A Game With One Winner

by Lynn Raye Harris

  “You have it wrong, Caroline,” he told her matter-of-factly, shoving the boiling emotions—the frustration, horror and rage—down deep. “I want you, this is true. But it will be you who comes to me. You who cannot deny the passion still between us.”

  She made a choking sound. “You are beyond arrogant,” she finally managed to say. “And if you expect me to fall into your bed simply because you exist, then you are deluded.”

  He shrugged with a casualness he did not feel. “Nevertheless, it is what will happen.”

  Because, in spite of her protests, she wanted him. He’d known that from the moment he’d first touched her last night. And even if he hadn’t been so attuned to a woman’s signals, he could hardly have gotten it wrong when they’d kissed on the terrace.

  That had been the kiss of a woman who needed.

  Her eyes narrowed. “I’m going to enjoy this,” she said, her voice hovering on the edge of ferocity. “Because I will never do what you expect me to do, Roman. You’ve placed your bet on the wrong pony this time.”

  He merely took another sip of wine. He did it because it infuriated her. “So you say, solnyshko. And yet, we will see....”

  She dropped her gaze from his, and he knew she was working on her temper. Working to make sense of everything that had happened between them thus far. When she lifted her head again, he could see the determination there. The fire and grit.

  He rather enjoyed the sharper edge to her personality. If she’d rolled over, if she’d cried and begged him to be merciful, he’d have had a harder time goading her.

  She picked up her wineglass and took a delicate sip. “I suppose you’ll want to discuss the projections,” she said, as if the last several minutes of conversation had never happened. “We have exciting things planned at Sullivan’s this quarter, and we’ll make our next payment on time, I assure you.”

  “And what does your father think?”

  She blinked at him. “My father is retired. He has no opinion about what’s going on at Sullivan’s.”

  Roman didn’t believe her. Frank Sullivan might have retired and left Caroline in charge of the day-to-day operations of the company, but he was not the sort of man to fade into the background. That wasn’t like the Frank Sullivan that Roman remembered. That man had been brilliant. And ruthless once his mind was made up.

  “Surely he remains in an advisory capacity,” Roman said.

  “Your business is with me,” Caroline replied firmly. “I am the CEO of the Sullivan Group. My father is enjoying his retirement.”

  “And what will he say when Sullivan’s defaults?”

  Her eyes were hard. “We won’t default.”

  Roman shrugged. “I think you will. I’ve put a lot of money into my research. I don’t think it will be contradicted.”

  “Then why did you take the risk?” she demanded. “Why buy our loans when we won’t make the payment? It will cost you a lot of money.”

  Roman leaned back in his chair. This was the part he loved. The part where he faced an adversary and let them know exactly how vulnerable they were. “I have a lot of money,” he said smoothly, shrugging. “I can afford to lose some of it in order to get what I want. Besides, once you default, I will get my money back. Do you wish to know how?”

  She looked fierce. Defiant. “Does it matter? You want to tell me, and I’m unlikely to run through the door before you can. Go ahead, say what you so desperately want to say.”

  He laughed. “I would hardly describe it as desperate. It is merely the truth, and whether you hear it now or later, you will hear it.” He picked up his glass and studied the way the wine coated the fine crystal as he swirled it. A good vintage. “I’m going to sell Sullivan’s, Caroline. Piece by piece.”

  Her color flared, but the only betrayal of her mood was the movement of her throat as she swallowed. “And how do you propose to do that? I don’t think many companies are in a buying mood for department stores these days.”

  “Because you’ve tried to sell, haven’t you?” She looked surprised, but he continued before she could speak. “Of course you have. Don’t deny it. Just the more unprofitable stores, of course. And no one wanted them. But you were not looking in the right place. Nor were you considering how much the buildings or fixtures would bring if you were to liquidate all of the stores.”

  She blinked. “Liquidate? Sell the assets?” Her skin seemed to pale in the firelight. “You’ll take a loss. In today’s real estate market, the property losses alone could be very high.”

  He shrugged. “Perhaps. And perhaps not. Regardless, I will make money in the end.”

  Her jaw tightened. “And that’s what matters most, right?”

  “But of course. What else is there?”

  “Tradition,” she said softly. “Family.”

  He snorted. “Sentimentality is not what will get you through this, Caroline. You have to be hard, ruthless, willing to do whatever it takes.”

  “Like you, right?” Her eyes glittered as she stared at him.

  “Don’t fool yourself, solnyshko. We are all ruthless when survival is at stake. Even you.”

  “I have a son, Roman. Sullivan’s will be his one day. I intend to make that happen.”

  “Then you will have to be extremely ruthless to make it so, won’t you?”

  “I suppose I will.” She said it like a vow, and Roman’s blood thrilled to the challenge in her voice.

  He raised his glass. “May the best man win.”

  “Or woman,” she said, lifting her glass and clinking it against his.

  Soon after, the waitstaff cleared the table and poured coffee. Caroline didn’t look at him as she spooned sugar into her coffee and stirred. He could tell by her color that her temper was still high.

  Her hair gleamed golden in the soft light from the fireplace, and the pearls at her ears bobbed delicately as she moved her head. He had a sudden urge to go to her side and pull the pins from her hair. He remembered it cascading over his hands like liquid gold, the light picking out strands that gleamed like fire as it fell through his fingers.

  Someone set a plate in front of him, but he didn’t look at it. Instead, he watched her. Her chin snapped up and their gazes caught.

  “Blueberry cheesecake from Junior’s,” she said. “Was that on purpose?”

  His groin ached. “It was your favorite, as I recall.”

  “I—” She swallowed, suddenly at a loss for words, and he knew she was remembering the same thing he was. The two of them sitting in bed, eating cheesecake from the box with one fork—and then she’d dipped her finger into the blueberry sauce and smeared it over his nipple.

  The cake got ruined after that, along with his sheets, but he hadn’t cared.

  “You’re an evil man, Roman Kazarov,” she said, her voice hardening again. “You want me to remember what it was like between us. You want me to want it again.”

  Roman smiled coolly. “I never said I fight fair, solnyshko.”

  * * *

  No, he did not fight fair. Caroline sat at her desk the next day with the newspaper spread before her and wanted to strangle him.

  Love Nest? Sullivan Heiress Spends Cozy Evening with Kazarov

  There was a photo of her entering the building, and a speculative piece on what she and Roman had been up to for three hours, followed by a photo of her leaving. My God, they’d watched her go in and then they’d sat there until she’d left again.

  And she’d bet every last share she owned in Sullivan’s that Roman had known it would happen. Why else demand a private dinner? She was no stranger to media attention, but her life had been so sedate lately. Not only that, but she was perhaps also still experiencing a honeymoon period after Jon’s death. So long as she was the grieving widow, she wasn’t interesting to them.

  Drop in a virile, handsome, notorious man, and she was suddenly newsworthy again.

  Caroline crumpled the paper and dropped it in the trash. She had a business to run and she wasn’t about
to let Roman interfere with that. No matter that he was too sexy for words, or that he fed her cheesecake with the sole aim of reminding her of that decadent night they’d once shared. As if she could have ever forgotten. No, she hadn’t forgotten, but she’d been determined to pretend she had.

  She’d failed spectacularly. Even now, she could see Roman lying against white sheets, his body smeared in blueberry sauce and cheesecake, his manhood rising up proudly while she bent to take him in her mouth and—

  Her cell phone rang. She checked the display and then snatched it up, fury—and heat, damn him—pumping into her veins at the sight of his name.

  “You think this is amusing, don’t you?” she demanded without preamble.

  “Hello to you as well,” he said, his sexy voice strumming across her taut nerves like silk. “And you cannot allow them to get to you. Ignore it.”

  “How do you know what I’m talking about?” she demanded, suspicious that he didn’t even ask what she meant.

  “I have lived closely with the press for the past two years. There will always be stories, Caroline. The trick is not to care.”

  “Easy for you to say,” she said. “And I’ve lived with them practically my whole life, except they didn’t often find the need to humiliate me in their pages.”

  “Then you have been lucky.”

  “I get the feeling that’s changed,” she grumbled. “No thanks to you.”

  She focused on the computer screen in front of her, a spreadsheet and graphs showing the impossible figure she needed to generate in order to make the next loan payment, in two weeks’ time. She’d been so positive she could do it, but now, with Roman in possession of the debt, she wasn’t so sure. And that made her feel waspish.

  “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” she snapped, turning her chair from the depressing figures and facing the expansive Central Park view instead. It was sunny today, gorgeous, and she wished she was out in it, lying in the grass in the park with Ryan and Blake and a picnic blanket.

  “So diplomatic, Caroline,” Roman chided, whipping her back to reality with a thud. “When what you really want to do is tell me to go to hell.”

  “This is a professional relationship. Besides, as much as I’d like to say it, it won’t do me any good. You’ll still be here, digging into me like a very large and annoying thorn in my side.”

  He chuckled, and she found herself suppressing the sudden urge to smile. Ridiculous. There was nothing about Roman Kazarov that could make her smile.

  “I intend to take a tour of your stores. I want you to accompany me.”

  He spoke as if it was the most normal thing in the world to say. Her heart tumbled to her toes before beginning to throb. “I can’t leave New York, Roman.”

  He made a noise that sounded like a snort of derision. “You need to. If you narrow your focus to one store, or to a handful of stores in the metropolitan area, how will you correct what is wrong in the others? New York will not carry you, no matter what you believe.”

  “I know that,” she said stiffly. “But I can’t just take off. I have a child.”

  “He has a nanny, I presume?”

  She thought of Blake, who had been her de facto nanny since Jon had died. They’d had a girl from Europe, but she’d left them shortly after Jon’s death. Blake had seemed the natural replacement. He was an artist by trade, but he hadn’t worked on anything in a very long time.

  “Yes, but I won’t leave my child for days on end just to gratify your urge to make me squirm.”

  There was silence on the other end for a long moment. “Then bring him and the nanny along. You are a woman of means, Caroline. You can do this.”

  Yes, she could. But she didn’t want to. She could think of nothing more terrifying than Roman and Ryan in the same room together. “You don’t need me. I’ll send someone with you.”

  He said something in Russian. His tone suggested it wasn’t polite.

  And then his voice came over the line again, hard and cool and oh so commanding in crisply accented English. “This is not a request, Caroline. You will go. I will send a car for you and the boy at five.”

  “I most certainly will not,” she said, her heart hot with anger—and fear, she had to admit. Fear for her son. Fear for herself. It was a disaster waiting to happen. “As I’ve already told you, you bought the loans, not me. I’ll send my CFO.”

  “Send your CFO and watch your supply lines begin to dry up.”

  “You’re a heartless bastard,” she replied, turning back to her spreadsheets. Her heart sank just a little bit more at what was written there.

  She thought he chuckled softly. “Then we understand one another perfectly, don’t we?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “I Can’t Resist Him,” Caro Says as Kazarov Whisks Her Away for Romantic Weekend

  CAROLINE BOARDED THE Kazarov jet at precisely a quarter to six. She’d sat in her chair after he’d hung up on her and considered her options. Oh, she’d been tempted to stay in New York, regardless of what he said.

  In the end, she’d decided to be ready when the car arrived, no matter how furious she was with the autocratic man who’d sent it. She wanted to save Sullivan’s, so she had to make tough decisions. Do tough things.

  Just like always.

  Blake and Ryan followed her onto the jet. Roman was waiting for them in the main cabin. He gave only the slightest start at the sight of her nanny. But then he subsided back into the smooth, suave man she knew him to be. Nothing rattled Roman. Not for long anyway. And a male nanny was not about to faze him, no matter that it probably wasn’t what he’d expected.

  Ryan hugged Blake tight, his blue eyes wide as he took in the gleaming interior of the corporate jet. Caroline’s heart was in her throat as Roman looked at her child for the first time. Their child. She’d hoped Ryan would be asleep when they arrived, and that Blake could carry him into another compartment and keep him there.

  But her son had been wide-awake and asking a million questions. The questions had only subsided only when they’d left the car and stepped onto the tarmac. His eyes grew wider as Roman stood, and then Ryan turned his head and buried his face against Blake’s shoulder. Caroline put her hand on his back and rubbed.

  “It’s okay, sweetie. Mr. Kazarov is a friend of Mommy’s.”

  Hardly, but what else could she say?

  “You can take him into that cabin back there,” Roman said to Blake, his tone clipped. He refused to look at her and Ryan.

  Blake’s gaze strayed to hers, and she nodded. Once they were gone, she whirled on Roman.

  “Do not treat Blake as if he’s just the hired help. Ryan and I consider him family. Jon did, too.”

  Roman’s eyes were hot. He looked...uncomfortable. It surprised her to see him so tense, but he quickly hid it beneath his polished demeanor.

  “I apologize,” he said smoothly. “I’m not accustomed to children.”

  She didn’t quite know what to say to that. She hadn’t expected such an admission. Or an apology. Which did not make him more reasonable, she reminded herself.

  “This was your idea,” she told him tightly. “You could have avoided the problem if you’d not insisted I accompany you.”

  “I am aware of it.” He sat down in a plush leather club chair and resumed work on his computer. She stood there, fuming. He’d upended her life in the space of a couple of days—and then made her scramble today as she’d readied her family to travel—and he showed absolutely no remorse for it.

  “Have a seat, Caroline,” he said, without looking up. “We’ll be airborne soon.”

  She stood her ground. “Where are we going?”

  “Los Angeles.” He looked up, studied her. “You object?”

  “That store is doing well,” she said. “I’d have expected you’d want to see one of the underperforming locations first.”

  “If things are going well in L.A., then perhaps you could determine which lessons might be applied to your other stores.�
��

  “You don’t want to help me fix things, Roman. So why are we doing this?” She flung herself into a chair and crossed her legs. His gaze strayed over her bare calves, and she found herself leaning toward him, as if she wanted to encourage him.

  She leaned back again, deliberately, and folded her arms. What was the matter with her?

  His gaze met hers. “This is where you are wrong, solnyshko. I bought your debt, and therefore I am concerned about the company’s welfare. If you lose money, I lose money.”

  “Rather defeats the purpose of taking us over, doesn’t it? If we default on the loan, it’s yours. If we pay up, you have nothing.”

  “Oh, I don’t expect you to pay up. But I do expect to know where the profit is, and how I can turn things to my advantage once you default. I refuse to lose money, Caroline. It’s not smart business to lose money.”

  No, it wasn’t smart business. And Sullivan’s had been losing money since her father had started to lose his sense of self. She’d done her best to turn things around, but she’d been at the helm for only six months. It took time. Time she didn’t have.

  She thought of her father and wanted to howl. The loss of his memory had been so subtle at first that they hadn’t even recognized it. Forgetting which direction to turn when he left the building. Forgetting where his favorite café was located. Putting his keys in the refrigerator instead of in the bowl by the door.

  But then one day he’d left the Fifth Avenue apartment for work—and been found wandering around Central Park hours later, disheveled and confused. He’d recognized her mother, but not her. Not at first, anyway.

  “And here I thought you were going to sell it off piece by piece,” she said, drawling out the words. “Do make up your mind, Roman.”

  His smile was as friendly as a hungry lion’s. “I still need to know where the money is, darling,” he said, his tone as condescending as her mother’s after an evening spent hobnobbing at one of her society friends’ art auctions.