as she listened to his voice rise and fall effortlessly over the rough, Slavic syllables that comprised the Russian language.
Fuck. She couldn’t do this. Not when she could smell the clean, crisp scent of him from five feet away, when she couldn’t tear her eyes off the huge breadth of his shoulders or the way his large hands curled into the back of the chair he leaned on.
The man was sex incarnate, and he didn’t seem to give a damn.
Despite the way her pride prickled, Charlotte turned to flee. She needed another five minutes - she needed her second wind. But her hopes were dashed in seconds.
“Good morning, Miss Gardner.” Before she even got two steps, Mr. Vasiliev’s heavily accented voice reached her ears in an enthusiastic greeting. “I trust you slept well.”
She was trapped.
Forcing a smile onto her face, Charlotte turned to meet his gaze. “I did, thank you.”
“Good Morning, Charlotte.” Was it some kind of superpower that all Vladimir had to do was say her name and her knees turned into fucking jelly?
“Morning.” She managed, making her way to the table to grasp at it before she fell down. Vladimir pulled out the chair he was clinging to, and she realized that he expected her to sit in it. She didn’t sit so much as collapse into the damn thing, his scent all but enveloping her in heady masculinity.
“What will you have for breakfast then?” Vasiliev asked them both, eager to please.
Thankfully, Vladimir rounded the table to sit across from her before he answered, and Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief. “We’ll have the blintzes and buterbrody, along with a pot of Earl Gray, please.”
Charlotte wasn’t sure what either of those were, even though blintzes sounded vaguely familiar. “Sure.” She continued smiling at Yuri as she forced herself to take a deep, steadying breath. “Sounds good.”
“I’ll put the order in right away then.” With a congenial bobbing of his head, the elder man headed off towards what Charlotte could only presume were the kitchens. When she turned to face Vladimir again, to her shock, he was frowning at her. And not only frowning...he might as well have been downright scowling.
“What?” She couldn’t help but ask, her heart in her throat. What on earth had she done now?
Vladimir’s gaze dropped to her shoulders. “Is that the warmest coat you brought?”
Charlotte looked down at it in surprise. It was the ski jacket she’d brought for the one-time Lila insisted that they step out of their comfort zone. She’d ended up getting the entirety of two afternoons of use out of it before she shoved it into the back of her closet. That had been close to three years ago. To be honest, she was surprised the damn thing still fit -and it certainly seemed warm enough.
“Well...yeah…” She ventured sheepishly, knowing, even before she opened her mouth, that wasn’t what Vladimir wanted to hear. His frown, if anything, deepened even further.
“You’re going to freeze.” His almost disgusted tone made her eyes widen at its severity. “I told you to pack for cold weather.”
“Well, excuse me,” As cowed as she was by his sudden seriousness, Charlotte wasn’t going to let him push her around unfettered, “But I was born and raised in LA. We really don’t know about cold weather.”
“It’s Russia.” He deadpanned, his eyes narrow. “I’m sure you’ve seen pictures.”
What the hell was wrong with him? Yesterday, he was almost relentlessly nice to her. He hadn’t woken her up before leaving her apartment because he was concerned she wasn’t getting enough sleep - which meant he must have carried her. He’d explained all the sites she saw as they made their way downtown to the hotel in St. Petersburg. What had changed between yesterday and today?
“Who the hell pissed in your cornflakes?” She found herself asking, more than a little irate now. “Get up on the wrong side of the bed or something?”
“No,” he replied crisply, blue eyes frosty, “I’m merely continually shocked at your inability to follow direction.”
Oh, now she was pissed. After a night of tossing and turning over the man, now he decided to be nasty to her? Two could play at that game.
“Direction? Jesus, Vladimir, the last time I checked, I was your colleague. If you were going to start going all super-superior on me, you could have dropped a warning at least,” she hissed, trying to make it look as though she was pouring over her menu. The only problem with her ruse was that it was in Russian, and they had already ordered - but Charlotte was so angry she hardly cared.
“Charlotte, can you really blame me? After seeing the way you neglect your health, I find myself unable to ignore your carelessness any longer.”
She stared at him, absolutely flummoxed. Her health? No way he was going to try to make this about her health. “I’m in perfectly fine health,” she retorted, her voice barely above a whisper, “Except that maybe my blood is running a little hot just now, sir. Even if my jacket is what has you so wrapped up, what the hell are you going to do about it? Hold a grudge for three weeks? This is all I brought, so you’re going to have to deal with it.”
She didn’t know what kind of game they were playing now, but this clearly had nothing to do with the damn coat.
Or did it?
Suddenly, Charlotte wasn’t so sure, because Vladimir was shoving back from the table and gesturing to a nearby waiter. The young man hurried over to him for his customer to bark a short command in Russian that sent him scurrying. “What did you tell him?” She demanded almost immediately, now wary of the dangerous look in his face.
Even as angry as she was, as angry as he somehow was, she couldn’t help from being aroused at how sexily authoritative he could be when he got a handle on something. “I cancelled our order,” he returned, his voice taut, as he rounded the table to take hold of her arm and haul her unceremoniously to her feet. “We’re going out.”
Out? Out where? She had barely dressed for breakfast! “Vladimir,” Charlotte suddenly found her voice unsteady as panic crept in. “Where are we going? What the hell has gotten into you?” She kept her voice low in an attempt to keep from drawing attention to them, but several people were already looking anyway.
She didn’t, after all, want to give the wrong impression. It wasn’t like he was hurting her - far from it. But this wasn’t like the Vladimir she knew at all. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him lose his temper. In fact, the most genuine outpouring of emotion she’d ever witnessed from the man before this was the little episode in his office…
But Vladimir didn’t answer her - at least not right away. He dragged her right back through the restaurant and into the elevator bay, which was, thankfully deserted. When he turned to her, his expression was both intense and unreadable, and Charlotte inhaled sharply. She thought, for a brief moment, that he might yell at her. But when the dark-haired man spoke, his tone was strangely soft and a bit uneven.
“Charlotte...I’m sorry. Look...I had a difficult night. I didn’t get much rest and... well, now that we’re here in Russia, I have to be honest: I’m worried about you.”
Her eyes widened slightly. It wasn’t as if Lila didn’t worry about her all the time - but this? This was something entirely different. Vladimir hardly talked about anything he didn’t think served a bigger purpose. Hell, their “getting to know one another” had never really counted toward friendship because she had always imagined he had an ulterior motive. The logistics in his brain were still ticking away, trying to discover how
best to understand her.
But this didn’t seem like that. This was something else entirely. “You’ve taken on another project.” She started to open her mouth in argument, but Vladimir forged on. “And while I have nothing but congratulations for you in that arena, your roommate confided in me that you’ve been neglecting meals. And sleep. As long as you’re within a stone’s throw of me, I won’t allow this to continue.” The young woman blinked, wondering what was coming next. The man had thrown her for a complete loop. “We’re going to get you a new coat.”
Ok, now she couldn’t keep quiet. “Vladimir, I appreciate your concern, but I-”
“You need to keep warm. You need to eat, and you need to sleep. If you get sick in one of the coldest environments in the world, it will help neither of us - especially you.”
For a long moment, Charlotte just stared at him. A large part of her could hardly believe what she’d just heard. She thought that little speech might end with him telling her that if she was out of commission she couldn’t work, and she would be useless. On the contrary, he had just, in all essentiality, told her that he was watching her. Just her.
She took a deep breath, at a loss for words. Vladimir’s deep blue eyes burned into hers, and, for the life of her, she couldn’t look away. This was what she had been afraid of - being so close to him that she couldn’t ignore his warmth. She couldn’t ignore his scent, his intensity...and she certainly couldn’t blindly swallow the way her body reacted.
And she certainly couldn’t ignore what her mind was screaming at her.
In that moment, she was so confused that Charlotte could do nothing but follow her impulses. Swallowing thickly, she reached up to cup his smoothly shaven face and rose onto her toes to peck him very softly and carefully on the mouth.
It was only the barest contact - she lingered for perhaps two or three seconds, tasting the minty remains of the toothpaste he used that morning. She felt the firmness of shoulders beneath her fingertips, heard the way his breath rushed from him and, for the briefest of moments, his heavy hand grasped at her waist and she knew he wanted more. God knew she wanted more.