A Very Russian Christmas (3 page)

She shook her head and turned back to the bookshelves. Rising up on tiptoes, she dragged the duster along the exposed edges. “I don’t think it was luck. I think it was hard work and determination.”

He wasn’t used to receiving such compliments. “Thank you.”

Unable to help himself, Alexei tilted his head and focused his gaze on that pert little ass of hers. She wore bright pink scrubs embroidered with the janitorial company’s logo and a long-sleeved Henley style top underneath. Despite the boxy cut of the outfit, he got a very nice look at her nubile form anytime she stretched.

Dragging his gaze away from her bottom, he turned back to his computer screen and tried to focus on the monthly sales figures in front of him. He wondered at his reaction to Shay. She wasn’t anything like the women who usually caught his eye.

With that sleek black hair she wore in a high ponytail and her warm brown skin, she was the complete opposite of the blondes and brunettes he typically dated. Well—dated was too strong a word for the arrangements he preferred. He had long ago discovered that keeping a mistress worked best for his particular needs.

His mind strayed to the idea of Shay in that sort of role. Almost immediately, he realized it wouldn’t work. She was college-aged, twenty-two or twenty-three, and much too young for that sort of thing. He preferred an older woman, the sort who understood the score and had enough skill and tricks to keep him satisfied in the bedroom. He liked women who were experienced enough to understand that they could never ask for more than he was willing to give.

Money, a luxurious apartment, shopping sprees, a new car and jewelry—he heaped those on his kept women, but when he tired of them, he expected them to move along without causing a fuss. A few had attempted to wheedle their way back into his bed, but he never allowed it. When he was done, he was done. No woman had ever succeeded in capturing his heart…and no woman ever would.

“Mr. Sarnov?” Shay’s gentle voice dragged him from his thoughts. She stood near his desk with a microfiber towel in hand.

“I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“I asked if you wanted me to clean your desk.”

“Oh.” He sat back and pushed out of his chair. “Yes.”

When he rose to his full height, she took a quick step back and glanced up at him with surprise. A big man who had fought on the underground bare-knuckle circuit for years, he was used to intimidating people. He got the feeling it wasn’t his size that frightened her as much as the tattoos on his hands.

Since leaving that mob life behind, he had taken great pains to learn to fit in and blend. He wore long sleeves and stuck to buttoned shirts and ties when handling his business affairs to make sure most of his tattoos were covered. Once, he had even considered having the ones on his hands lasered away, but something had stopped him from following through with the procedure. It seemed dishonest and fake to blast away the reminders of the life he had once embraced—and the life he had fought like hell to escape. Right or wrong, he had earned every single one of those marks.

Noticing the way she gripped the towel in her hand, Alexei decided to clear out of his office while she worked. “Let me know when you’re done.”

“I will.”

Heading downstairs, he tried to ignore the tight ache in his chest at the realization that she was afraid of him. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason it bothered him. It wasn’t until he was chatting with his general manager Martha that he realized why Shay’s reaction left him feeling raw and agitated. That fearful, mistrusting glint in her dark eyes? It told him that she had been hit. The way she had zeroed in on his inked hands assured him it had been a man with tattoos.

After walking Martha to the door and bidding her a good night and happy holiday, he turned back toward the main sales floor and glanced up at his office. His teeth clenched at the very idea of some asshole putting his hands on Shay. The thought of someone striking such a sweet, gentle woman just burned him up.

The sister caught his eye. Still twittering away into her phone, Shannon half-heartedly pushed a broom from one end of the building to the other. Martha had complained about her once or twice, but the janitorial service assured him that Shannon and Shay had the highest customer satisfaction ratings among their clients. No doubt Shay’s attention to detail was the reason for those high marks.

Dedicated and diligent, she had already finished his office and was working her way through the finance and inventory offices next to his. Alexei found things to keep him busy and away from her by ducking into the service garages out back. When he returned, he found Shay moving down the staircase, wiping the hand rails and steps until they gleamed.

He tried not to stare at the wiggling motion of her bottom but he wasn’t a damned eunuch. He was a red-blooded man with needs and that shaking ass of hers was pushing him toward a line he refused to cross. He didn’t fuck employees, and he sure as hell didn’t get involved with sweet young things like that.

That’s why he had women like Marissa at his beck and call. It was simpler that way, with no strings and no expectations. He could pop over to the apartment he kept for his women, have a few hours of fun and then get the hell out and go home. There were no awkward morning run-ins and no guilt trips.

He waited until Shay had moved into the break room to return to his office. Pushing her out of his mind, he called out to the security station and had the two night guards close and lock up the gates. They would need to be opened when the last few employees in the service garages out back left and when Shay and her sister were ready to leave, but he didn’t want anyone else getting onto the lot.

Lost in his work, he didn’t notice another hour had passed until Shay knocked on his door again. She held a clipboard and teethed her lower lip. “Mr. Sarnov? Dan, your maintenance guy, usually signs these slips for us, but he’s not here tonight. Would you mind?”

“Sure.” He gestured for her to bring him the slip. Their fingers brushed together, hers slightly cold, when she handed over the paper. He ignored the way the simple act of touching her made his stomach leap and the way she snatched back her hand.

“I know the floors are usually waxed on Sundays, but they look really dim. You might want to call in and have them send Manny out to do them on Thursday or Friday, especially if you think you’re going to have an increase in foot traffic after Christmas tomorrow.”

Surprised by her thoughtful suggestion, he nodded. “I’ll do that. Thank you.”

She shrugged. “I’m just passing along what I noticed.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Is that hard?” She asked as he signed his name across the bottom of the work ticket.

“Is what hard?” He had to stop himself from tacking on a pet name at the end. The tip of his tongue burned with the unused
sweetheart
she unwittingly inspired.

“Using two different alphabets,” she explained, taking the ticket from him.

“Oh.” He tossed aside his pen and shook his head. “You get used to it.”

She tapped the notepad on his desk and ran her finger over the Cyrillic script. “But you still make notes to yourself in Russian?”

“Old habits,” he murmured, wondering at the way she noticed all the little things he did. “What about you? Do you speak another language?”

“Spanish,” she said. “My dad taught me.”

He sensed there was more of a story there but didn’t push. He had noticed that Shay had darker coloring than her fair-haired, light-skinned sister. They obviously hadn’t had the same father, but that was hardly the sort of thing that was any of his business.

Hearing the soft splatter of icy sleet against the window behind him, he asked, “Do you have another job after this one?”

Her brow furrowed. “You mean another cleaning job? No. Not tonight. You’re our only stop.”

The way she answered piqued his interest. “You work somewhere else?”

She nodded. “I wait tables at an all-night diner near one of the refineries a few nights a week.”

“But you’re on swing shift with the janitorial company, yes?”

“Yes.”

He quickly calculated the hours she worked. The number he arrived at displeased him. “Aren’t you in school?”

“Three days a week,” she said, a small frown playing upon her lips.

“And you get enough rest for that? You must be working fifty hours a week.”

“School is expensive and landlords don’t just let you live in their homes for free.” Signaling an end to the discussion, she smiled at him and backed away from his desk. “Good night, Mr. Sarnov. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.” He watched her leave, all the while wondering why the hell she had gotten under his skin tonight. Certain it was the temptation of the forbidden that called to him, Alexei convinced himself that a nice romp with Marissa would cure him of whatever lingering interest remained. He picked up his phone to let her know that he would be stopping by the apartment later but decided against it. She knew the rules of their arrangement, and he wasn’t required to give her anything more than half an hour’s notice before his arrival.

Fully aware that he was testing Marissa, Alexei set aside his phone and finished tying up the loose ends of his work. He didn’t know how much longer he would keep Marissa. It had been nearly five months—and that was pushing the boundaries for him. She had started to get comfortable and had even attempted to make demands on his time.

Perhaps it was time to head over to one of Kostya’s clubs and take a look at the new dancers. He had had good luck in the past plucking a mistress right off the pole and depositing her in the apartment he kept. Those women were smart enough to negotiate going into the arrangement to get the best deal for themselves, and he liked that. If they were both using one another for what they wanted, it didn’t feel nearly as dirty.

After locking up his office, he slid into his wool coat and hit the button on his key fob for the remote start to his vehicle. He wanted it nice and warm when he slid behind the wheel. He moved through the building to turn out the lights and stopped at the main entrance to punch in the code for the security system. He heard his phone ringing in his office but ignored it. Whoever it was would leave a message.

Out in the cold December night, he started toward his vehicle. The weather forecast had been bad that morning so he had driven his SUV instead of his sports car. He hadn’t made it six steps before he heard the thump of a car stereo’s bass. The hip hop beat wasn’t totally unexpected, and he initially assumed it was one of the mechanics heading home for the night—until he heard the unmistakable sound of Shay’s raised voice.

Hackles raised, Alexei strode down the sidewalk and around the corner of the building to the employee parking lot. He spotted the small white car Shay and her sister drove, the hood of it popped and the engine steaming. A few rows back in the empty lot sat a black SUV with ridiculous gold rims and music blaring so loudly the fucking glass was shaking. He had a mind to call the security guards to see who had let them onto the lot but then remembered the phone call he had just dodged. No doubt the guards had made a decision when he hadn’t answered. It was the wrong one.

With the experience of many years living in the underworld and even now existing right on the fringe of it, Alexei sized up the scene before him with speed. There were at least two other men inside the SUV and two of them standing outside it, one of them with his arm draped around Shannon. Shay stood close to the white car, arms crossed as she shook her head and argued with her sister. Over what he couldn’t say but Shay’s body language was clear to him. She didn’t want to get in that Escalade—and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let her.

Quickly tugging on the knot of his silk tie, he ripped it free and stuffed it into the pocket of his coat before flicking open the top buttons of his shirt. With the collar wide open and the fabric gaping, the heavy prison and mob ink he usually kept hidden was on clear display. From this distance, he couldn’t be sure if the men from the SUV were affiliated with a gang or not, but he figured they would have no problem recognizing the ink emblazoned on his skin if they were. If they weren’t, it would scare the shit out of them.

“Shay?” He raised his voice as he stalked toward her. “Is there a problem?”

Embarrassment flashed across her pretty face. She gestured toward the broken-down vehicle. “Our car is having problems.”

“I can see that.” He moved close to her, standing near enough that he could grab Shay and throw her behind him if it got violent. Holding the gaze of the man who had laid claim to Shannon, he asked, “Do you think that music is loud enough?”

The man glanced at his car and flicked his fingers, the movement giving Alexei a clear view of the gang sign tattooed on the guy’s neck. He recognized the mark of the Guzman cartel and deduced this was one of their street-level pushers. The dealer held up a hand. “No hard feelings,
mano
. We were just about to leave as soon my girl gets her sister in line.”

“Come on, Shay.” Shannon was all smiles as she pleaded with her sister, but he wasn’t fooled. “Ruben came all the way out here to get us so we can go to this Christmas party. It’ll be fun—and Lalo really wants to meet you!”

Lalo? Alexei might have been out of the street life but he kept his ear to the ground and knew all about Eduardo “Lalo” Contreras. He was the top enforcer for the cartel here in Houston. There was no way in hell he was letting Shay get mixed up with that man.