by Alisha Rai
“Gambling.” Morose, Nikolai shook his head. “No one can ever win. Terrible pastime.”
“I’m sure Wyatt hardly sits around playing slots all day.”
His past was no secret. “No. But I played poker on the professional circuit.”
Nikolai squinted. “Professional.”
“Yes.” He’d lived and breathed the cards for a few years, eager to make a name for himself. He hadn’t wanted to stay in that world long-term. Poker had better odds than some games, but at the end of the day, the player was basically working on generating income for the house.
That was why he’d always intended to be the house. Playing had given him the capital and connections he’d needed to move up in the world.
Nikolai drummed his fingers on the table. “I see.”
“To go from playing poker to owning your own place is quite amazing. It must have been a great deal of hard work,” Janet interjected.
“The casino was already here, yes?” Tatiana’s father eyed him as if he’d snuck in and stolen the keys from the previous owners.
“The structure was there,” Tatiana jumped in, and he wasn’t sure if he was annoyed or pleased that she recognized her precious daddy’s third degree for what it was. “Wyatt and his investors took the Quest and turned it into something magnificent.”
“Hurrumph.” The older man scowled at him. “I Googled you. You are not as well known as the other places.”
“I attract a certain clientele.” Curious tourists didn’t have the kind of dough necessary to play at his tables or purchase his staff’s discretion over other sinful vices.
“The deviant sort.”
Goddamn it. He was too old to be made to feel like a pervert by a woman’s father. “Sometimes.”
The awkward silence lasted a solid minute before Tatiana cleared her throat. “Daddy, what are you speaking about at the conference?”
For the first time that evening, the older man perked up. “It is on a new flywheel capable of kinetic energy storage…”
Wyatt was grateful for the distraction, since it took the man’s attention off him. Janet looked on fondly, occasionally interrupting her husband to correct or argue with his speech. But then, she was a physicist as well, as renowned as her husband. Though Tatiana hadn’t gone to school for this stuff, she’d grown up with two brilliant minds, and she knew the language. She listened intently, frowning, asking an intelligent question here and there.
He had no idea what a spinning mass was, or a wobble, or resonance. So he sat there, drinking his wine and praying dinner would come soon.
When it did, there was a brief period of silence while they attacked their food. “So, Wyatt,” Janet started. He mentally groaned and cast his mind around for some question that would set them off on one of their scientific monologues. “We understand you and Tatiana met when you fired her birth half-brother for embezzling money from your company. Has that caused any tension?”
“Mother.”
Janet cast her daughter a quizzical glance. “It’s a reasonable question, darling. I was curious.”
Wyatt coughed. He’d forgotten that Tatiana’s parents were as unconventional in their own way as she was. Her artsy dreaminess sometimes put her out of step with normal society; their scientific absorption with curiosities resulted in the same.
“No,” he admitted. “Ronald has been good about repaying his debt, and we barely see each other.” He hadn’t told Tatiana, but he was keeping an eye on the kid, who had taken a job as a dealer with one of his competitors. Another corporation wouldn’t be as generous as he was. Tatiana wouldn’t handle her brother being in prison very well.
“Hmm.” Janet frowned. “But Tatiana said that since she’s been with you, she’s seen Ron more than ever, since she comes here so often.”
“I see him when Wyatt’s working,” Tatiana said quietly.
Nikolai paused, and then continued eating.
A warning signal pinged in Wyatt’s brain. Something is off.
“Ah.” Janet smiled, and Wyatt was distracted by the worry tingeing it. Yes. Yes, that was the look he remembered all too well. You’re going to hurt my baby, it said. “Well, I certainly know how busy work can get. Hopefully you’ll get a chance to get to know him better. Nikolai and I have only met him a couple of times, but he seems like a sweet boy. He and his family came out for the holidays, and it was lovely.”
“Flighty and overly cheerful,” Nikolai grunted. “But good-hearted.”
“Sounds like you’re one big happy family.” Wyatt cut into his steak. That’s right, Tatiana had mentioned that her brother had gone East with her, that her parents had happily pseudo-adopted the half-brother she’d been reunited with.
He’d wanted to enjoy the holidays with her. It had been lonely to spend Christmas Eve in the suite Esme had professionally decorated for him, eating the cookies she’d baked, watching DVRed TV in an effort to find something that wasn’t holiday themed. It had been a momentary pang, gone when Tatiana had returned and celebrated New Year’s in his bed.
Yes, he’d wanted to spend the holidays with her. But not enough to spend it with her family.
He glanced at Tatiana, not surprised to find her pushing her pasta around her plate. She always played with her meals, but tonight she hadn’t taken more than a couple bites while her parents had both made dents in their tofu burgers, and his steak was half gone. Worry made him frown.
Janet noticed his regard. “The food here is delicious. I swear, since Nik and I became vegans, we don’t even miss meat.”
“The way meat is processed in this country would make you ill if I told you,” Nikolai said with a certain amount of relish.
Wyatt paused while cutting into his steak. Cooked rare, like he liked it. Vegans. Of course they’d become vegans. He turned to his potatoes.
Nikolai cleared his throat. “Tatiana, Alfie Jamison became engaged.”
Tatiana stilled. Wyatt didn’t miss the warning glower she directed at her father. “That’s nice.”
“Tatiana dated Alfie. After you. A nice boy. Doctor.”
Wyatt’s fingers curled tighter around his knife. “Is that right?” He shot her a look filled with what he hoped was cool amusement and not creepy jealousy. “Alfie, huh? That sounds like a can of dog food.”
Janet chuckled. “He did look like a puppy.”
“Looks are immaterial. A woman needs a good provider with a stable job—oomph.”
This time Janet was the one giving Nikolai a warning glance. “Darling. Let’s not get started on how women need a man to provide for them.”
Wyatt allowed the reluctant smile tugging at his lips. No, Tatiana hadn’t come by her feminist core by accident.
“Alfie’s bride does not seem to mind his earning capacity,” Nikolai muttered.
“I’m sure she doesn’t,” Tatiana responded. “But it’ll be a cold comfort when he cheats on her with whatever hot young thing is working in his office next month.”
Wyatt stilled. “He cheated on you?” Cheating on anyone was a shitty thing to do, but a man would have to be stone-cold stupid to risk losing Tatiana in such a manner.
“What?” Nikolai glowered. “You did not tell us this.”
Tatiana wrinkled her nose. “It wasn’t a big deal. I was going to break up with him anyway. Caught him with a nurse.”
“What was his full name again?” Wyatt asked.
Tatiana eyed him warily. “Not telling you.”
“Alford Jamison,” her mother supplied helpfully. She had abandoned her burger and was watching the exchange with much interest.
Wyatt made a mental note. “Excellent.”
“You are not doing anything, Wyatt.”
“I know where he lives,” Nikolai said grimly. “I can handle him.”
“I’ve got this.” Wyatt stabbed his potato.
“What can you do from across the country?”
Wyatt smirked and snared the older man’s gaze. “You’d be surprised.”
/>
“I have connections.”
“As do I.”
Nikolai’s eye twitched, but neither man broke their staring contest.
“Nobody is handling him,” Tatiana cut in.
Janet leaned back in her chair. “Well, this will be awkward, seeing as how one of your men might kill or ruin Alfie, but his mother asked if you could design a bridal set for his fiancée.”
Tatiana flicked a glance at her mother. “I would love to. Tell her to stop by my website first, though. My style may not be what they’re looking for.”
Janet shrugged. “It would simply need to match her dress. All gold. I don’t think they care about style or design.”
“You’d be surprised at how much that matters,” Tatiana said diplomatically.
“Our little artist.” Nikolai’s smile was not unkind. “I suppose each piece of metal speaks to you, eh?”
Unable to resist, Wyatt butted in. “Tatiana does create art.” He took a sip of his wine, figuring that the alcohol was more necessary than the food. “Her work has been in galleries as well as boutiques.”
Nikolai raised a bushy brow. “I am aware of what my daughter does, Caine.”
Tatiana often called him that, Caine. But when she did it, it didn’t ring of derision.
You’re imagining it.
Was he, though?
“I’m just clarifying. She’s not some vendor in a mall, churning out baubles for bridezillas.”
If possible, Nikolai became grimmer, his face flushing redder than the inside of Wyatt’s steak. “As I said. I am aware of my daughter’s skill.”
“Calm down,” Tatiana whispered. “Wyatt didn’t mean to imply anything.”
“Oh, but he did. Tell me, Caine, why you think my grown daughter needs defending from her own parents?”
Whoa. “She doesn’t. I was only speaking for Tatiana’s work.”
“She does not need speaking for.”
“Let’s all take a deep breath, Nikolai,” Janet interjected.
The older man lifted his napkin and placed it over his half-eaten tofu burger. “You may have changed your clothes and your hair, boy, but you have not changed at all.”
Each word scraped across his heart, but beyond the tightening of his fingers around the stem of his wineglass, he didn’t let it show. He had already donned the cold layer of ice that protected him. “You are entitled to think that.”
“Daddy.” Tatiana’s words were a sharp rebuke. “You are out of line. Wyatt was a good man when we were young, and he’s a good man now. He didn’t need to change.”
“He did, if he wanted a chance at a lasting relationship with you. I told Janet, when Tatiana told us about this…” he waved his hand between the two of them, “…I told her this was a bad idea, that it would never last.”
Tatiana’s lips firmed. “You can’t know that. What a terrible thing to say.”
“Compatibility is a simple equation, my darling. You adore your family. He never has, and he will go out of his way to avoid us. How long do you think you will be happy choosing between him and us, this time?”
Nikolai wasn’t a surgeon, but each word cut into Wyatt’s soul with the precision of a scalpel, slicing him open.
“Wyatt doesn’t control me.” Tatiana’s voice was like a whiplash. “He never forced me to make that sort of choice. Not then, and not now.”
“So you say.” The older man stood. His wife rose, reluctance and displeasure in every tight line of her face. “We will go. I have seen all I need to see. Tatiana, I hope we will meet with you again during our trip. While he is at work perhaps.”
Wyatt spoke up when Nikolai reached for his wallet. “I will pay.”
Nikolai’s face grew mottled. He pulled out a wad of cash and threw it on the table. “They are my wife and daughter.”
“And she’s my girlfriend.” He couldn’t savor the word this time, as he normally did.
“For now.”
Janet lingered for a moment after her husband stomped off. “Wyatt…” She shook her head. “Excuse my husband, please. He spoke hastily.”
Maybe he shrugged or made some noncommittal noise. He didn’t know.
“Tatiana, call me tomorrow, please. We can make plans.” She came around the table and gave her daughter a kiss on the cheek and him a tight, anxiety-ridden smile.
Not good enough. Not nearly good enough.
Yeah. There were a lot better ways they could have spent this night.
Chapter Five
Tatiana didn’t remember much of what happened after her parents departed so dramatically, except that Wyatt hustled them to the limo. She stared out the window, numb. Too numb to decipher all of the feelings thrumming right below the surface of her faux-calm demeanor. Wyatt didn’t try to make conversation in the car, for which she was grateful.
When they entered Wyatt’s suite, she let him take her coat and came to stand in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows. They afforded a glorious view of the Vegas skyline. She pressed her fingers against the glass. This was the first place Wyatt and she had had sex.
This time, during this relationship. The first place they had ever had sex had been in a saggy bed in his apartment, on the stroke of midnight of her eighteenth birthday. Unrealistic, some might say, that they had dated for three years without consummating their relationship, but Wyatt had said he wanted to do things right.
Not to mention, Tatiana wasn’t an idiot. Her academic dad could be a real hard-ass where his baby girl was concerned, particularly when said baby girl had been dating a guy a few years older than her. Once, she’d heard her father casually ask Wyatt if he had researched the state law on statutory rape.
For a month, the poor kid hadn’t even wanted to risk sticking his hand under her shirt.
Tatiana’s lips curled up. She traced a finger over the glass. There had been a few inklings of Wyatt’s expensive tastes back then, though he hadn’t had two pennies to rub together. That night, he’d purchased silk sheets and surrounded the bed with candles. Afterward, they’d eaten pizza and blown the flames out. Except for one. With that candle, he’d shown her how good hot wax could feel.
Wyatt came to stand behind her. They hadn’t turned the lights on, but the bright glow from the skyline was sufficient. She could see his reflection in the glass.
“Do you want a drink?” Wyatt asked.
She focused on the circle she was drawing, making it perfectly round. “No. Thanks.”
“Coffee?”
“No.”
A sigh. “What do you want?”
She could hear it in his voice, a shutdown and rejection of what was coming. Her belligerence and snark, her goddamn emotions, which she had learned to manage but could never truly extinguish. She was angry, and sad, and maybe it was dramatic of her, but she felt despair.
You knew this would happen. This yawning distance between them would always be the result of any problem. Of course she’d been doing her best to keep everything smooth and easy. “It wasn’t necessary.” The words blurted out of her, despite her best efforts to restrain them.
“What wasn’t?”
In for a penny. “What you said to my parents. Defending my work.”
He paused. When he spoke, his tone was ice cold. “You don’t want me to defend you?”
“There was nothing to defend. They’re my parents. I don’t need defending from them.” Not fair. Daddy deserves your anger, too. But her father wasn’t here, and she could successfully deal with him later. Wyatt was, and it was important he know what he’d done wrong.
“You’re okay with them treating your work with that kind of disrespect?” He snorted. “Tatiana, once, just once, I heard your neighbor ask if you were still making ‘little necklaces’, and I thought you were going to rip that old lady a new one.”
The batty old neighbor wasn’t the first one who had felt the sharp edge of her tongue when they made the mistake of diminishing her work to nothing. But her parents were different. They weren’t
just people, and she’d figured out a long time ago that she’d rather have them in her life, vaguely disapproving, then cut them off or constantly be at odds with them. “A part of them is always going to think I’ve wasted my life by doing this as my profession, no matter how much money I earn or how much people love my work. There’s nothing I can do about it.” She gave a helpless shrug. “It is what it is.”
A small snort came from behind her. She twisted around. “What?”
“Listen to yourself. ‘There’s nothing I can do about it’? That doesn’t sound like you.”
Tatiana’s temper ratcheted up a notch. They’re brainwashing you. Do you really want to study biology? You dread each class. Back then, maybe it had been true—she’d been eager to please, and trying to live up to the high academic standards of her parents had been her way of showing them her love. She’d found her spine, though, and kept it. “I’m not a pushover.”
“Then stop sounding like one.”
She whirled around. “You don’t get it.”
“Whoa.” He lifted his hand in warning. “Let’s not shout.”
Her back teeth ground together. “Let’s not talk about me in the third person, then.”
He dipped his head in acknowledgment of the point. “What don’t I get?”
“Family stuff.”
“Oh, right.” Ice could crystallize on his words, they were so frigid. “Because I only had a dysfunctional family. How would I know how to have any kind of emotional attachment with someone?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t say that.”
“But you agree with it.” Wyatt slashed his hand in the air. “You know what, forget it. We both need to cool off.”
“We need to talk.”
“No.” He drew his rigid control around himself like a finely crafted suit. “This is not how I pictured the night going.”
No, this wasn’t how she’d pictured the night ending either, especially since the visit had started out so well, with him relaxed and warm. She’d ruined it.
Ruined it how, exactly? By asking him to do something as simple as meet your parents?
