He ate quietly for a few minutes, obviously getting his temper under control. There was no way his temper didn’t burn hot and ferocious, not when he was a fire element. Hers did. She’d learned to control it, just as he had, but she didn’t fool herself into believing it wasn’t there, smoldering just beneath the surface and ready to burst into flames at any moment.
“Did Gavriil give you Belsky’s name and a way to contact him?”
“Casimir…”
Casimir leaned close, his eyes behind the dark contacts burning with fire. “Did he? It’s not that hard to answer the fucking question, Lissa. A yes or no will work.”
She sighed. “Yes. He warned me not to trust him. He also said the information would be reliable. He’d heard a rumor that the Sorbacovs had bought into the hotel.”
“Gavriil always did have a good network.”
“Why are you angry with him for helping me?” She put down her fork and rubbed his thigh with soothing strokes of her hand. “I was going to go after them whether Gavriil helped me or not. I wasn’t going to tell anyone, least of all him. He came to visit me and he found my maps strewn all over the floor. He guessed, and there was no dissuading me. I should be the one upset with him because he called you in.”
He didn’t answer her question. “Once we get the job done here, we’re going to sit down and plan out an attack. I take it you have an appointment with the owners or management of that hotel in St. Petersburg.”
She nodded. “They said they read an article on me and were intrigued with my work. I sent them some of my designs and they loved them.”
“They made the initial contact?”
She nodded. “I know what you’re thinking. Of course they know of my association with Sea Haven. My hometown was in the article.”
“This doesn’t concern you?”
“I think that’s what got me the foot in the door. But regardless, they’re going to look at my work for their hotel. Uri Sorbacov is a control freak. He won’t be able to resist being at the meeting. I don’t know about his father, but he’ll be there for certain. Everything I’ve read about Uri says anyone entering into any kind of business deal with him is doing so at their own risk. He’s a shark. He isn’t going to let someone else decorate his hotel. My guess is the other owners wanted the chandeliers dripping crystals. I sent other designs after they contacted me, blown glass with crystals dripping from twisted glass ropes. Very cool. Modern, beautiful and yet old-world enough to satisfy the more traditional hotel owners.”
He sat back in his chair, his hand once again covering hers and pressing her palm deep into the heat of his thigh. “You plan on charming the socks right off of him.”
She smiled. Faintly. Because there was something in his expression she didn’t like. “Something like that.”
“Well you can just forget it, Lissa. He is a shark, and you can’t play him. He’s intelligent and he knows his life is in danger as long as any of the products of those schools are still alive. He will have had you thoroughly investigated. Thoroughly. You may think Lissa Piner has a great history and won’t be discovered, but he’ll find out who you really are.”
Lissa nodded. “Honey, I’m counting on that. I intend to tell him my entire history. Volunteer it myself. Luigi will be dead, my adoring uncle. Tio Luigi insisted on changing my name and sending me to the United States in order to protect me. It will work, Casimir. You know it will.”
“And what of your connection to Sea Haven and the Prakenskiis? He knows Ilya is there. He has to know Gavriil is as well.”
She smiled at him. “I’ll admit that as well when he brings it up. He’ll try to trap me, but by that time, I’ll have maneuvered him just where we want him.”
He sighed and shook his head. “You have a plan.”
“The beginnings of one, but we’ll get into that later, not today when I want to spend my time alone with you.”
He brought her hand to his mouth, this time pressing a kiss into the exact center of her palm, his face soft and warm and so loving she wanted to cry.
“You’re so beautiful, Giacinta. Do you have any idea what it means to a man like me to have you sitting here with me, out in the open, seeing me? To know that no matter what I look like, no matter what I act like, you see me – Casimir Prakenskii. It’s a gift I never thought possible.”
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out because his teeth teased the pads of her fingers and his gaze held hers.