The Russian's Furious Fiancee (14 page)

“All the more reason to let me get to know the real person behind the façade.”

She chuckled at his logic but the atmosphere here was just too relaxed to take him very seriously. She ordered a beer and relaxed with the spicy dip and chips that arrived at their table. As the sun set, she talked about various subjects, none of them very deep. No one approached their table, there weren’t any waiters standing off to the side waiting to jump at his smallest request because no one really knew that the man sitting here was Damon Kelopatros. It was a completely different experience being with him tonight and she laughed, talked and joked about politics and investing and families. It seems that both of them seemed to be very careful to stay away from any subject that might turn controversial.

As the sun set over the water and darkness made the world a bit more intimate, she felt a bit closer to Damon than she had since she’d first met him. A part of her told her not to let the night become something it wasn’t, but the other part of her was thinking about how nice it would be to not be this man’s enemy. Dinner had been nice, surely there had to be a way to maintain this kind of friendship with him.

“How about if we play this game a bit differently this time?” she asked softly.

“What did you have in mind?”

She shrugged, trying to come up with different subjects besides the ones she usually brought up, which were why he wanted to marry her – a question he couldn’t really answer to her satisfaction, and what aspects of her personality he decided would be beneficial, which only irritated her. Oh, and his preference, why he terrified her so much, a question which she couldn’t really answer to his satisfaction because she didn’t completely understand her reactions to him herself.

“Can you tell me about the happiest and saddest moment of your life so far?” she asked, watching his face carefully to see if he gave her any important clues.

“The happiest moment of my life? Isn’t that a bit trite?”

“Possibly. But it might give me some insight into what motivates you.”

“Making my first million was deeply satisfying.”

She cocked her head to the side, looking at him curiously in the dim light. “Are you saying you don’t feel actual happiness? Or are you not answering the question by replying with a mediocre point in your life?”

“Possibly both,” he replied, his face a bland mask that didn’t tell her anything. It was too dark to see the color of his eyes and determine what he might be feeling in that way.

She nodded, accepting his answer and storing that piece of information away to examine later. “Okay, so how long ago did you make your first million? And how did you know that you’d succeeded without someone coming along to take it away from you?”

He told her something about his first investments and why he’d gone with certain companies. Eva was fascinated and leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand as she sipped her drink. His intuition on finding ways to make money was truly brilliant.

Their food came and he turned the question back on her. “So what’s your happiest moment?” he asked.

Eva considered several things she could tell him but in the end, she decided to go with something that really would give him some insight into who she was and what she did. She didn’t think revealing this would give him too much leverage against her.

“About three years ago, I was teaching a class on investing over at the recreation center. There was a woman in the class who sat in the back at the beginning. She had almost no money, in fact, I think she was homeless and begged for change on the streets.”

“You really do teach investing?” he asked, leaning his forearms on the table and watching her closely, trying to see if this was a genuine story or if she was making it up just to annoy him again.

“I really am a teacher,” she confirmed with a self-satisfied grin. “I teach four days a week, three classes a day. Some of the classes are only about twenty people, but we take up to fifty in a class, trying to serve as many as possible without the whole period becoming too insane.”

“That’s interesting. So the whole thing about the mystery writer was a smoke screen, huh?” he chuckled and shook his head. “I didn’t believe either.”

Eva didn’t respond, didn’t tell him that she also wrote mysteries and had several books already published, her latest doing extremely well on the charts.

“Are you going to let me finish the story?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

“By all means, please continue.”

“This woman was actually in the back because she couldn’t afford to bathe and didn’t want anyone to have to deal with her smell. The classes are free and we don’t have any prerequisites for taking the class, as long as the attendees behave.”

“But she was really a very wealthy woman who was just trying to get some insider tips?” he interrupted, trying to guess the end of the story.

Eva laughed and shook her head. “Not even close. She really was homeless, she couldn’t afford any place to sleep and she stunk horribly.” When she knew he wasn’t going to interrupt again, she continued. “This lady strolled in about ten minutes before the class started and stayed probably thirty minutes after the class ended so I was assuming she had simply found a place off the street that wasn’t dangerous, had air conditioning and she could find someone to talk to.”

“Who was she?”

“I didn’t know her real name initially, but she brought in forty Euros worth of coins and asked me to open up a trading account in her name. Since she didn’t have any identification, we worked with an electronic firm and established an account with me as the official name but no power over the account. Every day she would bring in more coins to invest, sometimes she only had enough for one stock and the fee but she had a well thought out strategy. Over time, she had enough in her account to put half the money down on a house.”

“You’re kidding me,” he replied, truly seeming to be surprised by the story.

“Not kidding. All of us over at the recreation center helped her in one way or another, sometimes by just offering her a place to shower.”

“So the happiest day of your life was when she was in her own home?”

“No. The happiest day of my life was when she brought her daughter to that home and showed her what she’d done and the daughter burst into tears. The elderly woman completely changed, going from a homeless woman who drank most of the day to a clean, if simply dressed woman who owned her own home and made her living off of carefully investing in the stock markets. She is an example for all of us and she comes back to the center for different classes, and sometimes we ask her to come back just as a motivational speaker. Her name is Mirza Holliday.”

He looked at her curiously. “Why does that name ring a bell?”

“Because she was featured in the newspaper last year, a full spread about her life and what she’s accomplished.”

“Impressive.” He really was amazed that the happiest day of her life wasn’t a day she’d found the perfect pair of shoes to match her dress or that a certain purse was released on the market and she was the first to obtain it. He’d actually endured some of his previous partners regale him with those kinds of stories, as if that accomplishment was noteworthy in some respect.

“So what was the saddest?” she asked gently, sincerely interested in this man she’d pushed away so forcefully over the past week.

“The day you told me you wouldn’t sleep with me,” he teased.

Eva blushed and looked away. “Why do you always reduce everything to sex?”

“Why do you shy away from it so often?”

She sighed heavily. “Please don’t push me into a corner.”

“No one is pushing you anywhere,” he said softly and covered her hand with his. “We’re getting to know each other and learning.”

“For two weeks.”

He grinned. “Until you admit you want to be in my bed and wake up with me in the morning instead of slipping away in the night.”

She chuckled along with this blush. “You’re pretty persistent.”

He decided not to tell her that, because of her relaxed position, her blouse was gaping open and he could see the pretty lace of her bra and the delicate curve of her breast. With this view, there really was no getting around the desire he had to pull her into his arms and make love to her until neither of them could breathe properly for a while.

“Let’s walk,” he said and tossed down several bills to cover their meal. “Good food, by the way.”

“I’m glad you liked it.”

They walked down the waterfront, listening to the sounds of the seagulls calling to each other and the fishermen pulling in their boats for the day, the traffic behind them and the other ambiance noises. She asked him questions and he avoided most, turning it around and asking her the same questions.

“I have a dinner party tomorrow night at my place for some business acquaintances. Would you come as my guest?”

She was instantly wary and started to pull away, but since her hand was in his, he wouldn’t let her get too far. “As your guest or act as your hostess?”

“As my guest.”

She thought about what that might mean to the people who would see her. “It’s a private party?”

“Yes. No press, no one to see you on my arm and comment about it.”

She smiled, appreciating that he would be thinking like that. “Fine.” She wasn’t sure why she agreed, knowing that the man had seduced her tonight by his niceness. He listened to her, laughed with her and made her feel comfortable. That went a long way in her book.

And she knew it was coming, but right now, he hadn’t made a pass at her, hadn’t drugged her with his kisses and made her weak in the knees so she was terrified of what he might ask of her. She’d agreed with a clear mind and felt pretty good.

Chapter 9

Eva surveyed her appearance in the mirror, wondering if she was sending the wrong signal. The lavender dress was fitting with the soft, draped material clinging to her upper body, but swinging out around her legs. She’d chosen to match her shoes to her dress this time, making the whole effect a bit more dramatic.

If she wanted to avoid Damon, why was it so important to impress him tonight? And she couldn’t deny it any longer. She wanted to impress him, to show him that she was strong enough to fit in with his colleagues.

What a horrible tangle she’d gotten herself into, she thought with a sigh. If she were brutally honest with herself, she wanted to make love with Damon again. But she was now in a pickle because she couldn’t come right out and say it to him, especially after she’d kissed him last night, but pulled away when he deepened the kiss, telling him she had to get home because of early classes in the morning. She’d been lying and he knew it, but he’d released her and watched as she drove away.

How does one say to a man that, everything she’s told him previously, he can now forget and still maintain some degree of credibility in the future?

She took a deep breath and shook her head, trying to figure out what to do.

Her current option was to take this one moment at a time. She’d agreed to get to know the man, he’d asked for two weeks. One of those weeks had already passed so she had one more week with him. What she chose to do with him during the next seven days was a mystery that only time would develop.

By the time she arrived, the party was in full swing. A waiter answered the door as soon as she walked in and took her wrap. Eva walked to the entryway, a bit intimidated at first by the site in front of her. But then she lifted her chin, remembered all that her mother had taught her and stepped forward into the breach. Or party, she corrected. This was not war, it was a simple social event. She could do this, she told herself, manufacturing confidence which she didn’t currently feel.

She hated being alone at a party, unless she was the hostess. It was so much easier to be the one sponsoring the event because it made going up to a group a necessity instead of an imposition. But Damon was nowhere in sight so she had to just step in here and introduce herself, find something to talk about with whoever was in front of her.

Her stomach clenched at the idea, but she told herself she only needed to be here for an hour at the most.

She was irritated when she couldn’t find Damon after surveying the crowd more closely. She was only here because Damon asked her to show up and be his guest. She’d assumed he meant to be with him but here she was, all on her own, awkwardly trying to work the room.

“Hello!” a man said, walking up to her and taking the pain of approaching strangers out of her hands. “And who might you be?” he asked, putting an arm around her waist.

Eva felt the hand, felt it slip a bit lower, and reacted. She grabbed his hand as inconspicuously as possible and, with her fingers and thumb in the right position, she twisted hard, a broad smile on her face. In this position, the man couldn’t move and was so surprised, he didn’t even flinch. “I’m Eva. And believe it or not, I’m not here to be mauled by an idiot who thinks women are to be your playthings.”

“I was only trying to be friendly,” he said, his voice strained and his eyes angry.

“Then how about a gentlemanly greeting, and not a smug, sleazy approach with a cheap feel?” she suggested with a low voice so no one around her could hear what she was saying.

“Fine! Just let my fingers go!”

“Are you going to behave?” she whispered, leaning close to his ear.

“Yes! Promise.”

Eva released the man’s hand and took several steps away. “It was very nice to meet you,” she said with as much of a saccharin sweet tone as she could muster. “Please don’t approach other women in that manner. We generally don’t like it. And any woman who does, isn’t worth your effort.”

“Bitch,” he muttered.

“What did you call my fiancée?” Damon asked as he walked up to the two of them, his own arm sliding around Eva’s waist where this stranger’s arm had just been. Although Damon didn’t let his hand slip lower. He kept it snuggly around her waist and Eva found herself leaning in to him, feeling proud that she’d stood up to a jerk, but also liking the way Damon was tall and strong and wouldn’t let anyone hurt her.