Dealing Her Final Card

by Jennie Lucas

  And for all she knew, he was right. For ten years, her fears had been on overdrive where Josie was concerned. How was Bree supposed to know when it was rational to worry and when it was not?

  “We’ll find her.” Vladimir was watching her. “Don’t worry.”

  “I’m not,” she lied.

  “Good.” Reaching into his pocket, he held out a flat, black velvet box. “This is for you.”

  She flinched when she saw the jewelry box. He’d known she hated the diamond necklace, but he’d bought it anyway. The chain of her captivity.

  “You went back and bought it,” she said dully.

  He glanced at the blue silk ball gown draped across their bed. “It goes with your dress.”

  Ice filled her heart, rushing through her like a frozen sea. In spite of all appearances to the contrary yesterday, he didn’t care about her feelings. He wanted to dress her to appear well. Like a show dog on display. “You are too kind.”

  A smile curved his sensual mouth, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “Open it.”

  “You.”

  “Don’t you want to see it?”

  “No.” Closing her eyes, she lifted her hair. “Just do it,” she choked out.

  Bree heard the box snap open. She felt the warmth of his body as he moved to stand behind her. She felt a heavy weight against the bare skin beneath her collarbone. It was surprisingly heavy. Frowning, she opened her eyes.

  A simple gold chain hung around her neck, with an enormous green pendant wrapped in gold wire. Shocked, she touched the olive-green jewel, the size of a robin’s egg. “What’s this?”

  “It’s a peridot,” he said quietly. “Carved from a meteorite that fell to Siberia in 1749. It once belonged to my great-grandmother.”

  Bree’s mouth fell open. “Your—”

  “The pendant was a wedding gift from my great-grandfather, before he sent her and their baby son into exile. To Alaska.”

  Bree felt the roughness of the peridot beneath her fingertips. The sharp crystalline edges had been worn smooth by time.

  “We sold this necklace to a collector, to help pay for college.” He ran a finger along the chain. “It took me years, and a large fortune, to get it back.” He put his hand over the stone, near her heart, and lifted his gaze. “And now it is yours.”

  Bree gasped. Feeling the weight of the necklace and the warmth of his hand, she looked down at the stone. In the shadowy bedroom, the facets flashed fire, green like the heart’s blood of a dragon. “I…I can’t possibly keep this.”

  “Too late.” Vladimir’s handsome face was expressionless.

  “But it’s too valuable.” She swallowed as her fingers stroked the gold chain against her skin. Their hands touched, and she breathed, “Not just the worth of the stone, but the value to your family…”

  Drawing back, he said harshly, “It is yours.” He turned away. “Finish getting ready. I will wait for you downstairs.”

  She suddenly felt like crying. “Wait!”

  He stopped, his back stiff, his hands clenched into fists.

  “This should belong to someone you care about,” she whispered. “Someone…someone special.”

  He didn’t turn around.

  “You are special to me, Breanna,” he said in a low voice. “You always have been.”

  She couldn’t just let him leave. Not when he’d proven to her, once and for all, that she was more than a paid concubine. As he headed for the door, she rushed across the room, catching him from behind. Wrapping her arms around his body, she pressed her cheek against his back. “Thank you.”

  Slowly he turned around in her arms.

  “I need you to know. You are more than just my possession.” His darkly handsome face was stark. Vulnerable. “You are…”

  “What?” Her throat ached.

  “My lover.”

  Unable to speak, she nodded.

  Wiping her cheek with his thumb, he said in a low voice, “Come. Get dressed. We don’t want to be late.” He gave her a crooked smile. “I don’t want to miss kissing you at midnight.”

  Seeing that boyish, vulnerable smile, her heart twisted. “No. We don’t want to miss that.”

  He picked up her silk ball gown from the bed, and she stepped into it. As he pulled it up around her, she felt his fingers brush against her spine. She looked back at him with an intake of breath. His gaze was hungry, his eyes dark as the midnight sea. She should expect more than just a kiss to celebrate the New Year.

  She wasn’t his girlfriend. She wasn’t his wife. But perhaps…

  Her fingertips ran softly over the necklace that had once belonged to a Russian princess, and a green stone that two hundred and fifty years ago had landed in Siberia from the farthest reaches of space. Perhaps he did care for her, after all.

  Could that caring ever turn to something more? To love?

  I cannot love. She heard the echo of his hard voice. That ability is no longer in me. It died a long time ago.

  As Vladimir finished zipping up the ball gown, he turned her to face him. Brushing tendrils of hair from her face, he looked down at her with electric blue eyes. “Are you ready?”

  Looking up at his handsome face, Bree tried not to feel anything. But her heart slammed against her ribs.

  His forehead furrowed. “Bree?”

  She turned away with a lump in her throat. “I, um, need some lipstick.” Going to the mirror, she made her lips bright Chanel red. Lifting the silk hem of her gown, she stepped into her expensive shoes with sparkling crystals decorating the four-inch heels, and took a deep breath. “Ready.”

  Downstairs in the foyer, Vladimir took a sharply tailored black coat from the closet, wearing it over his tuxedo. Then he removed a black hanging bag from the closet. He unzipped it. In dismay, Bree saw white fur.

  He noted her expression. “Don’t worry. It’s fake.”

  Dubiously, she reached out and stroked the soft white fur. “It seems real.”

  “Well.” His lips curved in amusement. “It’s very expensive. Twice the price of the real thing.” Lifting the white fur coat from the bag, he wrapped it around her bare shoulders. “I can’t have you getting cold, angel moy,” he said softly.

  “What does that mean?”

  “My angel.”

  She bit her lip, faltering. “I’m nobody’s angel.”

  He smiled. Pulling her close by the lapels of the white faux fur, he looked down at her. His blue eyes crinkled. “Wrong.”

  Bree’s heart squeezed so hard and tight she couldn’t breathe. Still smiling, he held out his arm and led her outside into the cold, frosty night.

  The limousine whisked them to a small town on the edge of St. Petersburg, to a palace that had once belonged to a Romanov tsarina three hundred years before. Bree’s eyes widened as the road curved and she got her first view of it. With a gasp, she rolled down the window for a better look.

  Beneath the frosted winter moon, she saw the palace that had once been a summer getaway for the Russian royal family. The elegant structure, wide and sprawling, looked like a wedding cake, decked with snow. The limo drove up the avenue, past a wide white lawn lit up by flickering torches.

  The limo stopped, and a valet in breeches and an eighteenth-century wig opened Bree’s door and helped her out. Feeling the shock of cold, bracing air on her face, she looked around in awe. She touched the green peridot against her skin, beneath her white fur. Standing in this courtyard, she could almost imagine herself as the princess of an ancient, magical land of eternal winter.

  She could almost imagine she was a Russian prince’s bride.

  His bride. As Vladimir took her hand in his own, smiling at her with so much warmth she barely even needed a coat, she could not stop herself from wondering, just for an instant, what it would be like to be his wife. To be the woman he loved, the mother of his children.

  “Are you still cold?” he murmured as they passed the bowing doormen.

  She shook her head.

&n
bsp; “But you’re shivering.”

  “I’m just happy,” she whispered.

  Stopping inside the palace doors, he pulled her into his arms. Kissing the top of her hair, he looked down at her with a smile.

  “At last,” he said softly. “I have what I wanted.”

  Searching his gaze, Bree sucked in her breath. That smile. She couldn’t look away. It was so open. So…young. He looked exactly like the young man she’d first fallen in love with, so long ago.

  The man she’d never stopped loving.

  As he took her hand to lead her down the elegant hallway, Bree nearly stumbled in her sparkling high-heeled shoes.

  She was in love with him.

  She could no longer deny it, even to herself.

  Vladimir took her into the ballroom, and Bree barely noticed the exquisite, lavishly decorated space, the gilded walls or the crystal chandeliers high above. She barely spoke when he introduced her to acquaintances. As he led her out onto the dance floor, she didn’t see all the gorgeous people all around them.

  She saw only him. She felt only his arms around her, and the rapid thrum of her own heart.

  She loved him. It was foolish. It was wrong. But she could no more stop herself than she could stop breathing. She loved him.

  For hours, they danced together. They drank champagne. They ate. They danced some more. For Bree, it all flashed by in a moment. In his arms, she lived a lifetime in every precious minute. The regular laws of time were suspended. Hours sped by in seconds.

  Suddenly, as they were dancing, the music stopped. Lifting her cheek from his chest in surprise, Bree saw it was nearly midnight.

  Vladimir looked down at her as they stood unmoving on the dance floor, and as the last seconds of the year counted down, for Bree it was as if time not only became suspended, but was reversed. His gaze locked with hers, and ten years disappeared.

  She was eighteen and he was twenty-five. They were in each other’s arms. The world was new. Brand-new.

  He cupped her face. “Breanna…”

  Cheers went up around them in the ballroom as she heard the last seconds of the year counted down in a jumble of languages, German, French, Chinese, Spanish, English, and Russian loudest of all.

  “Pyat…”

  “Cheteeri…”

  “Tree…”

  Lowering his head, Vladimir said huskily, “Let’s start the New Year right…”

  “Dva…”

  “Ahdeen…”

  His lips pressed against hers, smooth and rough, hard and sweet. He kissed her, and fire flashed not just through her body, but her soul.

  “S’novem godem!” Raucous cheers and the sound of horns and singing revels exploded across the ballroom. “Happy New Year!”

  When Vladimir finally pulled away from their embrace, Bree stared up at him, her heart in her throat. She swayed, nearly falling over without his arms around her.

  “S’novem godem,” he murmured, cupping her cheek tenderly. “Happy New Year, angel moy.”

  She looked up at him.

  “I love you,” she choked out.

  He stared at her, his eyes wide.

  All around them, people were dancing to the music of the orchestra, laughing, drinking champagne, kissing each other. But Vladimir was completely still.

  Tears filled Bree’s eyes as she gave him a trembling smile. “Even when I hated you, I loved you,” she whispered. “When I made the wager in Hawaii to be yours forever, part of me must have been willing to lose that bet, or I never would have made it.” She licked her lips. “You have always been the only man for me. Always.”

  He did not answer. His face was pale, his blue eyes as frozen as a glacier.

  A chill of fear sneaked into her soul.

  “And what I need to know is…” She bit her lip, then lifted her gaze to his. “Can you ever love me?”

  Vladimir’s eyes suddenly narrowed. He cleared his throat.

  “Excuse me,” he said shortly. He walked past her, leaving her alone on the dance floor.

  Mouth agape, Bree turned and stared after him in amazement. Her cheeks went hot as she noticed exquisitely dressed Russians and other wealthy, beautiful people staring at her with open curiosity. Embarrassed, she walked off the dance floor.

  She’d never felt so alone. Or so stupid.

  She lifted her hand to the necklace, to the heavy weight of the peridot against her bare skin.

  He cares for me, she repeated to herself silently. He cares.

  But even that beautiful jewel seemed small consolation, considering that she’d just confessed her love for him, and he’d left her without a word.

  Maybe he was called away on urgent business. At midnight. On New Year’s Eve. She clawed back tendrils of her long blond hair. Why had she told him she loved him, and worse, asked if he could ever love her back? She knew he couldn’t! He’d told her that straight-out, from the start!

  Oh, God. She covered her face with her hands. She was an idiot.

  Maybe when he came back, she could give a hearty laugh, as if it had all been a joke. She could tell him she’d been pretending to have Stockholm syndrome or something. She could be persuasive with her lies, as she’d been long ago. She could turn off her soul and disconnect from her heart. She knew how.

  But…

  She pulled her hand away. She didn’t want to. She was tired of bluffing. She didn’t want to be that con artist anymore. Ever again.

  And sometimes telling the truth, showing her cards, would mean she lost the game.

  She gave a ragged laugh. She’d never expected the cost to be this high. Snatching a flute of champagne from a passing waiter, she tried to sip it nonchalantly, as if it was quite enjoyable to be standing on the edge of the dance floor in a blue Cinderella gown, alone in a crowd of strangers. But as minutes passed, she suddenly wondered if Vladimir was even coming back. For all she knew, he’d already jumped into the limo and was heading for the airport.

  Why not? He’d abandoned her before. Without a single word.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. Please don’t leave.

  A prickle went up her spine as she felt someone come up behind her. Vladimir, at last! In a rush of relief, she turned.

  But it wasn’t Vladimir. A different man stood before her, slightly younger, slightly thinner, but with the same hard blue eyes—only filled with cold, malevolent ruthlessness.

  “Kasimir?” Bree whispered. “Kasimir Xendzov?”

  “Having a good time?” he replied coldly. Before she could answer, he grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the crowd, into a private alcove. She stared at him. She’d met him only once before, in Alaska, the Christmas night he’d burst in upon them, desperate to tell his brother the truth about Bree’s con. He’d been twenty-three then, barely more than a boy. Now…

  Bree shivered. Now he was a man—the type of man you would never want to meet in a dark alley. She yanked her arm away from his grasp. “What do you want? If you’ve come to find your brother—”

  “I haven’t come to see my brother.” Kasimir gave her a cold smile. “I came for you.”

  “Me?” she breathed.

  “It’s about…your sister.”

  “Josie?” An icy chill went down her spine. “What about her?”

  He came closer, invading her personal space. She instinctively backed away. He straightened, and his eyes glittered. “I’ve married her.”

  “What?” Bree gasped.

  He gave her a cold, ruthless smile. “Your little sister has become my dear, dear wife.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  For answer, he pulled something from his pocket and held it out to her on his palm. Josie’s cell phone. Bree snatched it up. There could be no doubt. She saw the colorful rhinestones that her sister had glued to the back in the shape of a rainbow.

  “I asked her to marry me some time ago,” Kasimir said, “and she refused. Until you disappeared. Then she came back. She offered to do anything, anything, if I would o
nly save you from my evil brother. Marriage was my price.”

  “But why would you want to marry her?” Then suddenly Bree knew, and her heart dropped to the floor. “The trust,” she said dully. “You want her land.”

  “It’s not hers,” he said tightly. “It’s been in my family for a hundred years. It never should have been sold. We’ve fought for it, died for it—” Catching himself, he relaxed his clenched hands. “So. The land will be mine in three days, when the banks reopen. After that, I can either divorce her quickly with a nice settlement, or…”

  “Or?”

  His eyes met hers coldly. “Or I can seduce her, make her fall in love with me and destroy her pitiful little heart. I can force her to be my wife forever, and you will never see her again. It is your choice.”

  Bree flinched, even as her heart pounded with fear. “How do I know this isn’t all some lie? It might just be some sick joke, some game in the battle between you and your brother—”

  Taking the cell phone away from her, he dialed a number, then pressed the phone back against Bree’s ear. She heard her little sister’s voice.

  “Hello?”

  Bree gripped the phone. “Josie,” she gasped. “Where are you?”

  “I’m so sorry, Bree,” her sister whispered. “The poker game was all my fault. I was trying to save you. That’s why I married him….”

  “But where are you?” Bree cried.

  Kasimir yanked the phone away. As he disconnected the call, Bree went for him, her hands outstretched. He pushed her away easily, tucking the phone in his tuxedo jacket pocket.

  “Tell me where she is,” she cried. “Or—or I’ll kill you!”

  “You’re scaring me,” he drawled.

  “Then…” Bree had already threatened to kill him. What could be more frightening than that? She lifted her chin furiously. “I’ll tell Vladimir!”

  Kasimir’s expression was cold. “Go. Tell him.”

  She was flabbergasted at his casual tone. “But he will destroy you!”

  “He’s tried to destroy me for years,” he said scornfully, “and I only grow stronger.” He moved closer. “And you are wrong, Miss Dalton,” he said softly, “if you think his desire for you will make him sacrifice anything for you or your family. He cares for you because you please him in bed, and he values that pleasure. But given the choice between helping you or himself, he will not hesitate.”