“Of course. What can I do to help?”
She was instantly all business and he was infinitely grateful she was there. In no time she had him pushed in the direction of the bathroom while she packed a suitcase for him. By the time he was dressed and downstairs, she was already in the kitchen with a smoothie at the ready.
“You’re going to regret not sharing your recipe with me,” she said with a grin as she handed him the glass. “I had to guess.”
He took a sip, grimaced, then downed the rest in one gulp. “You’re right. It’ll be first thing on my agenda when I get back.”
“First thing?” Yasmin asked coyly, one fingertip tracing the outline of her nipple through the thin fabric of her robe.
He grinned. “Okay, second.”
He leaned forward and gave her a hard kiss. “Thanks for everything. I’ll call you tonight. And don’t worry. I’ll instruct the bank to make that transfer so you can settle your loan later today. Make sure you get the figures. My bank manager will be in touch.”
“Don’t worry about that now. It’s not urgent.”
“I’ll deal with it.”
Outside they could hear the beat of helicopter blades in the air.
“Sounds like your ride to the airport is here,” Yasmin said, stepping close and hooking her arms around his neck. She pressed herself against his body and kissed him again. “Take care, huh?”
“You, too,” he said.
In no time he was up at the helipad. He stowed his case in the back of the chopper before taking the left-hand seat. When he took off, he circled over the house before heading to the airport. He usually relished tackling a challenge like this. Normally by now he’d be planning ahead as to how he could best ensure that the necessary contingencies were put in place quickly and efficiently. But this time, every cell in his body was attuned to the woman waving at him from below. He didn’t just wish they’d been able to complete their morning together; he wished he didn’t have to leave her, period.
He wasn’t used to wanting someone like this. Sure, he had to make everything right for his family and loved them fiercely. But this was different. It left him daunted. After losing first his father, then his mother, and then being betrayed by his fiancée, he’d always believed that loving someone outside of his immediate family circle was inviting weakness, vulnerability. But he could no longer deny his growing feelings for Yasmin.
This was more than a crush, more than a lust-filled haze of need. Thinking she was using him to win the Hardacres’ business had caused a knee-jerk reaction to pull away, as if he’d been looking for a reason for their marriage to fail, he could see that now. He was grateful to his grandmother for her guidance. He fought a smile. The older woman’s knack for giving advice had been right on target. He did need to learn to open up, and so did Yasmin. As Nagy had so astutely pointed out, with honesty between them, they could do this.
Which brought him back to the secret he was holding back.
Would telling her destroy the fragile links they’d forged after yesterday? He had to tell her; it was a huge risk not to. The past had a way of coming back to a person and even though he hadn’t been an instigator in the torment she’d endured, both back then and more recently, he had to act now to protect her as he ought to have done before.
He landed the helicopter at the airfield. A Gulfstream was waiting for him on the tarmac close by.
He wished he’d told her already. Of course, the right time to have done so would have been after she’d first disclosed to him who she was. But he couldn’t turn back time. Nor could he turn around and go back to her right now. It would have to wait until he got home. He’d find a way to tell her everything because he hated having this secret lingering between them like a malignant stain on their relationship. And, despite Yasmin’s refusal of his offer, he had every intention of discovering exactly who the Hardacre’s informant had been so he would bring them to justice.
It was no longer enough to just be married. He realized now that he wanted it all. Everything that marriage to another human being entailed. Love, honor, respect, togetherness—right down to the very last wrinkle.
Fifteen
It had been four days—and four desperately lonely nights—since Ilya went away. For Yasmin, the days had been filled with walking and playing with the puppy, dealing with the contracts that had come across her desk from Horvath’s legal team and flying the occasional client to their requested destination. But her nights were a different story. Sleep had become a fractured thing; she frequently paced the moonlit bedroom floor when wakefulness drove her from the bed.
Ilya had made a point of calling her each evening, and she found herself hanging onto the phone long after they’d said their goodbyes, reluctant to sever that ephemeral contact with him. A glance in the mirror this morning told her that pining for him was taking its toll, leaving dark shadows under her eyes. Ridiculous, when this coming weekend marked four weeks since they’d been married.
And what a roller coaster it had been so far, she thought as she settled Blaze in his crate for the night and wandered through to the office to fire up the computer. She had brought some work home with her and Ilya had told her to use the home computer if she ever needed it. On top of everything else going on, her laptop had died and she’d taken it in to get repaired.
She settled herself in the leather chair at the desk and sat for just a moment, closing her eyes and imagining him sitting here. She’d missed her parents when they’d gone traveling; she’d missed her grandfather when he’d passed away. But this felt different. It was a physical ache. She couldn’t wait for Ilya to return home. Quick phone calls simply weren’t enough.
How had he come to be such a vital part of her life so quickly? She’d always been the self-sufficient one, the solver of her own problems. The one others could rely on. It had often been a heavy responsibility to bear, but now it was as if Ilya had lifted that weight from her shoulders and bore it on his alone. Somehow they had to find a middle ground. She didn’t want to give up every last bastion of control and independence, and she knew he didn’t either, but she had growing confidence they could make it work.
He’d been as good as his word, and the money to repay her loan had appeared in her bank account the day he left for New York. Thankfully, there’d been no further fallout from the Hardacre debacle and she’d filed a complaint with the police, but Yasmin still walked around feeling as though there was yet another hammer blow still to drop. She hated feeling like this—as if turning the corner past that situation was just setting her up for another fall.
She spent about an hour checking through the Horvath subcontracting paperwork, making small notations here and there, before scanning the documents and emailing them to her lawyers for a final read through. Provided Ilya agreed to the minor tweaks she wanted, Carter Air had a future. She sat back in her chair for a moment and heaved a massive sigh of relief. She knew that good business generated more business. Working with the Horvaths might have been her grandfather’s idea of hell on earth, but right now it was a godsend.
The deal with Horvath Aviation was ironclad. She knew Ilya would stand by his word because he was that kind of guy. This past month had taught her a lot about him. Not everything, obviously, and she looked forward to what she had yet to discover about her husband. Like, his most ticklish spots, she thought with a secretive smile. Or what movies he liked. She was a sucker for the old Bogie and Bacall black and whites herself. Maybe she’d organize a movie night for the two of them when he got back, and cook her special eggplant parmigiana.
She started mentally making a grocery list to give to Hannah as she logged into her mail before shutting down the computer. All thoughts of cooking and movie nights fled, however, when she saw the new message waiting in her inbox. Yasmin swallowed against the sick feeling that threatened to choke her as she opened it.
Your husband knows
a lot more than he’s telling you.
“What do you mean?” Yasmin all but shouted at the computer screen. “Enough with these stupid cryptic messages.” Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she drafted a reply.
She kept it short and sweet.
You’ve done your worst. Now leave me alone.
She hit Send and went to close the window but a new message popped straight back up in her inbox.
You think that was my worst? He was at your hazing, did you know that?
“You’re lying,” Yasmin whispered in shock before keying those very words into the computer.
Again she hit Send but this time she waited for a reply. It didn’t take long. Seconds later, email after email began to flood her inbox, each one with an attachment. Yasmin hesitated to open the first one but she figured that with Ilya’s computer security being top-of-the-line she’d be safe. If the attachment had come with any viruses or malware, his software would block it.
The photo filled the screen and as she identified the people in it, Yasmin’s skin crawled in horror. It was a picture of Ilya—younger, certainly more carefree, but just as handsome as ever. But it wasn’t Ilya who caused the visceral reaction that crawled through her body like some insidious vile disease. It was Jennifer Morton. The woman who’d strung her along, devised challenge after challenge for her, then almost killed her when Yasmin wouldn’t back down. And she was tucked under Ilya’s arm and looking up into his eyes, their smiles speaking volumes about their feelings for each other.
One by one, Yasmin trawled through the rest of the pictures. Her head was spinning by the time she got to the last one. It was a picture of a just-woken, sleep-mussed, naked Ilya in a bed. In the foreground was a photo of a woman’s hand wearing an engagement ring. The picture was captioned, “I said yes!”
Another message came in. Feeling a sense of the inevitable, Yasmin opened it.
He was there that night. He knows how pathetic you are.
Ilya had been there?
Yasmin stayed frozen in her chair, staring at the screen. Emotions tumbled through her. Shock. Revulsion. Anger. But most of all, betrayal. Ilya knew it all. He’d seen her at her worst. He’d been party to her ultimate degradation. He’d been engaged to Jennifer Morton.
Why had he hidden the truth from her? She’d opened her soul to him that day they’d gone up in the Ryan. Sure, she’d skirted a few of the more sordid details, but she’d bared virtually everything to him about what had happened and how it had affected her. Her eyes glazed over until she could no longer see the screen, but that didn’t do anything to assuage the clawing pain that ripped inside her chest.
She’d trusted him with her greatest fear, and yet he’d known it all along. How could he have sat there, after they’d made love, and listened to her pouring her heart out and said nothing at all? Had this been some kind of joke to him? Was he, even now, laughing behind her back about how pitiful she’d been back then? How pitiful now? Was he somehow still in touch with Jennifer and were they laughing together? Or worse, was this all some elaborate scheme to wrest control of her business from her? Ilya had already said his firm had looked into branching out in the smaller client contracts market Carter Air flew, but that it hadn’t been viable to establish a new division with that focus. But how much more viable would it be to take over an existing operation?
Yasmin could only be relieved that she’d refused to allow him to buy into Carter Air. Yes, she was still beholden to him for the personal loan, but her business, her life’s blood, was still hers. Then there was the Horvath Aviation subcontract. But thinking about it now, it made her feel distinctly uncomfortable. How long had he been planning this? And was Jennifer involved? Were they in this together? Still quietly laughing at her behind her back? And what about Alice? Was she in on it, too? While every instinct urged her to email her lawyers immediately and tell them to instruct Horvath exactly where to shove its business, she couldn’t do it to her staff. But no one said she had to stay here, or stay married to a man who’d withheld a vital truth from her.
She didn’t sleep a wink that night. Instead, she spent all her time removing every last personal item she owned from the house and packing it into her truck. By the time Hannah arrived first thing in the morning, Yasmin was running on coffee and not a lot else.
“Are you okay, Mrs. Horvath?”
Yasmin barely managed not to roll her eyes. No matter how often she’d told Hannah to call her Yasmin or, if she must, Ms. Carter, she insisted on calling her Mrs. Horvath. Yasmin had begun not to notice so much, but this morning it succeeded in rubbing salt into an already exposed wound.
“Just a little tired is all,” she answered, reaching for the coffee carafe and pulling a face when she realized it was empty. Again.
“Oh, you leave that to me. I’ll make you a fresh pot,” Hannah said, bustling past her and refilling the machine. “You must be missing Mr. Horvath, yes?”
Yasmin had been. She’d missed him as if a vital part of her was suddenly gone. Which, altogether, made her even more laughable, she realized. She closed her eyes a moment as they began to burn with more unshed tears and shook her head slightly.
All night she’d tried to understand why he hadn’t told her the truth about him and Jennifer. Would it have been so very hard? She was exhausted from wondering about his reasons, wondering what kind of man he really was, wondering why she’d allowed herself to fall in love with him. And that, she felt, was the biggest betrayal of all. He’d presented himself to her as the kind of man she’d only ever dreamed of meeting, but beneath it all, he was a fake.
She watched as Blaze walked outside on the patio, playing with a leaf that fluttered past before getting distracted by a chew toy that had been left under a sun lounger. Ilya had been so compassionate with the puppy. So determined to give him a home. Had that, too, been a lie constructed to somehow win her trust? For what purpose? None of it even made sense. All she knew is she needed to create some distance between them. She couldn’t think here in his beautiful home because everything reminded her of him.
Blaze bounded in through the open patio doors and sat on her foot. She bent down and absently scratched his head and gave his chest a rub. What would she do with him? Was he even hers to take? He’d been found on Ilya’s property, his care had been provided for by Ilya’s cousin and paid for by Ilya himself. As much as it would break her heart, she had to leave Blaze behind.
Overhead, she heard the sound of a helicopter approaching the house. Her stomach tightened in a knot. Ilya had said nothing last night about coming home today. How on earth was she going to face him now, knowing what she did?
* * *
Ilya alighted from the chopper and gave Pete a thumbs-up after he’d taken his case from the back and walked clear of the helipad. He was exhausted but, as Valentin had wryly pointed out to him over a quick dinner together last night, what was he doing hanging around in New York when he had a beautiful wife waiting for him at home?
It had been a grueling few days away, but he was satisfied that not only was his general manager on the road to recovery, but everything else was in good hands for their operations to continue as normal. And, if old Zachary wasn’t well enough in a few months to resume his duties, there was a succession plan in place so they could cross that bridge, too.
For now, though, all Ilya wanted was his wife. As busy as he’d been, he’d found his thoughts straying to her in unguarded moments and he’d missed her more than he would have thought possible. He’d kept his early arrival home a surprise, but given the fact he’d arrived by chopper, he figured she probably knew he was there by now. He felt strangely nervous, knowing what was coming—that he was about to reveal his part in her hazing and his desire to press historical charges—but not knowing how she would respond. He could only hope that the feelings they’d developed for one another would see them through.
It kind of sur
prised him that she hadn’t come up to the helipad to welcome him home. Maybe she was out walking Blaze. If that was the case, he might have time to have a quick shower to erase the grime of travel before taking up again where they’d been interrupted before he’d had to fly East.
As he walked along the path, he heard the sound of Hannah’s car going up the long driveway that led to the main road. It was strange that the housekeeper was heading out so early in the day when she normally would have only just arrived at the house. But it was nowhere near as strange as seeing Yasmin’s truck parked in front of the house loaded with suitcases.
The front doors opened and the chill of foreboding that had begun to tickle at the back of his mind gave him a swift hard yank into reality when he saw the look on Yasmin’s face.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” she said bluntly.
No welcome. No smile. No Honey, I missed you. Just a blank wall of...what? He wasn’t sure exactly. All he knew was he needed to go into damage control mode.
“Hey,” he answered her with a tentative smile. “I wanted to surprise you. Looks like I succeeded, huh?”
She gave him a bitter look in return. “Surprise. Yes, I guess you could call it that.”
He swallowed. This wasn’t going how he’d planned at all. When he left, he’d felt like they were on a pathway to a stronger future together. Even last night, when they’d spoken on the phone, hadn’t there been affection and longing in her voice as they’d ended the call? What the hell had happened between then and now to change her into this cold effigy of the warm and caring woman he’d left only five mornings ago?
He drew nearer. “Where’s Blaze?”
“Hannah took him to day care for me.”
“I see.”
Ilya didn’t see at all. Why was Hannah taking the dog when the day care was on Yasmin’s route to work? He looked at his wife’s closed expression, trying to figure out what had changed between them since they spoke last night on the phone. He reached out to touch her.
Tangled Vows (Marriage At First Sight Book 1) Page 13
