by Jennie Lucas
He was dressed now, in a T-shirt and casual button-down shirt. He greeted her with a smile and nodded toward the food. “I had the housekeeper bring lunch. I figured you’d be hungry.”
“You figured right,” she said, and went straight for the gourmet sandwiches and the fruit and cheese tray. Nursing left her hungrier than she’d ever been before, and thirstier too. She gulped down some sparkling water. She waited, but he still seemed intent on his laptop. She cleared her throat.
He looked up, as if he’d forgotten she was there.
“Um…why did you want me to join you here?” she asked, confused at his behavior. “You said you wanted to ask me something?”
“Oh. Right. I need your help. I’m closing my bid on the land lease for a new casino in Singapore, and since I fired Lindsey I have no executive assistant.”
A thrill went through Anna. He wanted her back! She’d always taken such pride in her work, and she and Nikos had connected creating L’Hermitage. She tried to temper her growing hope. “But what about Margaret? Or Clementine in your New York office? They could quickly come up to speed.”
“I need them where they are. The New York office are up to their necks getting zoning approval for the Battery co-op. And Margaret has her hands full with L’Hermitage. I need to hire someone new as my personal assistant, and I’ll be leaving for Singapore in ten days. I need your help.”
Her heart started to beat, thump, thump. Returning to work for Stavrakis Resorts would be a dream come true. She wondered if the baby would like traveling around the world.
“All right,” she said, trying to hide her elation. “Since you need me.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” He pushed a piece of paper down the desk.
To her confusion, Anna saw that it was a résumé. “What’s this?”
“The first candidate.” He looked at her with his velvety brown eyes, and a warm smile traced his lips. “To replace you.”
CHAPTER SIX
ANNA FELT AS IF she’d just been suckerpunched.
“Replace me?” She thrust the résumé back at him, as if it burned her fingers. “Why would I help you replace me? This job was my life. Why would I help you give it away? I’m not going to lift a finger for you.”
“Good point,” he said briskly, then pushed another official document toward her. “Would this convince you?”
She picked up the attached papers, frowning. “Another résumé will hardly—”
But, as she read the first words on the page, her jaw fell open and she collapsed back against the hard wooden chair.
“It’s a custody agreement,” she gasped when she could speak.
“Yes,” he said pleasantly.
She fumbled through the pages, but her hands were shaking and the paper clip fell to the floor. Bending to pick it up, she looked up at him. “You’re going to give me joint custody?”
“Call it incentive.”
“What do you want in return?” she said guardedly.
“I’ll sign the custody agreement if you help me find a good executive assistant within ten days.”
She stared at him. “That’s all? I just have to help you find a new secretary and you’ll give me joint custody of Misha? You’ll let me leave?”
He gave a graceful shrug. “I’m a desperate man. I need this settled by the time I leave for Singapore.”
She could hardly believe her ears. It was way too good to be true. “I thought you said you were going to make me suffer for betraying you?”
“As I said yesterday, I’ve come to appreciate your love and care for my son.”
Yeah, right. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“So suspicious,” he said, then closed his laptop with a sigh. “You will, of course, agree never to see Victor Sinistyn again.”
She nearly laughed aloud. At last it made sense. Perhaps he did want her help finding a new secretary, but it was Victor that really worried him. Her plan had worked better than she’d ever dared dream.
She opened her mouth to tell him she’d be perfectly happy to cross Victor’s name permanently off her Christmas card list, but closed it as another thought occurred to her.
What if Nikos changed his mind before she found him a new assistant and he signed the custody agreement? If she agreed to stop seeing Victor she’d lose her only hold on Nikos. She couldn’t play out her hand so easily.
“I’m not sure I can do that.” She tilted her head, as if considering his offer. “Victor is a hard man to forget.”
She saw a glint of something hard and flinty in Nikos’s eyes, then it was veiled beneath a studiously careless expression. “It’s your choice, of course.”
“Whether I’m friends with Victor?”
“Whether you want joint custody of our son.”
Hardly able to believe her own daring, she said, “Of course I do. But I’ll need more than your signature on a custody agreement to give up a man who might be the love of my life.”
His eyes were decidedly hard now, glittering like coal turning to diamonds under pressure. “What do you want?”
“You want a new secretary to replace me. Understandable. I want a new boss to replace you. Give me a glowing reference so I can find a good job in New York.”
“I never agreed you could take our son to New York.”
“What do you care? You’ll be in Singapore—”
“And you’ll never need to work again,” he interrupted, not listening. “I will supply you with all the money you could possibly need to raise our child in comfort. Do not insult me.”
“It’s hardly an insult to wish to work.”
“Your job now is to take care of our son.”
“That’s your job too, since you’re his parent as well, but I haven’t noticed you putting Stavrakis Resorts up for sale.”
“The company is my son’s legacy,” he said. “I have no choice but to work.”
“Neither do I.”
“I will always support Michael. And you as well, for the rest of your life. I protect what is mine. You need never fear for money again.”
“And my family, too? Will you support my mother and sister for all their lives as well?”
“A reasonable amount…” he started, then his gaze sharpened. “Why do you ask? Is your family in some kind of trouble?”
She really didn’t want to discuss this. Backtracking furiously, she said, “I appreciate your offer of support, Nikos, I really do, but I don’t want to be beholden to you for the rest of my life.”
He drummed his fingers impatiently on the table. “So let me get this straight. You want our son to be raised by a nanny just so you can work as a secretary?”
“Are you implying my job is less important than yours?” she countered.
“No, I’m flat-out saying it. Stavrakis Resorts has thousands of employees around the world, all depending on the company for their salary. It’s not even close to the same. In your case, I think the world can survive with one less typist.”
“You know perfectly well there’s more to what I do!” she said, outraged.
“Nothing in your job description could possibly be as important as—” He visibly restrained himself. He sat back in his leather chair and gave her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Anna, there’s no reason we have to discuss this now. Until you help me find your replacement, it’s all a moot point.”
“I want to discuss it now,” she said mutinously.
He sat in stillness, then gave a sigh. “Fine. Find me a new secretary—a good one—and I’ll give you your job reference, if that’s really what you want. God knows you deserve it.”
“Even though I was just a typist?”
“You know I didn’t mean that.” He scowled. “Let me explain.”
That surprised her. Nikos never explained, he just gave orders. “I’m listening.”
Raking back his hair, he looked through the window. Outside, a gardener was riding a lawn mower across the expansive heavily
watered lawn, a slash of green against barren brown mountains and harsh blue sky. “I barely saw my mother growing up. She was always working three jobs to keep a roof over our heads. By the time I was old enough to help support us she’d died. I never knew her except as a pale ghost with a broken heart.”
He looked at Anna. “I never want my son, or you, to endure that kind of wretched life. I know I’ve given you no reason to accept anything from me, but please let me do this one thing. Let me give Michael the happy childhood I never had.”
Anna swallowed. It was hard to ignore a plea like that. And harder still to ignore the pleas of her own heart. She didn’t want to leave her baby all day long so she could go to work, but what choice did she have? It was either work or beg money from Nikos for the rest of her life.
But maybe it wouldn’t be like that.
Stupid to even consider it. She’d trusted Nikos once before and she’d just been abandoned, fired, cheated on…
He never cheated on me, a voice whispered. And, no matter how misguided and Neanderthal his attempts were, he was only trying to keep us both comfortable and safe.
She stomped on the thought. She wouldn’t let herself weaken now and start going soft again. She wouldn’t let Nikos get under her skin, no matter how vulnerable he looked asking for her help, or how warm his eyes had glowed when he’d laughed with their son. She wouldn’t let herself fall back in love, no matter how wonderful he seemed to be at this moment.
She snatched the résumé back out of his hands, eager for distraction from her thoughts. “This is the job candidate you plan to interview first?”
“Yes, I thought—”
Skimming the page, she nearly jumped out of her chair. “Have you totally lost your mind? She has no secretarial experience. Her references are a strip club and—” she squinted her eyes “—a place called the Hot Mustang Ranch.”
“I was trying to keep an open mind,” he said defensively. “Your reference was Victor Sinistyn, but you were still the best damn secretary I’ve ever had.”
“But there are three typos on her résumé. Even Lindsey wasn’t this bad.” She crumpled up the paper in her hands. “There’s no point even doing an interview—not unless you need an erotic dancer with bordello experience.”
“Fine,” he said gruffly. “I’ll have her sent away. Maybe your friend Victor will hire her at one of his clubs.”
He held out his hand for the paper. As their fingers touched their eyes met, and an electric shock went through her. He looked at her so hungrily. She waited for him to take her in his arms, to kiss her senseless. To reach across the mahogany desk and take what she’d been aching for him to take.
She heard him take a long, slow breath. His fingers slowly moved up her bare arm as they both leaned forward over the table.
There was a hard knock at the door, the sound of it swinging open. “Excuse me, sir, miss?”
Anna whirled around in her chair, blushing when she saw a maid standing in the doorway.
“I have standing orders not to be interrupted in my office,” Nikos said in a controlled voice.
“Yes, sir. But, begging your pardon, it’s Miss Rostoff who’s wanted. Your sister’s here, miss. She’s quite agitated and said if we didn’t get you she’d be calling the police and telling them you were being kept here against your will.”
“Let me go!” Anna heard her sister’s voice, shrill and frantic down the hall. “Get out of my way. Anna? Anna!”
Natalie pushed past the maid, nearly knocking the girl aside. Her linen shift dress was rumpled and dirty, as if it had been slept in.
She stopped abruptly when she saw Anna in her
T-shirt and shorts, sitting casually on the desk near Nikos. Natalie’s jaw dropped, then her eyes blazed through her thick glasses.
“You’ve got some nerve,” she said to Anna. “Do you have any idea what’s going on? I’ve been calling and calling, but you never called back. I thought you were in trouble. I thought he was keeping you prisoner again. And instead I find you lazing in luxury with the man you called your deadliest enemy!”
“Excuse us,” Anna said hastily, and grabbed her sister’s wrist, pulling her out of the office before she could repeat any of the insulting things Anna had once said about Nikos. She couldn’t risk alienating him now—not when they’d finally made a fragile peace and he was actually considering joint custody.
She dragged Natalie into her bedroom and closed the door behind her.
“You’ve gone back to him, haven’t you?” her sister said bitterly, rubbing her wrist. “Even after all the stuff he did. Ruining Father’s company! Abandoning you! Cheating on you! Firing you because you were pregnant—with his baby! That’s blatant sex discrimination. You should sue.”
“Natalie, I’m not going to sue the father of my child.”
“Why, when he’s such a monster?”
Anna took a deep breath. “I blew things out of proportion. And I just found out that what I told you about Father’s company…wasn’t true.”
“What?”
Anna looked at her young, idealistic sister and just couldn’t bear to disillusion her by telling her about their father’s embezzlement. “There were complications and problems that I didn’t know about. Nikos didn’t ruin the company. He was trying to save it when Father made some…bad choices.”
Natalie looked at her keenly. “So if Nikos suddenly isn’t so bad, why are you marrying Victor and moving to Russia?”
“What?”
“You don’t know?” Staring at her in amazement, her younger sister, usually so trusting and sweet, gave a harsh laugh. “No, of course you don’t. I’ve only left ten messages on your cellphone since yesterday. Victor Sinistyn just bought great-grandmother’s palace this morning from Mother. She sold it to him for a fraction of its value—two million off our debt, plus another twenty thousand to her in cash. Which she’s already spent on clothes, of course. Victor is going to raze the old palace and build something new in its place. For you.”
“For me? What are you talking about?”
“Vitya always seemed so strong, so handsome. Even after he quit his partnership with Father so suddenly I thought he was kind. I flew here last night to ask him to leave the palace alone. I thought he’d listen to me.” She shook her head angrily. “But he just laughed. He said that the air in Las Vegas was getting unhealthy, and that he needed to raze the palace immediately because the two of you would be moving to St. Petersburg as soon as you were married.”
“That’s not true!” Anna gasped. “We’re not getting married. He hasn’t even proposed.” At least not lately, she added silently.
“Well, he obviously thinks proposing is just a formality. Any reason why he’d think that?”
Anna paced across the thick blue carpet. “I’ve only seen him once since I got here! And even then it was only because…” Glancing right and left, as if she feared Nikos might be listening from the large walk-in closet or beneath the elegant canopied bed, Anna whispered, “Being Victor’s friend is my only bargaining chip against Nikos to get joint custody. So I can leave here. So I can be free.”
Natalie eyes widened, looking owlish beneath her glasses. “And you asked Vitya for help? When I went to his club I saw the kind of man he really is. He isn’t our friend. If he were, he wouldn’t have been loaning our parents money at that huge interest rate. I thought he was trying to help us. But now I think he only went into business with Father in the first place to be close to you. After you left to work for Nikos he dissolved the partnership and started loaning Father money instead.” She took a deep breath. “I think since you wouldn’t agree to marry him he’s been drowning our family in debt to force your hand.”
“It can’t be true,” Anna gasped. All right, so Victor had made advances the whole time she’d been his secretary. He’d chased off other suitors. He’d pressured her to marry him. He’d even gotten her father to try to use his influence over her. But Victor would never have deliberately hu
rt her family just to possess her.
Would he?
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Natalie pressed. “Why else does he keep loaning Mother money? He knows we have no way to repay it.”
Anna rubbed her head wearily. “I don’t know. But I’ll figure it out. I’ll handle this, Natalie, don’t worry. As soon as I get custody of Misha I’ll return to New York and find a job—”
“You still think he’ll let you repay the money?” Natalie interrupted, looking at Anna as if seeing her for the first time. “If you think he’s gone to all this trouble to let you set up some kind of payment plan, you’re as delusional as Mother. Who’s happy to take his money, by the way, because she’s sure you’ll marry him. Which you probably will. You always have to sacrifice yourself, don’t you? Even when it does more harm than good. You’ll reward him after he’s destroyed our family to get his hands on you.”
“You don’t know that’s really true!”
“I don’t?” Natalie shook her head. “You need to grow up and see the real world.”
Her baby sister was telling her to grow up? “I do see the real world—”
“My whole life I’ve thought you were some kind of saint, you know? Sacrificing your own future to take care of us. When I wanted to study accounting so I could get a good job to help support our family you insisted I major in art instead—”
“I knew art was your passion!” Anna said, stung.
“Maybe.” Natalie snorted derisively. “But it’s no way to make a living. The truth is, you didn’t want my help. You always have to be the one to do everything. God forbid you ever depend on someone else.”
“I was trying to do the right thing for you!”
“Then why didn’t you stand up to Victor ages ago and tell him to back off? Instead of running away to work for someone else? Why did you get pregnant by Nikos, then run away? Why are you still so desperate to run away from Nikos now? You’re keen to stand up for others, but when it comes to yourself you just run away.”
