by Audra North
Her hands clenched into fists.
He shrugged. “Because I have three younger sisters and I can only pray they would never do something as foolish as invite a total stranger to share a hotel room with them.”
Of all the—
“I was trying to be nice, not foolish.” She punched her finger in his direction. She should never have made the offer. He was a jerk. She stepped a fraction closer as she laid into him. “You’re not the only person who’s allowed to do something decent for another human being? I was making a genuine offer—and in return, you insulted me?” Lily poked her finger forward again and was surprised when it met a warm, solid chest this time.
She hadn’t realized she’d advanced on him like this. What was it about him that had her swinging from angry to benevolent, to grateful and back again to angry within a span of five minutes? She never acted this way. That’s how she had grown her firm to the level of success it had today. By always being calm, cool, collected.
Everything that, at the moment, she was decidedly not.
And it was because of him. This man who made her feel too much.
He looked down at her finger touching his lavender shirt. And smirked.
Lily let out a strangled scream of frustration, turned on her heel, and stalked back to the counter.
“If you’ll sign here, madam,” Edgardo said smoothly, pretending not to have noticed the exchange that had gone on not five feet away from his nose, “I will make the room keys. Er— how many would you like?”
Edgardo’s perfectly pitched tone—somewhere between polite interest and polite disinterest—wavered slightly, making her feel marginally better. She wasn’t the only one who had been knocked out of joint by Komarov. She opened her mouth to tell Edgardo that one would be enough, but a low voice just behind her left shoulder beat her to it.
“She’ll take two,” Komarov told Edgardo.
He leaned in closer, until she could feel the heat of his body and smell the musky scent of his aftershave, and said, “I accept your offer.”
…
Lily Stanton was trouble.
He’d noticed her the second his cab had pulled up in front of the Ritz. She was struggling to get herself and her suitcase through the heavy front doors without causing harm to herself or the doors and had barely succeeded.
But that’s not why he’d noticed her.
It had been her ass, frankly.
Curvy, tight, and encased in form-fitting sweatpants. There was probably some fancy name for pants like that so women wouldn’t feel like they were dressing down too much. But they were really just sexy sweatpants. Her rich, dark hair was gathered back in a half-braid, half-ponytail thing and fell to just beneath her shoulder blades, a thick rope of brown silk that reminded him of the rich soil of the family vineyard.
But it was the ass that had him tracking her with his eyes as she rolled up to the front desk. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to bounce quarters off of it, but he could certainly imagine what it would look like to have this woman bending over to take his cock from behind. That was a damned more attractive vision than flinging loose change at her butt.
There was no time to strike up a conversation and see what she was about, whether she’d be interested in a quick fling or a few casual dates every few months when he traveled here from his home in Napa Valley to oversee operations at his grandparents’ vineyard. She might not even be Chilean. Probably not, in fact, if she was staying at the hotel.
But the set of her shoulders was tight even under the jacket she’d been wearing, as if she were under some intense stress.
Join the club.
He watched her roll an unbelievably tiny suitcase forward. It was June in Chile. Wintertime. If she was a tourist, it seemed like she was roughing it—which was hard to imagine about someone checking into the Ritz.
He thought he saw her check him out, but since she was standing to his side, he couldn’t tell for sure. And then they were both at the counter, anyway, and he’d had to focus on getting a room. It was too far to drive back to the vineyard for the night, and he had to get out on tomorrow’s flight or he’d miss the big shipment into their warehouse in California. With Papi having just retired and Rosa, Hilda, and Delia all heavily pregnant at the same time, he was pulling double duty in the family business to make sure everything got done right.
His friends often teased him for having been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but even though Komarov Enterprises had already boasted several vineyards and a bustling import business, he worked like a dog to maintain and grow what they’d had. His great-grandparents had started with a small vineyard when they’d first left Russia to settle in Chile, and each successive generation had added their own stamp. Even though he’d been born and raised in California, he took pride in his Chilean heritage and worked hard to maintain ties here. Bruno had added an investment firm headquartered here in Santiago to the family portfolio and was now looking at acquiring in the technology and renewable energy space in both countries.
But all that hard work meant he’d never had time to settle down, get married, like Mami was constantly urging him to do.
He was feeling ready now, though. At thirty-seven years old, it was time. He wanted someone to spend the rest of his life with. Definitely not one of the stunningly gorgeous, but incredibly vacuous women with whom he’d usually had relationships.
In that respect, anyway—the stunningly gorgeous one—the woman in sweatpants was definitely his type. Once he’d seen her face, he’d even be willing to bet that her career was modeling. Wide, plump, pink lips gave her a pouty look and complemented the light brown color of her eyes. Her nose was small and slightly upturned, and even though her skin was pale, she had no freckles as far as he could tell.
Definitely a model. A laid-back, sweatpants-wearing, tight-ass-flaunting model. He’d wanted to fuck her into the next decade.
Until they’d started fighting over the last remaining hotel room, and he realized just how wrong he was about his assumptions. She was not a delicate flower. Nor, in fact, like anything he’d ever encountered. She’d jinxed him, for God’s sake. Did little kids even do that anymore? And then she’d battled him, gave as good as she got, and when he’d finally trumped her with his loyalty card, she had accepted it with grace and goodwill.
He had been ashamed of himself, both for his assumptions about her and his reaction to the surprise of realizing that, just because she was beautiful didn’t mean she had an empty personality like so many of the women he dated. Because that’s what his nasty behavior had been about—he was bristling at the unexpected. This woman was a knockout, had a sharp mind and a sharp tongue, but she accepted defeat with poise.
And if any man had ever treated one of his sisters or, God forbid, his mother, the way he had just treated her, he would have taken the guy out. Twenty years of karate and a “freakish”—as Rosa liked to say—love of ballroom dance kept him in flexible, fighting shape.
So he’d conceded because he had no other choice, because he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he hadn’t. She’d gone and foolishly asked him to stay the night with her, told him her name, all while wearing the most brilliant, sexy, don’t-bother-arguing-because-you’ll-love-being-my-slave smile, and he’d mustered every ounce of willpower he had not to fall slobbering at her feet.
And then she had gone off on him, saying all kinds of things that he wasn’t even sure weren’t true, and he’d been unable to resist. Even though his body was screaming in protest, knowing how hard it was going to be for him to sleep just one room away from her, one door…
“She’ll take two,” he heard himself say, and tried to ignore the way his cock jumped in anticipation.
Down, boy. This isn’t what it seems.
From the way Lily’s shoulders stiffened as she stood with her back to him, that long ponytail making him want to grab, pull, and bend her backward to meet his mouth as he dove into hers with his tongue, she wasn’t very happy with
his decision.
But he already knew, from her impassioned speech, and the fact that she’d made the offer in the first place, that she wouldn’t renege.
And he knew, even if she hadn’t, that he was a good guy. Even if he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted a woman in his life, he wouldn’t take advantage. She was safe with him. He would keep her safe.
But, for some reason, he couldn’t resist tweaking her nose a bit. He leaned closer to her, just far enough that he could see the faint, wispy hairs on the nape of her neck, and purred, “I accept your offer.”
Chapter Two
The elevator car arrived and Lily walked in, head held high. After all that drama, Komarov just accepted the couch like it was his due? It almost felt like it was, the way he sauntered in after her and leaned against one of the mirrored walls, head back against the shiny surface. His relaxed pose made her nervous.
Now she was having second thoughts, all because of what he’d said about her not knowing him. But he had put those second thoughts into her head about himself!
She didn’t know what to make of him. After he had announced his intention to take the couch for the night, he had attempted to pay for the room, too. But she drew the line there. It made her uncomfortable. Not just because it would make her feel obligated to relinquish the bed to him, but because she just wasn’t used to having men do such things for her. She always paid her own way. And usually her boyfriends’ way, too.
Eventually, they’d settled on a sixty-forty split. They’d argued for several minutes over that one, until Lily had item-priced every major service or convenience that one might use in a suite within one night, then calculated that, actually, thirty-eight percent was fair enough for him.
He had raised a questioning eyebrow at her at that. It reminded her of how Jason had regularly called her a math dork and a pencil pusher. Those repeated insults—delivered in the guise of good-natured teasing—used to make her self-conscious about her skills.
But she wasn’t going to apologize anymore for being great at math, and excellent at breaking things down and quantifying their value. It was a big part of how she made a successful living.
“Thirty-eight percent. Don’t make me break out the decimals.”
“Is that supposed to be a threat?” he’d scoffed. His voice dropped and he gave a low, easy laugh. “Go ahead and show me what you’ve got. I’m a patient man, and I’ve got all night.” Lily’s blood had heated so fast at those words, she’d had to fight the urge to fan herself.
Of course, at that point, Edgardo had to break his pretense of not eavesdropping and informed them that they did not split bills on stays under three nights, reminding Lily just how temporary this was.
Komarov’s voice broke into her thoughts, pitched low and much more drawn out than he’d been down in the lobby. “Look, Miss Stanton. I want you to know…if this is too much for you, I don’t mind finding another place for the night. I’m really not trying to make things difficult for you.”
She turned and took him in, gulping at the sight of this tall, tanned, gorgeous man reflecting back at her from three of the walls. It was Komarov, surround-sound style. She shook her head. “No. It’s not too much for me,” she replied, before she could think. But she paused for a moment and realized that was the truth. This was a minor blip on the radar of her otherwise horrible week. “And please call me Lily.”
He pushed away from the wall abruptly, and surprise had her shrinking back, just a bit, before catching herself and straightening again.
But he’d noticed, and he grimaced, freezing in place. “I promise you I will not harm you. I was telling the truth, that I have three little sisters and I’d kill any guy who even thought about doing them a disservice. I won’t hold myself to a different standard. I wouldn’t even think of it.”
He looked so fierce in that moment, so intense, that she vaguely wondered if that’s what he looked like when he came inside of a woman. Her cheeks heated. She groped for something to say, to return her libido to something approximating normal. “Do you often have occasion to do that? To threaten the life of men who side-eye your sisters?”
He relaxed and chuckled. “No. Not anymore, anyway. There was a time, when they were in their twenties and not yet married, when I thought I was going to go crazy. I practically had to beat ’em off with a stick.”
Lily nodded. She could see how his sculpted features would look uncannily beautiful rendered more delicately on a feminine face. “I know the feeling. My sister is much younger than I am—she was a surprise baby—and just came into her good looks. I worry all the time about the guys she gets involved with.”
Said the pot to the kettle.
He grinned. “If she looks anything like you, I could see worrying being a full-time job.”
She snorted.
The elevator chimed and stopped, and she stepped out as the doors slid open. Did he just come on to her? She didn’t think so, since he’d said it so matter-of-factly, but it wasn’t something that someone said to a random acquaintance if it wasn’t a pickup line. On the other hand, they’d just finished talking about how he wasn’t a threat to her, so…Lily shrugged. He certainly hadn’t followed up his statement with any attempted kissing, groping, or inappropriate hand gestures, so she assumed he was just trying to be nice.
She pulled the card key from the little paper protector that Edgardo had given her and walked down the hall to their suite, checking the numbers as she passed. The room turned out to be at the very end of the hall. It was quiet. Secluded. Definitely a great place to come to on a romantic vacation.
Her shoulders tensed again. Don’t think about Jason!
“You okay?” he prompted. He was standing in the corridor behind her, and she realized she had just been standing in front of their door, not bothering to slide the keycard in.
An arm slid past her, brushing her ribs as he slid his key into the slot. The sibilant slide of his sleeve against her shirt was enough to make her brain shut down almost completely. The only thing she could think of was turning around, grabbing him by the collar, and pulling his lips to hers—
“After you,” he offered, pushing the door open and holding it with his fingertips to allow her to pass.
It was difficult to move out of his space. His arm was above her, his body bracketed hers, and she fought the desire to rub her back against his front. He would probably turn stone-faced on her again, like when she’d given him her magic smile. Plus, he was a stranger!
Way to add that in as an afterthought.
Even Jason hadn’t been a stranger when she’d started dating him. But then again, Jason had also been an asshole from the start, but she hadn’t seen it until years later. Lily was only passing one night with Komarov. She sighed and went into the suite. And gasped.
It was gorgeous.
Butter-colored upholstery combined with soft cream accents lent a clean, welcoming feel to the living room area, where a couple of chairs flanked a plush couch in front of a gleaming wood coffee table. There was a carved wood desk for working, a large, flat-screen TV, and what looked to be a half bathroom off one side, and a set of double doors leading to a room beyond, where a large, white-linen-covered bed beckoned to her.
“Wow, that looks so good.” It was impossible not to sigh in appreciation. She had awoken very early this morning to get from the ski resort to the airport, and the exhaustion of waiting in lines, then having to make arrangements for a hotel, and the unexpected—er, pleasure—of meeting Komarov had taken its toll. It was barely seven o’clock, but she was tired, famished, and in need of a long, hot shower.
She heard him chuckle behind her. “Now you definitely remind me of my sisters. They care more about the mattress and the water pressure in a room than the view.”
Lily turned and saw him standing near the far wall, pulling the drapes open as he spoke.
And when he slid them back, she gasped again and ran over to the windows. “Double wow!”
Since t
he hotel was located in a newer part of town, they could see most of Santiago before them, with the Andes looming in the distance. The intense rainstorm that had surprised everyone this past week seemed to have finally stopped while she and Komarov were wrangling a room. Dusk had fallen, and the twinkling lights of the city looked like their own small galaxy beneath the stars beginning to appear above the horizon.
A pang of sadness struck hard in her chest. “I can’t believe I’m only seeing this on the day I leave. Supposed to leave, anyway.”
He moved away from the glass. “What were you doing here, anyway? If I may be so bold?”
She laughed loudly, then. “The man who played his rewards status to gain this room is worried about being too bold?”
To his credit, he grinned, and Lily softened. The man had a wonderful smile. Straight, white teeth, and one side of his lip curled up slightly more than the other. She loved that tiny imperfection.
Whoa, what? You love something about Komarov? Her inner voice was reeling.
She gave a mental shrug. So what? He was attractive, relatively normal—or at least seemed to be—and he was impossibly sexy. After tonight, she’d never see him again. So she was allowed to bask in him for the short time he was in her life. Right? Right. Well, here goes nothing. She took a deep breath.
“This was supposed to be my honeymoon trip.”
…
Bruno felt it like a sucker punch to the gut. What the hell? If she was supposed to be on her honeymoon, where was her supposed to be husband?
Holy shit, was she married? His eyes flicked to her left hand, but it was bare. Unless her husband was European, maybe the right hand…nope. No ring.
But that didn’t necessarily mean she wasn’t married. It was one thing to share a suite for a few hours with an unattached woman. But he knew how he would feel if some guy were here with his wife, and no way was that gonna go down.