Kholodov's Last Mistress (11 page)

‘It can’t have been easy,’ Sergei said after a moment, his hands stroking her back, ‘to have carried all that alone.’

‘I wasn’t completely alone,’ Hannah protested, her voice muffled against his shoulder. ‘I do have some friends, you know—’

‘But you didn’t want to burden them with your problems, because they had enough of their own.’

She thought of Ashley, still struggling to make a new life for herself in California, and Lisa, so anxious about her husband’s job situation. ‘Sort of, I suppose. How did you—?’

‘I know
you,
’ Sergei told her.

She didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, because the thought that Sergei knew her at all sent hope spinning dizzily through her once more and she was afraid of hope, afraid of the following disappointment. This was
Sergei.
Sergei Kholodov,
the coldest, most cynical man she’d ever encountered. The man who was now holding her so gently.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, sniffing and stepping away from him. He let her go. ‘I’ve probably ruined your jacket.’

‘Dry-cleaning does wonders.’

‘Right.’ She tried to smile, but it wobbled and threatened to slide right off her face. She didn’t know what to do with what she’d revealed, what Sergei now knew. She hadn’t meant to say all that; she’d been trying not even to think it for years.

Sergei sighed and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry you went through all this. If I hadn’t—’

‘Don’t blame yourself, Sergei,’ she said, sniffing. ‘Honestly, people have dealt with far worse. And it’s all part of growing up, isn’t it?’ She tried to inject a lightness into her voice, a lightness she didn’t feel. ‘And at least now I’m no longer annoyingly optimistic.’

‘Well, actually,’ he told her with a tiny smile, ‘your annoying optimism is what changed me. Made me hope—for better things. Believe that not all people are as selfish and disappointing as I thought they were.’

Hannah stared at him in disbelief.
This
she had not expected. ‘And did it work?’

His smile turned wry, maybe even sad. ‘I’m trying, Hannah.’

‘Trying to do what?’

‘To believe.’ He took a step towards her, closing the space she’d just created between them. ‘That’s why I was so angry tonight. I didn’t—I don’t want you just to be my mistress. I’ll admit that’s how I’ve treated women. Dolls to keep at a distance, to enjoy and even use and then—discard.’ Hannah flinched at the stark brutality of his words. He nodded in acknowledgement. ‘I know. It’s not pretty, is it?’

‘At least you’re admitting it now.’

‘But you’re different. At least, I’m different when I’m with you. I can be … when I let myself.’

He was speaking words she had, on some level, longed to hear, yet Hannah still stayed sceptical. Suspicious. Maybe she had become too cynical, or maybe she just wanted to protect herself. ‘So I’m the first woman you’ve met that you didn’t want to treat like a whore?’

Now Sergei flinched. ‘That’s not completely fair.’

Hannah gave an accepting shrug. She knew it wasn’t. ‘All right, a mistress, then.’

‘Yes.’

She let out a shuddering breath. ‘I’m not sure I even know what that means.’

‘I don’t either. I told you, I’ve never had a proper relationship before, not a romantic one. And not really one of any kind,’ he added with stark honesty. ‘I have employees and colleagues and acquaintances.’ He shrugged, giving her a half-smile, and the icy suspicion around her heart thawed, just a little bit.

‘Never? Not even one?’

‘No.’

Hannah shook her head. ‘Sergei, what a lonely life you’ve led.’

He inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘Yes. But maybe—maybe now it is time for something different.’

Her heart leapt even as she took a step backwards. ‘How different? How do you change who you are?’

His face blanked, and Hannah had the feeling that she’d hurt him with her blunt question. ‘I don’t know,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t know if I
can
change.’ His mouth thinned into a hard line once more, and Hannah cursed herself for her stupid remark. She could see she was losing him again; he was closing her off just as he had before, and she knew she couldn’t
let that happen. Not now, when he’d been so open. Not now, even if she was still unsure and frankly terrified.

‘I suppose you could try,’ she said, knowing this was a choice. A choice she had control over. ‘We could try.’ She swallowed. ‘I still—I want to believe too.’

He gazed at her, his face expressionless, and Hannah knew whatever they were talking about—whatever relationship they could have—was held in the balance now. She held her breath, her body tense, her heart thudding, everything inside her straining, waiting …

‘All right,’ Sergei finally said. He smiled, a tiny quirking of one corner of his mouth, although his eyes still looked dark and shadowed. ‘All right.’

Hannah let out a shaky laugh. ‘So what happens now, exactly?’

‘Come away with me.’

She tensed. ‘Didn’t we already do that? I came to Paris.’

‘Come with me somewhere different,’ Sergei said. His gaze was steady on hers as he added, ‘Home.’

S
ERGEI
stared down at the latest report he needed to read, facts and figures blurring before his eyes. Meaningless. He hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything in the two days since he’d told Hannah he wanted something different. Something more. The trouble was, he had no idea what that was or how he went about getting it.

Sighing, he rubbed a hand over his face and pushed the papers away. He’d thought being open—for the first time in his life—would firm his resolve. Usually when he chose a course of action he had no doubts, no hesitations. Yet now he didn’t know what action to take, what to
do.
What to feel.

It was a realisation that left him restless, edgy, impatient with everything. So far something more was proving to feel like something less.

A knock sounded on the door of his office and Grigori poked his head in. Sergei bid him to enter with an irritable wave of his hand.

‘Some letters for you to sign,’ Grigori murmured, placing a few typed pages before him. Sergei scrawled his signature, barely looking at the print. Seeming to sense something of his mood, Grigori retrieved them without a word.

‘Has there been any news of Varya?’ Sergei asked abruptly.

Grigori shook his head. ‘Maybe soon,’ he said quietly.

Sergei nodded, knowing that Varya’s latest episode had
given his assistant great worry and grief. She’d shown up at the office several weeks ago, her eye blackened and her arm in a sling. Sergei had been furious; he had wanted to force her to stay, to be
safe
, but Varya had only laughed—brittlely—and said she was fine. She could take care of herself. And she’d melted away from them again, back onto the street.

Sergei knew she was too proud to accept his charity, too afraid to live in his world. He’d known that for years, and yet it still filled him with a deep sorrow.

How do you change who you are?

Hannah’s question reverberated bleakly through him. Varya did not seem able to change; the deprivations of their childhood had scarred her for life. Perhaps he was the same. Perhaps this inability to draw closer to another person was impossible to overcome. Perhaps he was too damaged, as the therapist who had assessed him at fourteen years old had said.

Perhaps he couldn’t change at all.

‘Sergei?’

Sergei glanced up, startled to see Grigori was still there. He’d been so lost in his gloomy thoughts he’d barely noticed the other man. ‘Yes. Here.’ He handed him the last of the letters and Grigori turned towards the door.

‘Grigori …’ Sergei said, and then stopped, because he didn’t know how to go on.

‘Yes, Sergei?’

‘Do you … do you love Varya?’ Grigori blushed, his birthmark turned an even deeper red, and said nothing. ‘I’m sorry,’ Sergei said. ‘I did not mean to embarrass you.’

‘I know,’ Grigori mumbled, ‘that it will come to nothing.’

Sergei rolled a gold-plated pen between his fingers, his features settled into a frown. ‘Have you always loved her?’

‘Since we were children,’ Grigori confessed quietly. Sergei could picture them both as they’d been in the orphanage: Varya ethereally beautiful and dreamy, Grigori slight and
stammering. Both easy targets. ‘We made up stories about what we would do when we left the orphanage.’

Sergei stared at him in surprise, for he had never known that. Even though he’d done his best to protect Grigori and Varya both in the orphanage and on the street, he’d still always been a loner. He’d preferred it that way. ‘Stories?’

Grigori gave an embarrassed little shrug. ‘Yes … we were going to save our kopeks and buy a
dacha
, somewhere deep in the country, and live there together.’ He smiled sadly. ‘Some dreams come to nothing, eh?’

‘Maybe you still could,’ Sergei said, even though he knew the sentiment was hollow. ‘You are both still young.’

‘Ah, Serozhya,’ Grigori said, ‘none of us are young. We are old, and we’ve been old for far too long.’ With another sad smile, he took the letters and left the room.

Sergei stared blindly out of the window, a weary sorrow flooding through him. He wondered if any of the children he’d grown up with had found happiness. Had Alyona? A few days ago the detective he’d hired had rung, said he had some fresh leads to follow in California. Sergei didn’t let himself think about it, didn’t dare hope. At least, he told himself now, Alyona had had a
chance—

Restlessly he rose from his desk and paced the spacious confines of his office, a sumptuous cage. That morning he had left Hannah in his penthouse apartment overlooking Manege Square with his platinum credit card and instructions to buy whatever she wished, his driver at her disposal.

She’d stared at him, her expression so very neutral, the credit card resting in her open palm. ‘Haven’t we done this already?’ she asked and Sergei had stared at her in bewilderment.

‘We are going to the country. You cannot wear ball gowns.’ She’d said nothing, but he’d sensed her disappointment and it frustrated and even angered him.

‘You can choose whatever you like, but you need something to wear, Hannah.’ She still hadn’t spoken, only looked sad, and in irritation he’d snapped, ‘Or don’t buy anything if you don’t wish to. Sit here and sulk all morning.’ And knowing he was the one who sounded childish, he’d slammed out of the apartment.

Now as he prowled his office the memory embarrassed and angered him. This was not what he’d meant when he told Hannah he wanted something different. Yet he felt paralysed to do anything about it, unable even to begin to know
how
to change, and that frustrated him all the more.

Perhaps, Sergei considered bleakly, as he stopped pacing to stare out of the window at the grey city streets below, change was impossible.

Perhaps
they
were impossible. Perhaps pursuing a relationship with Hannah was a fool’s errand. A hopeless cause … just as he had been.

Hannah knew the morning hadn’t gone well. She wasn’t exactly sure how it happened, only that some time between Sergei telling her he had to work and handing her his credit card she’d felt her tender bloom of hope wither at the root. When he’d slammed out of the apartment, leaving her quite alone, she’d been shocked and also sorry, because she had the feeling she’d hurt Sergei even though he would never admit as much.

There were a lot of things he might never do, she reflected. A lot of ways he might never change. In the two days since that allegedly transforming conversation in Paris, they’d both tiptoed around each other, awkward and hesitant, like actors who didn’t know their lines. The sex was still fine; the sex was spectacular. But relationships could not be conducted solely in bed.

And as for what happened out of it … Hannah had no idea
if that would ever work. She certainly knew it wasn’t working now.

Half an hour after Sergei stormed out of the apartment his driver showed up to take her around town in a luxury bullet-proof sedan with tinted windows and a souped-up engine. Hannah had balked a little bit at the car, and the driver, a surly-looking man with a wicked-looking scar bisecting his right cheek, smiled grimly and said, ‘Mr Kholodov takes no risks.’

Good grief, Hannah thought as she slid inside, what kind of business was Sergei
in
? Driving around Moscow in that gangster’s car made her feel as if she didn’t know him at all.

Throughout the morning as she selected a small variety of practical clothes—nothing fancy, nothing sexy—she considered just what she did know of Sergei. She knew he was rich. She knew he was ruthless. She knew he could be kind. As for actual
facts …
she knew he was an orphan, raised by his grandmother, and that he had scars all over his body. And two tattoos. She didn’t know how he’d come by those scars—or tattoos—or why there was no one in his life he’d ever felt he could trust or love. She didn’t know who Alyona was, or where she’d gone.

There was a lot, Hannah decided dispiritedly, that she didn’t know. And she had a feeling Sergei had no desire or intention to tell her.

Her shopping finished, she considered the matter while sipping espresso in Café Pushkin. Pedestrians streamed by outside and weak spring sunshine filtered through the long elegant windows. The driver, who had told her after some urging that his name was Ivan, was waiting outside the door, his arms folded, a veritable bodyguard.

So, Hannah asked herself, was what she didn’t know about Sergei going to keep her from attempting this? This relationship
that they were meant to have, yet didn’t quite seem to be working? Was she going to give it a chance?

Hannah’s expression shadowed as she watched a couple stroll by the café, their arms around each other. The woman’s face was tilted up towards the man’s, the sunshine bathing it in light, yet she already radiated an easy joy from within. Would she and Sergei ever have that? Hannah wondered. Would they ever have anything besides this intense physical attraction, something real and warm and alive?

There had been moments when she’d felt it, felt a pull between them that was not just physical. And Sergei felt it too …

I’m different when I’m with you.

Yet was wanting something enough? After the awkwardness of the last two days and the tension of this morning, Hannah had no answer. Yet she also knew she couldn’t walk away. Not yet. So much of her life felt like a lost cause: her abandoned college career, her parents’ shop, the awful mess of her relationship with Matthew. She didn’t want this to be a lost cause.

She wanted Sergei. She
chose
him, of her own will and strength. And she was willing to fight for him.

An hour later Ivan dropped her off at Sergei’s office, despite his misgivings to do so.

‘Mr Kholodov said to take you home,’ he’d said flatly, and Hannah had smiled sweetly.

‘I want to surprise him.’

Ivan had looked as if he didn’t think that was a very good idea, but to Hannah’s relief he’d agreed to leave her at the office and take her shopping back to the apartment.

Hannah signed in at the sleek front lobby and then rode the lift twenty floors to Kholodov Enterprises.

Grigori was waiting for her by the lift doors. ‘Miss Pearl,’ he said with a nod of his head.

Hannah smiled, genuinely glad to see a familiar face. ‘You
remember me,’ she said, and Grigori bobbed his head in acknowledgement.

‘Of course. But I’m afraid Mr Kholodov—’

‘Isn’t expecting me, I know,’ Hannah finished with a wry smile. ‘I thought I’d surprise him.’

Grigori frowned, and Hannah’s confidence slipped another notch. She’d wanted to come here because the thought of waiting back at the apartment for Sergei with her shopping bags all around her felt too passive. Too much like a mistress. If they were going to attempt a
proper
relationship, then she should be able to come to his office without clearing it with him first. She smiled encouragingly at Grigori. ‘Is he here?’

‘He’s in a meeting, but he should be done in a few minutes,’ Grigori said, still sounding reluctant. ‘You can wait in the reception area.’

Hannah followed Grigori to an elegant and sleekly modern reception area in front of a pair of formidable wood-panelled doors that Hannah suspected led right to Sergei’s office. She sat down in a deep chair that looked a little bit like a banana peel while Grigori went behind his desk and started putting his pile of files away.

She kept her smile and confidence in place for a few minutes, but as Grigori kept shooting her rather worried glances all the doubts she’d managed to banish earlier came creeping back.

‘Tell me, Grigori,’ she said, leaning forward, ‘how did you come to know Sergei?’

Grigori froze, then swivelled slowly to face her. ‘Did he not tell you?’ he asked, warily, and Hannah smiled and shook her head.

‘No, he didn’t.’

Slowly Grigori filed another folder. ‘We grew up together,’ he finally said, sounding reluctant to part with any information.

‘In the same town?’

Now he looked genuinely startled. ‘In the same orphanage.’

‘Orphanage—’ Hannah stopped, frowning. ‘I thought Sergei was raised by his grandmother.’

‘He was, until he was eight.’

‘And then she died?’

Grigori shook his head. The poor man looked really quite unhappy now, but Hannah wanted to know. Needed to know. ‘No, she left Sergei and—’ He stopped, corrected himself. ‘She left him at the orphanage. She’d had enough.’

Hannah could only stare at him, deeply shocked by such information. How could a woman be so callous towards her own grandchild?

‘And what of his parents?’

Grigori shrugged. ‘They were never part of his life.’ He sighed, shaking his head. ‘I shouldn’t have told you all this. I’m sure you appreciate, Miss Pearl, what a private man Mr Kholodov is.’

‘Yes,’ Hannah murmured, ‘I do.’

‘Please—please don’t mention what I told you to Sergei,’ Grigori continued. ‘I would hate for him to be disappointed in me.’ It seemed a strange thing for him to say; disappointed rather than angry. Yet Hannah realised Grigori always spoke of Sergei with a deep respect.

‘Of course I won’t,’ she said, and the ensuing silence was punctuated within seconds by the sound of the panelled doors behind her being opened.

Sergei stood there, his expression focused and yet distant as he spoke to Grigori in staccato Russian. He broke off as he caught sight of Hannah, and for a second, no more, she thought she saw his expression lighten, the beginnings of a smile quirking that wonderfully mobile mouth.

Then his features settled into a far more familiar frown and he came towards her.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Hello to you too.’ It was a little bit of a struggle to rise from the peel-shaped chair, or at least do so elegantly, but somehow Hannah clambered to her feet. Sergei’s mouth quirked a tiny fraction and daringly, deliberately, Hannah stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the mouth. His lips were cool and he did not kiss her back. She tried giving him a playful smile. ‘I wanted to surprise you.’

‘Surprise me,’ Sergei repeated in a tone that suggested he had no idea why she would ever conceive of such a thing.