The Prelude (5 page)

“
Oh, I’m certain you can handle large things,” he steps closer to me, amusement swimming in his eyes. Suddenly I remember that I’m supposed to be angry about him deceiving me over the past couple of days. This helps me knock my heat level down a notch to where I no longer feel like a hormonal school girl.

“
Your observation skills are impressive,” I say. “Now maybe you can work on that credibility issue of yours.” What the hell is wrong with you?

“
I promise to try, at least. Do you accept the job, Ms. Angelo? You like challenges. I can tell. You most definitely have what I need.” He runs his fingers over the lacy part of the bodice I’m wearing, smiling as he stares deeply in my eyes. “Much better than that flimsy call-girl robe you wore earlier.”

I think I’ll just die on the floor now. “
It’s not really my decision to make. Luca’s the boss in this gig, but I’m sure he’ll agree.”

“
Excellent. Join me for a celebration dinner?” he asks, ignoring the drummer who has been trying to get his attention for the last five minutes.

Holy moly. The sexiest M
aestro alive is asking me out. Say yes!
“I’m sorry, but I don’t date bosses, of any type.” I turn around and head back toward the dressing rooms, exhaling only after I’m safely back inside my room.

Alek

She uses too many curse words.

A woman who has a mouth that can
put a man’s to shame means trouble. Always. Every time. But damn if I can’t get the image of her gorgeous skin, her perfectly shaped breasts, and those fiery red underwear out of my mind. Erin Angelo.

She
’d be horrified if she knew I was thinking of her in this way. I can tell. But I’m proud of myself. I did something I’ve never done with a woman before. I played the gentleman card, something a nice guy would do, a concept that’s foreign to me. I even handed over my jacket to cover her body.

What
’s wrong with me? Erin Angelo. Her name rolls off my tongue just as easily as I’m sure the other parts of her body would do.

“
Aleksandr. You’re so far away. Where did you go?” Nadya asks. She’s my partner at the moment, a woman my mother set me up with. I glance across the dinner table at her. Blonde. Pretty. She should be the perfect distraction. “I was saying that my favorite stone is the pearl. I think it would look fantastic set in a golden band. What do you think?”

That question rips me back to the situation at hand. I don’t need to stall. I always hate when we get to this part of the game. It’s that awkward point when one of the swingers want to settle down and take a seat on a charming little park bench while the other one is all set to run like hell.

Sighing
, I gather my thoughts and say, “Nadya, this isn’t working. You want things I can’t give you.”

Her smile fades at once.
“I knew this was coming. You’re breaking up with me?”

“
No, I’m dissolving our deal,” I correct. “We were never a couple in that way. You know it’s true.”

Slamming her glass down on the table
, she swipes at her lips, pursing them. She takes so long to say anything that I feel as though she’s about to slam her glass against my head. “Fine. But just know there’s no other woman alive who can keep up with your insatiable appetite, Aleksandr.”

“
You could be right. But I just turned twenty-three-years old. I’m not ready to discuss bands of any type yet.”

“
You’ll come groveling back to me, once you discover there’s no one out there for you but me,” she hisses.

I don
’t think so. “Maybe. I’m sorry,” I say truthfully.

She gives me an incredulous look
, gathers her things, and storms out of the restaurant, bumping into a waitress who’s unfortunate enough to get in her way.

In her place
, Nikolai, my most loyal comrade and faithful coordinator of all things dance related, steps through the door followed by my mother. “Shit,” I groan and prepare to receive the kind of scolding only my mother knows how to do. I take a large gulp of my Campari, a fruity liquer that’s exactly what I need to sweeten this moment. Closing my eyes, I wait for the sting to ease up before opening them again.

“
Aleksandr, whatever are you doing?” Mother asks as she sits in the seat Nikolai has pulled out for her. The white fur in the vest she wears highlights the silver in her hair. She recently stopped trying to cover the gray and let it go all natural. She only did it because she claims the owner of Milan’s Prada house wears hers in the same shade.

Nikolai bumps fists with me before taking a seat across the table.  We
’re total opposites in appearance, but loyal comrades all the same. Where I have dark hair and these funny colored blue-brown eyes, Nikolai wears his shoulder length blonde locks in a ponytail most times. He’s the dancer, and I’m the musician. We hacked out a tough living as teenagers back in Moscow, but somehow we made it through the fire of an existence that most people only read about in books.

After spending
 some time in a gang, we both vowed to have one another’s backs. Nikolai rescued me from a vicious knife attack, and I saved my comrade from himself. Now we’re both stars in our new careers. We have money, fame, and women groveling at our feet.

I should be happy.

I am happy. No, I’m not.

The only thing holding us back from achieving total success is ourselves. And women like Nadya
, the kind who would rather know how much you paid for their designer handbag than sit through one of your long, drawn out performances as she puts it. I think they probably have a role in all of this, as well.

“
Was that Nadya I bumped into looking distressed?” Mother asks right away.

“
You know that it was,” I answer, feeling annoyed. I motion for our waiter. I’m going to need one more drink to survive the Mother Inquisition.

“
What did you do this time? I told you we need to form an alliance with her family. They’re absolutely reeking of real estate. They own properties all over the world,” she informs me for the hundredth time.

“
I could care less about Nadya’s parents and especially their money,” I say, cowering under Mother’s hard look. She still knows how to make me feel like hiding under a table when she glares at me that way.

“
I know what we all need,” Nikolai interrupts, “a fat glass of wine to celebrate Alek’s success. Congratulations, comrade. You’re the first male in your family to get a tenure inside of a prominent university. One of the youngest to accomplish such a thing, I hear.”

“
I haven’t gotten it yet, Nikolai. There’s this matter of a production coming up in six weeks. I need to have a clear head so I can pull it off.” I emphasize my last sentence for Mother’s sake. She purses her lips, picks up a glass of peach schnapps the waiter has just set beside her plate, and chugs it. “Mother.”

“
If my son can be reckless and careless then so can I.” She motions for the waiter to return almost as soon as he walks off. “Another please.”

We
’re staring at each other when a female’s voice jerks me out of our invisible showdown. “Guys, I’m so late. I know. But the teacher worked our derrieres off this evening,” my younger sister, Adriana, says as she bends over to kiss Mother’s cheek and then mine. Nikolai stands up right away and pulls a chair over for her to sit in. She’s completely wired and hasn’t noticed the tension swirling around the table or that Mother has now downed two shots of pure alcohol.

“
Guess what? I got the lead ballerina role in
Seraphine
. I’m going to be a dancing mermaid,” Adriana says in an excited voice. Both my sister and I live for the arts. No, things weren’t always this way for us, but since Mother took over as the agent for Nikolai, Adriana, and me, gigs have been coming in easier than ever before.

“
Can I be your merman?” Nikolai asks, his bright face beaming with mischief.

“
Hey, remember who you’re talking to,” I warn.

“
I’m only joking. She’s like my baby sister too,” he assures me. “Relax, Comrade.”

“
That’s wonderful, darling. At least one of my children is living up to my expectations,” Mother says as she gives me a relaxed, but sarcastic look.

Adriana glances back and forth between Mother and me.
“Can somebody fill me in on what’s going on, please?”

“
Alek broke up with yet another good woman,” Mothers answers, her American drawl starting to come through as the alcohol changes her mood from enthusiastic to bitter.

“Mother, please. She was nothing more than a fucking buddy, and you know that,” I remind her.

“
As if that were ever a problem for you in the past. It certainly wasn’t for your father,” she says as she stabs at the salmon on her plate. There’s so much pesto piled on top, I can smell the herbs inside it from where I’m sitting.

“
You should be so lucky to have such support from a parent. How many mothers do you know who set their sons up with quality ass? I could very well have chosen one of those horrid escorts, but no. I made sure my son had a good woman.”

Here we go. It
’s
humiliate the hell out of Alek by comparing him to his father
time. Adriana and I exchange glances. We’ve been living in Italy for the past four years, ever since my parents split up. I consciously try not to remember the screwed up parts of the life we left behind in Mother Russia. And I sure as hell don’t want to be compared to the man who’s most responsible for our sudden departure.

“
Speaking of your dead beat father, I hear he’s on yet another one of his secret missions. This one happens to be in China,” Mother says. “Something about acquiring business partners in the eastern countries. Sergey may be many unmentionable things, but even he knows where the future of this world lies. Unlike his son.”

“
Nadya and I are over, Mother. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with someone who wants to be a professional shopper for the rest of her life.”

“
I don’t approve,” she says.

“
You never do,” I say.

“
Hey! Doesn’t anyone want to hear about my new role?” Adriana interrupts. The arguments between Mother and me always put her on edge. For her sake, I back down.

“
I will listen to you, Adriana,” Nikolai begins. “You’ll never have an ear too far away with me.”

“
Oh, Nikolai, that’s such a sweet thing for you to say,” Adriana gushes.

“
Yes, Nikolai, maybe you can give my son a pointer or two on how to keep a woman satisfied outside the bedroom,” Mother chimes in.

I
’m about to say something to retaliate, but my heart skips a few beats when the usher leads a group of two men and two women dressed in all black toward a table across the room from ours. Erin Angelo. I straighten up and try to calm my thudding pulse. I’ve had women falling at my feet for as long as I can remember. Hell, I just broke up with one. But Erin has the uncanny ability to take me to a place I’ve never been before. I can feel that about her. And she reminds me of someone I can’t quite place at the moment. Sure, the way we met wasn’t normal, and the way we keep running into each other leaves me with memories I can’t shake, but there’s much more to this thing. It has to be.

Both Nikolai and Adriana follow my gaze over to where she sits with
both Martuccio brothers and the mousy-haired girl named Carla who runs behind Erin like a desperate puppy.

“
Excuse me,” I say to my family.

“
Where are you going, Aleksandr? We’re not done with this discussion,” Mother blurts as I stand up and head over to where the group has been seated.

What will you say to her? You don
’t have a reason to crash her dinner party. But I can’t stop myself. It’s like this invisible force has taken over me. I have to speak to her, and I don’t even know why. Maybe that’s not entirely true. There’s something about seeing a woman expose herself in the way it happened with Erin. I am still a red-blooded male. I don’t want to disrespect her with my crude thoughts. She’s worth so much more than that, even if she did flat out refuse my dinner invitation.

About halfway to the table
, I experience a change of heart. I stop walking. No one notices me standing there looking like a desperate fool. Something, or rather, someone collides into me from behind. Adriana.

“
What are you doing?” I ask her.

“Duh! F
ollowing you. Are those the designers? The ones you hired to make the costumes for Nikolai’s dance troupe?” Her face beams with excitement.

“
What makes you think they’re designers?”

She rolls her eyes and says
, “They’re wearing all black, my dear brother. So am I right?”