by Ellen Lane
Toshiro, for all his travels, had always been a picky eater, and Vladimir quite enjoyed the furtive looks Athena shot him when he refused to touch something. Though he didn’t really know her, he found he liked her - and Charlotte did as well. That much was obvious by the way the two of them gossiped and laughed when they thought no one was looking.
But, ultimately, their day off didn’t go completely as planned. Around seven in the evening, Vladimir received a call from the building manager requesting his presence. He opted to go alone, leaving the others to their revelry. After all, the manager hadn’t called for Toshiro or Charlotte’s presence.
Only him.
Toshiro tried to protest, but Vlad wouldn’t have it. He refused to ruin their evening simply because he was reverting to his MO. As he donned his coat in the entryway of the restaurant, however, He turned to see Charlotte standing there, watching him.
Her dress really did suit her - far too well, really. “Are you coming back to the hotel late?” She didn’t quite meet his eyes when she asked, and Vladimir arched a brow.
“Why? Worried about me, Charlotte?” At his slight jibe, she merely frowned.
“I’m allowed to do that, aren’t I? You worry about me all the time.”
“That’s because when you work, you do it like a woman obsessed.”
The statement drew a soft, amused laugh from her. “Well I guess that makes two of us.”
Vladimir graced her with a brief, rare smile as he tied his scarf around his neck. Charlotte took a step away from the entryway, as if she meant, perhaps, to cross it and kiss him. God knew it was what he had wanted for half the day. After a split second, however, she merely paused, gazing up at him with an unreadable expression. “Don’t work too late, alright?”
The request was a ridiculous one. Vladimir had spent his entire career working exactly as long as he needed to get the job done. But, somehow, the plea warmed him. “I’ll do my best.”
With those words, he left her, stepping out into the frigid cold.
Though it was the end of a day, Vladimir was dedicated to staying as long as he needed to at the Dansk office building, he’d be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that a part of him hoped, just as much as Charlotte did, that he wouldn’t be all night.
**
Charlotte’s time in Russia was, in a word, singular.
From the time she touched down, everything seemed to be turned on its head. She was in a foreign country on her first international assignment, and, while she had travelled to Canada and Mexico, being on the other side of the world was something entirely different.
Was it really any wonder that she was wide-eyed and gawking at any and everything that she saw? She was as much in wonder at the world around her as she was at where her hard work and dedication had gotten her.
Charlotte had always wanted to go far, but it seemed like St. Petersburg was one of the real, true signs of her evolution as an architect; and it was still hard to believe.
And then things had gotten even more outlandish.
In some ways, it was like Russia was a trigger. Everything that she had ever dreamed of, ever desperately wanted had all been hurled at her. And that included her boss coming to her room in the middle of the night.
Of course, she could always have said no. Charlotte was well aware of that. This wasn’t the story of two fated star-crossed lovers - she wasn’t anywhere near that naive. But the look on Vladimir’s face had utterly undone her. The way he seemed somewhere between desperation and animalistic desire. She had understood him because she was right there on the cusp as well.
When she really thought about it, it was insane how much she wanted Vladimir Kensley. Considering the rocky start to their working relationship, she might have been running for the hills. They might have been operating on the very edge of decency - but they weren’t. They were doing all they could to keep from crawling into one another’s beds. Now, even that bubble had finally burst.
Though she told herself it wasn’t safe to be as invested in the man as she was, Charlotte found herself waiting up after their day off. A day that had been, in her mind, the best she’d had in a long time. As much as she loved her work, it was nice to be able to get out and see more of the city that would house it - and she had certainly enjoyed her time getting to know Athena and Toshiro.
Charlotte could see why the Japanese and Russian men got along so well. In a way, Toshiro seemed like a more moderate line of Vladimir’s attitude. He was serious, but not too serious. Where Vladimir might have been a workaholic, Toshiro more readily enjoyed a good time. He smiled and laughed more, but had no problem contending with his straight faced older brother at his own level.
And Charlotte liked him.
Though he and Athena stayed out after she came back to the hotel, he made sure she got into a taxi to the right address, and reminded her to tell Vlad when she got back; though, in all honesty, Charlotte wasn’t sure how much a working Vlad would pay attention to a text from her.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to wait for him - and wait she did. Like a puppy for its master. The very thought should have been off-putting, but Charlotte told herself that her still-jetlagged form would do well from Vladimir’s form of both rough and tender loving. He would put her right to sleep - and some of the best sleep of her life, at that.
She waited until around two in the morning, and even left the man a message on his phone. As soon as she hung up, she wished she could erase it. She had never been the type of woman to cling or be needy, but, here she was, wondering when Vladimir would come knocking on her door.
As it turned out, he didn’t. Not before she went to sleep around four in the morning - and she didn’t see him for breakfast the next day either. After her meal, she ran into Toshiro, who assured her that Vladimir was simply caught up in the work of about three continents, and sleeping in the office was nothing out of the ordinary for him.
Charlotte tried to take it in stride. She did her best to re-evaluate her madcap idea that Vladimir would be sleeping with her for the entire trip. There was, after all, no agreement they had signed mandating anything. In fact, the less time they spent together, the better off they would probably be. While they were far away from the media of the western world, that didn’t mean they were untouchable - and Vladimir was already wary of reporters without her to help his image.
She, herself bundled up in the coat he’d bought her. It was too cold for one of the slinky dresses, so she supplemented with a pair of jeans and a thick sweater beneath the coat, and she made it to the job site close to eight in the morning.
The entire place was bustling.
Upon first seeing the building, Charlotte thought it had a lovely, lonely look to it. Now, of course, most of that allure had been stripped away. The structure was being gutted from the inside out, and the entire square block around it was a mess of dust and old building materials. Charlotte donned her hardhat before diving in, careful not to do any damage to her coat that couldn’t be undone.
She found the building manager fairly quickly. Without Vlad, he was set to be her translator. He was up on the fifth floor talking to a gaggle of construction workers. No sooner had he finished than he waved her over. “Lotte!” While Vladimir’s accent was only slight, Alexei Sokolov’s was so thick it was hard to understand him at times. But he still spoke English, and that was really all she needed.
Out of the management that she worked with at Dansk, he was, perhaps, the most amicable. He had taken up calling her Lotte with her permission, and Charlotte had allowed him because his smile and friendliness helped her feel at ease with her newest project. “Good morning.” Alexei beamed and Charlotte returned the gesture.
“Morning, Mr. Sokolov.”
“Please, call me Lexi.” He returned, as he always did. “You have more seniority here than me after all.” But Charlotte had never really been one to care about names or stations. “I have a list of the sections where we will most radically alter th
e floor plans. We’ll be getting started on those today in order to have the changes complete before you return to the United States.”
“Right.” Charlotte took the list from him, skimming it briefly. There were about eight sections of the building that needed the most serious work, and it made sense that they would tackle them first. “I’ll head up to the tenth floor then.”
“Da,” He agreed, “I’ll come with you, just in case you need to speak with the workers.”
He was, as always, a great help. Not only in crossing the language barrier between her and almost everyone on site, but also with making her way around some of the more unstable parts of the building’s interior. While it could appear, to others, as if Charlotte was rather callous about her own safety, the truth was that she was anything but. Now that they were working on the building, it was a minefield of weak spots which Alexei boosted her over with ease.
Charlotte had to wonder if both he and Vladimir were in a subgroup of Russian men that were literal giants. Alexei was a little shorter than Vladimir, and not quite as wide, but he boasted the same power in his torso.
He could lift her over gaps in the floor and boost her upstairs without getting winded which, while reminding her that she had to work out more, was a great asset. After about three or four hours of moving up and down, Charlotte was beginning to get a good idea of what the finished project would look like, and she couldn’t be more excited. She could only hope that, in six months’ time, she had a week or two to return to Russia to see it. She was sure that if she gave him enough advance notice, Vladimir would allow it.
It was at that moment that Charlotte realized that she hadn’t seen Vladimir in almost twenty-four hours. Even though she knew he was at work, it was odd for them to be separated like this. Since they had arrived in St. Petersburg, he barely left her side.
“Mister Kensley still working hard in the office?” It was almost as if Alexei had sensed her train of that and Charlotte shrugged with a small smile as they watched a group of men begin cutting into a line of rotting drywall.
“I assume so. When he gets absorbed in something, he really commits.”
“Oh, yes,” Alexei agreed with his own rueful smile. “The man is...how you say? A workaholic.”
It seemed to be a common assumption where Vladimir was concerned. “How are you enjoying our city, Lotte?”
“It’s gorgeous,” Charlotte replied. “I don’t think I could have picked a better place for my first foray into international work. I hope that I can come back very soon.”
“And Mister Kensley, he is proving a good host?” Alexei arched a brow. “He finds time between his meetings?”
“Time enough,” Charlotte replied, remembering the slight disappointment she’d felt when he rushed out on them the previous night. Though she knew the man had a duty to his company and his family, part of her had hoped he’d be able to get through at least a single day without bending to the will of the machine.
And that he might make love to her again afterwards. “You know that Russia likes to claim him as our prodigal son,” Alexei chuckled, “Though he isn’t technically Russian anymore. Of course, it’s always in the interest in the media to paint those of Russian descent of have been successful as the heroes of our generation. He is quite the man, Vladimir Kensley…” Alexei’s voice lowered conspiratorially. “Though I have heard that, perhaps, he is not so good with the ladies.” When he chuckled, Charlotte did her best to offer up her own smile.
Vladimir was certainly an enigma when it came to women. She was far from understanding the nature of what was between them, but there were times when Charlotte didn’t know if that would solve anything. She could hardly believe that hearing Vladimir break down the sexual attraction between them into cold, precise terms would do anything to help her confusion. She had seen that the man could be passionate. Seen what he could be like when there was nothing he could find to be worried about.
And it was glorious. There was no other word for it.
But Vladimir wasn’t Vladimir when he wasn’t worrying. Being preoccupied was his quid pro quo - and Charlotte could only imagine that, perhaps, he’d been happy to be called into work after a day of what he might have considered idleness.
“There is a close working relationship between you and Mr. Kensley, is there not?” Alexei adjusted his hard hat atop his blonde head. “This will be the second major project you have worked on together.”
Charlotte nodded, wondering what direction the conversation was headed in. “How does your husband feel about your being so close to him?”
The redhead almost choked on her own saliva. Husband? Dear Lord, she hadn’t expected that one. At her obvious distress, Alexei thumped her on the back until she recovered, his expression concerned. When Charlotte could finally speak again, she managed a weak laugh. “I’m not married, Lexi, so I don’t have to worry about any jealous men in my life.”
“Ah, then that means you wouldn’t mind having dinner with me.”
Charlotte was shocked into silence. The man wasn’t acting lewd or lecherous, but he had certainly just asked her to dinner, completely out of the blue. In the three or four days that she had been in St. Petersburg, Charlotte met with Alexei a handful of times. There hadn’t been a single occasion that led her to believe that he might be romantically interested in her.
She suddenly found herself looking at him differently. The man was tall, blonde and green-eyed - undeniably attractive. And he had an easy demeanor and smile that women must flock to. He was, really, the exact antithesis of the man that he worked for, and, six months ago, Charlotte might have jumped at the chance to get to know him better.
But things had changed.
Charlotte took a brief moment to contemplate how she might let the man down easy - but before she could open her mouth to utter a single word, a low voice spoke her name.
“Charlotte.”
The ice in the word was enough to make her whirl in shock to see Vladimir standing not five feet behind her, hardhat donned and gaze frosty enough to put even the chilly city of his birth to shame.
The redhead felt her heart drop into her stomach. “Vladimir!” She exclaimed in surprise, “I didn’t know you had arrived.”
“Obviously,” he returned flatly, looking from her to Alexei and then back again. “Mr. Sokolov, I’m going to need the morning’s report from you.” Vladimir’s tone was sharp enough that Charlotte flinched, her gut twisting.
Alexei, ever good-humored, did his best to keep his smile even in the face of his obviously disapproving superior. “Of course, Mr. Kensley. I’ll have it for you on the ground floor.” With that, he turned, disappearing down the stairwell and leaving the two of them alone.
Charlotte was turning back to Vladimir before she even knew what she was doing, her own anger rising. “What the hell was that for?”
Vladimir’s eyes narrowed immediately, his ire fairly palpable. “What do you mean ‘what was it for’?” He replied in a low tone. “The man was obviously propositioning to you. He’s lucky I didn’t fire him on the spot.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened in horror. “You wouldn’t.”
“I’m thinking about it,” The dark-haired man returned in a low growl, staring in the direction in which Alexei had disappeared. “I don’t tolerate flirtation in the workplace.”
The statement was enough the force a harsh burst of laughter from Charlotte’s throat. “Don’t you? Well, what the hell are we, then?”
“What we do is done behind closed doors,” Vladimir replied instantly, “There’s no need to parade it around in front of the world.”
“Well, maybe if you gave a little more indication,” Charlotte quipped, “You wouldn’t have to worry about it in the first place.”
“What do you mean by that?” Vladimir’s demand came back swift and sharp.
“Alexei wouldn’t even have spoken to me if he knew you were interested. For your information, I was about to turn him down.”
&n
bsp; “I would hope so,” Vladimir returned dryly, his eyes bright with anger. “Considering you’ll be in my bed tonight.”
It was an arrogant assumption that had no place in the current conversation - especially after that bullshit line about flirtation in the workplace. “Am I?” Charlotte challenged, raising her chin in defiance. “You certainly didn’t seem to care much about it last night.”
Vladimir swore lowly in Russian, his temper rising slowly. “I’ve been swamped with work for the past twelve hours. Forgive me for not calling when I knew exactly where you were.”
“Oh, forget this.” Charlotte threw her hands up, wincing as the biting cold nipped at her fingertips. She turned on her heels to start down the stairs only to hand Vladimir’s grip clamp closed around her wrist.
“Where are you going Charlotte?” Vladimir growled, “Surely not after Sokolov.”
And, just like that, everything clicked. This wasn’t about Vladimir’s dislike of flirtation in the workplace. If he was really so anal about the subject, he might have come down harder on Toshiro, brother or no. No, this concerned something completely different.
“Let go of me.” She yanked her hand from his grip, holding her wrist protectively. He hadn’t hurt her, but she didn’t need him touching her just now. His simple touch was enough to make her fury waver, and right now, Charlotte needed to be mad. “I don’t know what universe you’re living in, Vladimir, but I don’t belong to you. And getting territorial is no reason to fire a perfectly fit building manager.” Her voice lowered to a dangerous hiss. “If what we do in our private time is of such little importance to you, you hardly have the foundation to get your panties in a twist if someone else asks me out. You can’t claim what isn’t yours.”
She made to leave again, and this time she got perhaps two steps before she was plucked from the dusty floor and hauled upwards into Vladimir’s arms. The swiftness of the motion took her breath away, and she found herself gathered into a tight corner of the dusty room, hemmed in by the breadth of Vladimir’s body. When she lifted her gaze to his, the combined frustration and want there was enough to steal her breath away. “You’re being very unreasonable, Charlotte.” Vladimir spoke in a tone both dark and promising - low enough to make her squirm, even as she shoved at his chest.