by Tee, Marian
It was from Max.
He hesitated only for a moment before reading the message.
Max: How did the press conference go? I wish I could be there. I really do. See you tomorrow, and if you ever need some help to make you fall asleep again, I’m always at your service.
Vassi slid the phone back into one of the pockets of Seri’s jacket.
He turned to face Seri again, and his heart clenched.
He had thought the lies had finally ended, but now he no longer knew what was real.
Chapter Eleven
As soon as she arrived at the restaurant, Daniela had no problems spotting Vassi. She only had to follow the trails of sighs and the direction of every woman’s gaze in the room, and there he was, with his usual quietly stylish trademark of silver blond perfection.
She walked slowly and gracefully, her air of confidence complimented by a cloud of expensive perfume. The scent of it reached Vassi first, making him turn towards her as she had planned. Strategic entrances were her forte, after all, and it had even proved to be a surprisingly useful tool in undermining Seri Devereaux’s confidence.
“Hello, Vassi.” Daniela deliberately used his first name with a tentative tone, hoping to unsettle him, but instead Vassi only gave her a polite smile.
“Hello, Daniela.” His formal tone disconcerted her, and she lowered her lids while she furiously tried to figure out what had changed. Something was different about him, but what?
When he pulled her chair for her, she impulsively decided to fall back to her old routine, rolling her eyes as she said, “You don’t need to do that.”
The old Vassi would have retorted, but this one didn’t and only gave her another unreadable smile.
When they were both seated, Vassi immediately signaled for a waiter to come over. After briefly perusing the menu, Daniela gave her order in flawless French, and so did Vassi. To the outside world, she knew the two of them would likely appear a perfect match, with both of them young, attractive, and accomplished.
But what the world didn’t know, Daniela thought, was while all this came naturally to Vassi Grachyov, everything she said and did was the result of years of hard work. Her success as a model, her girl-next-door image, her history for dating bad boys – everything, down to the way she had her hair styled and dressed – all of it was to achieve her goal.
And now, what she wanted the most was within her grasp as long as she played her cards right.
When they were alone again, she said in the same hesitant tone, “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me at such short notice.”
“You said it was urgent.”
She started playing with her table napkin, wanting to appear restless and hurt. “Why are you so cold?” Looking at him entreatingly, she said, “I didn’t mean for things to turn out that way, so please don’t get mad at me.”
After a pause, Vassi expelled his breath, saying, “I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “And I’m not mad at you. I suppose...I’m just having a hard time accepting that something happened between us.”
Daniela slowly picked up her fork, and this time she didn’t need to feign tension. This time, what she struggled to hide was her anger. Did Vassi even realize how insulting his words were?
“All I can say now is I’m sorry. I promise it won’t happen again.”
Daniela’s hold on her fork tightened. She had hoped he wouldn’t say that. She had hoped that after mixing sleeping pills in his drinks, having him wake up next to her in bed would be more than enough for him to realize that she was his perfect match.
But...she had also been prepared if things didn’t prove as simple as she hoped.
“I understand,” she whispered. “But Vassi...what if there are consequences?” She heard Vassi suck in his breath and smiled inwardly.
Oh, Vassi. Daniela wished she could tell him to just give it up. She had wanted him for so long, stupid beautiful boy. Did he really think she would let him slip out of her grasp so easily? If she could have raped him while he was drugged – if she could have somehow forced him to impregnate her – she would have. But sadly, the laws of physiology were beyond her ability to manipulate.
And so now it was back to lies and deception.
Which wasn’t so bad, she thought. They had gotten her this far already. There was no reason why more lies couldn’t get her to the finish line.
When Vassi still didn’t answer, she raised her gaze to his. “Vassi,” she appealed shakily. “Won’t you say something?” She waited for Vassi’s face to soften, but instead his silver eyes narrowed.
“How can there be consequences,” Vassi said softly, “when you said we were protected?”
Shit. Had she said that? Worry skittered down her spine, but Daniela forced herself to ignore it. “You k-know they’re not a hundred percent effective.” She willed herself to cry, and the tears came easily. “I’m j-just scared, okay? I have my whole career ahead of me, and I don’t know what I’ll do if I end up pregnant.” She tried reaching for his hand across the table, but instead Vassi pulled his hand away.
Daniela was more shocked than furious. The Vassi she knew could never be this rude, and especially not to her – his very special friend, which was how the media these days liked to refer to her as.
“We’ll cross that bridge if we get there.”
And now, Daniela realized what had changed.
Vassi was on his guard with her, and now she could not read him at all.
Shit.
She quickly changed tactics, adopting her old one-of-the-boys attitude in hopes of making Vassi relax again. “You’re right.” She flashed him a deliberately too-bright smile, wanting to portray herself as someone determined to make the best out of things for the sake of their friendship. “We shouldn’t talk about things that haven’t happened yet. I mean, for all we know, nothing could have happened.”
Vassi inclined his head. “Let’s hope for the best.”
For the rest of their meal, she tried her best to be the old Daniela Vassi had liked and trust, but it seemed like the harder she tried, the more distant he became.
Shit!
Where had she gone wrong?
When it was time to go and Vassi walked her to her car, she turned towards him suddenly, hoping she could accidentally kiss him, but it was as if he had already been expecting it. Before she could make a move, Vassi had stepped back and offered his hand to her.
“Friends?”
Shit. Left with no choice, she made do with a handshake, saying limply, “Friends.”
She got inside her car, and conscious of Vassi’s gaze following her, Daniela forced herself to remain calm as she drove away.
But the moment she was sure she was out of Vassi’s sight—-
Daniela screamed.
She made an abrupt turn to park in front of a convenience store, tires screeching, and causing the other vehicles behind her to step on the brakes and honk their horns at her.
Daniela didn’t care.
Screaming and screaming, she pulled her own hair in anger and struck the steering wheel with her bare hands repeatedly.
Even without Vassi having said a thing, she knew that he had somehow guessed her motives. If she didn’t do something drastic, she would lose him forever.
I’ll get a guy to knock me up, Daniela decided feverishly.
She would pass the baby off as Vassi’s. If she had to, she’d make a big fuss until Vassi would be forced to marry her. Once she had his ring on her finger, she would accidentally have a miscarriage and Vassi would never have to know the child wasn’t his.
It was a good plan.
A good plan, she told herself, and like with all good plans, there was no time to lose.
After Daniela left, Vassi returned to his table inside the restaurant. For a long time, he simply sat there in contemplative silence, uncaring of the curious gazes he drew from other patrons.
Finally, he made a call. When his family’s head of security answered, he asked abruptly
, “Your report on Daniela Martin. How’s it going?”
“Like I opened a can of worms, sir.”
His guts clenched. “Care to give me an example?”
“Her name for one. It isn’t Daniela Martin but Layla Martinez. Instead of coming from a rich family in Boston, she was raised by her stepdad. It’s not completely confirmed yet, but she may have had – or continue to have – sexual relations with her stepdad.”
“She’s been abused?”
“No, sir. I’ve been able to interview a couple of her old classmates, and it didn’t seem that way. If anything, it’s her calling the shots in the relationship. She was even able to persuade the man to mortgage his house in order to pay for her modeling and acting lessons.”
“I see.” And right now, Vassi did see that Daniela had been playing him like a fucking fool. “One last thing. Does she have a stepbrother?”
“No, sir.”
After instructing the other man to keep digging, Vassi ended the call and thought about what he had just uncovered. When Daniela had told her there could be consequences, his instincts had told him to lie, and so he had.
He lied about her telling him they had protected sex, and when she hadn’t protested about it, that had set alarms ringing. If she could lie about something like that, wasn’t it possible that she could lie about other things, too?
Clearly, he had underestimated Daniela – Layla or whatever her real name was – but never again. Even now, he couldn’t completely figure out her motives for pursuing him. He wasn’t even the most famous person she had worked with – or the richest one for that matter.
There was something he was missing here, that much he knew. But for now, Vassi set it aside.
At the end of the day, Daniela – or Layla or whatever she liked to call herself – was not the most important girl in his life.
When Vassi got back to the hotel, he found Seri in the balcony, the wind teasing her hair to a dance against her back. She had showered and changed, and he saw on the table next to her that she had ordered room service for two – and had left it untouched.
Going through the balcony’s doors, he said quietly, “I’m back.”
Seri slowly turned around. She wasn’t sure what she had expected Vassi to look like, but it was not this – this beautiful cold stranger whose gaze was nothing at all like the eyes of a man in love.
Nothing at all like the man who had spent endless hours making her body sing with pleasure and her heart cry with every word of love he whispered.
“Hey.” Seri smiled uncertainly. “I didn’t expect to find you gone when I woke up.” That was an understatement though. Finding the entire room empty of him had terrified her. Her first instinct had been to cry and run away, to think that nothing had changed.
But in the end she had forced herself to stay.
She was tired of running and hiding from the truth.
“I went out to meet with—-” Vassi found himself pausing. “Daniela.” Somehow, it felt distasteful to use that name now, knowing that it was just one of the many lies that had fooled him.
Seri could only stare at Vassi. “Why?” After what happened last night – no, actually, after the way he had made love to her from night till morning, why would he meet with another girl?
When he didn’t answer, she whispered, “I thought we were okay now.”
Vassi’s lips twisted. “You tell me.”
The bitterness in his tone bemused her. “Vassi—-”
“I met with Daniela to let her know that she can expect nothing from me,” he interrupted her.
Relief spread through her, but Vassi’s next words proved it short-lived.
“Can you say the same thing about Rockford?”
Seri paled, not expecting him to ask that question at all. Swallowing, she said haltingly, “N-no. I haven’t yet, but—-” She saw pain flash in Vassi’s gaze, and her heart squeezed. “Vassi, it’s not what you think.”
“I had hoped you’d prove me wrong,” Vassi said hollowly.
“There’s nothing between us—-”
“Then why did he send you that kind of message?” he demanded savagely.
Seri flinched as she finally came to understand where Vassi was coming from. “You read his text.” She wasn’t angry about it. If their positions were reversed, she would have probably done the same. Stepping towards him, she pleaded, “Let me explain—-”
He stepped back from her, and the outright rejection made Seri’s stomach turn upside down.
Vassi said bleakly, “I don’t fucking know what to believe anymore.”
“T-then I’ll tell you,” she burst out. Staring straight into his eyes, wanting him to see that she meant every word, she said, “Believe me.” And without waiting for him to speak, she told him everything in a rush, about Max being there when she needed someone, about Max wanting to be more than a friend, about her being unable to return his feelings.
She gave him every little detail, leaving nothing out, even if what she had to say would hurt.
“I wanted to fall in love with him, Vassi.”
Vassi inhaled sharply.
“I w-won’t lie about that. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. Because I—-”
Vassi shook his head. “Don’t say it.”
Seri found herself gripping the marble top of the balcony’s railing, feeling like she was about to fall any moment.
“I need time—-”
“Why?” It was her turn to interrupt him, and she only did so because she just didn’t want to start hurting again.
Because he was so damn jealous, even though he knew he had no right.
Because in spite of all the women he had fucked, his heart had always been hers, and he had never even thought it was possible to love someone else.
But most of all...
Because he knew, just by looking in her eyes, which were hurt and yet still filled with so much for love for him—-
He needed time to earn the right to love her again.
Vassi stepped forward. “Say it now.”
She didn’t even pretend not to know what he was asking her, only choking out, “I love you.”
“And I love you.” He smiled at her, and Seri started to cry. His smile told her he did love her, but it told her something else, and it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
“I love you, Seri. So damn much. When I think about what you sacrificed for me—-” He inhaled sharply. “I will never love anyone else, and that’s why—-”
“Please don’t say it.”
“That’s why I realized I don’t deserve you just yet.”
Seri clutched his shirt. “Don’t I get a say on this?” She looked up at him, saying desperately, “You deserve me. I should be the judge of that. So please—-”
He kissed her forehead. “I love you.” He took hold of her hand and forced her fingers to unclasp.
She watched him go.
Things were supposed to be okay now. The words repeated endlessly in her mind. He had told her he loved her. He had told her he understood what she had done. So why did it feel like he was going to leave her?
Chapter Twelve
A sense of nostalgia swept over Sergei Grachyov as he walked past the familiar sights of the public playground. There was the slide where he and his brothers had taught Seri to conquer her fear of heights, and there was the sandbox that they had used to teach Seri to build a military fortress with its own moat and missile launchers.
There were the trees that they had taught her to climb, and as Sergei reached the end of the playground, he saw the swing where they had spent lazy afternoons together. Despite their age differences, they had been all so alike – competitive, ambitious, and driven.
Kids were supposed to think of kiddie things. They were not, he thought wryly, supposed to think of being the world’s most successful entrepreneur, the world’s greatest doctor, the world’s most accomplished voice actress, or the world’s most recognized celebrity.
Even thoug
h they had all been young, they had known most other kids wouldn’t have understood them, which was why the four of them had only a few friends, and they had come to prefer hanging out with each other.
It was also why Seri’s disappearance from their family had left such a huge rift.
For a moment, he remained where he was, watching his little sister from a distance. He had every place that held memories for her watched, knowing that sooner or later Seri would come to visit them. Although he had known from the start she had been living in Maximilian Rockford’s place, Sergei had also known she would only refuse to see him, and he wasn’t one to waste time knocking his head against a brick wall.
When Seri continued to rock herself on the swing, her head still down, Sergei knew it was time to interfere. He walked towards her, saying simply, “Seri.”
Seri stiffened at the familiar sound of Sergei’s voice.
Without looking up, she muttered ungraciously, “What are you doing here?” It took everything in her not to throw herself in his arms. Sergei had always been dependable, had always been the one she run crying to when she had problems.
But she couldn’t do that anymore.
She had burned her bridges with him and the other boys, and although she knew she could explain and apologize—-
She couldn’t.
If Sergei chose to reject her, she didn’t think she would be able to bear it.
In the end, it was better to pretend she was a gold-digging slut. At least when she was pretending, the rejection wouldn’t be so...personal, and she could allow herself to dream that maybe one day, when they found out the truth—-
They would think she was worth loving again.
A girl could dream, couldn’t she?
Taking a deep breath, Seri forced herself to look up at Sergei with a coy smile. “Did you miss me, Sergei baby?” When he only gazed at her with inscrutable dark eyes, she pouted, saying, “Don’t you? I know you did.” She lowered her voice, saying throatily, “And you know the good thing about missing me now?” She forced herself to laugh. “I’m not your sister anymore. So you can do more than hug me. You can do more than kiss me.” And to illustrate her point, she reached for his cock—-
