by Leigh, Lora
“Really, Ivan,” Jordan drawled laconically. “That was a rather inane question, don’t you think?”
He merely arched a brow at the other man and ignored the mockery in his cool sapphire blue eyes while turning to meet Tehya’s suspicious green gaze.
“Don’t bother with the charm, you lying Russian,” she snorted. “Have Journey’s belongings packed. She’ll be leaving with us.”
He was going to regret making an enemy of these two, no doubt.
“Forget it, Red.” He turned his back on them as though they weren’t capable of killing him without a single regret. “Can I get the two of you a drink? Though I’ve been informed morning is much too early for alcohol. I believe we do have some sort of fruit juice instead.”
His little fiancée had been rather firm about that the day before as she caught him with a vodka in hand before ten that morning.
“Forget it?” Outrage filled her voice as they so obviously followed. “This game you’re playing is going to get her killed.”
He snorted at that. Making his way to the bar, he poured a glass of the orange juice Sophia had so kindly spiked with vodka for him. He took a healthy drink before turning back to them and lifting the glass in invitation.
Tehya’s nostrils flared in anger, though Jordan was amazingly calm, considering his wife’s rising fury.
“Ivan…”
“Where’s that lovely daughter of yours?” He glanced between the two. “I would have thought you’d be home with her rather than rushing here to insert your very pretty nose in my business.”
Her eyes widened before she threw her weight to one leg and placed a hand on her hip, her eyes narrowing confrontationally.
“That is my cousin you’re endangering, you jacked-up little bastard,” she snarled as he lifted his brows at the insult and flicked her husband a hard look.
“My home,” he told the other man quietly. “There are rules, Jordan, as well you should know.”
Tradition. Here he treated all guests cordially until they dictated otherwise. Male or female.
The statement wasn’t lost on Tehya. As she glanced away, consternation filled her expression for a moment.
“You’re right,” she answered. “I apologize. This time. But those same rules mean you’ll have Journey prepared to leave—”
“No, they do not,” he growled. “I will of course allow you to see her, if that’s what she wants. I sent Sophia to inform her you’re here. If she wishes to speak to you, she’ll be along shortly.” He stared at her warningly then. “But be warned, Tehya, I won’t have her ordered about or browbeaten. She accepted my proposal with her eyes opened. I won’t have her berated for it.”
Tehya’s jaw tightened and her green eyes lit with a furious flame.
“Don’t tell me this engagement is anything more than a ploy to force Stephen and Craig to sign their own death warrants,” she snarled, poking a finger in his direction. “It’s ludicrous. No one will take it seriously.”
He finished the drink and with startling control set the glass on the bar rather than throwing it across the room.
“Beware what you say, Tehya,” he told her softly. “You are treading perilously close to offending not just me, but your cousin as well. I would hate to see your relationship with her deteriorate further.”
It was a gentle reminder that despite the danger she faced and the years she had run from those shadowing her, Journey had never gone to her cousin or Jordan for help. She’d faced life, faced whatever danger and hardships that arose, alone until she inserted herself into Amara’s life with the desire to come to Ivan for help instead.
“Don’t throw that in my face, Ivan!” she snapped. “She’s angry with me. Once I explain…”
“Explain what, Tehya?” he questioned, crossing his arms over his chest, well aware of the concern in Jordan’s expression now. “How you spent months allowing her to work for you, with you, and never hinting at your identity, or your relationship to her? How you walked away with the man you married while she was fighting to understand the pure evil that filled her family?”
Her gaze darkened, regret filling her face.
“It wasn’t like that and you know it,” she charged, her tone rough with emotion.
“What I know and what she experienced are two different things,” he reminded her. “And it has nothing to do with my engagement to her either way.”
A mocking smile curled her lips, and for the first time that hint of a sneer in her smile was more offensive than amusing.
“Really, Ivan? Let’s try just an ounce of honesty here. That ring means no more than whatever game you’re playing.” She glared back at him, as though the look should affect him.
That ring was the final promise he’d given his dying grandmother. Whatever his engagement to Journey had begun as, he was deadly serious about it. He’d been serious about it the moment he placed the ring on her finger. Considering the fact that Tehya and Jordan had worked with him enough over the years to know he would not take a game this far, Ivan found it insulting. He was a bastard, he readily admitted, but never, at any time, had he dealt unfairly with a lover.
“This discussion is over.” He glanced between the two. “I’ll have Journey contact you sometime today to arrange a meeting outside my home. Good day.” He nodded to Jordan dismissively. “Ilya will see the two of you out.”
He nodded to Ilya as he stood at the entrance to the foyer watching the confrontation far too quietly.
Turning his back on them once again, he began to head from the sitting room to the wide hall that led to the rest of the house.
“Ivan.” Jordan chose that moment to speak. The bastard. He owed the other man far too much to walk away.
Pausing, he turned slowly to meet the Irish blue of the former agent’s gaze.
“Jordan,” he sighed. “I value that respect we’ve always accorded each other.” He glanced to Tehya briefly. “But be warned, I’ll tolerate no further insults to either my relationship with Journey or my promises to her. By either of you. Especially here, in our home.”
His and Journey’s home. Jordan knew Ivan’s insistence on certain courtesies in his home and he had always seemed to understand it.
“Understood.” The other man nodded slowly. “In Tehya’s defense though, no offense was meant. She’s understandably upset.”
“Which is understood as well.” He nodded abruptly, not mentioning there was no understanding for her insulting opinion of his character in regards to his engagement to Journey.
Journey might know no more than to believe it was merely the illusion she so needed, but both Jordan and Tehya should be aware it was much more.
“Do you love her, Ivan?” It was Jordan who asked the question, not a furious Tehya.
“I love her.” If love existed, then it was a pale imitation of the commitment he gave her.
For no other reason would he have given her the ring that meant so much to him. And for no reason would he have broken his promise to his grandmother to ensure he loved before allowing any woman to wear it.
Until Journey, until she gave him the innocence she had saved for so long. Until she had walked away and asked nothing in return, despite her need, he had not believed any woman understood honor or tradition.
She believed she loved him, and he would ensure she maintained that belief.
Jordan breathed out heavily as Tehya abruptly lost the smirk and regret filled her expression instead.
“I’m so sorry, Ivan,” she whispered, and she meant it. “But you have to admit, your past didn’t lend a lot of faith in our ability to trust you.”
And still, they’d try to talk Journey from his arms and his life. He accepted it, knew it was coming.
Nodding sharply, he turned on his heel and headed for the opposite door. “I’ll send Journey to you.”
Before he could reach the door, she stepped into the sitting room, her gaze meeting his, with knowledge, a certainty that no doubt what she heard sh
e believed to be only part of the illusion he promised her.
Dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a light loose-weave spring sweater, she looked like a damned teenager rather than the sensual woman he knew her to be.
Stopping, he waited for her to reach him before drawing her into his arms, against his body.
“I can send them away,” he whispered at her ear after brushing a gentle kiss over her lips.
She gave a barely perceptible shake of her head, and in that moment he’d give anything to know exactly what she was thinking. What she was feeling. Hell, while he was at it, it would be nice to know what he was feeling himself.
chapter twelve
Jordan and Tehya left an hour later, the concern in their expressions still heavy when they couldn’t convince her to leave with them. Their arguments were valid, the information they revealed on Ivan’s past more than she wanted to know. More than she was comfortable with, actually. Some things she already knew, others, some of the more brutal truths of Ivan’s life, she hadn’t even suspected.
The friends he’d lost the night his father had forced his hand by attempting to take Amara when she was just five, to see her to the English partners he’d worked with. The same ones who had killed Ivan’s mother and raped his aunt. At a mere nineteen he’d been forced to kill his own father, cousins he’d cared for, friends he’d believed he could depend upon.
The battle had split the Resnova family in two. Those aligned with Ivan, and those with his father. A father whose cruelties and monstrous actions had finally pushed his son past that final moral boundary.
He’d killed his father, an uncle, a half brother. To save his daughter. Then he’d taken control of the various criminal enterprises his father commanded with a brutal grip and begun molding them, conniving and manipulating men who could have destroyed him until he’d found a way to bring his daughter as well as himself out of Russia. Away from the brutality of his life.
And still, he knew how to love his daughter. He knew how to give an enemy’s child the illusion of love.
The sheer will and inner strength he possessed went far deeper than she’d ever imagined before.
God, how was she going to endure this when the time came to leave? When she’d have to return the ring he’d given her and walk out of his life?
She made her way outside the wide patio doors that led to the pool, the thick stand of trees, and then the beach beyond. When she’d asked Ivan about the trees, he’d merely said they kept anyone in a boat from spying on him.
They kept him from being shot at from said boat, she guessed.
Because no matter who he was, what he was, secretly, to the world he was a criminal. To her father and grandfather, he was the ultimate enemy.
Ask him why, Journey. Ask him why they were enemies before you marry him …
Tehya believed it was the love match no one expected Ivan Resnova would ever know. Everyone believed that but the two of them, and that was her fault. Because she knew what would destroy the two men Ivan called his enemies, and she’d demanded not just that but also an illusion she could hold on to while he was doing it.
“I can tell from your expression that little visit didn’t meet your expectations.” Ivan spoke behind her, his dark voice low, questioning.
“My expectations?” She frowned as she stared beyond the pool to the stand of trees, wishing she could see the ocean. “I learned a long time ago not to have expectations.”
She’d learned the brutality of seeing them disintegrate just within reach. Sometimes it seemed as though every dream she had ever known and fought to hold on to had been ripped away from her. Because of who she was, the family she’d been born into.
Because she was nothing at all like any of them. Being the girl next door would have been far preferable.
When he didn’t speak she turned back to him and wished she hadn’t. His expression was savage, his gaze brooding. It wasn’t a comfortable look. But it was damned sexy. All that savage anger and brooding male strength ready to erupt. It made her hot. Made her want to rub against him like a cat or something despite the severity of the situation.
There was a tension in him that wasn’t present before, but she admitted that tension had been growing over the past days but had deepened since he’d left her with her cousin.
Where it came from she had no idea. It wasn’t just the situation; it was something deeper, darker. Something that had her instincts on high alert, her body sensitizing.
“Keep looking at me like that I’ll end up fucking you out here for everyone to see.” The rough rasp of his voice sent heat curling through her body.
It still amazed her, this hunger he had for her. The way his eyes always slid to her, turned hot and hungry. He should despise her, but instead, he desired her, even now when anger filled him.
“The bad part is that I would probably allow you to fuck me wherever, whenever, you wanted,” she told him with a small grimace. “I have no control with you, and we both know it.”
All he had to do was hold his hand out to her and she would go with him wherever he led her. This man who had so fascinated her from the moment she’d seen him.
He glanced away, his expression tightening for a moment before he shook his head and turned back to her.
“You’re damned dangerous,” he muttered, sliding his hands into his slacks before breathing out almost wearily.
“Not me.” She had to curl her fingers into fists to keep from touching him, from smoothing out the dark frown brewing on his face. “But you’ve had no other choice but to be dangerous, haven’t you?”
To survive, to ensure his daughter’s survival, he’d had to be brutally dangerous.
His gaze met hers, knowledge, a deepening fury, and regret filling his expression.
“What did she tell you?” The question sounded casual, but the underlying danger in it wasn’t missed by her.
God, how she ached for him. No, she didn’t ache for him; the pain tearing through her soul went so much deeper than that as the knowledge of what her family had done to him had slowly come together. When Tehya had told her to ask Ivan what they’d done to him, pieces of conversations, comments, and snide remarks throughout her life had slowly come together to form a horrifying truth.
“Ah. I see they told far more than they should have.” Rage flickered in his gaze even as she shook her head desperately.
“They didn’t,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around herself. “Tehya told me to ask you what Stephen and Craig had done.” She swallowed with a tight movement. “But I don’t have to ask. The moment she asked the question I began remembering things that had been said.” Her lips curled mockingly. “I was always a very quiet child. And I liked to hide and listen to the adults talk.”
And she’d always heard far more than she should have, things that had given her nightmares as a child until she’d found a way to block them. With her father’s and grandfather’s arrests, that block had slowly thinned, then disappeared entirely.
They had raped a young boy’s mother to her death as he’d been forced to watch. Stephen, Craig, and Ivan’s father. As she screamed for mercy until her voice broke. And then they’d meant to do the same to Ivan.
Had it not been for Ivan’s grandfather at the time, he would have died as well that night. Instead, he’d been forced to witness his grandfather’s death several years later.
“Amara was always bad to hide and listen as well,” he sighed. “She wanted to be near her poppa, she claimed at the time.”
There was so much bitterness and pain in his voice. And hatred. The hatred resonated just below the surface, black and heavy with time.
He hated with such power that he’d spent his life attempting to destroy the men who had scarred his childhood. Beginning with his own father. And she’d handed him a weapon guaranteed to enrage both men and break the alliance they’d set up with the powerful Grant family. An alliance they needed to effect a semblance of freedom, and one that Beauregard Grant nee
ded to ensure his acceptance with the associates the two men had so far refused to name.
How could he not hate her as well?
And Ivan was a master gamesman; even her father admitted that, albeit with a voice filled with disdain.
“I didn’t want to be near my father,” she admitted, her voice almost a whisper. “I was usually hiding from him during those times. He liked to show me off to his friends.”
She didn’t have to explain the types of friends she was talking about; she saw the knowledge in his eyes, though it did nothing to soften the darkness in his gaze.
“How important is a marriage to Beau where Stephen and Craig are concerned?” she asked him, knowing she couldn’t hide any longer, couldn’t avoid the truth. “And how important is it to Beau?”
Once, long ago, Beau had been a friend, a confidant. And even then he had been lying to her. Deceiving her. Ivan hadn’t lied to her, but she knew there were times he hadn’t told her the truth either.
“I’m not entirely certain.” He frowned at the question as though not expecting it. “For some reason they believe that marriage is an escape from the American clause of some sort.”
It was a possibility, she had to admit. Beau might be considered a bastard son, but he still carried the Grant name, and should he take over the Taite family holdings with his marriage to her, as her father had promised him, then his political influence could be far reaching.
“What would they gain if they have me killed instead?” She could see no possible benefit to that.
“I’m not certain. My sources tell me they’re aware of the fact that you’re in my bed and that you’ve agreed to marry me. They are supposedly not acting rationally. With any luck, they’ll tip their hand soon.”
The satisfaction that filled his voice, his expression, was terrifying to her. He would do anything, sacrifice anyone except his daughter, for vengeance. And though she couldn’t blame him, she didn’t want to be his sacrifice.
