by Alison Aimes
Including with her.
Until last year. When he’d tried to make things right.
She dropped the curtain and turned around—to find Kazankov looming behind.
He moved quietly for such a big man, the subtle, sexy scent of clove and cinnamon spice a dizzying contrast to his bull-in-a-china-shop demeanor.
She tipped her chin and gave him her coolest stare. “Care to take a step back?”
“Care to sell me the company? I know Winslow Industries is nearly bankrupt.”
“Thanks to you.”
“Perhaps.” His smirk was pure wolf. “But I’m not your only problem. You’ve also inherited a nervous board that doesn’t want you.”
“I have supporters.”
“Enough for a majority should the board call for a vote to oust you?”
She fumed in silence. No point acknowledging what he already knew.
“Exactly.” He punctuated his victory with a single nod. “And the next board meeting is coming up fast.”
“Does this rehashing of the obvious have a point?”
He laughed. Flat out laughed. His gaze sweeping the length of her, something raw and reckless flaring in his gaze. Something she had no business noticing.
“Those board members may not like me, but they despise you.” She didn’t bother to sugarcoat it. “You’ve made no secret of your efforts to squeeze the company into compliance by ruining it financially.”
“If the board doesn’t like what happened, it should have insisted Russell sell me Winslow Industries when I first asked.”
The depth of his mercilessness frightened her. “I know why you want the company. I know what you think. But you’re wrong. Russell didn’t acquire Winslow Industries by illegal means. I’ve seen the contract. The deeds. It was all done aboveboard.”
“And you believe that, why? Because your late husband told you so?”
“I believe it because it’s true.” Unlocking her jaw, she pictured the calm lake her etiquette tutor had told her to envision and modulated her voice back from shrill. “And let me tell you, Mr. Kazankov, now that I’ve had an up close and personal glimpse of your charm, I can see exactly why most on the board despise you.”
His smile was unexpected. “You keep surprising me.” Before she could think of what to say to that, he was talking again. “But the fact is money talks—far louder than old grudges. Which is why I’m more than willing to give you enough cash to do whatever makes you happy.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “Because I’m definitely not opposed to giving you a happy ending.”
“Bless your heart, you don’t know how tempting that sounds…” Eyes wide, she let her voice trail off in wispy, bimbo fashion.
Why? Because sometimes she could be a vindictive bitch. And there was something about Alexi Kazankov that had her desperate to take him down a peg.
Sure, the man was mouthwatering—if you got off on that unapproachable, bad-boy, Eastern European kind of beauty and dark, savage looks.
And, yes, the stupid girl she’d once been would have been drawn to his dangerous mix of magnificence and arrogance, shivering with self-destructive longing at all those muscles and the smoldering way he was looking at her—as if already imagining her naked and panting beneath him and then out the door the next morning, entirely forgotten.
Thankfully, that girl was long gone. Replaced by a woman who was in firm control of herself and her goals.
There’d be no mistakes this time around, especially of the hot, dominant-male kind.
“Unfortunately,” she continued after what she hoped was sufficient for him to start thinking he’d won, “Winslow Industries is not for sale and neither am I.”
It had never been about the money for her. Never.
Her new adversary’s low growl, as if he sensed her deliberate toying, proved immensely satisfying.
She remembered reading his family descended from Russian royalty and he’d grown up in a palace. After seeing him up close, she didn’t doubt it. The man radiated such command Lily had to lock her knees to keep from genuflecting where she stood.
He was everything she wasn’t. But that wouldn’t keep her from trying to teach him a valuable lesson.
“I don’t intend to turn tail and run. Despite your hope I’m too stupid to know otherwise, I’m well aware the company still holds numerous investments that, if managed well, can accrue the kind of profit required to stay afloat. That, right there, is the only happy ending I need.”
His low chuckle only enraged her more.
“Laugh it up,” she continued, “but I wonder if you’ll find it so amusing to know the first thing I did this morning in my new capacity as head was fire all three resort managers at our key holdings? I know they’ve been in your pocket and deliberately running things into the ground. Not anymore.”
“Impressive. But not nearly soon enough.”
She spoke through gritted teeth. “I also leveraged a small personal investment against the company’s current debt, allowing us to remain solvent through the month.”
His smile grew. “Someone’s been studying their business manuals.”
“I’ve done a lot more than that.” Her voice had gone low and mean, like the junkyard dogs that used to guard her uncle Travis’s trailer.
She started back toward Russell’s—whoops—her desk.
The Iceman blocked her path. “If I listened to everyone who’s told me no, I wouldn’t be the head of Kazankov Industries.”
“If I said yes to everyone who’s tried to convince me a good reaming was for my own pleasure, I’d have a far different job than the one I do now.”
One brown eyebrow went up. “Blunt straight talk? From that mouth? I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“I get the impression you have no idea who you’re dealing with.” He’d clearly done some research. But not enough. The worst of her secrets were locked up tight. She’d traded away her youth to ensure it.
“Maybe I don’t know you…yet,” he acknowledged. Too easily. As if his kind of arrogance wasn’t the least bit phased by such a small miscalculation. “But you shouldn’t underestimate me, either. If you want money left for manicures, fancy trips, and designer gowns, your smartest course of action is to sell me the company today. My next offer won’t be as generous.”
She brandished her fingers in his face. “I do my own nails, thanks.”
To her surprise, he seized her hand, the rough brush of his fingertips scorching her skin.
Before she could jerk her hand away, he turned it over, his thumb tracking slowly across her palm.
She told herself the sudden breathlessness was because she was furious.
“Old calluses.” His glittering blue gaze locked with hers. “I do know who I’m dealing with, Lily Bennett. A girl who grew up in a trailer park. No parents. No money. No security. No chance for pretty things.” His thumb scraped across her skin as if slicing right to the heart of her. “Until you met a much older man and suddenly found yourself on easy street.”
Unwelcome heat was replaced by ice-cold rage.
“I know what a bastard Russell could be,” he continued. “How easily he lied and manipulated. How effortlessly he could trample someone like you. But you’re free now. You don’t have to remain under his thumb. You can relish the youth and beauty you still have left. Party. Indulge. Travel. Truly live. It doesn’t have to be a dirty old man rutting between those gorgeous thighs next time around.”
“Get out.” Polite etiquette be damned, she used every ounce of fury to shake off his grip and storm to the door.
Her six-year marriage to Russell had been unconventional. Full of rough patches, inequalities, frustrations, and challenges. But, by the end, they’d had each other’s backs.
She turned the lock with a ferocious twist, wishing it were Kazankov’s neck. “I will see you in hell before I let you take over Russell’s company.”
“You’re making a mistake.” Her rival hadn’t moved.
“Fe
els right to me.” She offered up a big ole fake smile, a Southern specialty. The last thing she wanted was for him to see how much he’d made her bleed.
Russell’s death hadn’t broken her. Paul’s insults had barely stung. But this—this casual presumption by a business associate that she was nothing more than a pathetic victim who’d whore herself out in exchange for money—shot straight to the heart of old wounds.
She’d taken classes to get rid of the worst of her accent, done away with the big hair and bright-pink nails, and hit the books. Learned every facet of the business shadowing her husband. It didn’t matter. People still smelled the stink of an unwanted trailer baby deemed worthless until she sprouted tits and ass.
But she hadn’t been that kind of trash for a long time—and she never would again.
“Good-bye, Mr. Kazankov. It definitely hasn’t been a pleasure.” She shoved the door open, her forceful push sending the heavy wood bouncing into the wall. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jim jump to attention. At least he hadn’t deserted her entirely.
“This is far from settled.” Eyes narrowing, her new least-favorite-person-in-the-world sauntered forward, his strong jaw clenched tight. “I’ve tried to be nice about this, but I will have that company.”
This was his nice?
“You won’t last a week,” he continued. “Not with the way the deck is stacked against you.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Don’t expect me to go easier on you because you’re a woman.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. I certainly don’t intend to go easier on you because you’re a presumptuous, arrogant Neanderthal. As a matter of fact, I’m considering it my main duty to make sure you never get your hands on my company.”
His smile was full of teeth. “Oh, sweet, sweet mishka. You’ll be making a deal with me within the week. I can taste victory already.”
Before she could formulate a response, he was gone.
In the resulting silence, Jim peeled himself off the wall, his worried gaze locked on her.
Arm muscles trembling, the need to slam the door clawing at her, she forced a cool smile in his direction and then quietly, calmly, slid it closed.
She was a woman in control of herself and her goals. She did not act impulsively anymore. She did not do anything rash—at least not in front of anyone else.
With a flick of her wrist, she locked the door. And then, away from prying eyes, whirled around.
Whisked off her elegant pump.
Hurled it with all her strength across the room.
It hit the wall with a satisfying, reckless crash. An ugly-ass, over-priced picture her decorator had said to buy tilted wildly on its hook.
Day one and being the head of Winslow Industries absolutely sucked.
But she wasn’t down for the count yet, and her new, best enemy and all-around asshole, Alexi Kazankov, was going to be very sorry he’d called her mishka—whatever the hell that meant—and even sorrier he’d made her throw that shoe.
Chapter Three
“Better luck next time, old woman.” Alexi fanned himself with his cards as he considered his next move, the hospital room a sauna-like seventy-eight degrees—far better suited for a towel and nothing else than the suit he’d been wearing since the memorial service a few hours before.
“Why the stalling? You afraid?” Lena’s taunt was heavy on the V sound, her Russian accent so thick and full of malicious pleasure she sounded straight out of an eighties’ Cold War movie starring Dolph Lundgren. But in her case, it wasn’t fake. Just the product of seventy-five years of living in the motherland. He’d only convinced her five years ago to join him in the States. She’d been making up for years of Siberian winters since.
“I’m strategizing.” He’d made the mistake of teaching her American card games a few years ago, and now he couldn’t get her to stop yelling—
“Pizdobol.” Chortling the Russian equivalent of “bullshitter,” she pushed up on her elbows, her bearing aristocratic and proud, even as her neat, gray wig tilted precariously and the sheets crackled beneath her. The faint smell of antiseptic and garlic suddenly strong in the air. “I’ve got four sixes so we’re done here. I win again.” She wiggled her fingers at him. “Pay up, boy. Or interest kicks in.”
That was one of the things he adored about her. She’d never given him anything but straight talk his whole life—and she had as healthy a respect for business as he.
She’d had to develop it. In the span of her life, she’d gone from sitting on a gold commode once owned by Catherine the Great to scrubbing other people’s toilets.
He slid five one hundred–dollar bills into her palm. “Someday, somehow, I’m going to figure out how you cheat, old woman.”
“Please, I take my secrets to the grave.” Settling back into her bed, she crossed her arms over her frail chest and looked him up and down. “Oh, nyet. One joke about the grave and you scowl worse than Putin. We all die.”
“But not today.” And not tomorrow. He was going to make damn sure of that. No matter what it took.
Psh. She waved her hand in front of his face. “You seem distracted. I almost feel bad taking your money. Almost.” She shot him a wicked smile.
The same mischievous tilt of the lips he’d seen many times before on another face. A similar face, with similar lines and coloring.
As always, the good memories came fast and hard.
The painful ones even harder.
He shoved them all aside.
“Nope. All’s good.” The doc had said to give Lena something to live for—and that’s exactly what he’d done. “I’ve got a presentation before the Winslow board scheduled for three days from now. I plan to blow them away.” He’d kept her apprised every step of the way: the good, the bad, the ugly.
Well, okay, maybe not his urge to fuck his new rival on her late husband’s desk. But that wasn’t relevant anyway. Especially since it absolutely, without a doubt, would not be interfering with his plans.
“Hmph.” His card shark expert shifted in her bed. “That look on your face says there’s more. I’ll ask that nice boy, Morales, what the real story is. He always tells me the truth.” She fluffed her wig. “Where is he anyway?”
“Around somewhere. Doing something brave.” That “nice boy Morales” and his new, shiny black eye were hiding down the hall, the coward. But Lena could get pretty handsy for an old lady and, for some reason, she had a thing for his cranky security guard. “I know he’s planning a visit soon.”
Both Morales and his CFO, Thomas Eaton, stopped by regularly.
They’d known Lena for ages and become as invested in getting her justice as he. But after all the shit they’d given him on the way to the hospital about Lily Bennett and his failed “chat,” Alexi wasn’t feeling particularly kind toward his friends.
Which was why he said, “I’m pretty sure they’re working on that Russian folk song you said you liked. You’ll have to ask them to perform it when they come.”
“Excellent.” She clapped her hands. “I’ll invite the nurses, too.”
“Great idea. Wish I’d thought of it.”
She spoke over his evil chuckle. “What’s the widow like?”
His smile disappeared fast. “She’s fine.” In every sense.
“Is she as disgusting as him?”
“No, not disgusting. She’s, ah, formidable. Smarter than she looks. And pretty damn fierce.”
“Is that respect I hear?” Lena’s voice was sharp with the bitterness that anything related to Russell Winslow always generated.
Respect? Admire? Want to fuck her brains out? He started to shift in his seat—then realized what he was doing. Classic giveaway. He went still. “She’s not like him. That’s for sure.”
Lena was probably one of the few who hated Russell Winslow more than he.
“Morales says she’s young.”
Hell, his head of security barely grunted more than five sentences a day, and yet he became a
fountain of information in Lena’s presence.
“Yup,” he agreed. “Very young to run a once-billion-dollar company.”
“Do you…” Lena picked at her blanket, “do you think Russell lied to her, too?”
“Could definitely be.” Anger at the man he’d hated for so long surged anew.
Lena Orlov had been a beautiful, wealthy young girl who’d recently lost her parents when Russell not only seduced her, but convinced her to sign over the family business.
Alexi didn’t know what Lily Bennett had to offer Russell in the way of real estate, but she had plenty of other incredible assets. The similarities between her and Lena’s situation were hard to miss.
Though there was one critical difference.
Russell had actually married Lily Bennett.
He’d told Lena he intended to marry her, then taken her real estate properties, her clients, her brand, her profits, and never looked back. He’d left her unmarried, pregnant, and poor, and never once acknowledged their daughter, Anastasia. A cruelty that had left scars on both women and a hole inside the daughter that no one, not even Alexi, had been able to fill.
“It’s easier to think of her as money-grubbing and selfish. Like him.” Lena’s sigh was long and loud.
Alexi couldn’t have agreed more.
“The truth is, if she was with him,” Lena worried at a loose thread in her blanket, “she can’t be such an innocent. And she definitely doesn’t deserve that company. It’s mine. Mine and my family’s. The only thing I have left. I—” A cough wracked her, cutting off the rest of her words.
“Lena?” He was out of his chair and by her side in the next instant. His arm wrapped around her back as she flopped forward.
Fucking cancer.
He reached for the call button.
Her hand stayed his. “Don’t bother.” Her words were a painful wheeze. “It will pass.”
