Jaded (3 page)

S
he blinked and her face flushed, emotion rising to clog her throat. She was certain she’d never see him again. He was from another time, another life. “How did you know where to find me?”

“I left Milzyr, but you never left my mind. I have been inquiring about you over the years, so I knew right where to locate you.”

He’d been keeping tabs on her? Inquiring about her? She wasn’t sure what to do with any of that information. His very presence was more than she could process at the moment. Her legs shook as she walked into the room. “It’s been a long time.” Her voice sounded as shaky as her legs felt.

“Yes, and you look even more beautiful than before, Lilya. More sure of yourself. Confident. Happy. Healed?” He smiled again, and her whole body warmed. “It’s been six years.”

She sat down on a nearby chair and stared at him. “You disappeared. After you helped me, left me the deed to the house, you just . . .
left
. I didn’t know how to get in touch with you, then I discovered who you were and . . .” She trailed off. “Well, then I suppose I was too nervous to contact you.”

This man had been her salvation. He’d literally saved her life when she’d been young. He’d lifted her out of the mess she’d made of her existence, set her on the path to making her own decisions, controlling her fate, and then one day she’d woken up and he’d just been . . . gone.

He spread broad hands that she remembered fantasizing about when she was younger. He’d never touched her, though. Not sexually. Not more than a kiss. Not even when she’d wanted him to. One night, right before he’d left, she’d begged him to put those big, rough hands on her and he’d refused. She’d always wondered if that had been why he’d left. Had she scared him away? “You made it plain you didn’t want anything of me but superficiality,” Byron said.

She looked down, controlling her emotions. Once she had them in check, she looked up at him. “Can you blame me after what I’d been through? It was not a good time. I wasn’t ready for any sort of deep emotion when I was simply dog-paddling to keep my head above water.”

“I know. How are you now?” He gestured at the room with his hand. “Are you happy with the decision you made? Knowing what I know of you, this is not a life I would have predicted you would make for yourself. I left you well off. You didn’t—”

She cut him off. “I’ve made a very good life for myself here. This was my choice and I don’t regret it.”

“Ah. Your choice.” His pupils darkened and he went silent for a long moment, considering her. “Maybe in time I’ll come to understand your motivations.”

“In time?” She frowned. What did that mean? She couldn’t imagine he would want to spend any time with her. Not now. She’d been a project of his long ago and, like any new project of a rich man, she’d assumed he’d eventually lost interest in her.

He ignored her query, his gaze skating over her, warming her from head to toe. “You look, as usual, beautiful.”

She felt herself flush. Men told her she was beautiful all day long, but this was one of the few who could bring color to her cheeks when he said it. “Thank you. You also look well. The years have treated you kindly.”

He studied her for a long moment, his dark blue eyes seeming to go even darker and bluer. “Such a polite thing to say, Lilya. I think we know each other fairly intimately. We don’t need to observe all the social niceties.”

“You’re right.” She smiled, studying him.

He was not a particularly handsome man, not in the classical sense. His features were a little too rough and craggy for that. His nose looked like it had been broken a couple of times. He appeared more like a thug than an heir to a fortune. His lips were full and sensual, though, and there was a whole ocean of emotion and keen intelligence in those blue eyes.

Byron Andropov was a mystery to her. A man who had found her in the worst part of her life and pulled her out of her misery with a single motion of his moneyed hand. He’d set her on the path to salvation back then and hadn’t taken advantage of her vulnerable state even though she’d begged him to. Then he’d disappeared one morning and she’d wondered about him ever since.

She swallowed hard, her brow knitting. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she threaded her fingers in front of her. Suddenly she realized she felt a little like Wilhem must have felt minutes ago. “Byron, why did you leave?”

“My father died,” he answered. “I had to return home to see to the arrangements and take care of his businesses. By the time I left I knew you were back on your feet and wouldn’t miss me.” He grinned. “Did you miss me?”

“Of course I did. I wondered for months where you’d gone. You never left a word. Never sent a letter—”

“Whole months?” His eyebrows rose. “Incredible.”

She smiled. “You know what I mean. You could have at least said good-bye. Of course I missed you. I owed—
owe
—my life to you.”

“No, you never owed me that. Your life is yours to live. I always admired your wildness and freedom. I guess I also thought that if I stuck around, I’d fall in love with you and you’d break my heart. Thus, I broke our relationship off clean.” He studied her for a long moment. “I guess maybe I couldn’t bring myself to say good-bye.”

That coaxed a smile from her. “You’re such a charmer. A man like you can have any woman he wants. I know better than to think you’d want me for more than just a couple nights. You’re probably married to a beautiful woman by now, with several children running around.”

“Ah, my Lilya, ever the jaded one. No, I’m not married. I never took a wife.” He grinned. “As far as I know, I’ve never sired any offspring.”

That was hard to believe. The man exuded potency from his very pores. No, he wasn’t handsome, but he was the kind of man that women fantasized about. “Now really, Byron, why are you here? Have you just come to visit? Catch up on old times?” She doubted that. Their “old times” hadn’t been very enjoyable, not until the very end of the year they’d spent together, anyway.

“No, I’m here on business of a sort. How many clients do you have right now?”

“Three. Well, two, as of five minutes ago.” She sat back and pressed her lips together, not wanting to give out more information before he did. Did he want to be her client? That didn’t sit right with her. Not Byron. She couldn’t do it. He was too different from the other men she took into her bed. Too . . . special.

“Only two?”

She nodded. “I see them about once a week, sometimes twice.”

He frowned. “I’d expected you to have more.”

“
I
choose my clients, not the other way around. These men suit me. They’re not cheating on their wives, they’re gentle, and they seem to need me.”

“Need you?” His voice held a note of insinuation.

“Sex isn’t always about the physical act, Byron. In fact, it very often isn’t about that at all. Oh, it’s nice, the orgasm, but it’s more about connecting with another person, feeling their smooth skin, the heat of their body, the sensation of their lips on yours. My clients are usually men who are socially awkward, incapable of procuring a wife. They’re lonely. For just a little while my clients feel less alone in the world. They feel as though someone cares about them, and I do care about them. Very much.”

“But you don’t love them.”

“Not in the classical sense. That sort of love would ruin me.”

“Of course, I can see why you would think that.” His voice came out a deep, gentle rumble that stroked over her skin and deep into places her mind didn’t like to travel. There was a world more in those words than the obvious.

She directed her gaze into her lap, suddenly unwilling to meet his eyes. This man knew more about her than anyone in the Temple of Dreams, more about her than anyone did. Of course she believed love would be her ruin when once it had been. Experience bred wisdom.

He rubbed his chin. “Only two clients. Are you taking more?”

Her blood turned icy for a moment at the implication. She couldn’t take Byron as a client for reasons that seemed impossible to examine at the moment. Having him pay for the privilege of being in her bed was something she couldn’t bear.

She shook her head, still unable to meet his gaze. “No. I don’t want or need to take on any more.”

“Are these three . . .
two
men in love with you, Lilya?”

She examined her hands clasped in her lap, thinking of Wilhem. “Some of them think they are, but they only need to see that I’m not the right woman for them. Some of them ask me to marry them. I have a whole drawer filled with ring boxes from their proposals.” She raised her gaze to him. “But my clients know my nature. They know not to expect . . . more. At least, they
should
know.”

“You have a cruel and dangerous nature.”

Her face twisted. “What did you say?” She leapt to her feet. “You haven’t seen me in six years! You don’t know me at all! How dare you come here and insult me—”

He stood, holding out his hand. “Please, Lilya, I didn’t mean to insult you, but you know what I’m saying is true. You weren’t born this way; you were made to be this way by what happened to you. You can’t help it.” He paused, clearly searching his mind for the right words to explain himself. “You’re dangerous in the way of a lion. Beautiful to look at, irresistible to touch, yet if someone gets too close, they’re going to get hurt. It’s simply your nature to draw men, let them fall in love with you, and never reciprocate. That’s why you have an entire drawer filled with rejected romantic dreams.”

She didn’t know how he knew so much about her inner workings, but he was right.

There was something broken in her.

It had started to break when she’d been younger, when she’d been on the streets of Milzyr. Living on her own had made her hungry for love, protection, a companion to share her life with. When all that had come to her, or she’d
thought
it had come, she’d leapt at the opportunity, been betrayed, and her body and mind had shattered into pieces far too tiny to ever pick up. She might secretly wish to find someone to spend her life with and be just a little jealous of women who’d found it, but she lacked the ability to achieve it for herself.

It was simply not in her. Not anymore.

He continued. “It’s what I find so beautiful and fascinating about you. Woe be to the man who falls in love with you, and all of them do.”

“Maybe I should let all my clients go,” she snapped. Her voice held a note of scorn, hating that he’d told the truth about her. The truth hurt. The tone of her voice clearly said she had no intention of quitting, however.

He took a step forward. “Yes. Let them all go and come with me.”

She looked up at him, eyes wide. Something hot and painful momentarily caught in her chest. She supposed it was natural she cared about this man more than she might others, considering their past. He’d done so much for her.
“What?”

“I want you to take myself and a friend on as clients. Come with me to my house in Ulstrat. It would just be for a couple weeks.”

She’d been hoping he wouldn’t ask. Now that he’d said the words she found they stung like nettles. Her heart shredding a little, she sat down with a thump. “That’s very irregular.” How could she decline him while masking the fact that his request cut her deeply.

Never could she sleep with this man as a business arrangement. Never could she share him with another woman either, not even if she were being paid.

He sat next to her. “Irregular to entertain two men at once? I would assume you would have that request frequently. In any case, I’m not asking for what you think I’m asking for.”

She let out a slow breath. When he’d mentioned his friend, she’d assumed it was a woman. Requests for her to join in threesomes with a man and another woman were very common. Requests for her to join two men were less common, but not infrequent. She very rarely said yes to either arrangement, instead passing them off to the women she knew enjoyed them more.

“Not that. I meant going away from the Temple of Dreams.” She searched for a way to deny him without revealing her true reason for saying no.

“I assume that’s because it’s a safety issue. Yet, you know me. You know I would never—”

She laid her hand on his. “That’s not even a question.”

He looked down at her hand and she drew it away. “In any case, I’m not requesting sexual services from you.”

This was very odd. “What do you mean? You do know what I am, don’t you?”

“I want you to come with me to my house for a couple of weeks and meet my friend. You will be a visiting guest. Pretend it’s a vacation for you, one I’m paying you to take. No sex will be expected unless it is something that grows organically between you and Alek.” He paused. When he spoke next his voice was low and rough enough to send her skin into gooseflesh. “Or between you and me. Sex only if you choose it.”

“I
always
choose it, Byron.” She licked her lips, her gaze darting to the side as she remembered things best left to shadow. “I simply don’t understand the rationale for this.”

“Trust me, there is a purpose. You said it yourself—a courtesan’s value isn’t necessarily sex, it’s companionship. Alek needs your companionship.”

She looked at him. “Byron, I don’t know if this is a good idea.” He sat very close to her, his body heat radiating out and warming her through her clothing. She’d always wanted him and, apparently, nothing had changed where that was concerned. Looking up at him, she gave him a half smile and spoke with a playful lilt she didn’t feel. “After all, you’ll probably fall in love with me and, as you’ve pointed out, I’m dangerous. Your heart will be broken by the time the two weeks are up.”

“I was immune to you once and feel certain I can manage it again. In any case, while I admit to selfish reasons in choosing you for this, this is not for me. This is for my friend Alek. He needs the experience of a woman like you.”