by Lana Sky
I look at him, expecting the judgment I’m so used to seeing reflected at me these days. All he does is nod in silent agreement—and in a way, his acceptance is so much worse.
“What happened between you and your brother?” I ask, turning the tables. “You weren’t close growing up?”
“You could say that.” He’s distant again, staring off beyond me. “We weren’t close, and for the most part, we grew up apart—he lived with our grandfather after our father’s death. Then our uncle…” Disgust colors his voice, making me suspect that he doesn’t care very much for that particular family member either. “Even so, we were very much reminded of each other’s existence.”
“Ah. A sibling rivalry.” Lucky for me, I was an only child, but I saw firsthand how nasty sibling battles can go. Uncle Conroy has two sons who constantly vie for his favor. “Let me guess. You were the good twin, and he was the bad?”
“I was the reminder,” he says softly. “Of everything he never wanted to be.”
“Beautiful, smart, and stubbornly brooding?” I wonder playfully.
He blinks and refocuses on me. His expression is skeptical rather than amused. As if he can’t quite understand why I’m trying to joke with him.
“Order something sexy for me in French,” I command, spotting our waitress arriving just in the nick of time. “Something sweet.”
My heart stops at the devious gleam flashing through his gaze. After scouring the menu for a few more seconds, he turns to our waitress, opens his mouth, and proceeds to utter the most panty-melting stream of words I’ve ever heard someone speak before. In English or otherwise.
Well, almost. Nothing tops his grunted slip-up from last night, but this comes close.
I smother a groan and try to disguise how my cheeks set on fire by looking down to read my own menu. Once he’s finished, I sneak a glance at him through my lashes and hiss in irritation.
He’s smugger than ever.
“I’ve taken the liberty of ordering you a selection of items,” he explains, gathering up the menus for the waitress to take. “I will discover which you prefer to dine on the next time you find yourself drunk and hungry while in my bed.”
I nearly choke, and I rush to take a sip of water, clearing my throat. “Sorry to break it to you, Vadim, but you won’t enjoy having me in a bed with you ever again. Because we aren’t having sex again,” I feel the need to clarify. “Ever.”
He raises an eyebrow, deliciously confused. “You mean to deny yourself of my beautiful cock?”
No fair. I suck in a breath, my brain stalling. When my thoughts come back online, all I can think to utter is, “You’re damn right. I’m starting to think that I need to guard myself carefully around you.”
Fire flashes through his gaze. “I would never hurt you,” he growls—and at the back of my mind, I take comfort in that. Though Jim had said the same thing at one point.
“Not like that,” I say softly. “More like… I think you enjoy playing mind games with people, while keeping them at arm’s length. Which is fine, I guess. I just don’t think I can last on your emotional merry-go-round for long.”
Admitting something so honest should feel more alarming than it does. There’s just something about him. His face, maybe? I feel so safe when it comes to our conversations. Which is why you need to run far and fast, girl, my inner-bitch warns. Preferably now.
“Keeping people at arm’s length,” he murmurs, another amused smile tugging on his mouth. “Usually, I am the one left feeling as though I am on that…merry-go-round as you put it.”
“Oh?” I prop my chin on my hand and eye him more closely. His expression remains as neutral as ever, though, on second glance, I notice that his eyes are more hooded than usual. He’s recalling his past again. “Your brother?” I guess. “Family? Other businessmen? Frankly, I can’t imagine any woman with a functioning libido wanting to keep you at any length, even if you can be a total dick—”
“You asked about my upbringing?” he counters. Something inside me tingles, and I sit forward, suddenly rapt. He was vague about his past before for a reason. The fact that he’s bringing it up now makes me feel that something made him change his mind.
“The way my brother and I were raised could be described as a competition,” he explains. “Our every waking moment was spent being compared to each other. Who was faster? Stronger? Smarter? Over and over again. Such antics take their toll over time. In many, many ways, I did not measure up to Maxim.”
He’s so blunt about it, and yet this one fact explains so much about him.
“That’s why you hate when I praise you,” I say, awed at the realization. “You’re so used to being picked apart that your brain can’t fathom the concept of a harmless compliment.”
“I wouldn’t call your words harmless.” He shoots me a glance that makes me rush to take another sip of water.
“You mistrust anything that isn’t strictly transactional or negative,” I add, confident in my psychoanalysis. “The fact that I think you’re beautiful, sexy even, with the body of a God makes your brain explode.”
“Should an ex-Sunday school teacher speak such blasphemy?” he taunts.
I shrug him off. “Baby, I’ve decided to no longer be offended by your dickishness. I’m just going to train you as any decent woman would.”
His smirk grows, stretching across his pink, tempting mouth. “Train me?”
“Oh, yes!” I clap my hands together at the enormity of the task ahead. “You’ll soon come to enjoy my compliments. I think you might even start to crave them, you beautiful man.”
“Is that so?” He sits back in his chair and cocks his head to give me a thorough once over. “And these compliments will come without us having sex?”
A challenge, for sure, but one I’m still up for accepting. “Yes,” I say with a nod.
“What a shame…” He strokes his finger along his jaw, his gaze reflective. “I was so looking forward to discovering just how you wanted me to use my mouth.”
I nearly fall out of my chair. For a horrible second, my thoughts devolve to a frantic mantra of unfair, unfair, unfair! When I finally regain my senses, our waitress has returned to set an entire spread of various dishes before us.
Vadim takes the time to name every dish in that drool-worthy accent.
“How did I know you would go for the cream first?” he muses as I grab a fork and shove it into a delicious looking white substance served with jam.
Everything tastes beyond amazing. I sample each dish, circling back to a few in particular, aware of him watching my every move. I’ve cleared my plate twice when I finally push back from the table in defeat.
“Now what?” I ask as he dabs his mouth with his napkin. Between the two of us, I’ve eaten seventy-five percent of the meal, but he’s barely touched what little items are on his plate. Before I can point out the discrepancy, he shifts his focus to something behind me.
“Now, my business meeting is here.” He reaches into his pocket while I glance over my shoulder and spot an older woman wearing a gray suit, her brunette hair pulled back into a severe bun. “What price would you put on having full access to my accounts for the evening?” Vadim questions, his tone suddenly serious.
“H-Huh?” My brain nearly crashes again at the thought of what I could buy if unleashed for several hours. More clothes. More shoes. Maybe I’d take him up on that threat to buy him a new wardrobe? Something tan, or navy, or red. Surprisingly that seems more appealing than the rest.
But then I finally notice the object he has trapped between two fingers and I recoil in alarm. It’s a wedding ring. So he wasn’t lying about the fake wife.
“Are you insane?”
“Whatever amount you think you could spend, double it,” he suggests, but he doesn’t extend the ring to me. I have to reach out and take it.
Which I won’t. I can’t. I…
“Mr. Gorgoshev?” A woman calls from paces away as I finally relent and lunge for the ring. I
t lands on my palm, and I slip it onto the finger that—until now—had been proudly bare.
Sweat slicks my neck as Vadim stands to greet the woman, and I race to copy him.
“Ms. Anderson, is it?” he says to her warmly. “This is Tiffany, my fiancée.”
“P-Pleased to meet you,” I stammer while shaking the woman’s hand.
She looks different from the typical businesswoman, or even an industry professional for that matter. Her clothing is strictly utilitarian, and the briefcase she carries has seen better days. As she sits, she shuffles through said briefcase and withdraws a stack of documents.
“Ah, yes,” she says, furrowing her brow as she reads. “You’ve applied for permanent residency it looks like. We’ll need to do a preliminary house visit, of course, but given the circumstances, I’m sure we can seek placement within a couple weeks. And out of courtesy to you, we can arrange a meeting with the previous family. Your lawyers have assured me that you seek to expedite this case as much as possible?”
“Yes,” Vadim nods. In the blink of an eye, his entire posture has shifted. He sits taller, which has the effect of lengthening his body overall and making him seem even more commanding than usual.
Watching him, I quickly lose track of the complicated business terms as they repeatedly discuss placement and a challenging case. Some kind of business he’s hoping to acquire? Eventually, the meeting ends as both Vadim and Ms. Anderson stand and shake hands.
“Great. And it looks like you’ve already secured a property here in the city! If you’re okay with everything as specified, then I would love to schedule the first preliminary visit by the end of next week, perhaps?”
“That will suffice,” Vadim says, nodding. “I will do everything within my power to ensure that it is perfectly suited.”
Smiling, Ms. Anderson walks off. I’m so distracted by watching her departure that I don’t notice until it’s too late the hand that settles over my lower back.
“A decent performance, baby,” Vadim murmurs against the column of my throat. “Though next time, try not to drool of utter boredom, oui?”
Startled, I swipe at my mouth. Did I?
His laugh reveals that once again, I fell for one of his mind games. Hahaha.
“I should renegotiate my price, adding a deduction for every time you stared off blankly into space, but alas, we have an agreement. Feel free to try your hardest to drive me into bankruptcy. I assure you that you cannot.”
“Is that so?” Challenge accepted. My mind reels with the most expensive, exclusive stores I’d never dream of shopping in before. But as Vadim leads me across the lobby to the concierge, I have enough sense to ask. “What was so different about that meeting that you needed a wife present? I’m sure you’ve made plenty of deals as a bachelor to get where you are.”
His jaw twitches—something I’m starting to realize may be his one and only tell. He’s hiding something.
“Ms. Connors is to have unlimited use of the town car, this evening,” he says to the concierge without addressing my question. “Adieu.”
I watch him go, mildly curious. Halfway across the lobby, he pauses and rummages through his jacket pocket.
“I almost forgot this,” he calls back to me without turning around. He brandishes a small object between his fingers, forcing me to cross over to him to retrieve it—his credit card. “Spend unwisely,” he says, starting off again. “Let’s see how much damage you can do.”
Challenge accepted. I’m already mulling over what style suit might compliment him the best as I meet my driver out front, and we head toward the shopping district. But at the back of my mind remains this niggling sense that I just missed something.
Something vital.
Something he was willing to bargain unlimited use of his credit card and the promise of a shopping spree to distract me from.
Chapter Fourteen
I return to the hotel just before midnight in a different vehicle from the sleek, compact model I left in. Halfway through the outing, the poor driver stuck with me had to call for backup and switch out his smaller model for a Range Rover.
Regardless, my purchases are practically spilling out of the SUV. So much so that I have to run to the front desk to request assistance. But the second I give my room number, the hostess raises an eyebrow.
“I’m sorry, Miss,” she says. “But it looks like you were checked out at least…” She scrolls through her records. “At least five hours ago. The room has already been cleaned.”
“W-What?” Panic grips me so fiercely I have to brace both hands on the counter. Deep breaths, Tiffy. You still have the bastard’s credit card, unless he’s already canceled it…
“Oh! It looks like there was a note left for you. Your husband wanted you to know that he had your things sent home and that he’ll be waiting for you there.”
“Home?”
She scribbles an address onto a slip of paper. I read it warily, half-expecting to find the listing for the Hotel Six back in California. Instead, I don’t recognize the street address or the location.
I try to hand the page back to the hostess. “I think there’s some kind of mistake.”
“No mistake,” she insists. “Our driver will be able to see you home. Thank you so much for your stay, have a wonderful night!”
In a daze, I stagger back out to the car and hand the slip of paper to the driver. Minutes later, we’re leaving the city, heading in a direction that seems vaguely familiar. A view of a gleaming body of water pierces a calmer landscape dotted with trees and the average home made of stone or wood. As the driver turns down a long, winding driveway, it clicks.
While this isn’t the exact same house his brother Maxim lives in, the one we’re pulling up to now looks eerily similar—no doubt within the same location if not the same neighborhood.
It’s sprawling, more modern with a winding driveway and acres of neatly manicured property. It’s as if someone wanted to copy the coziness of Maxim’s home, but applied the crisp, overly neat style of Vadim. The resulting creation is both breathtaking and imposing.
“Allow me to help you with these, Miss,” the long-suffering driver insists as he helps me out of the backseat. Between the two of us, we manage to carry most of the packages to the front door, which opens before I can even form a fist to knock.
“Such a late hour,” a man suavely remarks. “I was just about to retire to bed and assume you’d used my accounts to charter your own private plane.”
“I could do that?” The marvels of men with money. Shaking my head, I try to focus. “What the hell is this, Gorgoshev?” I step forward, barging into the entry, and I drop my packages right there in the middle of an open foyer. While the house may somewhat resemble his brother’s from the outside, the inside is all Vadim.
Cool, neutral colors—beige, gray, white, and black. Incomprehensible cleanliness. And then the chaos that comes with me and my five thousand shopping bags.
“Thank you for seeing her home,” Vadim warmly tells the driver while tucking a large wad of cash into his palm. “Goodnight.”
He heads to the door to see the man off while I take the opportunity to march through the first level of the home. It is massive. A large living room overlooks a view of the water, glistening in the moonlight. Within the same open floor plan is a gorgeous kitchen complete with stainless steel appliances and a double oven.
“Don’t tell me you cook as well?” I call over my shoulder, sensing him within earshot.
He chuckles. “No. I had it installed anyway, just in case my fake wife would enjoy the feature. I made sure to cover the cliché basics of what most women supposedly like.”
“Wrong.” I stick out my thumb and point it to the floor. “I hate cooking.”
“Fair enough. It will make for a beautiful focal point during our meals of delivery,” he says as I coincidentally pass a sleek bar counter that serves as the bridge to a dining room positioned near a row of massive bay windows. Not far from it is a s
mall lounge complete with black bookshelves already stocked and a neat, official-looking study.
“You really just moved in?” I ask. He makes it look so easy when I can barely organize myself out of a suitcase.
Rather than answer, he trails me until I circle around to the front of the house, my tour completed.
“I suppose you can help me carry these upstairs.” I gesture to the mountain of packages. “The brown ones are yours. Any other color is mine.”
“The brown ones…” He eyes the mostly brown pile of bags and shoots me a quizzical glance.
“I wasn’t sure of your size, so I had to guess,” I say, ignoring the implications conveyed by the prospect that I may or may not have spent more time shopping for him than myself. “You can leave mine by the door since I won’t be staying here long.”
Though should I even consider staying here at all? Spending the night in a fully populated hotel with a dangerously sexy billionaire is one thing. Holing up with him in his private, sprawling mansion is another thing entirely.
But by the time I mount the topmost step of the modern staircase leading upstairs, I promptly forget all about logistics and decency.
“Oh my gosh,” I exclaim, spinning in a circle to take in the architecture. High ceilings. Gray, textured walls, and black wooden floors create a sleek, impressive effect so different from my perfect, white-picket-fence dream home. The hall branches into two ends, leading to two separate wings of the house. I start toward the right side, finding a short hallway lined with just two doors. I reach for one, and Vadim makes a sound in his throat that stops me in my tracks.
“That one is private,” he says, but his tone makes me bite back a taunting retort. He sounds on-edge for once. Nervous?
A part of me warns that he could be hiding the bodies of his previous fake fiancées in there. Either way, I back off, letting him have this one round.
Turning on my heel, I begin to explore the other wing. The first door I open predictably leads into a massive master suite, but unlike the hotel’s more classic décor, this one reads him down to the last detail. Gray walls. Navy accents. A huge bed—far too big for someone intent on living alone.
