His glacial look stopped her flimsy lie in its tracks. “I know how I look. But I am fine, considering.” A beat. “I hear you kicked up quite a commotion trying to get to me.”
He knew? And he hadn’t told them to let her in earlier?
His expression became even more inanimate as he looked away. “I kept hoping you’d give up and just leave.”
Her throat squeezed, making it nearly impossible to breathe. “I—I realize how you must feel. But there will be other championships...”
He cut her off again. “I’m sick of people placating me.”
Telling herself he needed her nearness even if his current mood made him pretend he didn’t, she sat down and caressed his corded forearm, trying to infuse him with her strength and let their connection bolster him. “I’m not ‘people,’ Leonid. I’m your woman, your lover, and you’re my...”
His gaze swung to hers, this time filled with frost. “You’re free to consider yourself whatever you want, but I’m certainly not your anything.”
The lump in her throat grew spikes. But still convinced it was his ordeal talking, she tried again. “Leonid, darling...”
He shook off her hand, his face twisting in a snarl. “Don’t you dare ‘darling’ me. I made my terms clear from the start. The only reason I was with you was because I thought you agreed to them.”
Shocked out of her wits at his viciousness, she again told herself she must have gravely underestimated the effects of his injuries and near-death experience, that it was better to withdraw now, before he got even more worked up.
She stood up carefully so she wouldn’t sway. “I only wanted to know you’re okay... I shouldn’t have disturbed you...”
“No, you shouldn’t have. But now I’m glad you did.”
“Y-you are?”
“That’s the one good thing that’s come out of this mess. It’s giving me the chance to do what I’ve been trying to do.”
Her heart decelerated, as if afraid to beat and let his meaning sink in. “What have you been trying to do?”
“I’ve been trying to end this.”
Her heart stopped. “This? You mean...us?”
His stone-cold gaze slammed into her, compromising what was left of her balance. “There was never an ‘us.’ I thought we had an arrangement for sexual recreation, to unwind from the stresses of the pursuits that matter in our lives. But you were only pretending to abide by my terms, until I was softened enough, or maybe weakened enough, as you must believe I am now, to change the terms to what you wanted all along, weren’t you? You’re just another status-hunting, biological-clock-ticking woman after all, aren’t you?”
Unable to breathe, she flinched away. “Please...stop...”
He pushed a button that brought him to a seated position, as if to pursue her to drive his point through her heart. “I’m not stopping until this is over, once and for all. I grabbed the opportunity of training to break it off with you naturally, but you only escalated your pursuit. And now that you think me a sitting duck, you’re here to pin me down? To smother me with solicitude at my lowest ebb? You think you’ll make me so grateful I’ll end up offering you a commitment?”
She shook her head, shook all over, the tears she’d suppressed burning from her depths again. “You know it was never like that. Please, just calm down...”
“So now you want to make it look as if I’m raving and ranting? But you’re right. I’m not calm. I’m fed up. What else can I do so you’ll understand I can’t bear your suffocating sweetness anymore?”
Shock seeping deeper into her marrow, she staggered back to escape his mutilating barrage. “Please...enough... I’ll leave...”
“And you won’t return. Ever.”
His icy savagery shredded her insides. It was as if the man she loved had never existed. As if the accident had only revealed the real him, someone who relished employing cruelty to get rid of what he considered a nuisance.
She’d swayed halfway to the door before she stopped.
She couldn’t bear telling him. It would only validate his accusations. But he had to know.
Teetering around, she met the baleful bleakness of his stare, and forced the admission out. “I—I’m pregnant.”
Something spiked in his gaze before his thick lashes lowered, and he seemed to be contemplating something horrific.
At length, demeanor emptied of all expression, he raised his gaze to her. “Are you considering keeping it?”
Her world tilted. The Leonid she’d known would have never asked this. The real Leonid did because it was clear he’d rather she didn’t.
Trying to postpone falling apart until she walked out, she choked, “I only told you because I thought you had a right to know. I guess you would have rather not known.”
“Answer me.”
The remaining notches of her control slipped. “Why are you asking?” she cried. “You made it clear you care nothing about what I do or about me at all.”
He held her gaze, the nothingness in his eyes engulfing her.
Then he just said, “I don’t.”
One
Two years later...
“After his disappearance from public view over two years ago, Prince Leonid Voronov is back in the spotlight. The former decathlon world champion dropped off the radar after suffering injuries in a car crash that took him off the competitive circuits. Now the billionaire founder and CEO of Sud, named after the Slavic god of destiny and glory, one of the largest multinational corporations of sports apparel, equipment, accessories and services, could be poised to become much more. As one of three contenders for the resurrected throne of Zorya, a nation now in the final stages of seceding from Belarus, he could soon become king. With our field reporter on the scene as the former sports royalty and possible future king exited his New York headquarters...”
Kassandra fumbled for the remote, pushing every button before she managed to turn off the TV just as Leonid appeared on the screen.
But it was too late. She’d seen him. For the first time since she’d walked out of his hospital room twenty-six months ago. That had been the last time the world had seen him, too. He’d dropped off the radar completely ever since.
But he was back. Reentering the world yesterday like a meteor, making everyone gape in wonder as he hurtled out of nothingness, burning brighter than ever.
Everywhere she’d turned in the past twenty-four hours there’d been news of him. She’d avoided getting swept up in the tide of the world’s curiosity about his reappearance, at least outwardly. Until now.
Now her retinas burned with the image of him striding out of his imposing Fifth Avenue headquarters. In spite of herself, she’d strained to see how much of the Leonid she’d known had survived his abrupt retirement from his life’s passion.
The man she’d known had been crackling with vitality, a smile of whimsy and assurance always hovering on his lips and sparkling in the depths of his eyes. He’d perpetually looked aware of everything and everyone surrounding him, always connected and tapping in to the fabric of energy that made the world. She’d always felt as if he was always ready to break out in a run and overtake everyone as easily as he breathed. Which he’d literally done for eight years straight.
The man who’d filled the screen had appeared to be totally detached, as if he no longer was part of the world anymore. Or as if it was beneath his notice.
And there’d been another change. The stalking swagger was gone. In its place was a deliberate, almost menacing prowl. Whether this and the other changes she’d observed were sequels of the physical or psychological impact of his accident, one thing was clear, even in those fleeting moments.
This wasn’t the man she’d known.
Or rather, the man she’d thought she’d known.
She’d long faced the fact that she’d known nothing of him. Not before she’d been with him, or while they’d been together, or after he’d shoved her away and vanished.
For most of that time, Kassandra had withdrawn from the world, too. After the shock of his rejection, she’d drowned in despondence as its implications and those of her pregnancy had sunk in. She’d been pathetic enough to be literally sick with worry about him, to pine for him until she’d wasted away. Until she’d almost miscarried.
That scare had finally jolted her to the one reality she’d been certain of. That she’d wanted that baby with everything in her and would never risk losing it. That day at the doctor’s, she’d found out she wasn’t carrying one baby, but two.
After the scare and the discovery, she’d forced everything into perspective, then had even progressed to consider what had happened a blessing. Before Leonid, she’d never thought she’d get married. She’d never considered marriage an option between them, not even when she’d wanted to demand a change in their arrangement. But she’d always wanted to be a mother. Especially after her best friends, Selene, Caliope and Naomi, had had their children. She’d known she wanted what they had, that she’d be good at it, that it would complete her life.
As he’d said, one good thing had come out of that mess. She would be a mother without the complication of having a man around.