Winter's Gift: A poignant, funny and sizzling-hot billionaire romance (Bistro La Bohème Series)

by Alix Nichols

  When I reach his loins and linger there, he groans.

  Suddenly, he’s on top of me, crushing me into the mattress with his weight. I throw my arms around his neck, grip his nape, and roam his toned back. I am ravenous for the feel of his rippling muscles, and my core is empty without him.

  I wrap my legs around his hips and dig my fingers into his tight buttocks.

  As his mouth descends on mine, and he enters me, I let my body sink into the sweetness of total abandon.

  * * *

  When my breathing slows back to normal, and my muscles regain a measure of strength, I glance at Anton. He’s facing me, his head resting on his folded arm. I smile. He stretches his free arm and pulls me into him.

  I snuggle as close as I can, touching my lips to his chest.

  He strokes my hair. “Annushka.”

  The name is an exquisite caress that envelops me and makes me feel all warm and gooey inside. Until I realize that he’s doing it again—crossing the boundaries.

  He can’t. He shouldn’t.

  I need to break the spell before it’s too late, so I ask the first question that comes to mind. “How come you haven’t remarried when you can have your pick among the country’s crème de la crème?”

  “Let’s say I have trust issues.”

  “Aaand?” I prompt.

  “And that’s it.”

  “Very informative.”

  He quirks an eyebrow. “You haven’t been extremely forthcoming with details either.”

  Good point. “How is your daughter doing? You saw her last week, no?”

  “She’s fine, except for a sprained ankle. She’s a terrible skier in spite of all the practice she’s had since she was little… Do you have children?”

  “No,” I say a little too quickly and look away.

  Christ. After all these years, why can’t I sound natural when answering that question? And why, why do I always fail to add, Never wanted one—they’re such a nuisance?

  Fortunately, Anton doesn’t seem to have noticed my clumsy reaction. His brow is furrowed, and he appears to be debating something or looking for the right words.

  “How much have you made since you started your night job?”

  I’m totally unprepared for his question and I stare at him. I name a figure.

  “I’ll double it. No, I’ll triple it to be your only client for the next month.”

  I swallow. “Wow. That’s a high price for exclusivity.”

  He says nothing, his expression stern.

  “You’d be paying above the market price.” I make an attempt at a smile. “How can the businessman in you let it happen?”

  “The businessman in me is perfectly satisfied, Anna.” He refuses to smile back. “This is an excellent deal for both of us.”

  “I need to think about it.”

  “I have all night. Think.”

  OK, Anna the Almost-Machine, think.

  If I go with Anton’s proposition, I’ll shave off two months of escorting. This means—provided my income remains stable after the return to non-exclusivity—that I may be able to quit altogether before Christmas.

  What about my other clients? They may not appreciate my break and find a replacement. But that’s OK. Because they are just as easy to replace as I am.

  All in all, Anton’s proposition does seem to be an excellent deal for me.

  Then why I am not jumping on the bed, clapping my hands, and shouting Yes, let’s do it?

  Because there’s an elephant in this room, that’s why.

  Because this enticing proposition doesn’t come from a client like any other. Because I know what a month of exclusivity with Anton would be like: crossing boundaries, blurring the prescribed roles, ignoring the customary codes, and treating me as if I were his legitimate girlfriend.

  But I’m a call girl, and no amount of blurring can obliterate that fact.

  I survey him—the gorgeous, infinitely desirable whole of him—and shudder. Hope rears its ugly head in some secret pocket of my heart. It flickers, gutters, and begs for oxygen to grow and spread everywhere… like a cancer.

  But I won’t let it.

  I’ve learned my lesson.

  I’ve been love-free for four years now, ever since I finally got over Stan and made peace with what he’d done to me and what I’d done as a consequence. I haven’t been happy, but I haven’t been miserable either. I’ve been careful, fully aware of my weakness. Love doesn’t come to me easily, but when it does, it’s powerful, unreserved, blind—like a child’s.

  And when I fall, I don’t land on my feet.

  If I accept Anton’s offer, I’m going to hurt myself so badly I may never recover. I’m in the danger zone already, but give me a week as his surrogate girlfriend, and I’ll rush headlong into the dark pit of love, beyond the point of no return.

  And what will become of me when the month is out and he moves on?

  I take a fortifying breath. “Thank you for your generous offer, but I can’t accept it.”

  “Anna, are you out of your mind?”

  “Maybe.”

  He pulls his hand from my hair and sits up. “Please give me one valid reason for saying no.”

  I sit up too, but instead of facing him, I lean against the headboard and fix my eyes on the wall. “There isn’t any.”

  “Do you want to negotiate? Is that it?” His voice has lost its warmth. “Name your price.”

  “I don’t want to negotiate.”

  He grabs my shoulders and turns me face him. “Or is it because you enjoy promiscuity? Is it because you like having multiple sex partners?”

  I can’t free myself from his iron grip, but I can turn my head away and stare at the wall.

  “Answer me, Anna. Do you actually dig selling your body to strangers?”

  I jerk my head toward him and peer into his eyes.

  He lets go of my shoulders. His expression is no longer stern. It’s furious.

  My lips remain pressed together, and I remind myself I have nothing to fear—Anton Malakhov is not the kind of man to strike a woman. He’d never do such a thing, regardless of how mad he gets. I have no reason for feeling as wretched as I do now.

  But as I gaze at him, I realize it isn’t his anger that’s killing me. His eyes hold something else, something worse, something I’ve never seen there before.

  Disgust.

  Chapter Nine

  Spring Thaw

  After I refused to answer his questions, Anton hardly spoke to me. Neither of us slept for the remainder of the night. I curled into the fetal position and prayed for him to touch me. My back ached for the pressure of his chest, my waist longed for the weight of his arm, and my feet were icy cold without the warmth of his.

  At dawn, I crawled out of the bed, packed, swallowed a coffee, and showered. As soon as I exited the bathroom, Anton went in, barking as he walked past me that a taxi would take me to the airport in half an hour.

  I picked up my suitcase, shoved the thick envelope he’d left on top of it into my purse, and rushed out to wait in the lobby.

  It’s been one month and six days since that Parisian weekend.

  Anton hasn’t reached out through Filip or to me directly. My heart still hiccups every time I get a call from an unknown number. But, invariably, it’s a telemarketer or pollster.

  Life’s gone back to normal.

  I haven’t been sleeping very well, and I’m always tired and apathetic. When people notice, I blame the protracted winter. My pharmacist friend Nadya has gotten me a huge bottle of vitamin D pills. She calls it the “sunshine vitamin” and says it’ll energize me. I wish there were a pill you could take to erase selected memories and a specific person from your mind. I wish there were a pill to silence the stupid heart when it won’t listen to reason.

  Mom has started her radiotherapy, and her blood work has been improving with every test. She’s put on a few much needed kilos. Her complexion is no longer gray.

  On top of that, she’s
rekindled a bunch of old friendships, and I often catch her smiling without any obvious reason.

  Filip’s unconventionally entrepreneurial mind has hatched a new income stream for us. He’s made arrangements with a fertility clinic to which he’s now selling his sperm and I’m about to sell my eggs. Who could’ve guessed those tiny ovules, wasted on me month after month, could fetch enough to pay my rent? Filip is now carping about sperm being dirt cheap compared to eggs and dropping transparent hints that I should give him a cut for having come up with the idea.

  Earlier this week, I asked him to keep my Sunday free. Not that I’ve grown complacent, but I really need to have a day away from everything and everyone—my day job, my night job, my clients, my friends, and even my mom.

  It’s a day to stay in my pj’s, catch up on my reading, and treat myself to a Pride and Prejudice rerun on TV.

  Which should start in exactly ten minutes.

  I’m in the kitchen fixing myself a bowl of chocolate ice cream when a sound of shattering glass makes me jump. I walk over to the window and survey the courtyard. No broken glass, but a large icicle that has detached itself from the roof gutter, hit the ground and burst into pieces, its collision with cobblestones no longer cushioned by snow.

  Spring is here at last.

  A group of sparrows splash about in a large puddle and chirp at the top of their shrill voices, making sure all three buildings around the courtyard know how much fun they’re having. Rows of happily flapping sheets and towels underline all the windows across from mine. I glance down at the flowerbeds in the middle of the wet yard. A scattering of snowdrops and crocuses have pushed through the dirty snow, their creamy heads high and their green stems tall and proud.

  Yes, spring is officially here.

  I open the window and fill my lungs with air. It smells of sun, wind, leaf buds, and new beginnings.

  It smells of life.

  “Petya, I want you home right now! Don’t make me come down there, young man!” a woman with curlers in her hair shouts in the building across the yard.

  She waves her finger at someone downstairs and contorts her innocuous snub-nosed face into a threatening expression.

  I follow her gaze to a little boy in full winter gear and rubber boots.

  He lifts his head and begs, “Mama, please, five more minutes!”

  “That’s it, I’m coming down to get you!”

  The boy drops his head, discards the twig he’s been playing with, and shuffles inside.

  He must be five or six—about Sasha’s age.

  Shit. I should’ve known better than to allow that thought.

  The floodgates open at once, and all the impossible questions rush into my defenseless brain.

  Is Sasha happy now? What does he look like? Do his adoptive parents give him all the care and love every child deserves? Did they change his name?

  Painful, pointless questions.

  I’m usually good at blocking them out, but sometimes I can’t help myself.

  It seems that now is one of those times.

  When I discovered I was pregnant, I thought I would explode with joy. I couldn’t wait to tell Stan. He’d told me so many times how much he loved kids and how he dreamed of having his own one day. With me.

  His expression was a little strange when he heard the news, but he took me into his arms and said he was happy. I spent the next three months in a blissful cocoon, shopping for baby clothes and choosing names.

  When I was five months along, Stan dumped me with a one-sentence text message. At first I thought it was a bad joke, but then he quit the school, changed his phone number, and disappeared into his rich boys’ universe to which I had no access.

  Somehow, I managed to get a hold of one of his buddies.

  He told me about the wager. Stan had bet his best friend a lot of money that he’d not only deflower Moscow’s last virgin but he would also knock her up. The reason he’d stuck around for the last three months was to make sure I didn’t get an abortion, and he had solid proof—my protruding belly and ultrasound images of the fetus—to validate his win.

  Four months later, I delivered a healthy baby boy and gave him up for adoption.

  Men are animals, as Mom says.

  I agree. Stan, for one, is a certified hyena.

  Anton… Anton is a wolf. He’s devoted to his family, loyal to his pack, and ruthless to outsiders.

  Which is exactly what I am—an outsider.

  I can’t afford to fall in love again.

  I really, really can’t.

  Because love is a professional jailer.

  It locks you up in a cell, shackles you to the wall, reduces your world to the confines of your dungeon and rips the wings from all your plans, dreams, and desires that it deems irrelevant. You end up a single-minded wreck, your entire being—mind, body, and soul—focused on one man, your brain in a fog, and your thoughts in a muddle. You become a zombie oblivious to that man’s blatant lies, to his control over your life, to the obliteration of your personality…

  To the hopelessness of it all.

  Chapter Ten

  Picnic on the Garden Ring

  I’ve turned thirty-four today. It’s very cool to have your birthday around Easter. Everything is in bloom as if nature wants to mark the occasion, and on a good year, one can even picnic on the Garden Ring.

  Which is what Mom and I are about to do.

  We’ve spread the blankets and set out our sandwiches, rolls, fruit, and drinks. Mom’s made a fudge cake as she always does. I’ve brought a bottle of bubbly. It isn’t just my birthday we’re celebrating. It’s also Mom’s recovery. Strictly speaking, she’s only in remission, and she’ll need to wait five years to be considered cured. But that’s beside the point. What matters is that she’s been in the clear for a month, that the treatment has worked incredibly well, and that today she’s as healthy as she can be.

  I pop the cork and fill our plastic flutes. “To your health, Mom!”

  She touches her cup to mine. “Happy birthday, sweetheart!”

  “I’m taking you to a seaside resort in July,” I announce.

  “You’ve become terribly bossy lately.” She picks up a sandwich and bites into it. “I’m not going anywhere. Moscow is the place to be in summer. Besides, I’ve made all kinds of cultural plans with my hot flash divorcée gang.”

  “But, Mom—”

  “You go. God knows you need a break.”

  “I do?”

  “Annushka, you’ve been wasting away since Christmas, and it worries me.”

  “I’ve had a lot on my plate.”

  “I know. But I also know that you’ve been getting paler and thinner even as I’ve been on the mend.”

  “It’s the work stress,” I say, studying my sandwich.

  “You’re a terrible liar.” She takes my hand. “Last time you looked like this was when Stan jilted you.”

  I keep silent.

  “Will you tell me who he is—the man you’re pining for?” she asks.

  I shrug. “What does it matter? They’re all the same. They’re animals, as you’ve always said. They hurt women as soon as they get the chance.”

  “I’m so sorry, baby,” she says. “It’s my fault.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She sighs and tilts her head back for a while, staring at the clouds. When she returns her gaze to mine, her eyes glisten.

  “Mom what’s wrong?”

  “Listen to me carefully.” She gives my hand a squeeze. “It’s true, I’ve been hurt, and you’ve been hurt even worse. Men can be cruel. But there are good men out there, too.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Name one.”

  “Um… Jesus Christ?”

  “Mom.”

  “OK, OK, he’s part God, so it doesn’t count. But what about Gandhi? And Dalai Lama? And that guy we saw on the news last night—the one who jumped into the Neva and saved three kids from drowning?”

  “What’s your point?”
<
br />   She peers at me. “My point is that I have no regrets. I’ve had more disappointments than I deserve, but if I could turn back the time, I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  “Are you serious?”

  She nods. “I’ve known love. I’ve had my moments. And you know what? When death stares into your eyes, it’s those moments that you remember and you tell yourself, I’ve lived.”

  I can’t believe she’s saying this. I can’t believe how much her illness has changed her.

  “What about me?” I struggle to keep my lower lip from pouting.

  Get a grip, woman.

  She grins and strokes my hand.

  Nice try, Mom, but you aren’t getting off the hook so easily. I need an answer. “I thought I was the love of your life, the apple of your eye, and the joy of your existence. Didn’t you always tell me it’s you and me against the world?”

  “You are the best thing that’s happened to me, sweetheart,” she says. “But you wouldn’t have happened had I not fallen in love with your dad.”

  “Oh, so you now feel grateful to the bastard who left us when I was little without as much as an apology?”

  “He’s a jerk, all right, but I’m grateful I crossed paths with him.”

  “You’re not making any sense, Mom.”

  “Anna, here’s what I’ve learned over the past few months. When you approach your last station—or what you believe to be your last station—you realize the only thing that gives meaning to your life is the love you’ve known. All kinds of it. Regardless of how they ended.”

  “How can you say that, with all the suffering men have caused you?”

  “In the end, it doesn’t matter,” she says. “What matters is that I’ve cared deeply enough to make myself vulnerable.”

  I smirk. “Would you recommend I start wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘I’m fair game’?”

  She smiles. “Of course not. I’m just… I just don’t want you to miss out on beautiful things, sweetie. Things that make life worth living.”

  “Even if it all ends in tears?”

  She lets out a long sigh. “Even so.”

  We stay in the park for three more hours. We finish our food and drink, but we can’t stop talking. I tell Mom about Anton—the heavily edited version of it, at any rate. I confess how much I miss him, and that I’ve probably ruined what could’ve been one the most beautiful things in my life. When she asks why, I just tell her our affair had no future. She assumes he’s married. That’s OK. It’s better than telling her the truth.