Harlequin Presents January 2015 Box Set 1 of 2(230)

‘Did Andrei choose Marat?’

‘Not in so many words.’ He fixed suddenly bleak eyes on her. ‘What he said was, “But, Pascha, he is my blood”. I handed in my resignation the next day.’

‘How did Andrei react to that?’ Her voice was low, soft.

‘He was very upset with my decision. My mother was too. But I was...’ He almost said ‘devastated’ but stopped himself just in time. ‘I was very angry about the situation, angry enough to change my name from Plushenko to my mother’s maiden name. I’d joined the business straight from school, pushed for the international expansion, the new state-of-the-art workshop...’

He blew out a breath and shook his head as more memories assailed him. ‘It took five years before I began to see things clearly but I never got the chance to make amends with Andrei—he died in his sleep three years ago. Marat took the reins. Since then, Plushenko’s has gone to the dogs. Marat won’t sell it to me so I formed RG Holdings as a front company, spent two years building it up and investing in companies so he wouldn’t be suspicious.’

‘Why does he hate you so much? You’re his brother.’

His chest expanded to see her outrage on his behalf.

You’re his brother.

He’d always wished that to be true.

‘I don’t know. I don’t have any memories of life without him. But he was older when our parents married. He has memories of life without me.’ He shook his head and raised his eyes to the ceiling before leaning back into his chair some more and placing his feet on the chair beside her. ‘Maybe a more pertinent question to ask is why I’m telling you any of this.’

Her gaze still resting on him, she raised a shoulder in a rueful shrug, the expression on her face indicating she didn’t know the answer to that any more than he did.

He breathed heavily and got to his feet. ‘More wine?’ As a rule, he didn’t drink much alcohol, too conscious of the effects it had on the body. Tonight, he was prepared to make an exception.

She covered her glass with her hand. ‘Not for me, thank you.’

‘Have you abandoned your idea of drinking yourself into a stupor?’ he asked lightly.

‘I’d only get really giggly and annoying, and we both know I’m annoying enough as it is,’ she replied, her light tone matching his.

‘In that case, how about I get you a glass of milk?’

She laughed but her eyes remained troubled. ‘I might take you up on that later. Right now, I think I need a shower. My hair is still full of sea salt.’

‘Okay, well, while you do that I’m going to check in with my lawyer.’ He didn’t hold out much hope that his battery would last long but he needed something to distract him.

Sharing his past did not come easily to him, but then he’d never found himself in this kind of situation before, where talking really was the only way of passing the time. The only way apart from the obvious, that was, which categorically could not happen. It just couldn’t.

No matter how tempting he found her: a bundle of sin with porcelain skin and ebony hair.





CHAPTER SEVEN

EMILY SPENT A long time in the shower, clearing her muddled thoughts.

Pascha Virshilas was the enemy. She had to remember that.

But she was hanging on to her hate by the tips of her fingers, the threads she’d gripped her loathing onto loosening to such an extent she couldn’t keep a proper hold on them.

Simply enjoying his company felt like stepping into enemy territory. This was the man who hadn’t given her recently widowed father the chance to defend himself before suspending him without pay; the man who’d left her father to flounder in a pit of despair rather than start the investigation which would have cleared his name. This was the man who had left her father to rot.

He’d looked out for her, though.

Donning a knee-length black dress—when had her wardrobe become so dark? She really needed to inject some more colour into it—she went back into the main part of the shelter and found Pascha sitting on the sofa reading a book.

‘I thought there wasn’t any form of entertainment here,’ she said mock-accusingly.

He held the book up. ‘I’m afraid all the reading material in here is in Russian.’

‘Never mind.’ She wandered past him and over to the kitchen.

She needed something to do, something to keep her mind occupied so it wouldn’t be so full of him.

‘If I’d known I would be having an English guest, I would have arranged for some books of your own language to be stocked.’

‘I’m hardly your guest, though, am I?’ She said it for her own benefit as well as his—a reminder to them both.