‘Oh, and I read that you own RG Holdings but that your name is being kept off all the official documents between RG and Plushenko’s.’ Her brow furrowed, as if she were trying to remember something, then her lips twisted into something resembling a smile. ‘What was the phrase I read? Something along the lines of, “it is imperative that Marat Plushenko does not learn of Pascha Virshilas’s involvement in this buyout”. Was that it?’
Only with the greatest effort did Pascha keep his features still. Inside, his stomach lurched, his skin crawling as if a nest of spiders had been let loose in him.
Her brown eyes held his, as if in challenge, before her lips curved upwards—amazing lips, like a heart tugged out at the sides. Her eyes remained cold. She leaned forward. ‘It’s obvious this buy-out is important to you and you need to keep it a secret. I suggest we make a deal: if you agree to withdraw the threat of legal action towards my father, I will keep the details of the Plushenko deal to myself.’
Pascha’s fingers tightened on the document in his grasp. ‘You think you can blackmail me?’
She raised her shoulders in a sign of nonchalance. ‘You may call it blackmail but I like to think of it as us making a deal. Clear my father’s name. I want it in writing that you’ll exonerate him from any potential charges or I will sing from the rooftops.’
Emily could see by the whitening of Pascha’s knuckles that he was fighting to keep his composure.
How she kept her own composure, she did not know.
She’d never been a wallflower, not by any stretch of the imagination, but she’d never been one for making war before either. To stand up against this powerful man—a man capable of destroying her father; of destroying her too—and know she was winning... It was a heady feeling.
From despair and anger at getting caught and failing her father, she’d found a way to salvage the situation.
‘I can have you arrested for this,’ Pascha said, his voice low and menacing.
‘Try it.’ She allowed herself a smile. ‘I’ll be entitled to a phone call. I think I’ll use it to contact the firm Shirokov—is that how you pronounce it?—and see if they’d be interested in representing me.’
How Pascha stopped his tongue rolling out the volley of expletives it wanted to say, he did not know.
Shirokov was the firm representing Marat Plushenko in the buy-out.
She dared to think she could threaten and blackmail him? This little pixie with a tongue as curling as her hair dared to think she could take him on and win?
He’d spent two years trying to make this deal happen, had even bought Bamber Cosmetics a few months ago as a decoy to avert any suspicion.
And now Emily Richardson had the power to blow it all to hell.
If Marat Plushenko heard so much as a whisper that Pascha was the face behind RG Holdings, he would abandon the deal without a backward glance and Plushenko’s, the business the late, great Andrei Plushenko had built from nothing, would be ground to dust. His legacy would be gone.
And so would Pascha’s last chance at redemption.
Could he trust her? That was the question.
He had no doubt her actions in stealing his files had been driven by exactly what she claimed—to prove her father’s innocence. He almost admired her for it.
But beneath the collected exterior lurked a wildness. It echoed in the flickers of light emitting from her dark eyes. He could feel it.
This was a woman on the edge.
That, in itself, answered his question.
No, he could not trust her.
In exactly one week, the Plushenko deal would be finalised, the contracts signed. Seven whole days in which he would be wondering and worrying if she really was capable of keeping her mouth shut, if something innocuous could set her off to make a phone call to Marat’s lawyer.
Beneath Emily’s bohemian exterior, which even the plain suit she wore couldn’t hide, lurked a sharp, inquisitive mind. A sharp mind on the edge could be a lethal combination.
An old English phrase came to mind: keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
This deal was everything. It had to happen.
It had been eight years since he’d walked out on his family. It was too late to make amends with the man who’d raised him as his own, but he could restore his legacy and, maybe then, finally, his mother would forgive him.
And for that reason he needed to make Emily disappear...
CHAPTER TWO
EMILY DID NOT LIKE the thoughtful way Pascha appraised her, leaning back in his chair with his arms folded, his long legs stretched out beneath his desk, ankles crossed, handmade brogues gleaming.
She’d never seen such stillness. It was unnerving. Almost as unnerving as her attempt to blackmail him. But then, she’d never thought she would break into an office with the sole intention of stealing data from a billionaire’s laptop.
After what felt like an age, where Emily’s skin became tense enough to snap, Pascha leaned forward to rest his elbows on the desk and draw his fingers together.
‘So, Miss Richardson, you think you can blackmail me to get what you want? I will not be threatened and I will not have the deal I’ve spent two years working on be destroyed.’ The grey in his eyes glittered with loathing. ‘I will not capitulate to your demands. No. You, Miss Richardson, are going to disappear.’
That made her sit up straight. She shook her head, as if unsure she’d heard him correctly. ‘What? You’re going to make me disappear?’
‘Not in the sense you’re thinking,’ he said shortly, aggrieved to see her face had turned white. What kind of a man did she think he was? ‘I can’t take the risk of you disclosing the specifics of this deal, so I need you to disappear for a week.’ And he knew the perfect place to take her.
Emily stared at him with wide, disbelieving eyes that held a hint of relief, probably at the confirmation he wasn’t going to make her disappear via a wooden box. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘I am never anything but serious.’
‘I don’t doubt it. But I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Yes, you are. I will agree to clear your father’s name but in return you must agree to go into hiding for a week.’
He had to give her something in exchange, that much he knew. And, seeing as it was her father’s name she wanted to clear, then that was what she would have. It was hardly a trivial sum either. One-hundred-and-fifty-thousand pounds had gone missing on her father’s watch. He was the only person who could have taken it.
Her stomach roiling, Emily forced her mind to think clearly. As deftly as a professional tennis player, Pascha had regained control of the court. But this wasn’t a game. Not to her. And, she knew, not to him either. What he was demanding of her was unbelievable, yet the set expression of those cool, grey eyes and the line of those wide, firm lips showed he wasn’t bluffing. ‘I can’t just leave... I have commitments...’
‘You didn’t think of those commitments when you entered my office for illegal purposes.’
‘Yes, I did, but I only planned on losing a couple of days if I got caught. Not that I expected you to catch me. I was told you were in Milan.’
‘You really are remarkably well-informed.’ Those gorgeous lips curved into the semblance of a smile. Gorgeous lips? Had her anger addled her brain...? ‘But have no fear—I will learn who your mole is.’
She threw him a tight ‘that’s what you think’ smile. Emily would never sell out a friend, especially to a man as dangerous as Pascha Virshilas, who ruined people’s health and reputations for fun. She would bet that was the extent of any fun he had. He was so buttoned up, he probably even treated sex with the utmost precision.
And now she was imagining his sex life—where on earth had that come from? He’d unnerved her more than she’d credited.
Pascha rose to his feet and looked at his watch. ‘I will give you five minutes to make your decision: your father’s freedom in exchange for yours.’
‘But where will I go? I have nowhere to go to.’
‘I have somewhere to take you. It’s safe and out of the way.’
Leaving her standing there to glower at his retreating figure, Pascha opened the inter-connecting door and stepped into his private space.
Emily would agree. Complying would give her exactly what she’d come here for.
He pulled out his phone and fired off an email to his PA, telling her to rearrange all his appointments for the next two days. As he wrote, he ruminated over the arrangements needed to get Emily out of the country and then immediately fired half a dozen more emails to the people and organisations he paid to make things like this happen.
Not that he’d ever done something quite like this before. And, if he felt any discomfort over what he was doing, he was quick to remind himself that she’d thrown the first ball. Emily had broken into his office to steal his company’s data and then had tried to blackmail him. She didn’t deserve him to feel any guilt.
Everything was in hand with regards to the Plushenko buyout. All the negotiations had been finalised; now it was just a case of dotting every ‘i’ and crossing every ‘t’. His lawyers were in the process of doing just that. There was nothing more for him to do other than sign the final contracts in exactly one week.
Escorting Emily to Aliana Island wouldn’t affect anything. He could accompany her there and be back in Europe within thirty-six hours. And yet...
Pascha didn’t like leaving anything to chance. He wanted to be there on the scene should any unexpected crises be thrown up, not halfway round the world with a blackmailing thief.
The inter-connecting door opened and Emily burst into his private space, a space not even his executive secretary or PA were permitted to enter. More curls had sprung free from the bun she’d wedged her hair in, ebony tendrils falling over her face and down her back.
Without any preliminaries, she launched straight in. ‘If I agree to effectively be kidnapped by you, I want it in writing that you’ll exonerate my father from any and all charges.’
‘I’ve already agreed to that.’
‘I want your written guarantee. I doubt he’ll ever be in a position to return to work, so I also want you to back-date the money he’s been denied since being under suspension. And I want you to give him a decent pay-off of, say, a quarter of a million pounds.’
Pascha shock his head, almost laughing at her nerve. ‘Your demands are ridiculous.’
She shrugged mutinously. ‘That’s what I want. If you agree to my demands, then I will agree to your demands.’
‘I think you forget who is in the driving seat. I’m not the one whose father’s future hangs in the balance.’
‘True. But your wish for secrecy over your involvement in the Plushenko deal is in the balance.’ Here, her face transformed, lighting up with faux sweetness. ‘Either you agree to my demands or I whistle it to the world. We can call it a deal of mutual benefit or, if you prefer, mutually beneficial blackmail.’
Emily had never been on the receiving end of such pure loathing before. It radiated off him like a rippling wave.
She refused to cower.
She didn’t care what the motivation was for his buy-out, knew only that it had to be something more than a simple business deal. Either that or the man was completely insane because no one went to such great lengths to secure a business deal.
No. For Pascha Virshilas, this buy-out was, for whatever reason, personal. And if he could use her emotions for leverage then she could certainly use his emotions for her own benefit—or, in this case, her father’s.
Now the ball was back in his court.
After what felt like an age, he gave a sharp nod. ‘I will agree to your demands with regards to your father, but you will disappear until my buy-out is complete. If at any point you find an opportunity to talk and are stupid enough to take it, our deal will be null and void and I will personally ruin the pair of you.’
* * *
Pascha pulled up outside the house in the London suburb Emily had given him as her address.
‘You live here?’ The cosy, mock-Tudor house was nothing like the home he’d imagined she would have. ‘This is my father’s home,’ she answered shortly. ‘I rented my flat out and moved back in a month ago.’
‘That must have been a come-down, moving back in with your parents.’
She fixed him with a hard stare. ‘Do not presume to know me or know anything about my life. Give me twenty minutes. I need to arrange some matters and get my stuff together.’
He opened his door before returning the stare. ‘I’m coming in with you.’
‘You certainly are not.’
‘I’m not giving you a choice. Until we get to your destination, you’re not leaving my sight.’
The fire running in her eyes sparked. ‘To be clear, if you say or do anything to upset my father then our agreement can go to hell.’
‘Then you will be the one dealing with the consequences.’
‘As will you.’ Before his eyes, her face transformed, the hardness softening to become almost childlike. ‘Please, Pascha. He’s in a very bad place. You probably won’t even see him but, if you do, please be kind.’
He’d never had any intention of upsetting her father. All the same, he found himself agreeing to her heartfelt plea. ‘I will say nothing to upset him.’
And, just like that, she went back into her hard shell and jumped out of the car. ‘Let’s go in, then.’
He followed her through the front door and into a spacious yet homely house.
‘Dad?’ she called, shouting up the stairs. ‘It’s only me. I’ll be up in a minute with a cup of tea for you.’ Not waiting for an answer, she headed into a large kitchen-diner, put the kettle on and reached for the house phone.
Pascha grabbed her wrist before she could dial the number. ‘Who are you calling?’
‘My brother. I told you, I have things to organise. Now, take your hand off me.’
Not trusting her an inch, he complied, stepping back far enough to give them both a little space, but remaining close enough to disconnect the call should she try anything.
‘James?’ she said into the receiver. ‘It’s only me. Look, I’m sorry for the short notice, but I need you to come and stay with dad for the next week and not just tonight.’
From the way she sucked her angular cheekbones in, and the impatience of her tone as the conversation went back and forth, she wasn’t happy with her brother’s responses.
Emily was clearly a bossy big sister but beneath it all he heard genuine affection. He could well imagine her ordering her brother around from the moment of his birth.
His mind turned to the man he’d always regarded as a brother, the same man who would sooner drive Plushenko’s—the business he’d inherited from their father—into the ground rather than sell it to Pascha.
While Pascha had openly hero-worshipped him, Marat had never made any secret of his loathing for Pascha. When Pascha had been seriously ill and death had been hovering, real, Marat had wanted him—the boy he’d liked to call the cuckoo in the nest—to die.
Emily’s conversation ended with her saying, ‘Mandy’s around during the day if you need to go into the office. I’m only asking you to come for a week—you’ll be fine. Amsterdam will still be there when you get back.’
She disconnected the call and immediately put the receiver back to her ear, dialling yet another number. This time, she relayed that an emergency had come up and asked whoever was on the receiving end to tell someone called Hugo that she needed to take a week’s leave of absence.
‘Are you done?’ Pascha asked when she’d re
placed the receiver.
‘Yes.’
‘No boyfriend to call?’ He didn’t even attempt to hide his sarcasm.
In response, she threw him the hardest look he’d ever been on the receiving end of, and in his thirty-four years that was saying something.
‘No.’ With that, she went back to the freshly boiled kettle.
‘I take my coffee black with one sugar,’ he informed her as she tossed a teabag into a mug, poured hot water onto it, followed by a splash of milk, and gave it a vigorous stir.
‘That’s nice.’ She picked up the mug and swooped past him.
‘It is good manners to offer guests refreshments.’
She came to an abrupt halt and spun around, somehow managing not to spill a single drop of tea. ‘You are not a guest in this house and you never will be.’
For a moment, Pascha seriously contemplated forgetting his promise to send Emily somewhere safe and simply lock her in a sound-proof cupboard for a week.
Keeping close to her tail, he followed her up the stairs. When they reached the top, she turned back to him. This time she whispered, although she still perfectly managed to convey her hatred towards him. ‘This is my father’s room. Do not come in. Seeing you might just tip him over the edge.’
‘Then keep the door open. I want to hear what you’re saying.’
‘You’ll find our conversation scintillating.’ She rapped her knuckles on the door, pushed it open and stepped over the threshold into a dusky bedroom, curtains drawn.
‘Hi, Dad,’ Emily said, speaking in such a gentle voice he could easily have believed it was someone else talking. ‘I’ve made you a cup of tea.’
Pascha watched as she went to the window and drew the curtains back.
‘Let’s get some air in here,’ she said in the same gentle voice, opening the window. ‘It’s a beautiful day. Honestly, Dad, you would love it out there. It really feels like autumn now.’
The Russian's Ultimatum Page 2
