They both jumped and stared, and Jordan stammered, ‘‘Look, Jasha, I can explain—’’
‘‘Not if I don’t listen. You two get dressed, clean out your lockers, and pick up your checks. I’ll call the cleaners to wipe off Ann’s desk.’’ Jasha shut the door with a thump.
‘‘I knew this was going to happen.’’ Ann leaned against the far wall in the corridor. ‘‘I should never have left.’’
‘‘This is not your fault,’’ Celia answered sharply.
‘‘Celia’s right.’’ Jasha took Ann’s hand and led her back down the hall toward the cafeteria. Celia followed. ‘‘I understand irresistible passion’’—he kissed her fingers—‘‘but those two can suffer from it somewhere else, and not during working hours.’’
‘‘He’s a creep and she’s’’—Celia glanced at Ann— ‘‘also a creep.’’
He’d noticed that before. When Ann was around, everyone used their exotic vocabulary sparingly. She had that effect on people—they were on their best behavior.
‘‘Why has this place gone to hell in six days?’’ he asked.
‘‘Ann keeps an eye on things,’’ Celia answered. ‘‘Because she does take responsibility for everything. She watches everything. She works all the time.’’
‘‘Ann, I should give you a raise.’’ He smiled his best winsome smile.
But it was wasted, because Ann didn’t look at him. ‘‘You certainly should.’’
She didn’t want to talk about irresistible passion; she didn’t want to meet his eyes . . .
‘‘Let me get us something to drink.’’ Ann twisted her hand free. With a glance around at the empty cafeteria, she placed her briefcase on the chair next to him and headed for the coffee center.
Celia looked between the two of them.
He shrugged and smiled ruefully, trying to defuse the tension, knowing full well if Celia sensed trouble, the entire company would be on alert watching their boss and his secretary.
Damn civilization. Damn proper workplace behavior. He wanted to go back into the forest with his mate and show her the way of the wolf.
But then they would come out again, and again they’d have to deal with the winery and their obligations and his family. They needed to get this settled, and settled in such a way that Ann wore his ring on her finger and slept in his bed every night.
He sat at one of the tables and indicated the chair across from him. When Celia had seated herself, he leaned close. ‘‘Meeting her away from the office made it impossible to resist her. She wore this beautiful dress—’’
‘‘I helped her pick it out.’’
‘‘Good work.’’ Come to think of it, he remembered that dress. Black-and-white, with one big button . . . he’d seen her walking down the stairs, and with each step, her long leg had slid through the wrap.
‘‘What else?’’ Celia asked eagerly.
‘‘She was so shy and so sweet—oh, I can’t talk about it.’’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘‘It was perfect.’’
‘‘Except the part about the wine deal going sour.’’
‘‘We didn’t talk about it a lot.’’ He smiled at Ann as she placed a cup before him.
‘‘What’s happened since we left?’’ Ann asked, still with that businesslike tone.
‘‘The Ukrainian deal is definitely off. They sent some really ugly faxes, but when we couldn’t get ahold of you guys, we didn’t know what to do.’’ Celia had clearly had a rough time.
‘‘I’ll need to see those,’’ Jasha said.
‘‘They were the wrong company to take us international. ’’ Ann handed a cup to Celia. She put the briefcase on the floor between her and Jasha, and slid into that chair.
‘‘True.’’ Jasha stared into the milky depths, then up at Celia. ‘‘I liked them because they spoke Russian and I didn’t need an interpreter, but really, interpreters are cheaper than prima donna CEOs."
Celia grinned and he saw the tension slide out of her shoulders. ‘‘Yeah, I thought that, too.’’
‘‘I wish I’d known that before I chased you up the coast, Jasha.’’ Ann’s tone was sharp to the point of sarcasm.
A fairly new development for Ann.
What a hell of a time for her to get comfortable enough to talk back to him.
‘‘We had a nice vacation anyway.’’ Jasha cradled the cup as he spoke to Celia. ‘‘I introduced Ann to my family. We all talked about the wine business, and we’ve decided to keep expanding across the US. What do you think?’’
Celia leaned back, suddenly so relaxed that she smiled with disproportionate pleasure. ‘‘Great! I recommended that strategy last year, and I still think it’s a sound policy. Less risky, with huge potential for success.’’
‘‘I remember your report.’’ He hadn’t liked it at the time. ‘‘After Ann and I get caught up, let’s go over it together.’’
‘‘Let’s!’’ Celia glanced at her watch. ‘‘Damn. I’ve got a teleconference. Good to see you two back . . . together.’’
With a sense of a job well-done, he watched Celia leave. She had gone from being Ann’s advocate to being his, and perhaps that was unfair to Ann, but in this battle between him and his lover, he needed all the ammunition he could amass, and if that included commandeering her best friend, well, that made the last fifteen minutes a brilliant maneuver.
He turned to Ann. ‘‘I would hope your office is clean, but if it’s not, you can come into my office and help me with the mail.’’ Alone in his office. He could close the door. Lock it. And allow no one to come in until she had confessed her love, agreed to marry him, and yielded to him. Yielded everything.
Without a hint of a smile or the scent of infatuation, she stood and picked up her briefcase. ‘‘Of course, Jasha.’’
He caught up with her and took her arm. ‘‘I want you to bring in someone who can do your work.’’
She turned a cool gaze on him. ‘‘Why would I do that?’’
‘‘Because I want you to concentrate on finding out the exact identity of the person behind the Ukrainian wine distributor.’’
‘‘I thought you were certain it was one of Oleg’s sons.’’
‘‘Yes, but I want to know how he found me. I want to know how much he knows about me . . . and I want to know about the Varinskis. Their weaknesses, the size of their organization. I want to know names and most important, I want to see faces. Since that time my brothers and I looked up the Varinskis on the library computer, I’ve never bothered to worry about them. That was a dangerous oversight.’’
‘‘Yes. It was. What were you thinking?’’
‘‘I was thinking they’d paid us no heed for thirty-five years, and it would be better not to call their attention to us by waving a defiant fist.’’
‘‘All right.’’ Her eyes narrowed and her pace picked up. ‘‘I’ll get Geekette to make me untraceable while I’m doing the research. Where do you want me to set up my computer?’’
‘‘In my office.’’
She stopped short.
He kept going. ‘‘It’s the only place in the building that’s secure enough.’’ Still she didn’t join him, and he turned to face her.
She stared at him, her eyes narrowed, as if trying to see a way out of a trap that tightened around him.
His tactic was to close the jaws on her while she was unaware. ‘‘Ann, if you don’t want to marry me, that’s fine. My ego can handle it.’’ A reminder that the question hung between them, unanswered. ‘‘But you know you are the only person I can trust to do this research. You’re the only one who’s smart enough, and you’re the only one who knows the special circumstances well enough to comprehend the danger.’’ He used a heavy hand with the trust issue.
Slowly she nodded, but still she waited.
Waited for the other shoe to drop. Smart girl. ‘‘And since you’ll be moving in with me anyway—’’
‘‘I will not!’’
‘‘—so I can keep you safe—’�
�
‘‘I’m not moving in with you!’’
‘‘—the information you find will be protected, too.’’
Her chest rose and fell as she took deep breaths, seeking an answer he would listen to.
‘‘If you don’t want to move in with me, I suppose you can turn the icon over to me for safekeeping.’’
Ann stalked past him, so stiff she looked as though she could shatter if he touched her. ‘‘You’re a jerk, Jasha Wilder.’’
He watched her walk down the corridor, and he smiled with all his teeth.
He had a strategy, and Ann didn’t stand a chance.
Chapter 30
When Jasha touched Ann’s shoulder and said,
"It’s time to go home,’’ she jumped so hard she cleared the chair.
‘‘I’m sorry. I thought you heard me the first time.’’ Jasha frowned at her. ‘‘Where were you?’’
‘‘In Russia in a tangle of deeds and papers. Boris Varinski is your man, head of the fake Ukrainian wine distributors.’’ She stretched her arms over her head. ‘‘Did you know Yerik and Fdoror are on trial in Sereminia for racketeering and murder?’’
‘‘Good ol’ Yerik and Fdoror.’’ The first part of his strategy was working. She excelled at this type of research, she was enjoying herself, and most important, she was talking to him. ‘‘Who are they?’’
She pointed at the photos on the screen. ‘‘Yerik. Fdoror. Sons of Oleg. So’s Boris. Oleg was a busy boy. Well, all Varinskis are busy. Do you know how many Varinskis have been born in the last thirty years?’’
‘‘No.’’
‘‘No, of course you don’t. Because in the Ukraine, the Varinskis can apparently do whatever they want, and what they want is to not leave any records of births or deaths or crimes committed. The only thing I can really look for is the money trail, and it’s buried beneath a tangle of false ownerships and fake deals. It’s only in paperwork from the last few years that I can make any sense out of what’s going on, and that’s because it seems as if the younger guys are none too good at keeping a low profile.’’
Jasha used his hands on her arms to lift her from the chair. ‘‘That’s good. A little incompetence goes a long way to helping our cause.’’
‘‘Don’t kid yourself. Boris and the rest of Oleg’s sons are brilliant at what they do. You wouldn’t believe the number of crimes informally linked to them. They make the Mafia look like a bunch of Tibetan monks.’’
He closed the laptop and slid it into his case.
‘‘I think their weakness is their incredible vanity. The younger men don’t worry about keeping their secret from the public. There have been weird’’—she made quotation marks with her fingers—‘‘animal sightings, and apparently, sometimes when they go on raids, the women are fighting back and winning.’’
He led Ann down the hallway, down the elevator, and out the door to his car, just delivered from his house and already running.
‘‘They really are Russian rednecks, and the Deliverance theme is playing in the background,’’ she said.
He laughed. ‘‘You have a way with words.’’ He put her in the passenger seat, placed the computer in her lap, and shut the door.
By the time he’d come around to the driver’s side, she’d disentangled herself from her fascination with his family and was staring at him accusingly. ‘‘I need to go to my condo and get my car, and Kresley.’’
‘‘Kresley.’’ Shit. He hadn’t thought about her cat.
‘‘Kresley.’’ She nodded, then watched him to see whether he would object.
He wasn’t crazy. ‘‘Sure. I can’t wait to meet the little fellow.’’ He put the car in gear and drove out of the parking lot.
‘‘He’s not so little. Actually, he weighs twenty-one pounds.’’
‘‘Now that’s a cat.’’ If he had to have one of the varmints in his house, he was at least glad it was a decent-sized animal.
She directed him to a gated community in the Napa hills, then to a two-story building divided into six units. She had the upper left; as he climbed the stairs, he discovered an incredible curiosity about her home.
She hurried ahead of him, almost like a woman running away from her lover. Certainly his lust rose as he watched her legs, and he allowed his mind to wander ahead, into her apartment, into her bedroom, where he would slowly remove her clothes one by one. . . .
Then she unlocked her door, and he realized she hadn’t been running away. She had been running to . . . her cat.
‘‘Kresley!’’ She rushed toward the couch, toward this enormous fuzzy orange pillow.
Then as she picked it up, the orange pillow unfolded and became a cat with drooping legs and the same lethargic air that all cats had right before they realized they had an urgent appointment and started dashing frantically around.
Kresley blinked at her, then started making a noise. At first, Jasha couldn’t figure out what it was. Then he knew—that was the sound of a twenty-one-pound cat purring.
‘‘He’s immense!’’ Jasha said.
‘‘Isn’t he? He’s so beautiful.’’ She rubbed Kresley’s head and under his chin, and spoke right into the droopy cat’s face. ‘‘He’s my big, beautiful boy.’’
Kresley jumped as if startled. Lifting his nose, he sniffed her lips. His eyes got big.
And he started growling low in his throat.
‘‘Kresley!’’ Ann said.
The big cat used his paws to push at her chest. He leaped out of her arms and backed away.
‘‘Oh, Kresley.’’ Ann sighed. ‘‘I suppose he’s mad because I left him alone.’’
‘‘Really?’’ Now, that was a pet! ‘‘You can leave him alone for six days?’’
‘‘No, I had my neighbor downstairs, Mrs. Edges, come in and feed him and sit with him. She’s a nice woman, a widow, retired from the navy and the post office.’’ Ann dumped her purse on the end table.
He looked around.
She had decorated her living room in tans and browns. Orange accents provided the necessary pop, and the place felt warm and welcoming.
Which was more than he could say for her. She was eyeing him like a piece of couch with a broken spring.
‘‘Can I help you pack something?’’ he asked.
‘‘No.’’ She turned and headed into the bathroom.
‘‘Okay,’’ he said to the closed door. He wandered around, checking the rest of the place out.
Her kitchen was small and well organized.
Not surprising.
Her bedroom was quite a bit more exotic, with billowing bed-curtains over a queen-sized bed, and that was a revelation. Why, he didn’t know. He’d already figured out that her well-organized exterior hid a romantic, passionate interior. Off the bedroom was a great little bathroom that she’d painted a warm, pale peach with aqua accents. Very soothing. He could imagine her relaxing in the tub filled with bubbles, her hair piled on top of her head, her pretty toes lifted and pointed . . . and if he kept imagining stuff like that, her toes wouldn’t be the only thing lifted and pointed.
Hands in his pockets, he wandered back into the living room, where the cat sat on the couch, staring malevolently at him. This cat was going home with him, so he approached slowly and extended his hand for Kresley to sniff. ‘‘Nice kitty. Good kitty.’’
Kresley started that deep-throated growl again, a growl that quickly grew into a full-blown threat.
Ann came out of the bathroom, holding a handful of the kind of feminine products that let him know he was not a father, and he was not getting any tonight, something he’d suspected more from her behavior than from her scent.
‘‘Kresley, what is wrong with you?’’ she asked.
‘‘Cats have a tendency to do that—they sense the wolf in me.’’ Jasha took a few steps back.
Kresley followed.
‘‘They react instinctively,’’ Jasha added.
‘‘And with good sense.’’ She stood watching.
‘‘Is he stalking you?’’
‘‘I believe he is.’’
‘‘Well, he can’t do that.’’ She dropped the tampons on the table, walked over to Kresley to pick him up— and Kresley turned on her.
If Jasha hadn’t lifted her away, her own cat would have savaged her.
‘‘Kresley!’’ she wailed.
‘‘He smells me on you.’’ Jasha didn’t say they had a problem. With Ann, he never had to state the obvious.
Her voice trembled as she said, ‘‘I’ll see if Mrs. Edges will watch him until he gets used to you.’’
‘‘That might be a good idea.’’
Ann shut the laptop and studied the bright morning sunlight for a long moment, then looked across the office at Jasha. ‘‘You know, everything I find out about the Varinskis makes me realize what a formidable foe they are.’’
He raised his head from the papers he was signing. He put down his pen and folded his hands. ‘‘Time for a summary?’’
‘‘There seem to be well over a hundred of them, with numerous false identities. The older men are brilliant, setting up false corporations, laundering money, and always, always pursuing, torturing, and assassinating. The younger guys, for the most part, seem significantly less competent, but perhaps that is because they’re young.’’
‘‘More likely undisciplined.’’
‘‘Hm. Yes, that’s possible.’’ Or maybe demons who lived to a great age matured later than normal men. Although Jasha had seemed mature from the first moment she’d laid eyes on him. And handsome. And smart. Too damned smart.
They’d spent the last five days together. Every damned minute.
In the morning, she woke up in his house, in his bedroom, in his arms. She’d been having her period, so she used that excuse ruthlessly—she’d used it so she wouldn’t have to have sex, and even more satisfactorily, she’d used it as an excuse to be bitchy.
Her aptitude for bitchiness surprised even her.
She ate breakfast with him; then they drove to the office—separately, thank God, because she’d been sensible enough to insist on having her own car. But once there, she did research on the laptop in his office. All day. Every day. With him talking and walking and breathing . . . always there, always watching . . . there was never a moment when she wasn’t aware of him.
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