The Russian's Ultimatum(14)

'Mum was so proud when I got the job with Hugo,' she said wistfully. A   flash of pain crossed her face before she took another sip of her wine   and then visibly braced herself, fixing a smile onto her face to say,   'Anyway, your turn.'

'My turn for what?'

'To tell me why you want to buy Plushenko's.'

Briefly Pascha considered batting the question away.

'It's not as if we've anything else we can do other than talk,' she   pointed out, those meltingly gorgeous eyes fixing themselves on him,   waiting.

His eyes dropped to her bare shoulder, his skin heating as he considered   a different, far more pleasurable way in which they could pass the   time...

He gave a brisk shake of his head.

He needed to get a handle on himself.

They might be getting along in the shelter better than he had hoped but   it didn't change the facts. They had blackmailed each other. It was the   only reason either of them was there.

'Marat Plushenko is my brother.'

Emily gave a low whistle. 'I didn't see that one coming. You're trying to buy your own brother's company? In secret?'

He sighed. There was little point in trying to cheat her with part of   the story. 'We're not biological brothers. I never knew my biological   father-he abandoned my mother before I was born. Marat's mother died   when he was a toddler. Our parents married when I was eighteen months   old and Marat five. Andrei adopted me, my mother adopted Marat.'

'Right...' She nodded slowly. 'So you were raised together as brothers?'

'Yes. We were raised together as brothers but Marat never accepted me as   a brother.' He gave a rueful smile. 'He always hated me.'

A groove formed in her brow. 'Why?'

He rubbed his face. 'Marat never wanted anything to do with Plushenko's or with me-'

'Back up a minute,' she interrupted with a shake of her head. 'I've just   got it-Andrei Plushenko is your adopted father, therefore you're part   of the Plushenko dynasty?'

'A dynasty conveys a sense of longevity. Andrei founded the company.'

'I see.'

'Are you sure you weren't Sherlock Holmes in a previous life?'

She laughed. 'You were telling me about Marat,' she prodded.

'He set up a number of failed businesses-I think it was five in all.   Eight years ago he decided he should join the family firm, except he   wasn't prepared to work his way up and learn the business. He wanted to   join at executive level.'                       
       
           



       

'You didn't agree with that?'

'No. To me, it was a ludicrous idea. I was happy for him to join us,   almost as happy as Andrei was, but I thought he should learn the   intricacies of the business first, just as I did.' He shook his head.   'Our father didn't see it like that. He was desperate for Marat to come   aboard, would have given him anything he desired. It came to a head  when  I made the mistake of giving Andrei, our father, an ultimatum-if  Marat  joined the board, I would resign.'

'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.

He put his book down and raised a brow. 'While you are on this island, you are my guest and you will be treated as such.'

It was on the tip of her tongue to rebuke him, to point out that guests   were generally allowed to communicate with the outside world. And that,   oh, as a rule, guests weren't usually forced on to their host's  island.

For once she kept her tongue still.

They both knew the facts. There was little point rehashing them.

They had a long night ahead of them. Better to try and sustain the strange kind of harmony they'd managed to establish.

As long as she continued to keep her guard up, she would be fine.

Rooting round the kitchenette for something to do, she found a large tub   of vanilla ice-cream in the freezer. There was nothing better than   ice-cream to aid harmony.

'Do you want some?' she asked, holding it up for him.

'Sure,' he replied with a shrug, closing his book and placing it on the arm of the sofa.

Grabbing two spoons, she took it over to the table.

Pascha pulled out the chair opposite her and nodded at the tub. 'No bowls?'

'Saves washing up.'

'It'll melt.'

'No, it won't. I guarantee that in ten minutes it will all be gone.' She   might not have been able to manage much of her dinner, but   ice-cream...now, that she could happily eat, however fraught her   emotions. 'If you want a bowl, help yourself.'