The Marriage Ultimatum (City of Dreams Series) (5 page)

“Are you kidding me? How could someone take two and two and come up with something so outrageous?” If she wasn’t looking into his seriously enraged face and the black-and-white tabloid proof, she would have laughed at the crazy of it.

Vlad looked like he wanted to throttle her.

“You engineered this. You went one better than a harassment claim, didn’t you? And these are just the print tabloids! My people tell me that
TMZ
,
Huff
and the online outlets are going crazy posting their speculation as to why we kept our supposed relationship a secret.”

“Our relationship? That’s ridiculous.” No way would she ever seek any type of publicity, much less come up with this crazy accusation.

“Since you have done it,” he waved the papers in front of her face again, “that denial amounts to another lie. Who can believe anything you say?”

Sabrina waved her hand right back.

“Get them to issue a retraction. You’re VGI, just call them, threaten a lawsuit, tell them what’s what.” It was ludicrous for them to think she and her boss, her former boss, she corrected herself, had been lovers.

Really, Sabrina?
She stopped that line of thought in its tracks. No, that part wasn’t outlandish. He was wildly attractive, and she’d spent fifteen never-to-be forgotten minutes in a car with him just the night before last but nevertheless.

“A response will only cause further inquiry, further investigation. Legal says the quickest way to get out from under this is to say nothing.”

Further investigation?
Sabrina was having a hard time getting her head around the concept of his accusations. Was he serious? This was hardly the kind of stuff the media wasted time on. At least, not serious time. Was that the right approach? Just ignore it all till the uproar blew over? The tabloids, thanks to who knows whom, thought she was the baby mama of the child of one of the richest men in the world. It would be funny if he weren’t fuming like an angry bear in her postage stamp of an apartment.

“Legal? Have you been involved in this kind of thing before?”

“No! Never!” The contained power in his voice made her think of a volcano about to erupt “This has
never
happened before.” He said the words slowly as if his patience was hanging by a thread.

“Then what are you doing here? Won’t that just fuel speculation if someone spots you here where I live…?”

“No one knows I’m here, yet. I came in through the alley behind this building. We’ll go out the same way.”

“Wait, what did you say? We? No way! You fired me, remember?
We
aren’t going anywhere!” Anger surged like a tidal wave inside her, and Sabrina could barely form words.

“Save it, Sabrina. We’re in this together. You pulled me into this mess, and now I’m calling the shots.” His eyes darkened to black and his deep voice dropped to a threatening register.

“Pack some things for you and the boy. Your sitter will take him. You’ve got five minutes.”

“Whoa. No. No way. I’m not going anywhere and neither is Alex.”

“That was not a request nor was it an invitation.”

He glanced at the stainless steel Rolex on his wrist completely ignoring Sabrina, which only made her anger sizzle hotter.

“Four minutes.”

She stood her ground. “I don’t know who you think you’re speaking to, Mr. High and Mighty Grigory. Mrs. Egan…”

“Has already agreed to look after your boy. We spoke not five minutes ago, and she’s been paid a bonus for the unexpected time.” He folded his arms across the breadth of his chest, his stance implacable.

“By the way,” he paused maliciously, “she told me she read the papers and she forgives you for not telling her about me.” His laugh was cynical.

Sabrina digested his words. Then, comprehension dawned and the feeling of defeat that understanding engendered, deflated her anger like so much hot air expelled from a balloon. She was done. If Mrs. Egan, who knew Sabrina better than anyone, except for Lacey, believed the ludicrous tale in the tabloids, everyone would. Her panicked gaze sought the unyielding navy of his.

“Two minutes,” he said.

****

“At least tell me where we’re going.”

They’d been on the road for three hours and spoken not a word. The rain had only worsened over the previous twenty-four hours. Right now, it was a furious stream gurgling along the gutters of the city streets and its outer roadways, way too much for the sewers to handle. Blinding drops the size of quarters bulleted the windshield, and Vlad had powered on every available gadget in the late model Navigator to keep the interior comfortable and the sightlines clear.

The late summer storm that had been plaguing the city and its surrounding suburbs had now turned into what the weather forecasters were calling a hurricane event.

“We’re going to my place on the north shore of Long Island. A property the paparazzi don’t know about. You don’t need any more information than that.” His deep voice was icy-calm, his jaw set with concentration. He didn’t even glance at her as he spoke.

His assertion was laughable. Long Island was all she needed to know? He might be a globetrotting tycoon, but she’d never been out of the five boroughs in her life. In fact, she’d never actually made it into two of them. So, Long Island might as well be Timbuktu as far as Sabrina was concerned.

Her father was the traveler. Apparently, he’d been crisscrossing the states for years. Probably toured the rest of the world too for all she knew. When she’d begged her mother, back when she was an impressionable thirteen year old for some information about him, when she’d wanted to visit him, her mother had laughed a harsh kind of laugh that was really no laugh at all.

Then swallowing tears, Lily filled her in. Her dad could be anywhere from Oregon to Florida. He hadn’t given them his address, she’d gently explained because he didn’t want to be found. Apparently, he moved around so much, his addresses expired faster than the milk in their fridge.

He’d stopped by New York to see them, exactly once, but when the divorce was finalized, he disappeared. Sabrina hadn’t heard from him in almost ten years.

When her mother had been in the fatal hit and run two and a half years ago, Sabrina hadn’t any address to let her dad know. Nor had she discovered any information giving her the identity of Alex’s dad. She would have notified him as well.

From that moment, Sabrina accepted that Alex had only her to depend on. And she had only herself.

She pushed those old thoughts down. She had enough in the present to worry about.

She looked over at Vlad’s hard profile. The storm clouds cast his face in shadow and the day’s growth of beard darkening his jaw accentuated his uncivilized air.

“You’ve got this all wrong you know,” she said.

His gaze remained fixed on the road. He handled the SUV like an expert, but the afternoon sky was like pitch and visibility nil. It was a challenge just to see the white lines painted on the road with rain lashing the windows faster than the high-tech windshield wipers could carry it away. They were alone on the road, no doubt the only people foolish enough to brave the storm as they powered down the highway.

“If you want to talk, then tell me why you did this or who put you up to this. Who caused you to claim I’m the father of your child? Because that was a grave mistake. Tell me now. If not, I’ll see to it that you never work in New York again.”

Never work in New York again? Never?
Sabrina fell back against her seat squashing down the rising feeling of panic. Could he really do that?

“Don’t threaten me!” The demand came out more like a wail. Could he do that? Yes.
What will I do if I’m blackballed by a man as powerful as Vladimir Grigory?
The unyielding set of his shoulders and his harshly delivered words said he’d fought many a battle and she would be just another skirmish on the list. Did he even see her as a person? Or was she was just an obstacle to be overcome, and if she was stomped on in the process, well that was just the way the ball bounced. She had to make him see her as herself, not just a wicked character in a drama of someone else’s making.

“I didn’t do anything but fight for my job. There’s no way I would’ve done anything to jeopardize it. And with such a ridiculous story.”

“Ridiculous?”

“Of course. You’re an international businessman, a millionaire,” he smiled at that, “a billionaire,” she corrected, feeling her face heat, “a powerbroker. I’m a low-level office worker and a student. Who would believe…”

“A student?”

She nodded, annoyed at the surprise she could hear in his voice. “Finishing my degree online.”

She turned her face away from those accusing eyes, toward the passenger window, anger at his calmly issued threat whipping through her so fast she couldn’t see, couldn’t focus. What did he care that she’d dropped out of traditional college after her mother’s death because Alex needed someone there for him? That she’d transferred the bulk of her graphic design credits over from City College to an online college?

Sabrina knew she would finish her degree even if she did it literally one credit at a time. Her mother often lamented her own failure to finish college and Sabrina was too close to give up now. But who knew when she would complete her coursework now that she was without a job and embroiled in this drama?

Now that goal was retreating into the cloudy distance.

And it was all Vladimir Grigory’s fault.

“And the last thing I would ever do is claim you as the father of my child.”

****

Something in her words hit him deep in a way he didn’t want to examine. Why would anyone want to claim him as the father of her child? He wasn’t father material. Nor had he been child material apparently.

The fact remained either she herself had schemed to smear his name with people who cared about such things or she’d fallen prey to a bribe from those who wanted to tar his reputation.

Either way, he would discover every detail of her plan and crush whoever had the balls to play with his life like this. He would crush them.

He felt the rage build inside his chest and shoved it back down, breathing deep. He was far from the helpless boy he’d been then. He’d worked and learned and created an empire that was larger and more powerful than his every bold imagining. Childish imaginings he’d once cherished somewhere that consisted of nothing more than having a family. But that desire turned out to be a pipe dream and he’d put it aside long ago.

What he had now was a solid reality, a business he himself created which would be more lasting and more controllable than the ephemera that had clouded his boyish thoughts.

“What I meant to say,” she said, reaching over to touch his forearm.

Vlad flinched and turned obsidian eyes on her.

“The last thing I want is to father a child with you, or anyone else, but the world now believes otherwise,” he said.

“Not because of me.” Her voice was fierce and she gave him back the stubborn look that was becoming all too familiar to him. He almost smiled at her intense expression before a grating sound had him wrenching his gaze back to the road. A gigantic pine creaked with ear splittingly violent suction as its massive base parted with the earth in front of them.

Vlad hit the brakes and pulled hard left to avoid the tree as it hit the ground with a thunderous bounce.

Sabrina’s body jolted forward even as Vlad’s right arm shot out in a reflexive protective motion across her chest.

He yanked the car into park.

“Are you okay?” he forced out a harsh breath and looked over at her. She seemed small sitting on the enormous bucket seat of the Navigator. She had such a bossy mouth he forgot she couldn’t be more than five-five.

“Fine,” she retorted shaking her hair back. “Wearing a seat belt. Better than whoever owns that tree is gonna feel.”

The huge pine had tumbled across the road near a long winding driveway crushing several smaller bushes in its path before starting a slow sink into the muddy earth.

“That would be me. This is my house.”

She sat up straighter and peered through the windshield. The wipers were off and sheets of water ran non-stop across the glass with varying shades of unfocused gray visible beyond.

The pine blocked the driveway. Leaving the car where it was, they made their way up the saturated driveway toward the house. The golf umbrella Vlad pulled from the backseat provided some protection from the driving rain, but it was slow going against the wind, as they squelched through the muck.

“What the hell are you wearing on your feet?” The black lace-up boots were almost completely submerged in the mud as they trudged along.

“Combat boots,” she said.

“Combat? They’re losing the battle,” he said. “You really should have worn something more practical.” The useless footwear was going to be ruined.

“I never expected to be high-jacked into the middle of a hurricane and have to creep along a muddy track with—ooohh, what’re you doing?”

He’d lifted her into his arms and was striding with much more purpose than she’d managed toward the house.

“Getting us there. Maybe saving those boots for another battle.”

“Put me down, Vlad. I can walk.”

She was wiggling and it was distracting. God help him but he was getting turned on. The heat of her body roused him even through the clammy denim of his jeans.

“Question—did you bring anything else for your feet?”

“You hustled me out before I could do much more than pack a toothbrush so the answer is no. Put me down, Vlad. I’m heavy.”

“You don’t really believe that do you? Stop wiggling. We’re almost there.” Aside from her very feminine curves, she didn’t have any spare flesh anywhere. He’d seriously thought she might sink in the boggy road if he hadn’t lifted her out of it. There wasn’t too much of her. It was her smart mouth again, adding inches.

In spite of the blinding rain or maybe because of it, his rambling three-story clapboard house, when they finally reached it, exuded an austere welcome; its gray color serenely blending into the surrounding terrain. The landscaping remained unfinished. Other than the giant tree that now lay across the driveway that had taken a few random bushes down with it, there was no vegetation of any kind to hold the water that continued to cascade around them.