She held him close, her body pressed against his back. Her tight suede halter top thrust her breasts upward, and they felt exquisitely sensitive, the nipples hardening as they brushed against the muscles of his back. She tightened her grip on his waist, her dark hair flying in the wind.
“You’ll never go to that club again,” he said in a low voice, barely audible over the roar of the engine.
“I’ll do as I please.”
“Promise me right now, or I swear to God I’ll turn around and burn the place to the ground.”
She felt his body tense beneath her grip as he waited. His deliciously hard body felt so good beneath her hands. It was enough to make her lose all rational thought.
Perhaps she could give in to this one request, she thought. She didn’t want to go back to the stupid club again, anyway. She had no intention of letting Victor paw at her more on the dance floor.
Next time she’d meet him somewhere else. Like a library.
“All right,” she said. “I promise.”
She felt his body relax slightly. “Good.”
A few moments later he pulled the motorcycle beneath the brilliant marquee of L’Hermitage Casino Resort.
Like the Parisian and Venetian hotels down the street, L’Hermitage’s architecture was an imposing fantasy.
Much of the design had been based upon the stately nineteenth-century palaces of St. Petersburg, but the centerpiece of the building was a reproduction of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square, with its distinctive onion-shaped domes.
Tossing his keys to the valet, he took her by the hand—more gently this time—and led her through the front door for her first inside look at the finished project that had consumed them both for nearly four years.
She gazed upward at the high ceiling as he led her through the main floor of the casino. The architecture had triangular shaped Russian arches over doors, watched over by painted angels. Soaring above the slot machines and roulette tables, a simulated horizon held the breathless hush of a starlit sky on a cold winter night.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
He smiled at her then, an open, boyish smile, and it nearly took her breath away. “Wait until you see the rest.”
On the other side of the main casino floor they entered the Moskva Shopping Complex, which was built like several outdoor streets within the casino. The storefronts and streetlights, the ambient light and even the sounds of birds far overhead, made Anna feel as if she was walking through a fairytale Russian city.
“It’s just like I dreamed.” She looked at the expensive shops, Gucci and Prada and Tiffany, and her fingers tightened around his. “You made our dream a reality.”
He stared at her, then slowly shook his head. “We did it together, Anna. I couldn’t have created L’Hermitage without you.”
She blinked as tears filled her eyes. He appreciated all the work she’d done, the heart she’d poured into her work.
He looked her full in the face. “I’ve missed you.”
Anna felt her heart stop right in the middle of the ebb and flow of the busy street. The chic people hurrying into the stores seemed to blur around her. Could it be true? Just by seeing her with Victor, could Nikos have realized he missed her? Needed her?
Loved her?
Her heart gave a strange thump. Words trembled on her lips. Horrible words she couldn’t possibly say, because they couldn’t possibly be true. Could they?
“You…you’ve missed me?”
“Of course,” he replied. “No other secretary has ever been your equal.”
“Oh.” The thump moved from her heart to her throat. She turned to face the large building behind her.
“Matryoshka,” she murmured, over the miserable lump in her throat. She stared up at the restaurant’s imposing domes of unpainted wood, like a miniature cathedral tucked inside the fairytale street. She had to change the subject before he realized what she’d been thinking. Before she despised herself more for being foolish enough to think he actually cared for her.
“Wait until you see the inside,” he said, taking her hand. “You’ll think you’re inside the Terem Palace.”
A slender, well-dressed maître d’ stood at a podium just inside the restaurant.
“We’d like the table by the window,” Nikos said.
The maître d’ didn’t bother looking up from his reservation page. “That particular table is booked for four months,” he said, sounding bored. “And we have nothing available for tonight—not a thing—not even if you were the King of—”
Mid-sneer, the man glanced up. He saw Nikos, and his jaw went slack. He suddenly began to cough.