Vladimir frowned.
“Don’t you understand?” Reaching up, he caressed her cheek, tucking wild tendrils of sweaty blond hair behind her ear. “You’re no longer my property. You’re free.”
“Why?” she choked out. “Why now?”
He smiled despite the lump in his throat. “Because...” Cupping her face with both his hands, he looked straight into her eyes. “I’m in love with you, Breanna.”
Pulling back, she gasped, as if his words had caused her mortal injury.
He sat up on the desk beside her. “It took me ten years to realize what I should have admitted to myself long ago. I never stopped loving you. And I never will.”
Blinking fast, she looked away.
“But what if I don’t deserve your love?” she whispered. “What if I’ve done things that...”
“It doesn’t matter.” Gently, he turned her to face him. “Somehow, in spite of all my flaws, you decided to love me. I was too much of a coward to do the same.” Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed her skin fervently, then looked at her with tears in his eyes. “Until now.”
She sucked in her breath.
“Whatever you do,” he said quietly, searching her gaze, “for the rest of your life, I will love you. For the rest of mine.”
Bree started to speak, then shook her head as silent tears spilled down her cheeks.
Was she so amazed, then, that he could return her love? The thought of that shamed him, reminding him how selfish he’d been. Pulling her back into his arms, he held her. When she claimed she was too tired to eat dinner, he took her to bed. He held her through the night as she cried herself to sleep. He didn’t understand her tears. But as Vladimir stroked her hair and naked back, he vowed that he would never give her any reason to cry again. Ever.
His heart was irrevocably hers. But she was free.
Would she choose to stay with him? Or would she go?
Shortly before midnight, when Breanna finally slept, Vladimir realized he had to prepare for the worst. Pulling on a robe, he quietly left their bedroom and went downstairs to his office. Turning on his computer by habit, he looked for his cell phone. He’d order the jet to be available in the morning, to take her wherever she wanted to go. Then he prayed he could convince her to stay....
His foot slid on the mess of papers scattered across the floor. In the dim glow of light from the computer screen, the first words on the page of a contract he’d never noticed before caught his eye. Bending over, he picked it up.
I hereby renounce all shares in Xendzov Mining OAO...
His heart stopped in his chest. Hand shaking, he turned on a lamp, thrusting the paper beneath the light.
...giving them freely and in perpetuity to my brother, Kasimir.
He read it again. Then again.
This contract had been slyly slipped into the pile of papers on his desk. And with sickening certainty Vladimir knew how it had gotten there. Only one person could have done it.
He closed his eyes. When he’d first seen Bree in Hawaii, he’d assumed she was there to con someone. Later he’d convinced himself that meeting her at that poker game had been wild, pure coincidence. Even when he’d discovered from Greg Hudson that Kasimir had deliberately tried to plot that meeting, he’d convinced himself that Breanna, at least, was innocent.
Exhaling, he crushed the paper against his chest.
But his first instincts had been right all along. She’d been in Honolulu for a con. And just like ten years ago, Vladimir had been her mark.
As he opened his eyes, the dark shadows of his study were bleak. All color had been drained from the world, leaving only gray.
Bree and his brother had to be working together. After Vladimir had started attending private poker games in Honolulu, while recuperating from his racing accident, Kasimir had arranged for Bree to get a job there. His brother must have known all along that she was the poison Vladimir could not resist. The poker game, the wager, the whole affair had been a setup from start to finish.
All so that Bree could infiltrate his house and infiltrate his soul.
All so that Vladimir would sign this document.
His hands shook as he looked down at the contract.
His brother had baited his hook well. And so had she.
Bree had tricked him, the same way she’d done ten years ago. And Vladimir was so stupid that instead of being on his guard, he’d been fooled even worse than before. He thought of how he’d tried to please her, giving her his great-grandmother’s peridot, buying her a puppy, buying her a hotel, and worst of all, declaring his love—when all the time, all he was to her...was a job.
He leaned back wearily in his desk chair. Just hours before, the purpose and meaning of his life had seemed so clear. So bright and full of promise. He’d felt young again, young and fearless. For that one shining moment, he’d been exactly the man he’d always wanted to be.