The Marriage Ultimatum (City of Dreams Series) (6 page)

Still, he liked this house. He planned to spend more time here when the weather improved and see the finishing touches to completion. His brother Pieter had been in charge of those details but clearly dropped the ball on this project as well. Much had yet to be done. As he’d done so often in the past, Vlad made a mental note to finish the necessary tasks himself.

He set her down at the front door and she stood shivering and uncharacteristically quiet, under the overhang on the porch, as the rain formed a curtain of wet around them.

“Let’s get in out of this,” he said. He inserted a key, shouldered the door open, and dropped their bags inside.

Then he hit the light switch.

Nothing happened.

He loosed a rough stream of Russian swear words with a vehemence that far surpassed her break room tirade. The power was out and no doubt the tree covering a massive swath of ground outside had everything to do with it.

The waning afternoon light shone weakly through the enormous windows that flanked the front door as well as from the windows situated on the opposing wall at the far side of the room. They illuminated the spacious interior, warming the roughhewn ceiling beams and stuccoed walls.

“You’re drenched,” he said, running his glance over the hair that was plastered to her head as he watched her unlace her boots and place them carefully to the side of the front door. Because of the wind, the big umbrella had provided scant protection and they were both sopping wet.

“So are you,” she replied.

He could feel the tiny rivulets of water that were still making their way down his face, catching in the creases of his eyes and the grooves at the corners of his mouth.

“Okay. First things first,” he said. “A shower.”

God help him he needed a cold one. Even though she resembled a drenched woodland creature, he had no trouble noticing the outline of her breasts under her damp T-shirt when she had unzipped her jacket. And that had a predictable effect on his body.

He grabbed both of their bags in one hand and motioned for her to precede him. A gleaming mahogany staircase led to an upper floor from which four doors stood ajar. Vlad went into the first room on the right and dropped her bag.

“The bathroom is through there.” He nodded toward the far wall. “You get two minutes because the water won’t stay heated very long without the benefit of the boiler. Let me know when you’re done and I’ll shower.”

****

Sabrina nodded. Then she turned away, flushing when she saw the way he eyed her T-shirt, which was soaked and transparent beneath her sodden jacket. She hurried into the decadent bathroom that was nearly as big as her entire apartment, all marble and glossy cream paint, complete with silver fittings and plush towels. By now, she was shaking in earnest and stripped quickly. It took her a minute to figure out the complicated multitude of knobs and handles in the shower. But then she stepped into total steamy bliss, squeezed a floral shower gel all over, and scrubbed.

Chapter 5

Dream Weaver

Sabrina pulled her damp hair into a loose braid thinking how Alex liked nothing better than to thread his chubby fingers through the tresses when they were unconfined and giving a mischievous tug when she least expected it.

Alex!

Guilt flooded.

For a second time in two days, she’d totally forgotten him. Since he’d been born, Sabrina had gotten used to having her brother on the brain twenty-four/seven. But the events of the last couple of days had been crazy enough to turn her brain to mush. She pulled out her cell and hit the speed dial.

Then she settled on the low bench in front of the bed with its view out the window, down the steep back slope of Vlad’s property. The untamed acres of wavy sea grasses and the stubby pines that angled down to the roiling waters of the storm-swollen bay gyrated in the gale force winds, but she barely saw them. She was fully engrossed listening to Alex, with his limited vocabulary, making a huge effort to describe the rain that didn’t go away, the red rain boots he wore, and Mrs. Egan’s potato soup.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as she said her goodbyes and Sabrina turned to see Vlad, leaning against the doorjamb, arms across his broad chest, eyes full of disdain.

“I’ve never been apart from him.”

“Not even for a night?” His voice was as caustic as acid.

“No.” She planted her hands on her hips.

“There’s no one to impress here, Sabrina, except me and I’m unaffected.”

“Why would I even want to impress you?”

Her lashes swept down to hide the hurt his words caused. Trying her best to hold it together after hearing Alex’s voice and just wanting to hug him, she wondered what had happened to the heart of the man who stood in front of her. He was as gorgeous as a marble god and just as warm.

He turned away only to turn back and ask, “Did you let them know the power’s out?”

An embarrassed flush crept up her neck as she shook her head. She was so overwhelmed by the force of his personality that she was leaking brain cells by the second. No, she hadn’t said a word about the power outage and damn shouldn’t that have been the first thing she said? It was so unlike her to be so flaky, but then nothing about this situation was normal.

Vlad took her phone and called Mrs. Egan back telling her they had no electricity and letting her know not to worry if they were unreachable for a time. He charmed the older lady, giving her a telephone number at VGI she could call for anything she needed. Then he rang off and pocketed Sabrina’s cell phone.

“Hey, what are you doing? That’s my phone.”

“What I should have done earlier. Giving you zero opportunity to contact whoever you are in league with in your attempt to discredit me.”

“That would be no one. Besides, the battery is almost gone anyway, and I didn’t bring a charger.”

She was exasperated and fed up with herself for not remembering such a basic tool of civilization. Not that a charger would do any good in a power outage. But still.

“I’m keeping it for now. I told you, you dragged me into this and now we play by my rules.”

His voice was hard, his posture rigid. She shook her head at the thought that he could possibly think she had the time or the wit to plot against him. But he obviously thought someone had. Who would? And why?

She looked up into his shuttered face, at the bleakness obvious in his eyes. Then her stomach rumbled and she wanted to sink through the floor with embarrassment. She couldn’t remember eating breakfast.

“Please tell me your rules include dinner.”

The words had the desired effect and Vlad laughed. She liked hearing the sound of it. It warmed her in quite a different way from the sensual heat that sent her body into high alert in his proximity.

“Most definitely. I would say whatever’s in the fridge needs to be consumed before it spoils.”

“Hah. Such a gracious invitation. I accept,” she said. Without another word, she brushed past him down the stairs then fled into his kitchen to see what was there.

****

It was the strangest thing. Feeling sort of comfortable with him. As if they often sat on a rug eating cold food in front of the blaze emanating from a massive stone fireplace.

Once Sabrina reached Mrs. Egan and spoke to Alex, she’d relaxed. Vlad was barking up the wrong tree with his suspicions, but she was confident she could make him understand it wasn’t she who released that insane story to the press. And she needed to make him understand to get her job back or to get any other job without his negative interference.

She’d taken charge in the kitchen, fashioning a picnic dinner of nuts, olives, cheese, and salami which they’d devoured. Along with wine. After sunset, the outside world was swathed in varying hues from watery lilac to deep charcoal. The storm raged on with the wind providing a nonstop cacophony. Still the fire cast a soft glow around them creating an intimacy that Sabrina knew was dangerous to her peace of mind. Far from roughing it, she was enjoying this far too much.

“Your house is amazing.” The home was huge on anyone’s terms but cozy for all that. Sabrina sat back against the foot of the sofa, crossed her bare feet at the ankle, and realized she’d never been anywhere so beautiful. It was unfinished and sparsely furnished; there were no personal touches anywhere that she could see, but the chairs were deep and comfortable, and the sunny tones in the velvety rugs blended with the creamy paint on the walls. The mahogany floors lent a faintly exotic air.

Vlad nodded his thanks. “It’s taken longer than I thought it would to get it the way I want it. And I should’ve installed the backup generator sooner rather than later.” His mouth angled up at the corner.

Sabrina nodded back, her attention dangerously focused on the details of him, all of the little things about him she’d begun to notice. Like the way the corner of his mouth quirked up in that self-deprecating way and how he ran his hand through his short hair when he was thinking. His gaze went from the fire to hers, the reflection of the flames in his eyes hiding his expression.

The familiar excitement began to curl in her stomach. Her breathing sped up and she could feel her blood move through her limbs hot and swift. Her breasts tightened in anticipation.

His next words, so casually spoken, were a shower of cold water to her overheated senses.

“I mean to know who put you up to this. How did they get to you? Tell me. When you tell me, I will see you and the boy financially secure. Fail to tell me and you will never work in New York again.”

His voice was precise and devoid of emotion as he issued the threat.

“I had nothing to do with the media,” she answered, weariness and something like sadness in her voice. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know. I don’t have the slightest idea who you think would want to harm you or how they’d do it with such a fantastic lie. You dragged us both here for nothing. I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. And besides, by next week, there’ll be a new Page Six story and nobody will care.”

****

Vlad knew different. The forces that he had escaped, the people who he had no intention of ever seeing face to face again might not be able to harm him anymore but they held sway over opinion. Fragile lives would be damaged if this story was believed. He would never return to the place of his birth, but his heart bled for those so like him, the young ones, who hadn’t, as yet, been able to escape.

Still. She tugged at him in a way he couldn’t understand. Just now, he’d pulled back from the message in her eyes; he’d known that with one small move, he would lose it; they’d be all over each other again and he would give anything for that physical oblivion. He found himself drawn to her in a way he never experienced with his other women; drawn to the way a self-conscious dimple appeared in the corner of her mouth when her stomach had grumbled. Amazed at the nonchalant way she took over his kitchen as no other woman ever had and within minutes organized a meal without fuss or complaint about the dark or the cold.

Then there was the conversation he’d overheard between her and the boy. The way she’d listened, intent and concentrating on just him. It was quite the exhibition of maternal devotion. But, how likely was it that they’d never spent the night apart, that she hadn’t spent the night clubbing and left her son with a sitter overnight? C’mon, he chided himself, just because she was sexually available and she was, he’d seen that look in her eye, he didn’t need to bestow her with any virtues she didn’t possess. Her virtues began and ended with her voluptuous curves, killer legs, and stop sign hair.

When Sabrina shivered, Vlad stood and placed more logs on the fire.

“A T-shirt and jeans won’t cut it,” he said eyeing her bare feet.

The damp chill had seeped into the unheated rooms and unless they were right up near the fireplace, the bite of cold was pervasive.

He went to the front hall closet and found his old graduate school sweatshirt. It dwarfed her, but she put it on without her usual smart comment so she must have been freezing, though she hadn’t said so. He found pillows and blankets and down quilts for them both and took the sofa at a right angle to her.

He turned off his phone in an attempt to conserve some battery for the morning. Outside, the storm bellowed its fury as gale winds buffeted the windows and gave voice to the eerie silence. It was anybody’s guess when power would be restored.

When he looked over, he saw she had already fallen asleep.

****

The wind was a howling wolf, creeping closer; the predatory snarl of it louder with each breath he took. The bitter, freezing air seeped into his bones until he knew he would never be warm again.

But it was the dark that he hated most. The inky blackness was so complete, so absolute; it surrounded them till he knew he couldn’t discover, would never find the way out of this hole. The dark was his undoing, and he prayed for light in any form, the welcome glare of daylight, the pale glow of moonlight, the flickering flame of a candle, a bare electric bulb.

They were in the warehouse near the dock, the only relatively safe place they’d found on their first night out of the orphanage. Pieter had cried piteously for a time, but then he’d collapsed into sleep and Vlad had kept watch.

He hadn’t been Vlad then. He’d been Ivan, the name the wardens of the orphanage had given him because he had been too young to know his own name when he’d been found and brought in. He’d stopped puzzling over the idea that a child would not know his own name long ago. What name had his mother given him? Who knew? Surely not his father’s when apparently his parents had not remained together any longer than it took to create him. Pieter, then Pavel, also had the same mother, Irina, but everyone doubted they’d had the same father. Ivan had been overly big and tall for his age where his brother, though younger by only a year was slight of build, so much more a baby.

Vlad had taken it upon himself to rename them both. In part, it was a protective measure in case they were missed at the orphanage. What a joke. It was a certainty the authorities who ran the institution would quickly conceal their flight if Vlad and his brother were not found.