Dealing Her Final Card(16)

CHAPTER THREE



VLADIMIR watched a tumult of emotions cross Bree’s beautiful face. Rage. Fury. Grief. And most of all helplessness.

It was like Christmas and his birthday all at once.

Still smiling, he turned back to the deserted, moonlit road and pushed down on the gas of the Lamborghini, causing it to give a low purr as it sped through the lush mountains of Oahu’s interior.

When he’d first seen young Josie Dalton at the poker game, getting lured in over her head by the hotel manager, he hadn’t recognized her. How could he? He’d never met the kid before. He’d just thought some idiot girl was letting herself get played.

He hadn’t liked it, so he’d tried to get her out of the game. An unusually charitable deed for a man who now prided himself on having a cold, flinty diamond instead of a heart.

Once, he’d tried to protect his younger brother. Once, he’d believed in the woman he loved. Now he despised weakness, especially in himself. But three months ago, after nearly dying in a fiery crash on the Honolulu International Raceway, he’d taken his doctor’s advice and bought a beach house on a secluded stretch of the Windward Coast, to recuperate.

He’d had no clue Bree was in Hawaii. If he’d known, he’d have gotten up from his hospital bed and walked to the airport, broken bones and all. What man in his right mind would seek out Bree Dalton? That would be like yearning for a plague or other infectious disease.

She was poison, pure and simple. A poison that tasted sweet as sugar and spicy as cinnamon, but once ingested, would destroy a man’s body from within, like acid. And that’s just what she’d done ten years ago. Her scheming, callous heart had burned Vladimir so badly that she’d sucked all the mercy from his soul.

She’d done him a favor, really. He was better off without a working heart. Being free of sympathy or emotion had helped him build a worldwide business. Helped him get rid of a business partner he no longer wanted.

Bree had betrayed him. But so had his younger brother, in revealing that deception to a newspaper reporter while their first major deal was on the line. Burned, Vladimir had ruthlessly cut his brother out of their company, buying him out for pennies. Then he’d announced his acquisition of mining rights in a newly discovered gold field in northern Siberia. A year later, at twenty-six, Vladimir was worth five hundred million dollars, while his twenty-four-year-old brother was still broke and living in the Moroccan desert.

Though Kasimir hadn’t remained penniless for long. Even living like a nomad in the Sahara, thousands of miles from the ice and snow, he’d found a way to start his own mining company, one that now rivaled Xendzov Mining OAO. Vladimir’s eyes narrowed. He’d allowed Kasimir to peck away at his business for long enough. It was time for him to destroy his brother once and for all.

But first...

Vladimir’s lips curled as he drove the Lamborghini through the hills toward the Windward Coast. He glanced at Bree out of the corner of his eye.

He’d told himself for years that his memory of her was wrong. No woman could possibly be that lovely, that enticing.

And it was true. She wasn’t. At eighteen, she’d still been a girl.

Now, at twenty-eight, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Her fragility and mystery, mixed with her outward toughness, made her more seductive than ever.

And soon, he’d know her every secret. As they drove down the hills into a lush, green valley, a cold smile lifted Vladimir’s lips. He would satisfy his hot memory of her—the thirst that, no matter how many cool blondes he took to his bed, still haunted him in dreams at night. He would satiate himself with her body.

He’d be disappointed by the experience, of course. His memory had amplified her into a goddess of desire. No woman could be that extraordinary. No woman could kiss that well. No woman could set such a fire in his blood. He’d built her up.

He would enjoy cutting her down.

From the moment Vladimir had heard her sultry voice at the poker table, and seen her slender, willowy body in the tight dark jeans and black leather jacket, her hazel eyes like a deep, mysterious forest and her full pink lips like the luring temptation into heaven—or hell—his every nerve ending had become electrified in a way he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

At first he’d thought it was fate. When she’d taken him up on his final bet, he’d realized the two Dalton sisters must have been working some kind of con. It was the only explanation. He could think of no other reason for Bree Dalton, the smartest, sexiest, most ruthless con artist he’d ever met, to be working as an underpaid housekeeper in a five-star Hawaiian resort.