God she hated being emotional and weepy all the time. Five years of living with Sergei, a man she didn’t love and never could love, and she hadn’t cried once, and now she didn’t seem to be able to stop.
She had no doubts that some of this was a remnant of the hormonal changes that had already begun in her body before she lost the baby.
The rest of it she could put down to the almighty fuck-up that was now her life.
Well it was time for the self-pity party to stop. Time all this nonsense stopped and she took control of her own life.
For the moment that life included Dair.
And the two of them alone together on a Caribbean island.
An island they were fast approaching, if she was correct in that the jet was now flying lower and slower than it had been, so low she could see lots of tiny islands set like jewels in beautiful blue-green water.
Although none of them looked as if they were big enough for this private jet to land on.
“Five minutes until we land, Dair,” as if on cue, the pilot’s—Lijah’s—voice informed them.
Kat’s hands immediately tightened on the arms of the chair, fingers white-knuckled.
“Relax, Kat,” Dair advised dryly as he fastened his own seatbelt. “Lijah has done this trip a dozen times, and we haven’t crash-landed yet. I would have flown her in myself if I thought it was going to worry you.”
“You can fly jets as well as helicopters?” Kat looked up at him.
He nodded. “And a tank. Any sort of armored vehicle really. Oh, and a motorbike.”
Dear God, what had Dair been doing in the military all those years that he could drive a tank, armored vehicles, as well as helicopters and jets?
“What’s in the two suitcases?” Kat looked down at them as Dair took them out of the jet and carried them over to another SUV parked in the hanger beside the helicopter.
This island hadn’t looked any bigger than any of the others they had flown over, and yet somehow Lijah had managed to land on and stop the jet before they hurtled off the end of the small landing strip into the sea. Dair had been completely unconcerned by the landing, of course, while Kat sat white-knuckled and jaw-clenched opposite him.
She had caught a brief glimpse of the pilot when Dair said goodbye to him; he looked every bit as big and muscled as Dair, but there the similarity ended. Lijah had long, dark hair that brushed the collar of his fitted white T-shirt, his arms deeply tanned, and he wore a dark Stetson pulled low over eyes that gleamed deep indigo. He’d given her an abrupt nod of acknowledgement before turning away to finish his quiet conversation with Dair.
If Lijah had been in the military too, then unlike Dair, he had completely lost the haircut and dark clothing since leaving service.
Kat had stripped off the heavy sweater she was wearing the moment she stepped down from the aircraft, glad for her foresight in wearing a T-shirt beneath it as she felt the heat of the Caribbean sun beating down on her. At the time it had just been another layer of clothing to keep her warm, now the T-shirt was necessary for her comfort.
In contrast, Dair seemed as unaffected by the heat as he had been unaffected by the cold the previous night. “Clothes for both of us,” he answered her dismissively as he stowed the two suitcases in the back of the four-wheel drive before moving round to the driver’s side.
“Really?” Kat slid into the vehicle beside him.
He shrugged as he straightened from collecting the keys from under his seat. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to bring any of your own stuff with you.”
Kat wouldn’t have brought the clothes from the clinic with her even if she had been able to; Sergei had chosen and packed them, and she never wanted to set eyes on any of those pieces of clothing ever again. In fact, as soon as she could, she was dumping what she was wearing now too.
“Did you choose the clothes yourself?” she prompted as Dair turned on the ignition.
He gave her a sideways frown. “Do you see anyone else around here to do it?”
Kat kept her expression mildly curious. “Including the underwear?”
Dair mumbled something under his breath as he drove the vehicle out of the hanger and out onto the road.
“Sorry?”
“I said yes, including the underwear,” he muttered through gritted teeth.
Kat was enjoying herself too much, at Dair’s expense, to let him off the hook just yet; so far in their re-acquaintance Dair had always seemed to have the upper hand. It felt good to see him as the one discomforted for a change, if only for a few minutes.
Whereas Kat wasn’t sure she was ever going to get over the embarrassment of what had happened on the plane earlier.
“How did you know what size to buy?” she prompted lightly.
“I guessed, okay?”
Kat drew her bottom lip between her teeth to stop herself from smiling; obviously discussing buying a woman’s underwear was Dair’s cutoff point in regard to tolerance. “I’m sure it will all be lovely.”
Dair shot her an impatient glance. “Of course when I chose it, I pictured you as having more…curves.”
Now she was the one discomforted. “And what gave you the impression I would ever have curves?” Even before her recent weight loss, Kat had never been particularly curvy.
Dair gave a shrug. “I hadn’t pictured you as having had all your hair cut off either, but we all have to learn to live with disappointment.”
Disappointment? Dair was disappointed with the way she looked now?
Well she hadn’t exactly imagined him as being the scarred warrior he was now either—
Oh give it up, Kat, she immediately mocked herself. The man sitting beside her was so damned hot she had even jumped him in her sleep.
Her mouth twisted derisively. “I’m betting you get lots of women with that silver tongue—oh my God…!” She had been so caught up in their conversation she hadn’t noticed they had left the flatness of the airstrip and road behind and were now climbing up into the forested hills.
Lush green foliage and trees lined either side of the track they were now driving along, with vivid colors of exotic blooms among them, and as Dair drove the SUV over the top of the hill she could see the beach, with white-gold sand drifting down to the turquoise sea.
It was amazingly, peacefully, beautiful.
Apart from their honeymoon, Sergei’s idea of a vacation had been a weekend in Las Vegas every month, and after the first couple of trips Kat hadn’t bothered to go again; Sergei liked to spend his time lounging by the pool all day and in one of the many casinos all night.
Which was where he had been nine weeks ago when Kat had telephoned him in excitement to tell him about the baby.
The last thing she had expected, when she was put through to Sergei’s hotel suite, was for another woman to answer the telephone. A woman who had informed her that she was about to join Sergei in the shower right now, but she would have him return the call later if Kat would like to leave her number.
Kat had been so shocked she had dropped the cell phone as if it had just burned her, disconnecting the call in the process.
She had known she and Sergei didn’t have the perfect marriage, that they weren’t wildly in love with each other, but she had never thought, not even for a moment, that he might be spending his time with other women when he went off to Las Vegas for those weekends on his own.
Except he obviously wasn’t alone.
For the five years they had been married Kat had at least thought Sergei gave her his fidelity.
She had been wrong.
And begun to wonder what else she had been wrong about where he was concerned.
For the first time in their marriage Kat had entered the bedroom adjoining her own. When they’d had sex it was always Sergei who came to her bedroom and then left again when it was over.
Kat hadn’t been sure what she was looking for that day, further evidence of Sergei’s infidelity perhaps, to confront him with when he came home. She’d had
no doubts that by then he would know about her call, and have come up with a reasonable explanation for the woman in his hotel suite about to take a shower with him. And Kat had wanted to know—
“Kat?”
—the truth—
“Kat!” Dair repeated sharply as she made no response; he had noticed that she had a habit of drifting off into her own thoughts like this.
A lingering effect of the medication?
Or something else?
After visiting Kat yesterday morning, he had accessed and read through her medical notes at the clinic. Depression. Hallucinations. Violent tendencies. The last he had dismissed; Sergei Orlov was enough to make anyone feel violent. The depression was also understandable when she had lost a baby just weeks ago. The hallucinations he was less sure of, but after witnessing Kat’s nightmare earlier, maybe that was easily explained too.
But still, something didn’t add up. Not the heavy medication Kat had been on, the clinic, the restraints, or the hatred she now bore towards Sergei.
And until it did, Dair intended on keeping Kat safe. From herself—and him—if necessary.
“My marriage to Sergei was a sham.”
Dair gave her a sharp glance; it was all he dared do when they were traveling along this narrow track. “I don’t think anyone ever thought that it was a love match between the two of you, but you seemed to have managed together for the past five years, until—until this setback.”
Setback?
Dair believed that this was a setback?
Discovering your husband, even one you weren’t in love with, was having an affair was surely bad enough, but finding out that it wasn’t an affair at all, that the woman on the other end of the phone was actually Sergei’s legal wife, was a lot more than a setback!
Chapter 7
Somehow Sergei had forgotten to mention his previous marriage eight years ago to a Las Vegas showgirl, to his father, Kat, or anyone else. A previous marriage that made his marriage to Kat completely illegal. Null and void. Non-existent.
And still Sergei had tried to talk himself out of it, promising to divorce the other woman, and then the two of them could go away somewhere and have another quiet marriage ceremony without anyone else ever being the wiser.
It had been when Kat refused that things had really gotten nasty.
The end result had been the loss of the baby she had waited five long years to conceive.
Followed by Sergei ‘confessing’ to his father—he’d really had little choice after Kat was admitted to the hospital and barely lived through the miscarriage. Ivan’s response had been anger towards his son, impatience with Kat for making such a fuss, and his insistence that the two of them would marry.
When Kat had again refused, Sergei and Ivan had come up with the idea of putting her in the clinic until she did agreed. Sergei’s only reason for coming to visit her at the clinic every morning had been to see if she had changed her mind yet. Her answer had always been no. Followed by Sergei’s assertion that she would be staying there until she did.
Kat would never have changed her mind, couldn’t bear to even be in the same room as Sergei anymore.
And she couldn’t tell anyone any of that. Not without causing an all-out war between the Markovic and Orlov families.
Her ‘marriage’ was over, she had lost the baby she loved; Kat couldn’t bear the thought of being responsible for any more bloodshed.
She couldn’t tell Dair the truth either. If she did then he would have no choice but to tell Gregori. As it was, Dair knew far too much already about the way Sergei had behaved towards her, if not the reason for it.
“Sorry about that.” She turned to smile at Dair. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud. I think it must be that the meds are still in my system. I’m finding it a little difficult to concentrate.”
“It will take a couple of days, probably.” He nodded.
Her smile became wistful as she heard and saw Dair’s relief at the explanation; it seemed that even warriors—especially warriors?—felt uncomfortable when confronted by a woman’s emotions.
Kat had grown up with just her father and Gregori, and while she had been indulged personal emotions were a luxury Dimitri didn’t allow, even for family. Sergei and Ivan were made of the same stuff. It was unfair of her to expect that Dair, who was after all a member of the Montgomery family, would be any different from any of those four men.
She—
Kat completely lost that train of thought as Lucien Wynter’s island home came into view.
Built of rose-cream marble, it looked like a Greek temple as it glistened in the sun, with tall and smooth pillars surrounding a marble courtyard, a wide terrace surrounding the villa on the ground floor, with a balcony on the second trailing a plethora of exotic flowers down to the ground from above.
It was like something out of a fairytale, and Kat was utterly transfixed by its beauty.
“Thank you, Dair.” She turned a beaming smile on him as he brought the vehicle to a stop in front of the villa. “You couldn’t have brought me to anywhere more perfect. It’s an island paradise!”
He eyed her guardedly. “You aren’t going to kiss me again, are you?”
“Not this time,” Kat chuckled as she climbed out of the four-by-four. “Unless you want me to?” She eyed him mockingly.
“I’ll pass.” For now, Dair added internally. If Kat kissed him again, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from taking it further.
Especially when he could now see the Kat he had once known, her face alight with the excitement of her surroundings, the lines of strain and unhappiness smoothed away, the shadows gone from her dark and sparkling eyes.
The thought of the two of them being alone here on the island for several days, maybe even weeks, was going to play havoc with his self-control.
Damn, she was beautiful as she twirled slowly around, arms outspread, face aglow with pleasure as she took in the beauty of their surroundings.
And another man’s wife, Dair reminded himself derisively.
But a husband she didn’t love. And who didn’t love her either; otherwise Sergei would never have shut her away in that clinic—and Kat wouldn’t have tried to stab him for it.
The more Dair thought about that incident the more he found humor in it. He could just see Sergei now, running away from Kat as she wielded a dinner knife at him.
Sergei didn’t deserve to so much as kiss the soles of Kat’s feet.
And he needed a distraction before he said as much.
Which Dair found by abruptly excusing himself to go deal with and check the security systems he had tightened up and improved before Lucien and Nicky came here for their honeymoon the previous month.
None of the alarms had been triggered since the couple from the mainland, who acted as caretakers, had delivered the food and other supplies Dair had asked for two days ago before leaving again.
He shut off all but the necessary alarms for the duration of their stay before making his way to the kitchen.
As he had requested, the fridge had been well stocked. He just hoped that Kat could cook, because his own cooking skills only stretched as far as grilling a steak and zapping a baked potato in the microwave. Which would become pretty boring on a daily basis, if they were here for very long.
Only problem was, Dair couldn’t see any reason why Kat would ever have learned to cook, when she had been surrounded by—
Where the hell was Kat?
Damn it, they had only been on the island a few minutes and he had lost her already?
His expression was grim as he strode determinedly from the villa, only to heave a sigh of relief as he spotted Kat’s shoes and saw her footprints in the white-gold sand leading down to the water’s edge.
He came to an abrupt halt and stopped breathing when he saw those footsteps led to where Kat stood, jeans rolled up to just below her knees, the warmth of the water lapping at the bareness of her toes. Her arms were still outstretched, face raised
to the sun, her red T-shirt clinging to the swell of her breasts, the flatness of her midriff visible where the T-shirt had ridden upwards.
She looked like a pagan priestess about to make an offering to the gods.
And Dair wanted nothing more at that moment than to take her down in the sand, strip her clothes from that delicious body, and carry on from where they had left off on the plane.
As if becoming aware of the heat of his gaze, Kat slowly lowered her arms and turned to look at him over her shoulder before turning fully to face him.
Dair’s heart started pounding and his mouth went dry as he saw she was making no effort to hide the fact that she returned the heat of that arousal; her eyes were dark and sultry, cheeks flushed, the fullness of her lips slightly moist and parted, her nipples becoming hard, engorged pebbles against the material of her T-shirt even as his gaze slid lower to look at them.
Fuck, he was in trouble.
Serious, deep, dark trouble.
What had happened on the plane had only wetted his appetite; the things he had thought of doing with and to Kat since were—
Shit!
His heart ceased beating at all for a second or two when Kat reached for the hem of her T-shirt, her gaze continuing to hold his, as she pulled it slowly upwards, first baring her flat and slender midriff, her ribcage, and then—
Dair stopped breathing again as the T-shirt rose even higher, exposing her lace-covered breasts. They didn’t stay covered for long, as she unfastened it and slid the straps down her arms, baring her breasts completely. They were neither too big nor too small, the nipples engorged and a deep rose in color. Dair already knew those breasts would fit perfectly in the palm of his hand.
In response, his hands began to twitch restlessly at his sides, wanting to cup and squeeze those breasts, to caress and pull on the fullness of the nipples, and hear Kat purr with the same pleasure she had experienced on the plane.
Dair gave a shake of his head to clear it, knowing he wasn’t thinking straight. How could he, when all the blood in his body seemed to now be centered, throbbing, thrumming, along the length of his engorged cock?
Shadow Alpha Page 8
