A Game With One Winner

by Lynn Raye Harris

  “We can work this out,” she said. “It will take time, but we’ll figure it out. You can be a part of his life. I won’t deny you that.”

  Because how could she marry him? How could she be his wife now, after everything that had happened? He loathed her. He would probably always loathe her.

  “Right. The way you didn’t deny me for the past two years.” His nostrils flared, as if he was suppressing strong emotions. “Do you have any idea how much I despise you right now? How much you took away from me?”

  She felt his words like a physical blow. “Then why marry me? It can’t be good for either one of us.”

  His smile wasn’t meant to be friendly. “You mean it can’t be good for you. Poor Caroline Sullivan, forced to marry the Russian peasant, after all. Won’t your parents be proud?”

  Without thinking, she closed the distance between them and shoved him as hard as she could. He stepped back, surprised—but then he was in front of her again, as solid and as unmovable as a mountain.

  She was filled to bursting with the injustice of it all, with everything that she’d sacrificed five years ago when she’d cut him from her life. She’d lied to him then, but she wouldn’t lie any longer.

  “I loved you, you idiot! I did what I had to do for my family, but I loved you—and I would have defied them to be with you if the price hadn’t been so high. If it had just been me who would have been affected by the loss of Sullivan’s.” She was breathing hard now, anger rolling over her in seismic, life-altering waves.

  Roman looked stunned. And then his expression hardened by degrees, until she knew he’d convinced himself she wasn’t telling the truth.

  “Yes, very pretty of you to say. But we know the truth, don’t we? Your precious stores will always win, no matter how you try to dress it up in ribbons and bows.”

  His gaze slid over her, down the open neck of her T-shirt and beyond, to the denim mini she’d donned this morning. She was surprised to see a flare of heat in his eyes—and just as surprised at the answering surge in her feminine core.

  After everything.

  “You’re wrong,” she said tightly. “And I won’t marry you.”

  His smile made her shiver in spite of the heat. “We shall see.”

  * * *

  He had no idea what he was doing.

  Roman watched Caroline and Blake play on the beach with Ryan, and felt like an outsider. He’d told her she would marry him, told her he was doing it to claim his child—and the truth was he had no idea how to be a father. No idea if he even could. He’d had such a lousy example in his own father that he had no idea where to begin.

  Bitterness flooded his throat. If he’d been there from the beginning, if he’d watched Caroline grow big with his child, if he’d changed diapers and held the boy at night when he wouldn’t sleep, then perhaps he would know what to do now.

  He wouldn’t be standing here in the shadows of the covered veranda, feeling like an idiot, a stranger to his own child.

  Which, he acknowledged, he truly was. The boy seemed terrified of him. Worse, Roman was terrified in return. Not that he would ever admit it. And certainly not to Caroline. She could help him, he knew that, but how could he ask her?

  She laughed at something Blake said, and Roman’s heart squeezed. He used to love to make her laugh. She had such an intoxicating laugh, the kind that made you want to laugh as well. She must not have laughed much over the last couple of years.

  He frowned at the thought of her taking care of her dying husband, a man who had only been only a friend instead of a lover. Had she been lonely? Frightened? Angry?

  Roman shook off any feelings of sympathy. She’d lied to him. Kept his child from him. And she would have done so no matter what.

  I loved you, you idiot.

  He didn’t believe it. Not for a minute. She would say whatever it took to make him merciful now. Whatever it took to keep him from destroying her world.

  She looked up then, as if she sensed him standing there. He didn’t shrink from her gaze. Her eyes met his across the distance. She said something to Blake, and then she was striding across the sand toward the steps leading up to the veranda where he stood.

  She walked with an innate grace that had always been, to him, one of the hallmarks of her class. She moved like a woman who’d had every advantage—money, position, power—from an early age. She took it for granted that she belonged, that she was wanted. She didn’t think of how people might perceive her. She just was.

  She was wearing a red bikini with a white shirt tied at her waist, and a straw hat that covered her face. Her skin was one shade this side of golden, yet she wore it better than many of the bronzed women he’d seen on the beaches of his island. She was more beautiful than any of them, including the starlets and models.

  Unwelcome heat slid into his groin as she moved toward him, loose-hipped and elegant. It surprised him that he could want her after what she’d done. And yet, when he’d been buried inside her two nights ago, he’d thought there was nowhere else he’d rather be.

  “Won’t you join us?” she said as she came closer. “We’re playing tag.”

  “Tag.” He said it as if the word was foreign, but he knew what it meant. What she was asking.

  She nodded. “Ryan enjoys it.” She put a hand over the brim of her hat as the trade winds gusted. “It would be a good way to get to know him a little better.”

  “He’s too scared,” Roman said coolly. “Of everything.”

  She shrugged, though he could tell the criticism hurt her. “I told you, it’s his personality. He could grow out of it, but you standing here and brooding isn’t likely to help. Come play with him. Act like someone fun to know.”

  He wanted to do it, and yet he couldn’t seem to make that first move. What if he failed? What if he proved that he wasn’t meant to be a father, after all? If he got down there and the kid shied away from him, what would he do? How would he deal with it?

  “I have work to do,” he said. “Another time.”

  She put a hand on her hip. “He’ll be in high school before you cease being busy, Roman.”

  “A multinational conglomerate does not run itself,” he said stiffly. Because she was right, and because he was seeking an excuse to avoid making a fool of himself. She knew it as well as he did.

  Sadness clouded her pretty eyes. “You have to start sometime. It won’t get any easier the longer you delay.” She took the steps up to the veranda, coming over to where he stood, and stopping before him. He could see the soft curves of her breasts where the white shirt gapped, the luminescence of her skin, and he wanted to bend and place his mouth just there, where the valley of her breasts started. Then he wanted to lick the curves, slide her bikini top aside and curl his tongue around a tight nipple.

  He closed his eyes. No matter how many times he told himself it was wrong to want her, wrong to even consider taking her to his bed again after what she’d done to him, his body refused to get the message. He’d never had a problem quitting a woman—except this one.

  Always this one.

  She looked up at him then, her blond hair streaming wild and golden over her shoulders. She wasn’t the heiress now so much as the bohemian beach girl—albeit a rather pale beach girl.

  “Please come, Roman. Ryan is a good kid, but he needs your patience. Within a few days, he’ll think you’re pretty fabulous. You just have to start somewhere. Why not now?”

  He didn’t say anything for the space of several heartbeats. And then, because he suddenly couldn’t bear the idea of being alone with his thoughts for another minute while she and Ryan and Blake played in the surf, shutting him out, he felt his reluctance evaporate like mist.

  “Yes,” he said. “I will come.”

  * * *

  The days that followed were as close to perfect as they could be, considering the circumstances. Caroline had decided, that afternoon on the beach when she’d known Roman was watching, that she needed to help him know their child
. Roman was uncertain, anguished, and though she might be angry with him for his high-handedness, his arrogance, she owed it to her son at the very least to make sure he had a good relationship with the man who’d fathered him.

  She thought of her own father and dark emotion filled her. They hadn’t always agreed with each other, but she would give anything to have him back, whole in his mind, and disagreeing with her now. She missed him. How could she deny her son the opportunity to forge that kind of relationship with his father?

  She couldn’t, and so she’d determined to help Roman navigate the uncertain waters of becoming a parent. For her son, she told herself.

  Caroline felt a pang of sharp emotion every time she watched Ryan and Roman together. Ryan had warmed up pretty quickly, but Roman was still uncertain, still walking on eggshells much of the time.

  Oh, sometimes he let himself go and just acted naturally—like when he’d taken them all out on his yacht and let Ryan drive the boat, while he’d stood behind the captain’s chair, his hands over Ryan’s little ones, steering while his son asked a million questions.

  Everything about that day had seemed perfect. The sun had reflected like diamonds on the sparkling water, and Caroline had felt as if her heart would burst with delight. Blake had given her an I-told-you-so look, and she’d smiled back at him with genuine happiness, feeling joyful in the moment and wishing it would always be that way.

  But, of course, there were too many raw feelings still to be dealt with, too much reality intruding on their lives. Not that anyone had violated their privacy out here. No, that wasn’t possible, as Roman had promised.

  Reality, however, was always there, in the back of her mind, preying on her thoughts. It was reality that had caused her to pick up the phone and call her mother only minutes before.

  “You must return to the city, Caroline,” her mother said firmly. “The newspapers are simply filled with gossip about you and that horrid man. I’ve had to hide them from your father. It would kill him to think that Roman Kazarov might soon be running his stores.”

  Caroline closed her eyes and pressed two fingers to her temples. As if her father would even remember who Roman was. “Mother, the reality is that Daddy made some poor decisions and we’re in pretty deep. I’m trying to fix it, but it’s not easy.”

  They had only days left, and she had all her people working overtime. Even she was putting in overtime, spending long hours with her spreadsheets and her telephone when she wasn’t helping Roman get to know his son. The numbers were still dismal—and she was tired and numb and ready to give up.

  Except that every time she thought that, she got angry with herself. She was not giving up. Her father wouldn’t if he were here. Jon wouldn’t have, either. A few more days. They’d need a miracle, but anything was possible. She’d been calling everyone she could think of, searching for investors. She’d found few.

  Her mother sniffed in that aristocratic way she had. Jessica Hartshorne Sullivan came from a very old and venerable New York family, and though some in her set had considered her to have married down when she’d chosen a businessman like Frank Sullivan, she’d never once given the slightest indication she agreed with them.

  Considering her reaction to Roman, it was, in many ways, pure irony. Not that Caroline planned to point it out to her.

  “Some days, he wants to go into the office.”

  Caroline could hear the wistfulness in her mother’s voice, and sadness clawed at her. Her father, once so vibrant, was a shell of himself now. It wasn’t fair.

  “That’s not possible, Mother, and you know it.”

  She heard her mother sniff again, only this time it was due to a far more identifiable emotion. “It’s been...difficult,” she said, her voice becoming thready. “Even with the nurse. It’s happening far more quickly than I would have believed, Caroline. Just yesterday, he looked at me like I was a stranger. He forgets my name more often now....”

  Caroline put her head in her free hand as her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Mother. All we can do is make sure he’s taken care of, that he’s safe and happy.”

  They spoke for a few more minutes, and then Caroline ended the call. She felt so bleak inside, so ravaged. There was nothing she could do to fix this. She felt she should be there at her mother’s side, and yet it wouldn’t change a thing if she were. When she’d suggested she should come to Southampton, her mother had waved the thought away as if it was nonsense. She wanted Caroline in New York, away from Roman Kazarov and the tabloids, not in Southampton.

  Caroline grabbed a tissue and wiped her eyes. When she looked up, Roman was there. A dark frown rode his handsome face. His gaze grew sharper as their eyes met. She wondered how long he’d been standing in the entry.

  “What is wrong, Caroline? Has something happened to your father?”

  She started to shake her head, denial coming automatically—but she couldn’t seem to complete the movement. Instead, to her horror, she burst into tears.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Has the Billionaire Playboy Been Tamed at Last?

  THAT HE came to her side and pulled her into his arms should have comforted her. And it did, except that it also made her sob all the harder. It wasn’t just for her father she cried. It was for Roman, for her and their child, for Jon and Blake. For everything that had been lost over the years—and everything yet to be lost.

  “I—I’m sorry,” she said, her face against his chest, her fingers clutching his dark shirt. He was so warm and solid, so there when the rest of the world seemed to be doing its damnedest to work against her at that precise moment.

  His fingers traced a slow, sensual path up her spine. Not that he meant the touch to be anything other than comforting, she was certain, but her body reacted anyway. Her nipples tightened, and her feminine core flooded with heat and moisture and the kind of need that only he could call up within her.

  Blindly, she tilted her head back and went up on her tiptoes to kiss him. He stiffened—and then he groaned and she was in his arms, really in his arms, and he was kissing her as if he’d been dying without her.

  His big hands shaped her waist, traveled along her ribs and up to cup the swells of her breasts. When his thumbs flicked across her nipples, she moaned and arched herself into his hands.

  So quickly she became his to command, his to do with as he wanted. It had been over a week since they’d made love in L.A., and she was dying for him as if it had been a century. She’d thought he would never want to touch her again. But he did, he was, and she was filled with a fierce joy that he still desired her.

  She had to have him inside her again. Now. Her fingers went to the waistband of his board shorts. He made a sound in his throat—and then he set her away from him.

  “Stop,” he told her hoarsely.

  She staggered backward until her butt was against the edge of the desk she’d been sitting at only moments before. She could only gape up at him with wide, wounded eyes.

  “Chert poberi,” he said, dragging a hand through his hair. “I want you, God help me, but not like this. Not when you are crying and upset.”

  Caroline pulled in a shaky breath as her brain focused on those three little words. He wanted her. He still wanted her. She dropped her gaze. Inside, she was a churning, roiling mess of conflicting emotions. Something was breaking inside her, something monumental. Something she was afraid to examine.

  And it had to do with this man. With the knowledge that it wasn’t quite as ruined between them as she’d thought.

  He put his hands on her shoulders, squeezed, and she nearly broke down once more.

  “Can you tell me what is wrong?” His voice was almost tender.

  She hesitated. If she let the words out, then what? But he knew something was wrong, and if she didn’t say anything, he’d only grow suspicious. “M-my father is sick.” That much was true.

  Roman tipped her chin up with a finger. “Then you must go to his side.”

  Her eyes filled again
. The concern she saw in his gaze would be her undoing. She was still scrambling to protect her family, and he wanted to help her in spite of everything the Sullivans had done to him.

  “It’s not necessary.” She bit her lip. How could she explain without giving it all away? “It’s chronic, and while he won’t get better, it won’t kill him either. He most likely has many years left. It’s just...hard.”

  “This is why he retired?”

  She nodded. “He had to. There is no way he could continue working.”

  Roman looked troubled. “I’m sorry, Caroline.”

  She was tired of beating her head against the wall, tired of fighting and working and getting nowhere fast. “You’re right that he made bad decisions at Sullivan’s, but we didn’t know he was ill. I’ve been trying to put it back together. But soon it won’t matter, right?” She smiled, though her mouth trembled at the corners. “You will do what you usually do, and Sullivan’s will be finished.”

  He looked fierce for a moment. And then he dragged her into his arms again. She slipped her arms around his waist and just stood with her head against him, breathing in his scent. He smelled like salt water and sun, alive and vibrant and delicious.

  He was solid, and here, and she was suddenly glad of it.

  “It’s not like you to give up so easily,” he said after a while. “What happened to that fierce determination to beat me at my own game?”

  She sighed. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to save her family legacy. She just wanted it to be simpler, to not hurt so much or exact such a price. Who was she doing it for, anyway? She’d always thought it was for her family, for herself. And now for Ryan. But if it went away, what had she really lost? Compared to a father, a husband, the man she’d once lived for as if he were the entire world?

  So long as she had Ryan, she had everything she needed. Maybe it was time to break from the chains of the past and let life roll along unfettered for a while.

  “I’m tired, Roman,” she said. “Sullivan’s has cost me too much over the years. Maybe it’s time for someone else to take the responsibility. Rather than breaking it up, maybe you could absorb it into your company and keep some of the better stores open.”