Dealing Her Final Card (7 page)

“You really want me to answer that?”

He gave a low, wicked laugh. “It’s a beautiful night. You will come out onto the lanai and cook for me.”

“Fine.” She looked at him dubiously. “It’s your funeral.”

And so half an hour later, Bree found herself on the patio beside the pool, in the sheltered outdoor kitchen, struggling to sauté garlic and flour in garlic oil.

“This recipe is ridiculous!” She sneezed violently as minced thyme sprinkled the air like snowflakes, instead of coating the melted butter in the soufflé pan. “It’s meant for four cooks and a sous-chef, not one person!”

Vladimir, who sat at the large granite table with an amazing view of the sunset-swept Pacific beyond the infinity pool, sipped an extremely expensive wine as he read a Russian newspaper. “You’re exaggerating. For a clever woman like you, surely arranging a few herbs and whipping up a few eggs is not so difficult. How hard can it be to chop and sauté?”

She waved her knife at him furiously. “Come a little closer and I’ll show you!”

“Stop complaining,” he said coldly, taking another sip of merlot.

“Oh,” Bree gasped, realizing she was supposed to be whisking flour and garlic in the hot olive oil. She tried to focus, not wanting to let Vladimir break her, but cooking had never been her skill. Supervising a kitchen staff? No problem. Cracking the eggs herself? A huge mess. She suddenly smelled burning oil, and remembered she was supposed to keep stirring the milk and white wine in the pan until it boiled. As she rushed across the outdoor kitchen, her bare feet slid on an egg white she’d spilled earlier. She skidded, then slipped, and as her tailbone slammed against the tile floor, the whisked egg yolks in her bowl flew up in the air before landing, wet and sticky, in her hair.

Suddenly, Vladimir was kneeling beside her. “Are you hurt, Breanna?”

She stared at him. She felt his powerful arms around her, protective and strong, as he lifted her to her feet.

Trembling, Bree stared up at him, wide-eyed. “You called me Breanna.”

He stiffened. Abruptly, he released her.

“It is your name,” he said coldly.

Without his arms encircling her, she felt suddenly cold and shivery and—alone. For a moment she’d seen an emotion flicker in his eyes that had made her wonder if he...

No. She’d been wrong. He didn’t care about her. Whatever feelings he’d once had for her had disappeared at the first sign of trouble.

Right?

Bree had certainly never intended to love him. The night they’d met, she’d known him only as the young CEO of a start-up mining company, whose family had once owned the land her father had bought in trust for Josie a few years before. “Promise me,” Black Jack had wheezed from the hospital bed, before he died. “Promise me you’ll always take care of your sister.”

In her desperation to be free and keep Josie safe, Bree had known she’d do anything to get the money she needed. And the best way to make Vladimir Xendzov careless about his money was to make him care about her. To dazzle him.

But from the moment they’d met, Bree had been the one who was dazzled. She’d never met a man like Vladimir: so honest, so open, so protective. For the first time in her life, she’d seen the possibilities of a future beyond the next poker game. She’d seen she could be something more than a cheap con artist with a rusted heart. He’d called her by her full name, Breanna, and made her feel brand-new.
I love you, Breanna
.
Be my wife. Be mine forever.

Now she blinked, staring up at him in the deepening twilight. Vladimir was practically scowling at her, his arms folded, his blue eyes dark.

But the way he’d said her name when he’d held her... His voice had sounded the same as ten years ago. Exactly the same.

Vladimir growled a low Russian curse. “You’re a mess. Go take a shower. Wash the food out of your hair. Get clean clothes.” He snatched the empty saucepan from her hand. “Just go. I will finish this.”

Now, that was truly astonishing. “You—you will cook?”

“You are even more helpless in the kitchen than I remembered,” he said harshly. “Go. I left new clothes for you in the bedroom upstairs. Get cleaned up. Return in a more presentable state.”

Bree’s lips were parted as she stared at him. He was actually being nice to her. No matter how harsh his tone, or how he couched his kindness inside insults, there could be no doubt. He was allowing her to take a shower, to change into clean clothes, like a guest. Not a slave.

Why? What could he possibly gain by kindness, when he held all the power? “Thank you.” She swallowed. “I really appreciate—”

“Save it.” He cut her off. Setting down the pan on the granite island of the outdoor kitchen, he looked at her. “At least until you see the dress I’ve left on your bed. Take a shower and put it on. Afterwards, come back here.” He gave her a hard, sensual smile. “And then...then you can thank me.”

* * *

Vladimir should have known not to make her cook.

He’d thought that Bree, at age twenty-eight, might have improved her skills. No. If possible, she’d grown even more hopeless in the kitchen. The attempt had been a complete disaster, even before the raw yolks had been flung all over—perhaps a merciful end before they could be added to the burned, lumpy mess in the sauté pan.

Cleaning up, he dumped it all out and started fresh. Forty minutes later, he sat at the table on the patio and tasted his finished soufflé, and gave a satisfied sigh.

He would not ask Bree to make food again.

Vladimir knew how to cook. He just preferred not to. When he was growing up, his family had had nothing. His father tried his best to keep up the six-hundred-acre homestead, but he’d had his head in the clouds—the kind of man who would be mulling over a book of Russian philosophy and not notice that their newborn calf had just wandered away from its mother to die in a snowdrift. Vladimir’s mother, a former waitress from the Lower Forty-Eight, had been a little in awe of her intellectual husband, with his royal background. Her days were spent cleaning up the messes her absentminded spouse left behind, to make sure they had enough wood to get through the winter, and food for their two growing boys. It was because of their father’s influence that Vladimir and Kasimir had both applied to one of the oldest mining schools in Europe, in St. Petersburg. It was because of their mother’s influence they’d managed to pay for it, but in a way that had broken her husband’s heart. And that was nothing compared to how Vladimir had found the money to start Xendzov Mining OAO twelve years ago. That had been the spark that started the brothers’ war. That had caused Kasimir to turn on him so viciously.

Vladimir’s eyes narrowed. His brother deserved what he’d gotten—being cut out of the company right before it would have made him insanely rich. He, Vladimir, had deserved to own the company free and clear.

Just as he owned Bree Dalton.

He had a sudden memory of her stricken hazel eyes, of her pale, beautiful face.

You called me Breanna.

Rising from his chair, Vladimir paced three steps across the patio. He stopped, staring at the moonlight sparkling across the pool and the ocean beyond.

She really must think he was a fool. She must have no respect whatsoever for his intelligence, to think that she could look at him with those beautiful luminous eyes and make him believe she’d actually loved him once. It would not work. They both knew it had always been about money for her. It still was.

I’ve never been with a man before. I’ve never even kissed a man since you.

Reaching for his wine glass, he took a long drink and then wiped his mouth. She was a fairly good liar, he’d give her that. But he was immune to her now. Absolutely immune.

Except for her body.

He’d enjoyed watching her scrub his floors, watching the sway of her slender hips, of her backside and breasts as she knelt in front of him. He’d wanted to take her, then and there.

And he would. Soon.

Their kiss had been electric. He still shuddered to remember the softness of her body as she’d clung to him. The scent of her, like orchids and honey. The sweet, erotic taste of her lips. He’d intended to punish her with that savage kiss. Instead, he’d been lost in it, in memory, in yearning, in hot ruthless need.

Gritting his teeth, he roughly tidied up the outdoor kitchen, slamming the dirty pans into the sink. No matter how he tried to deny it, Bree still had power over him. Too much. When he’d seen her slip and fall on this floor, her cry had sliced straight through his heart. And suddenly, without knowing how, he’d found himself beside her, helping her to her feet.

You called me Breanna.

Irritated, he exhaled, setting his jaw. He glanced up toward the house. It had been almost an hour. What was taking her so long?

He grabbed a plate and served her a portion of the soufflé, then took a crystal goblet from the cupboard on the lanai. He carried them both over to the tray on the granite table, beside the open bottle of merlot. He looked out at the shimmering pool, at the crashing waves of the dark ocean below the cliff. He tried to relax his shoulders, to take a deep breath.

After he’d nearly died in the car crash on the raceway, his doctor had arrived from St. Petersburg and told him he needed to find a less risky way to relax. “You’re thirty-five years old, Your Highness,” the doctor had said gravely. “But you have the blood pressure of a much older man. You’re a heart attack waiting to happen.” So Vladimir, wrapped up in bandages over his broken bones, had grimly promised to give up car racing forever, along with boxing and skydiving. He’d bought this house and started physical rehabilitation. He’d done yoga and tai chi.

Or at least he’d tried.

He hadn’t made it through a single yoga class. The more he tried to calm down, the more he felt the vein in his neck throb until his forehead was covered with sweat. The pain of doing nothing, of just sitting alone with his thoughts, left him half-mad, like a tiger trapped in a cage.

He’d done extreme sports because they made him feel something. The adrenaline stirred up by thinking he might die was a reminder that he was still alive. The never ending sameness of his work, of one meaningless love affair after another, sometimes made him forget.

And
yoga
was supposed to relax him? Vladimir grumbled beneath his breath. Stupid doctors. What did they know?

He’d already had twelve weeks of twiddling his thumbs, “healing” as ordered, while knowing his brother was in Morocco, tying up various gold and diamond sources in underhanded ways. When his leg had healed enough for him to drive, Vladimir had bought the new Lamborghini to go to the weekly private poker game at the Hale Ka’nani Resort. Then he’d found Bree, who drove him absolutely insane. Even more than yoga.

But what the hell was taking her so long? The dinner he’d made was growing cold. Scowling, he looked up at the second-floor bedroom balcony. How long could it take for a woman to shower?

“Bree,” he yelled. “Come down.”

“No,” he heard her yell back from the open French doors of the balcony.

He set his jaw. “Right now!”

“Forget it! I’m not wearing this thing!”

“Then you won’t eat!”

“Fine by me!”

This dinner wasn’t going at all as he’d envisioned. Growling to himself, Vladimir left the dinner tray on the table and raced inside. Taking the stairs two at a time, he went down the hall and shoved open the double doors to the master bedroom, knocking them back against the walls.

Bree whirled around with a gasp.

Vladimir took one look and his mouth went slack. His heart nearly stopped in his chest.

She stood half-naked, wearing the expensive lingerie, a pale pink teddy and silk robe he’d had a servant buy for her in Kailua. “Make it tacky,” Vladimir had instructed. “The sort of thing a stripper might wear.”

He’d meant to humiliate her. In spite of Bree’s corrupt, hollow soul, she’d always dressed modestly. She never showed any skin—ever. Even when she’d done her best to entice the men at the poker game, she’d lured them with her words, with her electrifying voice, with her angelic face and slender body. But she’d been completely covered from head to toe, with jeans and a leather jacket.

Vladimir had never seen this much of her bare skin. Not even the night ten years ago when he’d proposed, when they would have made love if they hadn’t been interrupted. The lingerie should have looked slutty. It didn’t.

The pale pink color reflected the blush on her cheeks. She looked innocent and young. Like a bride on her wedding night.

Anger and frustration rushed through him. Each time he tried to humiliate Bree or teach her a lesson, she stymied him.

Furious, he crossed the bedroom. Reaching out his hand, he heard her intake of breath as he ripped off the short silken robe, dropping it to the floor. His eyes raked over the creamy skin of her bare shoulders. The slip of silk beneath barely reached the tops of her thighs, and the flimsy bodice revealed most of the curves of her breasts. He saw the thrust of her nipples through the silk, and was instantly hard.

Bree’s cheeks burned red as she glared at him. “Are you happy?”

“No,” he growled. He roughly pulled her into his arms. “But I will be.”

Her eyes glittered. “So you won me in a poker game. Is this what you wanted, Vladimir? To make me look like your whore?”

He saw the shimmer in her eyes, the vulnerability on her beautiful face, heard the heart-stopping tremble of her voice, and felt that same strange twist in his chest.
It’s nothing more than an act to manipulate me,
he told himself fiercely. Damn her!

“You sold yourself to me of your own free will,” he growled. “What other word would you use to describe a woman who does such a thing?”

He heard the furious intake of her breath, saw the rapid rise and fall of her chest. But as she drew her hand back to slap him, he caught her wrist.

“Typical feminine reaction,” he observed coldly. “I expected more of you.”

“How about this,” she hissed, ripping her arm away. Her damp blond hair slid against the bare skin of her shoulders.
“I hate you.”