Ultimate Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 4)

by Nancy Haviland

  Smoothing her dress over her hips, she went out so Angela and the kids could rate her choice of date clothes. Or, at least that’s what she thought Angela had said earlier. Maybe she’d been mistaken, and her friend had said they would rate her dated clothes.

  Angela whistled like a construction worker. “Well, damn, girl.” Her friend was drying her hands on a towel as she stepped away from the sink. Tanner was hammering at something in the playpen and Lekzi was happily kicking her feet in her high-chair after just having finished some fruit.

  “You look like Kim a couple of years ago. Remember when she went caramel. Shiiit. You have the hair and the ass. And don’t tell me those thighs didn’t drive that gorgeous man wild at one time. Did I tell you I think he’s gorgeous? That smolder? Come on. It’s too bad he’s a delusional, disloyal, cheating ass. Anyway, look at these puppies.” She flustered Sacha by reaching out and pushing a finger into the side of one of her breasts. “You lucky beotch.” She cupped both her own much smaller boobs. “What the hell? I’m breastfeeding, too, and I look like a damn boy.”

  “You do not look like any boy I have ever seen.” Angela was much thinner than Sacha, but she was gently rounded and was clearly a woman. “You are perfectly sized for your body type.”

  “Uh-huh. Is this the only formal dress you have?”

  Sacha looked down at the elegant sleeveless dress. It had no plunging neckline or open back, but it was still lovely. “Yes.”

  “Thought so. Why didn’t you buy something new? You wore this to the last three benefits I dragged you to.”

  Angela was often sent by her boss to stand in for her at charity dinners. Sacha suspected the friendly woman was secretly sharing the fancy meals and formal dances with her employee. And, in turn, Angela shared them with Sacha when Steve wasn’t available.

  Feeling emotional all of a sudden, she turned away to get her wrap from the closet. “I have more important things to do with my money than spend it on clothes.”

  “Oh, really?” Angela looked around her unit, then frowned. “Hey, where’s all your stuff?”

  “I put it away before Alekzander could see it.”

  “Oh, yeah. Guess he’d have wondered about the billion photos of baby girl, here.” She got Lekzi out of her chair and put her on a blanket in front of the couch. “So, what’s this important stuff you spend your money on? Shit must be invisible, ’cause I don’t see it.”

  “I do not spend it, I save it. Some of it goes into an account I set up for Lekzi’s college fund, and the rest I put away in case I have to leave.”

  “Well, since me and the boys aren’t going to let that happen, we’ll go shopping soon.”

  Sacha gave Angela a regretful look as she laid her wrap over her arm. She was briefly distracted and became breathless when she remembered doing the same with Alekzander’s coat today. Up close his lips had looked velvety and firm, and she knew for a fact they were.

  “Steve was accurate about one thing last night,” she said. “Alekzander will not take it well if he learns what I did. I cannot sit here and wait for that to happen.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What does that mean?” She unplugged her phone and put it in her evening bag that held only lipstick and some cash. She didn’t carry a debit or credit card because she had neither. No bank account and no extra money made that easy enough.

  “It means I’m sort of jelly over the way your Russian looked at you this afternoon. I know it pains you to hear it, but I’m going to say it anyway. That man may have been unfaithful, but he is living to regret it. He looked at you like you were life.” She grimaced as if in apology for what she said next. “You must know he isn’t going to give up without a fight. He’s going to try to convince you to forgive him. I don’t know how, but I saw the determination in him. You must have, too.”

  “I did, and I do not understand it. What is the translation for ‘fabricated?’ Created, yes?”

  “Yeah. Made up. Fake. Phoney. Why?”

  “He said what I saw in his office that night was fabricated. He wants me to give him the opportunity to explain.” She’d have told Angela this after Alekzander had left this afternoon but Steve had texted for a ride.

  Her friend frowned as she took Tanner out of the playpen to put him with Lekzi, who babbled a greeting. “To explain or lie? It’s hard to guess one’s motives once you don’t trust them anymore. What does your gut tell you?”

  Sacha bit her lip. “To keep him away from my baby. But I also feel I should tell him about her. I have never felt like such an awful person.”

  “Aside from that.”

  Sacha sighed. “To get naked and ride him as if I am the star of the rodeo?”

  Dark brown eyes popped wide, and then Angela was laughing uproariously. Sacha’s face steamed, but it was the truth. When Alekzander was around, her head was full of Lekzi, sex, or his betrayal.

  “Holy shit.” Angela wiped at her eyes a minute later. She was laying on her back with Tanner crawling across her navel. “He’s been back in your life a couple of days, and you’re opening up like a pretty flower. Finally, you’re relaxing that guard, and I’m catching a glimpse of who you really are. Funny how the mate of your soul gets so deep that he can do that for you.”

  Sacha merely nodded because it was true. There was no way she could convincingly denying it was Alekzander who was bringing this out in her.

  “Don’t hide her anymore because I seriously think I’ll love her even more than I love the sheltered you.” Angela rolled onto her stomach and set up some foam blocks that the children knocked over as fast as she stacked them. “What was he like with you before he went stupid?”

  Sacha sat at the table, remembering. “Warm, generous, loving. He was honest, so entertaining. He could be very charming and persuasive when he wanted his way. He was possessive.”

  She nervously played with the silky material of her dress.

  “He could also be intimidating, was very spoiled, but enjoyed spoiling others at the same time. He brought me to St. Barts once because he said he wanted to see what I looked like in a bikini.” She laughed softly. “We traveled around the island for two days looking for just the right thing for Alekzander’s housekeeper, a sweet older man. He ended up choosing a terribly loud and gaudy button-up shirt that I feared would offend. But when he gave it to Samnang, the man’s eyes lit up as if it were Prada. It was so sweet that Alekzander knew him well enough and cared enough to make the effort. Oh, and he’s spectacular in bed,” she snuck in because it was the first time she’d ever had the chance to brag about her daughter’s father. She jumped to her feet when she saw Angela regarding her with a speculative look.

  “Amen. Sounds like a dream. Maybe you should hear him out. Was he spectacular in a dirty way or just really good?”

  “Dirty and really good,” she murmured, too distracted by memories of how good and dirty Alekzander had been for Angela’s recommendation to register. She’d never had anyone to talk to about sex other than the man she’d had sex with.

  “Bet you were a virgin when you met him.”

  “I was. An inexperienced one. He used to enjoy shocking me,” she said as she agitatedly gathered up the text transcript of a lecture on Philosophy and Science of Human Nature she’d gotten from the course she was enjoying. “The way he talked about what we were doing while we did it was…very sexy. I never got used to that.” She blew out a hot breath. “He was very dirty.”

  “Does he know you well?”

  “Better than anyone.”

  “What did he get you for your birthday?”

  Emotion drifted up Sacha’s throat. “A figurine of a couple doing the Jive.”

  “For your parents,” Angela said with a catch in her voice that got Sacha right in the heart.

  Sacha’s mom and dad were professional ballroom dancers who’d traveled around Russia and the Ukraine by request, doing shows and competitions. Her favorite dance of theirs had been the jive. The way they’d anticipated e
ach other’s moves, complimenting and highlighting each other’s strengths had been so beautiful to Sacha. God, she missed them.

  She’d grown up in a small village in Northwest Russia, surrounded by the greenest of forests and the bluest of streams. She’d loved it and had assumed she’d happily live out her life there. Until her parents’ death turned her sheltered world into a place of loneliness and isolation.

  A knock had sounded on their door one evening as she’d set the table for dinner. She’d been wondering why they were so late, worrying because they had an early start the next day for a show in Saint Petersburg. Two large shapes had been visible through the glass panel, and with her stomach churning and dread seeping in, she’d opened with the chain attached. She’d quickly shut and reopened it all the way when she’d seen her visitors were policemen. She’d attended elementary school with the one but couldn’t remember his name, and didn’t care enough to look at the tag on his chest. Sacha Urusski? the other had questioned as she’d started to shake. She’d nodded, and had barely been able to remain upright as he explained about the head-on crash that had just taken her parents’ lives.

  She’d thought she and her mother would have to suffer the agony of burying her father after he succumbed to the effects of the pancreatic cancer he’d been diagnosed with a month before. But no. A stretch of road they’d commonly traveled, and a logging truck was what took them both from her.

  With no siblings anywhere in her small family tree, and her grandparents already long gone by then, Sacha was left alone.

  She’d wallowed and wished things were different for almost a year before escaping to New York. The only person she’d thought might care that she was leaving had been the older man who’d lived down the road from them. He’d known Sacha her entire life and had always been nice to her, though that had changed when he found out she’d sold the house and their ten acres of land to a young newlywed couple without first asking if he was interested in purchasing it. He hadn’t spoken to her again, not even returning her wave when her taxi had driven past his driveway on the way to the airport the day she’d left.

  Her throat thickened. She’d forgotten how she’d felt during that year. How difficult it had been when she realized no one would know or care if she disappeared and was never seen or heard from again.

  She was leaving her daughter to the same fate.

  She tried to push the thought away as she always did, but it wouldn’t budge this time.

  If a sudden illness struck, or a speeding taxi, history would repeat itself, and Lekzi would be alone in the world. Sacha would love to think Angela and Steve would take her in, but who knew?

  The tragic part? Her daughter had a family. A large, loving and protective one that included a father who would adore her, who would shelter her from anything and everything life would throw at her. Alekzander would love his child in that way every little girl deserved to be loved by her father. The way Sacha had been loved by her father. A man she’d worshiped.

  I’m robbing my daughter of what I thrived on.

  When she slowly turned and found Angela right behind her, her expression expectant and sympathetic, Sacha whispered something she’d known for a long time but could no longer deny.

  “I think I have made a terrible mistake.”

  THIRTEEN

  “Everything is ready. Care for a rundown?”

  Alek took a break from scanning the large ballroom decorated in simple but classic black and white with splashes of red. Sedate. Fitting. Not that he gave a shit about linens or paid any attention to the tasteful flower arrangements gracing the tables. He was searching for a beauty with sable hair and a body that would stop traffic.

  Instead, he got Markus Fane. Which was second best, because the uber-efficient guy was making things happen, as usual.

  As suave and tall-dark-and-handsome as any old-school movie star, Markus flashed his pearly whites. “You, Maksim, and Sydney are now at table forty-four. I can’t believe you chose him as your wingman. I’d have gone with Gabriel. At least he and Eva blend.”

  “Don’t let Sydney hear you say that.”

  “As if she doesn’t know,” Markus said good-naturedly. “Look at them. I swear, by the way Maks is covering her, people are going to think she’s a celebrity and start asking for her autograph.”

  Alek looked over to see Sydney laughing up at something Maks was saying. There was a marked height difference between the two, as there always was when someone stood next to Maks, because he was something of a monster. They were standing close, both in their formal wear with Maks in a tux—as all the men were—and Sydney in a sequined emerald dress and heels. Her hand was on his waist, his huge mitt an inch from her ass. The protective stance was unmistakable. As was the stay-back vibe being thrown off.

  Gabriel’s demeanor with his wife wasn’t much different. Eva, wearing classic black, was behind his right shoulder, head bent, dark hair hiding the fact that her cell was at her ear. She looked rather Goth-like, reminding Alek of Morticia Addams but without the hooded gaze searching for victims. Her Gomez had his big hand resting on the swell of her belly and, seriously, Gabriel’s expression couldn’t have been more unwelcoming. His eyes continuously scanned the crowd even though Jak was a few steps behind them. Quan was off to the right, looking debonair and serene as shit as he did the same. Alek could use some of that serenity right about now.

  “Yours is over there,” Markus said casually.

  Alek almost got whiplash looking to where Markus had motioned with an almost imperceptible tip of his chin. He cursed under his breath. She was going to kill him. She really was.

  Sacha was standing next to Sheppard, wearing pale gold and looking as if she’d just descended from the heavens. There should be a sea of admirers groveling at her feet with Alek front and center. Her pedestal was polished and ready, and he wanted her back up there by night’s end. He was through waiting. She would hear him out, he would beg for forgiveness, and they would wake up tomorrow morning cursing the time they’d lost being apart for so long.

  It was too bad that dress was going to end up in a ball in the corner of their room, he thought as he took in the way it paid homage to her frame, accenting her narrow rib cage and drawing the eye to hips a man couldn’t help but wish he was gripping as he drowned in her heat. Her wet, tight heat. Mmm.

  She stepped forward to shake a steely-eyed woman’s hand and the hidden slit in the long skirt revealed her leg all the way up to her goddamn luscious inner thigh.

  Great. Hello, hard-on. Goodbye, sanity.

  “Alek?”

  He blinked and looked to a smirking Markus. “Sorry. Go ahead.”

  “I was just saying that Lucian is here. He was watching me shuffle things around and got that interested gleam in his eye. He’s probably grilling your team right now.”

  Alek looked over to see Lucian Fane talking to Gabriel. The Romanian stood out. Not because he was the only man in attendance dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit rather than a tux, but because he wore an impervious air of power that clearly said he feared nothing. He was about Alek’s height, had hair blacker than night, and he’d just lifted an elegant brow at Vasily’s appearance. Appearing mildly annoyed, he looked at Dmitri, then to Maks and Sydney, and then cast his gaze around the room, pausing on Micha and Anton, who were lingering near the entrance, before circling around until he found Alek. With a light touch to Vasily’s arm and a nod to Gabriel, Lucian left them. The crowd parted for him, the men looking on with a mix of fear and respect, the women with appreciation.

  “Truth be told,” Alek said to Markus, wondering at his brother’s behavior. “Hiding the fact that I’m chasing her isn’t a priority for me. Come on.” As Alek led him over to join the others, he mentioned one last thing he would need.

  “No worries. I’m sure I’ll be able to find something.” Markus smiled a greeting at Eva and bent to kiss the back of her hand. “I’ve been hearing great things about this conference. Seems a few of th
e ladies from last year’s graduating class from Columbia impressed a lot of people.”

  Eva beamed as Markus addressed Gabriel.

  “I’ve also heard talk of poachers moving in. Word is, there are three companies looking to take your Executive Director out for an expensive lunch. They’re so impressed, they don’t even care that she’s expecting. Normally, that brings down the guillotine. Not in her case.”

  “Really? Do you know who they are? Are they based in New York?” Eva asked excitedly.

  “Not that it matters,” Gabriel added under his breath, earning himself a light slap on the hip from his wife whose eyes widened when Markus told her the names of three companies that impressed even Alek.

  “Isn’t the last one under your brother’s umbrella?” he asked when the name rang a bell.

  Markus grinned. “Yeah. I haven’t had a chance to ride him about it yet. He’ll have no idea one of his top brass is going after an unspeakable’s wife.” He chuckled, wholly entertained.

  Unspeakable was how Markus referred to anything to do with their quiet lives.

  “I’m telling you,” he said to Gabriel. “Arrange for this Gabriel Moretti guy to buy Gabe Moore’s half of TarMor and become visible. If they know it’s a duo working the reins, the sharks will swim away. If not, you’ll be fighting them off for the next decade.”

  Regret flashed in Gabriel’s eyes as he studied his wife. When she glanced up, he looked out over the room, appearing uninterested in the conversation. Not fooled, Eva intertwined their fingers and gave his arm a hug, which had the boss raising their clasped hands and kissing her fingers.

  To Markus, Gabriel said, “If they contact you, keep it to yourself and politely tell them to fuck off. I already know I’m holding her back. I don’t need to know what from.”

  “Alek? Will you point her out?” Sydney appeared at his elbow. “Maksim’s game of making me guess has gotten old.”

  “Two o’clock. Gold dress, straight hair.” That should be wavy. With it styled like that, Sacha looked young. Young and alluring, and too fucking approachable.