“Hawaii has changed you completely.” His doctor had been shocked by the test results that morning, when Vladimir stopped on the way to the office. “You’ve recuperated from your injury better than I ever dreamed. Even your blood pressure is improved. What have you been doing? Yoga? Eating bean sprouts? Whatever it is, clean living is making you healthy. Keep it up!”
With a laugh, Vladimir glanced down at his empty vodka glass and half-eaten plate of beef rib eye drenched in sauce. Clean living? No. Good living. It wasn’t yoga and bean sprouts. It was laughter, good company and lots of sex.
It was Breanna.
Vladimir shifted impatiently in his chair, craning his head to look past the waiters and candlelit tables toward the wood-paneled hallway. His lips rose in unconscious pleasure when he saw Bree coming back down the hall.
Then a dark figure came out of the shadows to accost her. Seeing Greg Hudson, Vladimir rose to his feet. Bree looked surprised, then angry, as the man spoke to her. Vladimir clenched his jaw as he strode rapidly toward them. Hudson’s eyes went wide when he saw him coming. Turning, he ran out of the restaurant.
“What did he say to you?” Vladimir demanded.
Bree turned with a carefully blank look on her face. Her poker face, he thought, but he could see her lips trembling. Her gaze dropped. “Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“He...” She licked her lips. “He told me he’s in St. Petersburg to collect a debt, and happened to see me.” Her eyes carefully remained on the gleaming parquet floor. “He said he’s going to be very rich in a few days, and he would pay a lot of money to be my next lover. He wondered if there was some kind of waiting list.”
Anger made Vladimir’s vision red. He started to turn, his hands clenched. “I will kill him.”
“No. Please,” Bree whispered. She put her hand on his arm. “Just take me home.”
People in the restaurant were staring at them, whispering behind their hands. “But we already ordered dessert,” he said tightly. “Chocolate cake. Your favorite.”
“I just want to go.” Her cheeks were red. “And forget this day ever happened.”
Forget this day ever happened? The wonderful day he’d spent with her—the hours he’d spent watching her laugh, telling her the truth, buying her things, trying so hard to please her—as he’d never tried to please any woman? “I don’t want to forget.”
She looked away. “I do.”
Shoulders stiff, Vladimir went across the restaurant and tossed thirty thousand rubles on their table. Getting her leather coat, he wrapped it around her shivering shoulders and led her out into the cold, dark night. As his chauffeur drove their limousine home, Vladimir looked out at the snowy streets of St. Petersburg. It had been the best day of his life, but it had ended with Bree in tears.
He wanted to blame the fat little hotel manager. But he knew there was one person at fault for the way she’d been so crudely insulted as a woman who could be bought and sold at any man’s will.
Vladimir himself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE next night, Bree paused as she got ready for the New Year’s Eve ball. She looked wanly out the tall curved window of their bedroom.
The wintry Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea looked nothing like Hawaii’s warm turquoise waters. It was even worse than Alaska’s frigid sea. Even in the weak, short hours of daylight, the Russian waves were choppy and gray. But the sun had set long ago, and the world was dark. The black, icy water here could suck the life out of you within seconds if you were dumb enough to fall into it.
Kind of like falling in love with a man who would neither love you back nor set you free.
Bree closed her eyes. Yesterday, the workaholic tyrant had been neither workaholic nor a tyrant, playing hooky from work to entertain her. Letting people keep their jobs in his merger. Tipping that saleswoman at the boutique. Getting rid of the men who’d threatened Bree and her little sister. And more.
I’ve never forgotten you, Breanna. She would never forget the stark vulnerability in his blue eyes. Or stopped wanting you.
Bree trembled with emotion, remembering. Thank heaven she’d been able to cover her reaction by gulping that nasty-tasting vodka. She should probably be grateful for Greg Hudson, too. His words had brought her back to reality with a snap.
Bleakly, she opened her eyes. She was alone in their bedroom, with one leg propped up on the bed, pulling on sheer black stockings as she got ready for the New Year’s Eve ball. Her beautiful haute-couture princess gown was on the bed, waiting to go over her new black lace bra, panties and garter belt. Vladimir had bought out every expensive store in the city. “I am trying to make you happy,” he’d said. But she couldn’t be bought that way. Only two things could make her happy, and they were the very things he would not or could not give her. Freedom. Love.