Alexei thought he was impressing her with his hotels, his private jets, and his empty restaurant, but all he was doing with his displays of wealth and power was scaring her more.

“I have to go to bathroom. I’ll be right back,” she said. She didn’t wait for his permission, just threw down the napkin she’d had on her lap, and all but ran out of the restaurant.

“Ms. St. James,” the hostess said as she ran past her.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Eva said over her shoulder.

“There’s a restroom inside the restaurant—“

Eva didn’t hear the rest. Instead she made a beeline for the gift shop across the lobby, where she found and bought a pay-as-you-go phone, which the clerk assured could be used to make international phone calls.

Five minutes later she was in a stall in the nearby women’s restroom, dialing Aaron’s number with trembling fingers.

“Hello?” he said, his voice groggy.

Tears sprang to her eyes, but she tried to keep her voice light when she said, “I’m sorry for waking you, sweetness. I just wanted to hear your voice. Did you have fun at Disneyland Paris?”

“Yeah,” he said. “We did the Star Tours ride and went down Space Mountain—it’s just like the one in California. And then Serafina started crying, but I gave her some of my gelato and she stopped.”

She could hear the pride in his voice and smiled. “Wow, you’re one amazing cousin.”

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“Yeah, that’s what Aunt Maria says. She says I should come out next summer, too. Can I, Mama?”

“Maybe,” she said. “We’ll talk about it when you get home.”

“You can come, too, and you can see Disneyland Paris.”

They talked for a few minutes more about the differences between Disneyland in California, which they’d visited a year ago, and Europe’s version. Then they talked about what he had for dinner and the action movie he’d gone to see with Steve and how they’d gone to a park and kicked around a soccer ball earlier in the day. There was a lot of Uncle Steve this and Uncle Steve that, and she realized how much Aaron must have missed have a male figure in his life who wasn’t a cranky old man.

She wished, not for the first time, she could give Aaron the father he so obviously craved. One who wouldn’t use all the money at his disposal to take him away from her, not because he actually wanted children, but to punish her for not telling him he had a son.

“Mama, I’m sleepy. Can I go now?”

She glanced at the phone read out. Almost forty minutes had passed. She was surprised Alexei hadn’t sent someone in there to fish her out. “Okay, baby, I’ll try to call you again in a day or so.”

The world and her myriad problems had fallen away while talking with her son, but as soon as she hung up, they came crashing back down on her shoulders and it felt like she had feet made of lead as she walked out of the bathroom, forcing herself to go back to the restaurant and face Alexei.

But she didn’t have to go far because Alexei was standing right outside the bathroom door in his well-tailored linen suit, looking exactly like what he was: one pissed off billionaire.

“What is it with you and standing outside of bathrooms?” she asked.

He did not laugh. “You were talking to him.”

Eva didn’t have to ask who he was referring to. She clamped her mouth closed, once again preferring to tell him nothing rather than having to tell yet another lie. It had been hard enough to pull off the one she spun for him last night. And she suspected she wouldn’t have gotten away with it, if he hadn’t already been so inclined to believe the worst of her.

He clenched and unclenched his hands, as if restraining himself from doing her physical violence. When he reached for her, she actually took a step back, afraid.

But when he caught her by the arm, he didn’t hurt her, he kissed her, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, his other hand snaking around the back of her neck as he all but devoured her mouth in a kiss that took not only her breath away, but also all of her troubled thoughts.

She welcomed this, welcomed him, threading her arms around his chest, kissing him back with all the frustrated passion and residual love she didn’t want to feel.

Chapter Fifteen

ALEXEI had not intended for the day to fall apart as it did. In fact, when he had woken up next to Eva on the floor, his spirit had felt lighter than it had in years. Somehow, by finally confessing the ugly truth, Eva had unburdened him. He had actually felt a little grateful to her as he carried them both to his bed to sleep for a few more hours, until he woke up at five a.m. as was his habit.

She looked so peaceful, lying naked in his bed, that he’d caressed her face, feeling a strange longing to kiss her awake. But in a moment of tenderness, he decided to let her sleep. He worked out in the suite’s gym, showered, got dressed, answered a few business emails, all while whistling a tune to an old folk song from his childhood.

When he called his publicist to arrange for a photographer to discretely track their movements when they came down for lunch, it hadn’t felt so much like his final revenge, but one last thing to take care of so he could finally relax and enjoy the rest of his time with Eva.

The plan had been to wake her up, get her downstairs for a romantic lunch, which would be snapped by his photog, and then get the pictures published in a few Dallas newspapers. His publicist had agreed leaking photos of him at The R with a local beauty would be a great advertisement for the hotel. Though she had to be wondering why he cared, considering The R was just one of his holdings and while profitable, not so much so that he should take an active interest in its publicity. Of course, she had no way of knowing his sudden desire to get The R in the trades stemmed more from a personal thirst for revenge than good business sense.

Drummond was a small town. Someone would see the romantic vacation pictures and tell Eva’s Aaron about them. This new plan allowed him to keep his promise to Eva but have his ultimate revenge, too.

However, the day turned sour when he went back into the master suite and found Eva crying out, “No,” in her sleep. She woke from her nightmare with a start, and then shrank from his touch, like she was repelled by him, letting him know exactly who her nightmare had been about. He had meant to start the day off fresh with her, but they ended up getting in yet another argument.

He had managed to get her downstairs to lunch as planned, but not without feeling a surprising spike of shame for what he was about to do. Yes, she had treated him horribly years ago, and he wasn’t one to let an insult that big go unanswered. He had a reputation for not just vanquishing but crushing his enemies, and it wasn’t unearned. While he no longer resorted to violence, he wasn’t above using underhanded tactics if it would help him win a contract or get a bigger percentage in a deal or outrun his competition. The reason he had come so far so fast was because he put winning over everything, and this philosophy had served him well over the years.

But what he was about to do was suddenly making him feel less like winner, and more like a bully, no better than her father, who had obviously been using her one rebellion with Alexei to control her all these years.

When she listed her reasons for wanting to move away from Drummond, it sounded like the same reasons she’d like to get away from him. Then when she tried to tell him she’d changed, he’d called her an irresponsible girl, which basically sent her running from the table and made him feel like an even bigger jerk.

She had been right about him needing closure, and maybe she was right about herself, too. Maybe she had changed for the better, and he just didn’t want to see it, like he hadn’t wanted to see that her fun-loving nature was really fickle immaturity eight years ago.

After just a few uncharacteristic moments of indecision, Alexei went after her. He’d call the photog off, he decided, and they’d talk for real this time. He was sick of arguing with her, and the one thing she’d said about working hard to be a better person had him intrigued. He wondered if she had actually become the person he had thought she was back in the day.

But when he’d reached the restaurant entrance, it had been just in time to see her exit the gift shop and scurry into the nearby women’s restroom.

Curiosity had him walking into the small boutique.

“Mr. Rustanov, hello!” the older woman behind the cash register said when he entered. Though all of the hotel employees had been informed he was staying on the premises, the cashier was probably rightfully surprised he had deigned to step into one of the gift shops. “Can I help you find anything?”

“The woman who was just here. What did she buy?”

The cashier didn’t hesitate with her answer, his status as the hotel’s owner overriding any consumer confidentiality ethics she might have had. “A pay-as-you-go phone.”

“I see.”

And just like that, the bitterness he’d thought himself freed from that morning came back to hang like an acid storm cloud over his heart.




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