by Maisey Yates
“You’ve been in jail? How is it that the court deemed you a more fit parent than I am?”
“I don’t think it was a question of who was more fit, so much as who was more related. But, if it soothes you, the court didn’t see any criminal record.”
“How is that possible?”
“First of all, I doubt the Russian Mafia keep a record of every snot-nosed street kid they’ve locked up for a few days to teach a lesson to. Second, I’m skeptical that any of the guerrilla military factions I found myself on the unfriendly side of reported my prison time to the United States—or any government. Also, records and things like that may have been sanitized by some grateful rulers and the occasional victorious revolutionary.”
She stopped in her tracks and he kept on walking. “Wait a second. What is it you used to do?”
“What I do now for corporations? I used to do that for governments. Or, as I said, revolutionaries. Whoever offered the money.”
“You were a mercenary.” For the first time, she realized that the little prickle of hair on her arms, that vague sense of danger, wasn’t ridiculous. Alik Vasin was, or had been, a very dangerous man. And she had just married him.
“I suppose that’s the job title, though I was never too bothered about being specific with that. Didn’t exactly fill out tax forms. But that’s another thing I won’t be advertising to the courts.”
Jada curled her fingers into fists, her nails digging in her palms. “I don’t imagine there’s a box to check for that on official forms.”
“Not so much.”
“How did you…how did you get into something like that?” She was curious, even though she knew she shouldn’t be. What she should be, was running away, and yet, for some reason, though that feeling of danger emanating from him remained, she wasn’t afraid of him.
“I told you, I was an orphan. I crossed paths with the Russian Mafia quite by accident one day when I was picking pockets. After teaching me a sufficient lesson,” he said, one long finger drifting over a scar that ran the length of his jaw, “the man I had attempted to rob asked how I’d done it so well. You see, he didn’t feel me lift his wallet. He was told by his guards, who were walking behind him. Who I was walking in the middle of.”
“What did you say?”
“I explained to him my process. The way I waited for the crowds on the street to be at a certain peak, how I waited for my mark to be at a certain point in their stride. And I told him, that when I was about to go for the grab, everything slowed down, and it was just effortless. He liked that.”
“And he had you picking pockets?”
“Hardly. But I was twelve and what he saw was the mind of a strategist. He was right. I had a gift for seeing all angles of a scenario, except, of course, in the instance where they caught me. I missed seeing that he had guards with him. That’s always bothered me.”
“It has?”
“No one likes to lose. Anyway, that was the start of my career in organized crime. They helped me hone my abilities and then they exploited them. Until I became too recognizable in Moscow. Until I got tired of playing the game. This was when I was maybe sixteen or so. But I left them with a lot of money in my pocket, though I have to say I’m not overly keen on wandering the streets in my hometown alone. I don’t trust how far that goodwill we parted with extends.”
“Then what?” In spite of herself, she was fascinated. She should be scared, but she wasn’t. Not really.
He started walking again and she jogged into place behind him to keep up. “Then, I found out I had a reputation. A man found me when I was in Japan and asked me to do a job. To help a militia overthrow a very oppressive government.”
“And you helped them.”
“The price was right. I’m not a charity.”
“But you did the job.”
He nodded once. “I did. And I did it successfully. After that, word spread.”
“And that’s what you did after that? Hired yourself out as a…weapon?”
“For some years.”
“And then?”
“I had a mission here in Attar. To try and secure the borders. And for the first time, the mission went wrong. Sheikh Sayid was taken captive.” It was the first time she’d heard even a glimmer of true emotion in his voice. “And though I was offered another check, another job, I knew I couldn’t leave him there.”
“You cared for him.”
“I was the head of the mission—if it went wrong it was on me. When I take money to aid a certain faction then I am loyal to that faction until the job is done. The job wasn’t done.”
“And you cared for him.”
“Sayid is the most honorable man I have ever met, in a life spent surrounded by men who would sell their grandmothers for a chance at their version of glory. It was refreshing to meet someone who had nothing but loyalty to his family, to his country, no matter what he could achieve elsewhere. Sayid was taken into captivity because he deviated from the mission. Because he stopped a woman from being assaulted by two soldiers. I would not have done the same in his position, because at that time in my life, all I saw was the mission. The plan. And Sayid made me look past that for the first time.”
Jada felt something shift around her heart. Dear heaven, she wasn’t starting to understand this man, was she? She’d grown up in a comfortable, middle-class home in the U.S. Born to parents to who had risked everything, left their homeland, to build a better life for their children. How could she understand a man who had spent his life alone? A man who had witnessed, and very likely committed, terrible acts of violence? It made no sense.
And yet, for some reason, she felt she did understand. She wasn’t sure why, or how…if it came back to hormones and the fact that he was just muscular enough to lull her into a stupor.
Except, her hormones weren’t centered around her heart, and that was definitely where a good portion of the feelings were coming from. She felt for him. Sad, happy that he’d found Sayid. And the real danger lay in the fact that she wanted to know more. That she was curious about him. About what was beneath the layers of rock that he kept between himself and the world.
Because there were layers. All shields were up with this man, no question. As he’d relayed the story of his desolate childhood, his life as a mercenary, there had been no emotion. Until the mention of Sayid.
“And that’s how you ended up with a palace in the desert?”
“That is the long version of the story, yes. The short version is, a sheikh gave me a palace. Women like that one, usually,” he said, giving her a careless wink before turning away, taking a right at the curved staircase that would lead them back to her room.
“I’m sure they do. What do they think of the whole ex-mercenary thing?”
“Oh, I don’t go spreading that one around.”
“What do you tell them you do?”
“They don’t usually ask.”
“They don’t?”
“No,” he said.
She had to take two stairs at a time to try and keep up with his long stride. At only five three, she wasn’t exactly long legged, and she guessed he was more than a foot taller than she was. “What do they ask?”
He stopped and turned to her and she didn’t manage to stop her stride in time, putting herself right in front of him, her eyes level with the center of his chest. “They don’t usually talk this much,” he said, eyes intent on hers.
She sucked in a shuddering breath, suddenly finding it hard to stand straight. She’d never been so close to a man who was so…so much. That’s what it was. Alik was just too much. Too masculine, too unrefined, too sexy. Oh, he was much too sexy. He was also too immoral, too unemotional and too much a stranger for her to be going weak-kneed over him.
Yet again, her body didn’t seem to care much for the common sense take on things.
“I see.”
“Do you?” he asked, his head cocked to the side.
“Y-yes.”
Why wasn’t he
moving? She couldn’t back up, then she would betray that she was unnerved by his closeness. She was, but he didn’t need to know that. He needed to move on up the stairs so that she could breathe again. So that her body would feel like it belonged to her again.
“You don’t approve,” he said, turning away and continuing up the stairs.
The knot that had been building in her chest frayed and loosened, releasing a gust of air from her lungs. “I’m not judging,” she said.
“You are judging.”
“Only a little. Because clearly, Leena as evidence, you have some control issues when it comes to women.”
“I do not have control issues,” he said.
“Really?” They reached the top of the stairs and Alik didn’t turn on any lights.
“Really,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Saying I have control issues implies that I fail at stopping myself from conducting liaisons with women when the simple truth is, I give in willingly. Unless I’m on duty, I don’t see the point in abstaining.”
“I don’t even know what to say to that. And I don’t believe that that’s sufficient evidence that you don’t have an issue with control. I find you self-indulgent.”
“I am extremely self-indulgent. And also quite indulgent of my partners. But it still doesn’t speak to a lack of control.” He took a step toward her, and she took one away from him. Her back came up against the wall and her breathing stopped altogether.
“I think it does,” she said, unwilling to back down.
“Oh, Jada, if I had a lack of control—” he advanced on her again, and she found herself without anywhere to flee “—you would know.”
“I would?” She cursed her mouth. It was part of the mutiny against common sense her body was currently executing while her brain looked on in horror.
“I would have kissed you by now. I would have pulled you into my arms and tasted your lips, your throat. I would have put my hand on your breast, felt your nipples getting hard beneath my fingers. Then my tongue.”
She turned her head to the side. It was the only way she could force herself not to look at him, the only way to keep herself from being drawn into his web.
He chuckled and she looked back. He had moved away from her, continuing on down the hall. “Lucky for you,” he said, “I have no such control issues.”
Insults flooded her mind, insults that wanted badly to escape and fly at his head. However, for some reason, now she had some sort of handle on her self-control and she couldn’t speak them. A cruel joke.
It took her a moment, but she could finally speak again. “I wouldn’t let you.”
“I’m not so sure that’s true,” he said, stopping at a door that looked very much like the rest of the doors to her. “This is you.”
“So it is,” she said, still not convinced. Everything looked the same to her and this place was like a maze. “And I wouldn’t let you.”
He looked at her, and she felt every heated word he’d said pouring into her. Felt it beneath her skin, promises of sensual pleasure that went well beyond her experience.
She didn’t know where that thought had come from. She knew about sex and she’d had plenty of it. She seriously doubted that there was sensual pleasure she somehow hadn’t reached. Sex was all fine and good, but not, in her experience, something to make you lose your mind. And there was no way the experience would be better with Alik. She’d loved her husband, after all, and she didn’t even like this man.
Love made sex better, surely. Love was what she’d waited for. Love and marriage, and there had been no one since. Because emotion was more important than desire and she understood that. She almost pitied Alik for not getting it.
And she pitied her poor, traitorous body its increased heart rate and sweaty palms. She was above all that. She knew better than to be drawn into it.
“If you say so,” he said. “Have a good night.”
“I will.” Alone.
“I will see you tomorrow.”
She didn’t want to see him tomorrow. She wanted to pretend that in the morning, all of this would evaporate. But she’d been hoping that for days now, and still, every morning she woke up in a palace in a foreign desert country, the sea crashing outside of her window.
And while, on paper, that all sounded fine, the inclusion of Alik Vasin made it feel decidedly less so.
CHAPTER SIX
THERE WAS NO GOOD REASON for Alik to remain in Attar, and remain celibate. None at all. And yet, here he was, still tethered to his palace and, in effect, to the woman and child who were occupying it.
It had been a strange couple of weeks. It had, at first, been easy to justify that he was staying to ensure he didn’t subject the child to another move too quickly after the first one. Then he’d had to wait for the adoption paperwork to come for Jada so he could sign anything he needed to sign and they could get everything sent in. Then, he thought he shouldn’t leave them here. It was too remote. He would feel more comfortable, a bit like less of a marauding bastard, if he installed them in one of his more urban homes.
So that Jada could walk or drive where she needed to go. So that they didn’t have to worry about sandstorms or any of the other dangers in the desert. And there were so many.
Alik paced the length of the balcony that looked out over his pool. That pool was one of the dangers. As was a balcony. He would have to be sure everything was secured.
He hadn’t known there were so many dangers in the world until he’d brought a child into his life. Laughable though the thought was, since he was a man who had faced death more times than most. But thinking of danger in the context of himself didn’t bother him in the least.
But that soft, small, helpless little girl who now lived in his home? Thinking of her in danger twisted his insides.
And there were so many dangers to a person that small. The floors in the palace were too hard. The stone a hazard for a toddling child’s forehead.
Alik strode back into his room and down the stairs. Jada was sitting in the dining room, holding Leena in her lap. Leena had her chubby fist wrapped around a piece of banana.
“Babies are impractical,” he said.
Jada arched one dark eyebrow. “How so?”
“They are too small. It’s unreasonable.”
“Do you think so?” she asked, her eyes glittering with amusement. It irritated him.
“Yes.”
“You should have seen her when she was a newborn. She weighed six pounds. She was no longer than your forearm.”
He looked down at his arm. “That is entirely unreasonable.”
“But so cute.”
“They are also loud. Too loud for something so small.”
“The better to keep track of them.”
“That is practical.”
Jada smiled, and Alik felt a strong tug in his gut. More impractical even than babies, was his attraction to his new wife. She was beautiful, so it was no real surprise that it existed. It was the insistence of it. The total, consuming nature of it. He wasn’t accustomed to giving a woman more than a passing assessment and, if she was willing, acting upon the attraction, or walking away if she wasn’t.
Although, in his memory there had been no unwilling women. Women typically responded to him. It was almost predictable. The kind of predictable he would never complain about. Perhaps that was the difference. Jada didn’t want him, or rather, didn’t want to want him, with a vehemence that emanated from her petite frame.
It was unusual. And not as deterring as he would have liked it to be.
He should stay well away from her. That he felt the desire to kiss her, to steal some of that passion from her, was warning enough that she was the sort of woman he should never touch. The level to which she tempted him should be warning enough.
“I’m glad you find something about your daughter to be practical,” she said.
“It wasn’t a commentary on her, but on all new humans. The head size is also of concern to me.”
“Of concern to you? Think of how concerning it is for women—we have to give birth to them.”
“You didn’t.”
He realized the moment he said the words, that they had been wrong. He had never spent much time being concerned with whether or not his words were hurtful or right. He’d never had to. He wasn’t in the habit of making much in the way of conversation with anyone. Only Sayid had his ear.
Otherwise, in the rooms filled with the most people, there was rarely anything to say. In clubs everyone was too busy dancing, letting the music move through their bodies and erase everything else. Failing that, there was the alcohol chaser—he was a big fan of those.
But there wasn’t conversation. And as he’d always seen himself as being smooth, adept, he was shocked to discover that conversing with women was not his strength. Which made it an even bigger shame that sex with Jada was off the table. Because, in the bedroom at least, he would satisfy her, of that he was certain.
“That was a jackass thing to say,” she said, standing up, Leena held firmly against her chest.
Frustration bubbled up in him. He wished he could understand things like this. Emotion. He’d spent the better part of his life faking it, expecting that one day it would take root down inside of him, but it hadn’t. It left him feeling at a disadvantage in these types of situations. And he hated feeling at a disadvantage.
“I know,” he said. Because he did know, even if he didn’t understand why.
“Then why did you say it?”
“I was merely making an observation.”
“Don’t make observations like that.”
“Explain to me then, why it was the wrong thing to say.”
She looked shocked, and angry. Her dark brows were locked together, eyes glimmering with golden fire. “You need it explained to you? Why your need to undermine me as Leena’s mother is offensive? I didn’t marry you to be treated like the help. I married you so that my position as Leena’s mother would be unquestionable. To you and to everyone else. So your comments about how I didn’t give birth to her only serve to take that sacrifice and make it meaningless!”
