by Dani Collins
“Today was the worst, but it was my last word on the subject. The result doesn’t look like it will be as bad as I feared.” He supposed a part of him had expected police to knock on his door to take him away in handcuffs again, but it was all in the past. Just a story that had needed to be repeated until a different story drew interest.
Her expression softened. “You thought you’d be vilified, but two decades of proving yourself as a man of principles couldn’t be completely discounted, could it?” she challenged quietly.
He felt cornered by her words. She kept trying to frame him as good and honorable when he had always known he was bad and needing to repent. That was why he didn’t cheat or steal, but even at that, he had resorted to bribery with her, hadn’t he? He was sitting here plotting how to coerce her to stay in his bed.
Shame pinned his gaze to the food she’d prepared for him. “You’re imbuing me with a much higher character than I possess.”
“Aleksy, don’t. You’re a good man. You deserve to be happy. If you cut yourself off from the life you once thought you’d lead, you’re letting Victor win.”
So earnest. So blind. So determined to turn him into something admirable.
Some of his hopelessness must have shown in his face, because she blurted, “I’m not trying to persuade you into anything, not with me. I’m just saying you shouldn’t write off a meaningful relationship because you think you gave up the right.”
Not with me.
“What about you?” He felt his blood slowing with time. “Because you deserve to be happy too.”
“I know.” She swallowed, blinking rapidly, head down. “I’ve had a lot of time to think since I’ve been here.”
Aleksy didn’t understand why her saying that staggered him. He’d already figured out what kind of woman she was. He’d chosen to believe her when she said otherwise, but he’d known. She’d been a virgin. A powerless one that he’d exploited. He was utterly sincere in telling her she deserved everything that her heart desired.
It would come at a terrible cost to him, but he’d pay it. For once, he’d act with the sort of honor she thought he possessed.
* * *
Clair held on to her composure with superhuman effort, losing hope as Aleksy’s expression grew stonier, washing away the footings of her confidence. She reacted by pulling herself inward, taking refuge behind an air of insouciance that wouldn’t betray how much this really meant to her.
“I wasn’t lying when I said I wasn’t looking for a permanent relationship. When I was a child, all I ever wanted was to be adopted into a family.” She set down her fork and folded her hands in her lap, aware of him becoming still, listening so closely the air around them seemed to vibrate. “As the years passed and I wasn’t chosen, I convinced myself being part of a family was the last thing I wanted. I really believed it. Self-preservation, I suppose.” She shrugged, the movement jerky and not nearly as careless as she wanted to be.
His slow blink was almost a wince.
Clair could hear the voices in her head warning this gamble wouldn’t pay off. It made her keep a few cards against her chest, only saying, “But living in this house, thinking about how your parents felt about each other and, I believe, how my parents felt, as well… It made me realize I want a different kind of family. Not parents, but a husband and children.”
Her clammy fingers had clenched themselves together under the table and she kept them hidden, fingernails digging into the backs of her hands so she wouldn’t betray how anxious she was for him to show some sign he wanted those things too. With her…
“I understand.” He sat back, his mouth curling with self-deprecation. “I knew you weren’t proper mistress material— Clair, that’s a compliment,” he hurried to say when she gasped and stood, impaled by the remark.
She began clearing the food they hadn’t touched. “No, you’re right,” she rushed out, clattering dishes. “I know I’m not good at this.” She was breaking into pieces on the inside but refused to let him see it. It would only make this worse. “When we met, I was afraid of every type of relationship. I was so terrified I’d get hurt, I didn’t let anyone near me. Now I know it doesn’t actually kill you to be close to someone. Literally, physically close, I mean.” Her smile was brittle. “I’ll be able to take that forward…”
She stumbled to a halt, unnerved by the way his eyes went black. Jealousy?
Ducking her head, she let her hair fall forward, hiding her confusion. Hiding the way her face wanted to crumple because she was so full of longing and so unsure.
With a deep breath, she steeled herself and lifted her chin. “Still a long way off before I risk falling in love, but…” She trailed off, bravado tank on empty. “I’m just sorry I’m not—” Her throat began to thicken. What you wanted. “I’m going to pack.”
She rattled dishes onto the bench and left.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IF ALEKSY’S WORK ethic had suffered when Clair was waiting at the penthouse for him, it downright evaporated when she wasn’t there at all. He told himself that sinking into new challenges would allow him to leave this gut-knotting anguish behind, but nothing seemed to bury it. He didn’t really care about the outcome as his legal counsel cut a deal with a union to keep a factory operating and when a stock market correction dented his worldly holdings. His only concern was whether it had affected the portfolio he’d put together for Clair.
He went through the motions of living, but nothing drove him. He’d never been at such a loss. Genuine hunger, guilt, thirst for revenge… They’d all motivated him to face the next challenge and the next, and now he had no goal. No purpose. The only thing that meant anything to him now was gone.
Clair.
He’d done the right thing, he kept telling himself. She deserved to be loved. He, at least, had known the feeling at one point in his life. He’d subverted his need for it, determined to avenge the lives of his parents, but they’d made sure he knew what it was. Clair hadn’t experienced that, and if she could find a man who loved her even half as much as he did—
The thought flashed through his mind like lightning, and then a million others crowded in a rumble behind it.
He loved Clair. He loved her with the kind of devotion that would move him between her and a knife or a gun. He would die for her.
A second jolt of stunned clarity went through him. That’s what his father had done. He’d only ever seen his father’s death as something he’d caused, but his father had stepped into the fight because he’d loved his son too much not to protect him.
No other man would ever love Clair as much as he did.
Did that make him worthy of her? No. But as it sank through him that he hadn’t even told her how deeply she was loved, he felt like the smallest man on earth. Her husky “Not with me” continued to ring in his ears all day, every day, but maybe if she’d known how thoroughly she occupied his heart, she would have felt differently. If nothing else, surely she’d realize her own worth and never again settle for anything but wholehearted devotion in a relationship.
Stirred from apathy for the first time in weeks, he sought out her new contact details.
And quickly learned she’d disappeared.
* * *
Clair made a note in her calendar, then traced the capped end of the pen over her upper lip, pleased with the number of “yes” responses she’d had to her invitation.
The home usually had a decent turnout for volunteer drives. Clair was one of the diehards. She had expected a few of the people she’d seen during the annual clean to be willing to sit on her committee bridging the foundation funds to the most-needed programs in the home, but she was thrilled to hear all of them eagerly agree.
Things were finally coming together. The home had cleared out an old cloakroom to make an office for her. One of the cooks had offered
Clair the use of her mother’s house while the woman visited relatives in Australia. Clair only had to feed the cat and pay the utilities. She wasn’t taking a wage from Brighter Days, but she’d interviewed for a clerk position with a notary in the village. It was only a temporary maternity cover, but it would keep her on her feet until she figured out her next step.
She was, if not happy, at least comfortable and rewarded while she nursed a rejected heart from Aleksy’s virtually wordless goodbye. He’d driven her into St. Petersburg himself and put her on a private jet back to London, where she’d been met by that dead fish, Lazlo.
She shouldn’t be so hard on the man. Lazlo was only doing his job, being attentive to the point of smothering her, ensuring that her boxes had been delivered to the flat in one of the most exclusive buildings in London. Aleksy’s? She hadn’t had the nerve to ask. She hadn’t lowered herself to take any of the three jobs he’d secured for her either. As for the credit cards that bore her name but wouldn’t send their bills to her, she’d cut them up the minute Lazlo left.
Clair knew it was pigheaded, but she hadn’t stayed one night in London. She’d put her things back in storage at her own expense and caught the train here. A clean break, she had decided, smirking a little over using the expression. Look at her, proficient in the vernacular of modern-day relationships after her first one.
Sighing, she flipped the page on her diary to check the time on tomorrow’s appointment with an art therapist before she closed the book. This was the part of the day she found hardest—going back to a house that felt like a home and having only a cat for company. Perhaps she’d invite one of the staff and their family to eat with her. She did that now. Rather than forcing herself to tough out the lonely times, she was making real friendships and finding it a confidence booster. It turned out people liked her when she opened up and let them get to know her. She wasn’t an awkward orphan any longer. She was an independent young woman like any other.
Fetching her jacket off the hook in the corner, she shrugged it on, flipping her hair out from under the collar with a vague thought to trim it soon. Outside, she noted a stylish car in the drive. Her heart skipped a beat, betraying how many fantasies she still harbored about a certain man, but it was probably just the school trustee who’d promised to pick up the scholarship information Clair had left for her.
Hearing a footstep and a creak of a floorboard behind her, Clair said, “Is that you, Geri? I was just about to hunt you down and ask if you’d like to come for din—” She turned to see a tall shadow filling the doorway. Déjà vu struck instantly.
She couldn’t move as she took in tall, dark, scarred, gorgeous Aleksy Dmitriev invading her life again.
“Who is Geri? Is he your colleague?” That voice. His rough-smooth accent and deep timbre vibrated through her, making her feel restless and anxious to take flight.
Clair surreptitiously braced a hand on the windowsill behind her. “Geraldine is one of the house parents. What are you doing here?”
“You dropped off the face of the earth, Clair.” He stepped into the tiny room and she took in all of him from his uncreased suit to his smoothly shaven jaw. He looked restored to his old self. Better. Like clay that was stronger for going through the fire. Clean, polished and strong. “What were you thinking, disappearing like that?”
Given that her mind was a clean whiteboard at the moment, completely blank of anything but shock, she took a moment to shake herself into a response.
“I wasn’t trying to disappear. I only wanted to discuss the foundation with the people it would most closely affect, so I came here to do it. Why?” She didn’t like how he put her on the defensive. He’d set her out of his life like bottles for the milkman to collect. She didn’t have to answer to him.
At least, she wanted to be that defiant and dismissive, but in reality, her heart was caving in on itself and her entire being was soaking up the effect of being near him again.
“If you didn’t want to stay in London, you should have said.” His arrogant decree was stated with a scowl of impatience.
“Said to who? Lazlo? Nothing against the man, but he’s not my warden and definitely not my bosom chum. He already knows more about my private life than I ever wanted him to. I wasn’t about to report my comings and goings to him.”
“To me.” Aleksy loosened his tie, then drove his fists into his pockets, his agitation making her think for a second—
Clair gave her head a little shake, refusing to read in to it. She had let herself get all tangled up in wanting things from him and was still trying to unravel him from her heart. She didn’t hate him for hurting her, but she didn’t want him to do it again.
Even though she suspected he was doing it again and all he’d had to do was step through a door.
“We’re no longer involved,” she said with as steady a voice as she could muster, reminding herself as much as him. With a flick of her wrist, she prompted him to close the door. When it had clicked firmly and he turned the blinding brilliance of his bronze eyes back on her, she countered it brutally. “You paid me out, in case you didn’t know.”
His jaw hardened. He leaned into the door, chest rising as he absorbed her offense. “I’d promised I would. What else would I do? Renege?”
“You didn’t have to do all that other stuff.” She folded her arms, unable to look directly at him while she relived the sting of being bought off for her sexual favors. She had thought they had shared their bodies with each other freely. Hers had definitely been offered without expectation of compensation.
“I’d promised you that too.”
“Well, I didn’t have to accept it, so I didn’t,” she spat out with rancor, hating how cheap he’d made her feel.
“You still could have told me where you were going,” he bit out. His voice was so censorious it made her stiffen. “You didn’t have to disappear without a word. An email doesn’t take any effort at all.”
Taken aback by that, Clair choked out a laugh. “Oh, didn’t you get my response to yours?”
His eyebrows slammed together. “I didn’t email you.”
Clair only lifted her eyebrows, waiting for the penny to drop.
With a muttered curse, Aleksy pushed his hand through his hair and tried to pace across the tiny space of her office. He only moved two short steps before swinging back to her.
Clair snapped to attention, aching from the tension of holding herself in this state of readiness. Her palms were sweating within the knots of her fists. “Why are you here, Aleksy?” It seemed rather cruel, quite honestly. She’d managed to move on with her life, not well, but she was doing it. This was going to be a setback of epic proportions. There would be fresh tears she didn’t want to shed.
“I’m here to find you.” He said it impatiently, as if she ought to know. “I didn’t know where else to look, so I came here to ask if they had any contact information on you and they told me you were down the hall. I almost had a heart attack.”
Intensity radiated off him, as though he was still keyed up from the discovery.
“There’s such a thing as a telephone. You could have called the office,” she pointed out. Heat rose on her cheeks and she shifted. The room was too small to contain them both. “Why didn’t you put Lazlo on the job? He probably tagged my ear with a GPS when I wasn’t looking.”
“I was worried.” He seemed uncomfortable with the admission, but the words came out of him as though they wouldn’t stay inside. “You can’t just walk away like that, Clair,” he scolded. “I’ve lost people I loved, and that pain doesn’t ever go away. Not knowing where you were or if you were safe was equally as bad.”
All her defensive anger fell away, leaving a heart that began beating wildly. She reminded herself that he was just a very protective man with a ferocious sense of responsibility. This wasn’t personal.
“Ale
ksy, I grew up here. Right here.” She pointed to the ceiling where two floors up she had shared an attic bedroom with a number of different girls over the years. “To get a workspace in this building, where wards of the state live, I had to pass about a million background checks. That’s how serious they are about security. I’m living next door to the police chief. The bus driver greets me by name and his wife sells me eggs. Where do you want me to live that you think I’d be safer?”
He had his unmarked cheek to her and she saw how utterly beautiful he would have been if both sides of his face matched. When he swung his face around, she was almost relieved to see the scar. It made him human and reachable. Mortal.
His jaw worked as though he wanted to say something but thought better of it. A long minute of silence drew out, pulling her nerves taut.
“You’re happy, then?” he finally asked, cheek ticking.
She hugged her coat around her as she shrugged. “It’s a little like I’ve come home, even though…” She frowned, searching for the words. “I feel good because I know I’ll make positive changes for the children here, but it’s still a place that makes me sad. I wish…” She had to press her lips together to keep them from quivering. “I wish they all had proper homes to go to.”
He nodded and the empathy in his expression was more than she could bear. A lump lodged in her chest and she looked away.
After a moment, she found a wry smile even though it was the last thing she felt like doing. “I’m not used to checking in with anyone, you know that. I should have at least told Lazlo not to pay the rent on an empty flat. Sorry about that.”
“The money doesn’t matter.” Aleksy seemed to consume her with his eyes. He’d accomplished his goal, so she wondered why he didn’t leave. She was safe here, but the longer he lingered, the more danger she felt. She ached to touch him. Give herself over to him. Again.
