But after two exhausting days of shopping, shocked at the outrageous prices, she was desperate to find something, anything, else to do. “Buy a wardrobe of winter clothes,” Vladimir had said, shoving his credit card into her hand. “And lingerie.” Wanting to be done, she’d randomly grabbed two items the clerks were pushing on her—a long, puffy black coat and an expensive lingerie set with a white lace bustier, G-string and garter belt—and practically ran from the store. The bodyguards formed a tunnel to her waiting black limo, and she fled past the annoyed faces of Russian women waiting outside.
But now, on her third day in St. Petersburg, as she sat alone at a very long table in the empty palace, eating an elegant lunch prepared by the Russian-speaking housekeeper, Bree felt a rush of pure relief when her cell phone rang. She snatched it up. “Hello?”
“What are you wearing?”
At the sound of Vladimir’s low, sensual voice, her shoulders relaxed. “I thought you might be Josie.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“I’m glad to hear your voice.” Her hand tightened on her phone. “I’m, um, wearing my old flannel pajamas and big bootie slippers from home.”
“Sounds sexy. Want to come over?”
“Come where?”
“To my office.”
She blinked. “Why?”
“I have a fifteen-minute break coming up. I thought I’d have you for lunch.”
A shiver of sensual delight went through her at his words. Straightening in her antique chair, she retorted, “Forget it. I’m not going to rush over to your office like some kind of booty-call delivery service. I might be your sex slave, but I do have some standards.”
“I think you’ll change your mind when you hear what I want to do to you....”
She listened to his low growl of a voice describing his intentions in graphic detail, and her hand went limp until the phone fell from her grasp and clattered to the floor. She snatched it up.
“I’ll be right there,” she said breathlessly. Clicking off, she pulled her new lingerie from the designer bag and tugged it on. Covering herself with the black puffy coat, that trailed to her ankles, she replaced her slippers with black stiletto boots and went outside, where a bodyguard held open her limousine door.
Bree’s heart pounded as the chauffeur drove into the heart of St. Petersburg. She barely saw the elegant buildings lining the snowy streets and icy Neva River. All she could think about was what waited for her. Who waited for her.
The limo arrived at a sprawling eighteenth-century building. A bodyguard opened her door and said in heavily accented English, “This is office, miss.”
She looked up and down the block. The structure seemed to stretch endlessly along the avenue. “Which one?”
The bodyguard looked at her. “All. Is Xendzov building.”
“All of it?” Bree looked at the classically columned building in shock. It was one thing to theoretically know that Vladimir was rich. It was another to see this enormous building, an entire city block, and know it represented a mere fragment of his worldwide empire.
Swallowing nervously, she went into the foyer and took an elevator to the top floor. Down the hall, through a wall of glass, she saw men in suits packed around a conference table, some of them pounding the tabletop as they argued, while secretaries refilled their coffee cups and took notes.
Vladimir looked devastatingly powerful and ruthless, in a shirt and tie. And clearly, she wasn’t the only woman to think so. She noticed how the secretaries walked a little more slowly and swayed their hips a little more around him. The beauty of Russian women was justly famous. Their skirts were short, their hair long, their stiletto heels high. They clearly knew their feminine power and were willing to sacrifice comfort in order to hold a man’s attention.
Bree’s confidence tumbled. If Vladimir was surrounded by women like this, why on earth had he sent for her? The sexy playfulness of her errand disappeared. What a laugh. It was like dialing out for a hamburger, when he was surrounded by steak!
He would laugh in her face when he got a good look at her in this stupid lingerie. Her cheeks burned and she started to turn around.
Their eyes met through the glass.
Spinning on her heel, Bree practically ran down the hallway. If she could just reach the elevator...
His hand gripped her upper arm, whirling her to face him. “Where are you going?”
She licked her lips, looking up at this broad-shouldered, powerful man standing in his own building, surrounded by his paid employees. Vladimir had rolled up his shirtsleeves, revealing sleekly muscled forearms laced with dark hair. His tie had been loosened around his thick neck, as if he’d been fighting corporate war all day.