by Lucy Ellis
‘Why does this happen to you?’
‘Good question.’ He glanced away out the window into the darkness. ‘Just here, Rose, in Moscow.’
He’d been this way, a little distant, throughout the long flight. Rose knew it was to do with her hugging him. She got the impression it wasn’t something he’d enjoyed, and she felt as if she’d revealed her hand too soon. If she were a long-legged, worldly-wise Scandinavian model she would probably have taken his words as her due—chivalrous, but meaningless in the larger scheme of things. But she was a plump-calved, down-home Texan girl and he had said something that in her book was romantic. Her instinct had been to hug him. She hadn’t been able to help it. Probably no more than he’d been able to help looking as if someone had thrown him out of a plane without a parachute afterwards.
But he had put her first, ahead of his own comfort, and she hadn’t expected that.
His gaze returned to her, moving over her with unabashed sexual speculation. Yes, he seemed a lot more comfortable with this kind of attention, and if this was where it started, so be it. She could work with this. But at her pace. She was in charge. She wasn’t that girl striving to please a man who wasn’t interested. Bill had been her first lover. She knew now her libido had definitely out-powered his, but when they’d been together he’d always made her feel somehow too sexual—as if her wants and needs were unfeminine. Intellectually she’d known it was nonsense, but deep down in her psyche she had absorbed his distaste for her sexuality and her womanly body.
Plato didn’t seem to have any problem with her body; in fact the fuller than average curve of her derrière, the roundness of her hips and thighs, had him all sorts of intent and interested. He made her feel sexy and kind of powerful, and it put ideas in her head. Bold ideas. She was going to be Plato Kuragin’s Waterloo whether he liked it or not! He was going to fall so hard for her his knees would be ringing with the impact for years. She’d be the girl he’d never forget. The one who changed his wicked ways…
‘I’ve got a series of meetings in the centre of town,’ he was saying almost abstractedly as his eyes zeroed in on her mouth.
No more skinny blondes without bottoms…
‘I’ll have Ivan drop me at the Kharkov Building and take you on to the apartment.’ His deep voice strummed her senses. ‘I’ll join you around midday.’
No more orgies on yachts… Well, she’d like to see his yacht… She pulled up short. ‘I don’t understand. It’s the middle of the night.’
‘You might want to alter your watch, Rose. It’s just after 7:00 a.m.’ He was smiling at her.
‘It can’t be. It’s pitch-dark out there.’ She forgot for a moment what they were talking about. He really did have a sensual smile. It made her think of silk on her skin and the way he’d pressed those hot kisses to the swells of her breasts. She shivered.
‘It’s winter, malenki,’ he said in a deep, dark voice. ‘Welcome to Russia.’
Thinking about what this welcome might actually involve, Rose asked faintly, ‘When does it grow light?’
‘Around nine. Don’t look so worried, Rose. You can get settled in, take a nap, put on something pretty.’
This was sounding disconcertingly like instructions. On how to seduce him. Rose found she didn’t mind.
‘But what about you? When do you sleep?’
‘I’m like New York City, detka, the lights never go out.’
Rose took in the male confidence, the humour, the deep sexual speculation in his rain-dark eyes and decided she was going to be the one lining him up. She took a breath and dived in.
‘Okay, cowboy, if you’re New York City that makes me upstate; we do sleep and we keep regular hours. I don’t know if three or four is going to be enough for me.’
‘I will call you.’
Rose unsnapped her bag. ‘Have you got my number?’
‘I will phone the apartment…’ He stopped, the expression on his face worth the fool she might be about to make of herself.
Smiling to herself, Rose retrieved her little gold pen and scooted across the seat. ‘Give me your hand.’
‘I cannot believe you are doing this,’ he said, but his voice had dropped an octave and as she inked the numerals she could feel the heat and solidity of his big, hard body close to her own. The temptation to cuddle in and hope for the best was intense, but a little wooing on his behalf wasn’t going to go astray.
‘There we are.’ She capped her pen and bent her head to blow lightly over the wet ink.
Plato said something under his breath.
‘It’s just my number. I’m not promising anything.’ Rose lifted her face with a half-smile. ‘Call me.’
‘I am thinking my meetings can be cancelled,’ he growled.
Rose put her pen away and shut up her bag. ‘No, I think you ought to keep your appointments. A girl needs a little upkeep after such a long flight. I want some proper food and some fresh clothes and oh, definitely a bath. A nice warm bubbly bath to soak my poor attenuated limbs and other…’ she made a sweeping gesture down the centre of her body ‘…girly bits and bobs. And I certainly don’t need you for that, do I?’
Plato looked appreciably absorbed in what she was saying. Rose had the feeling that if a stampede of cattle came through the limo he wouldn’t notice anything but her. She turned up guileless blue eyes to his lambent grey.
His voice was killingly deep when he spoke. ‘You play with fire, Texas.’
‘Well, you think about me playing with fire and I’ll think about you doing…whatever it is you do.’ She let her eyes linger on his big, hard body.
It was a bold move, but being polite and waiting her turn had never got her anywhere in life. She’d done plenty of that in Houston, jamming the real Rose down where she wouldn’t cause any trouble for Bill Hilliger and his family. She was long over it.
Plato silently reached across and closed the privacy screen.
Rose gave him her sweetest smile, even though her whole body had begun to tremble.
‘You’re not going to kiss me, are you, cowboy? Because this is neither the time nor the place.’
He looked amused and disbelieving. ‘When will be the time and the place, Rose?’
Rose knew this was her moment to seize the reins. Be the cool, sophisticated woman who held all the cards instead of the hot, hormone-driven girl who was pushing the cards off the table and landing in his lap.
But when she met his eyes she was confronted with hooded sexual dynamite. He was looking at her all moody and brooding, as if weighing up his options with her.
Rose moistened her lips. They felt swollen and incredibly sensitive. All the dating advice she’d ever offered had been predicated on waiting, getting to know one another, shared interests… This was moving awfully fast. If he kissed her now they wouldn’t be stopping, she thought faintly, heart pounding, and had she really come all this way to be tumbled in the back of a car? Then she realised the car had stopped. Had probably been stopped for a while.
‘Ivan will take you to the apartment,’ Plato instructed with a slight smile, as if he knew what she’d been thinking. His eyes did that lazy, satisfied thing all over her body. ‘You can settle in, freshen up.’ His charismatic smile flashed at her. ‘Have your bath.’
Rose suddenly really wanted to drag him into that bath—waiting be damned. Except he was opening the door of the limo.
“One more thing, Rose,” he said seriously. “I don’t want you to answer the door to the apartment, and once you’re inside don’t go out.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Just do as I ask and there won’t be a problem.”
Then he was gone. He didn’t try to kiss her, and he didn’t even say goodbye…after taking away her choices and issuing orders.
Rose pulled herself upright, her knees knocking together as the car pulled away from the kerb.
Her mind blank, her stomach stone-cold.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ROSE gazed medit
atively into her glass of tea as the savoury pastries called piroshki the waiter had recommended went cold on the plate. Her appetite had left her at about the time Plato had issued orders in the limo, placing her under house arrest.
Except she wasn’t in his house. She’d walked into his apartment and taken one look at the stunningly designed rooms, absorbed the fact of the money it had taken to create something like that and felt like the unsophisticated farm girl from a small town the Hilligers had always painted her to be. Worse, all of a sudden all she’d been able to see were the parties the tabloids said Plato was famous for holding there, the blondes she had read about who had been in his bed. She hadn’t even been able to find his bed, and once she’d found herself looking for it Rose had lost patience. She’d stamped her foot, jammed her arms into her coat and marched out of that apartment with her head held high.
Which had brought her here, to a restaurant adjoining the gallery at the end of his street. She’d spent the past hour drinking tea, calming down, and trying to figure out what to do.
This is where your hormones get you, Rose Harkness, she grumbled to herself. Halfway across the world and at the beck and call of another big, bossy man…thinks he can tell you what to do…wants to treat you like his little sex doll…locking you up in his apartment…
Her thoughts skidded to a halt. This wasn’t about being controlled. It was about her own fears. Because Plato wasn’t trying to change her. From the get-go he’d accepted her on her own terms. In fact she got the impression he enjoyed her standing up to him. She did. She liked bumping noses with him. She liked it a little too well.
Oh, heck, she wanted to give this a chance. Except to be with a man—this man in particular—she was going to have to open herself up to being hurt, maybe to being loved. To the whole drama. To the possibility of loss.
Three seconds on the bull, Rose? a tougher little voice intervened. Is that going to be your lifetime record?
But she was scared. None of this was about what had happened to her in Houston. This was all about her deepest fear—the one that had left her wide open to a guy like Bill Hilliger. The death of her mother and her father’s retreat into grief. No room in his heart for anyone—even a small girl who had no one else. She had seen what happened when love was taken away. It had been taken away from her too. She was so afraid of falling in love and having love taken away she had chosen a man she would never love, and in the process she had idealised the notion of finding that one special person. She’d built a business around it! And because of her fear she needed that special man to be perfect before she took a chance.
Plato sure as heck wasn’t perfect.
Mr You-Stay-Indoors-and-Stay-Put certainly wasn’t perfect…
But he was just about everything she’d ever wanted. A man who swept her off her feet and looked at her as if she’d been invented just for him, who seemed to relish the fire in her. And sometimes in life you had to take a chance.
She was willing to take that chance with Plato, but right now, thinking about the apartment and the parties and the blondes, the orders and the fact she was sitting here alone, she was getting the real impression that the only risk he was taking was an alteration to his busy schedule.
* * *
Plato entered the down-lit environment of the private bar off Ulitsa Svobody, scanning the tables, the look of the place, satisfied by its lack of pretension. From outside you wouldn’t know it was here, and yet it did the best business of any of his bars in the city—had done since its opening six months ago. It was closed right now.
He’d spent the better part of the morning talking to his board and fielding questions and now he was about done. He needed to touch base with Nik Stolypin, old friend and second-in-command, and then he was going home for some recreational activity with his little import from Texas. So far, so normal.
Yeah, keeping telling yourself that and maybe you’ll believe it.
Nik walked away from the employees he was talking to, opening his arms wide as he approached.
‘Bratan, good to have you back.’
‘Good to be back.’ The two men collided in a bear hug that spoke of their long partnership.
‘Coffee, yeah?’ said Nik, making a gesture to the guy polishing the rails around the five-metre length of the bar. ‘Saw last night’s game. The Wolves pounded them.’
‘That’s what we were there for.’
‘I heard about the Sazanovs. Shame.’
‘Rykov’s gain.’
‘The NHL have signed him up instead, I heard?’
Plato shrugged off his coat onto the back of a chair and leaned up against the bar. One of the screens was broadcasting a soccer game.
Plato glanced around. ‘The bar is looking good.’
‘Four more of them opening around the city,’ said Nik with some satisfaction.
Plato picked up one of the espressos set down on the bar, idly gave a little attention to the game on the wall.
‘I also heard our guys were tearing their hair out when you fronted at Domededova without the team.’
‘Yeah, well, it doesn’t hurt to keep them on their toes.’
‘What in the hell were you doing, putting them on a commercial flight instead of taking them in the jet?’
‘The girl I was with wouldn’t have been keen on a crowd. It was simpler.’
‘Plato Kuragin disrupted business to accommodate a woman? Right. Who is she and what has she done with my best mate?’
‘She would have been uncomfortable; it was the right thing to do.’
Nik rocked back on his heels. ‘Who is she, man? Why are you being so cagey?’
Plato stirred on his feet. He didn’t know quite why he was so reluctant to talk about her. Nik was his oldest friend. There was a lot of water under that bridge. He settled on ‘Her name is Rose.’
‘Rose? Pretty. Old-fashioned.’
Old-fashioned, da. He smiled into his drink.
‘English?’
‘American. From Texas.’
‘Model?’
‘Matchmaker.’
‘Yeah, right.’
Plato shrugged, continued to watch the game above the bar—although right now it wasn’t making much sense.
‘You’re not kidding, are you?’
‘She’s got this little business—’ Plato broke off, found himself smiling ruefully as he rubbed the back of his neck. A picture of Rose perched on the coach’s bench, rummaging in that little retro bag of hers for the contract as if it were a lipstick, sprang to mind. ‘It’s hard to explain.’
‘Keep going. You’re doing a good job. Got me riveted. Rose, a matchmaker from Texas, and it’s hard to explain. You know, I’m picturing a short, fat woman in a flowery hat.’
‘You keep picturing that, bratan.’
‘You bringing Flower Girl to the party tonight?’
‘Rose,’ Plato growled.
Nik lifted his hands in a mock gesture of surrender. ‘Rose,’ he amended.
Plato didn’t answer.
‘Where have you got her stashed?’
* * *
A vivid image of Rose in his bath bubbled to mind, of her spreading soapy water over her… What had she called them? Da, her ‘girly bits and bobs…’
Plato’s involuntary smile made Nik give a knowing grin. ‘She’s in the apartment, isn’t she?’
Rage blindsided him. One moment he was standing there, his mind full of naked Rose, the next she was respectably dressed and he had shirt-fronted Nik up against the wall before the other man even saw it coming. He found himself pressing the heel of his hand into his best friend’s sternum before he realised what he was doing and even then he didn’t let go. Not straight away.
Nik swore, shoving at him. Plato let him go, shifted restlessly backwards a few steps, shocked, still angry. What was he doing? A better question was what was he doing with Rose?
‘I apologise,’ he said roughly.
Nik was steamed. Plato didn’t blame him. But
he still wanted to plant his fist in his face for that suggestive crack about Rose and the apartment.
‘Did you get the figures I sent through?’ asked Nik, his tone devoid of emotion, all business.
Plato grunted. ‘Yeah, I’ve been over them. Talk to Oleg. He’s got the details.’
They talked about business for a few more minutes. Nik calmed down. Plato experienced an ever-growing tightening in his gut.
‘This girl—Rose,’ said Nik as Plato reached for his coat. ‘Come tonight. I want to meet her.’
‘Maybe,’ he said, easing his shoulders into the wool and fur. But maybe not. Rose in his nightclub. Rose in his world. Rose finally seeing who he really was and walking away.
Women always did. A little withholding of attention, lapsed phone calls, long periods apart. Plato, do you actually see this going anywhere? He’d heard that line so many times he’d perfected the regretful shrug, the formal embrace, the delivery of a piece of jewellery—the pricey goodbye they all expected from him.
But his last break-up had been different, and maybe that was why she’d gone viral on the internet. He’d come back to a hotel—had it been in Berlin? He’d just had the news that his old coach Pavel Ignatieff, the closest thing he’d ever had to a father, had succumbed to cancer. All he’d wanted was a human voice, a touch—something to ease the shock and sadness. Instead he’d got what he’d paid for: a high-maintenance girl who was angry because her agent hadn’t got her some photo shoot.
He hadn’t been in the mood to take her out. So he’d ended it. And now he was paying the price with some notoriety he didn’t want and probably didn’t deserve. He wasn’t promiscuous. He was twenty-eight, male, successful in an industry that attracted sexy women.
Yet it had been months since he’d been with one of them. Ignatieff’s death had hit him hard, and it had thrown everything into sharp relief. The women, the lifestyle, the relentless search for something to blunt the essential truth that he didn’t feel as if he deserved more.
It was lightly snowing as he emerged into the street. A car was waiting for him. Another car would follow at a short distance. Toronto had been a nice release from the sort of measures he needed to take on his home turf—especially in Moscow, where he didn’t go anywhere without armed guards.
