A Very Corporate Affair book 3 (The Corporate series) (11 page)

"Do you like Russian food?"

"Not particularly, although I like caviar and blini. It has to be proper Beluga. I can't bear rye bread though. It reminds me of the old, cheap, black bread. I like mine white, and fresh."

"I don't think I've ever tried caviar. I didn't even eat in a fancy restaurant till I met Oscar. Going out with him, then you, opened my eyes to just how much I don't know about the world. I have a bit of catching up to do."

"You're very young. Most people don't know much at 24."

"True. I feel like I'm just beginning my real education at times. I've been learning about body language. Paul sent me recommendations for some books, which I've been studying. It's really very useful. How to tell when people are lying, that kind of thing."

"That could be dangerous. What were you picking up when I was grovelling earlier?"

"You started off confident, and as I played you the recording, the confidence fell apart, you tried to hide it, but you looked defeated. That's about as far as I've got. They're pretty complicated books."

"Probably a fair assessment of the situation."

"Changing the subject, what've you been up to this afternoon?"

"Sulked, took some phone calls, sulked a bit more, read some risk analysis, did a little paperwork, then did some serious sulking, until I called you."

"I see, so are you representing Russia or England in the Olympic sulking championships in Rio?" He laughed his rich, deep laugh.

"You have a lovely way with words. I've missed you this week. I don't think anyone can make fun of me like you can."

"That's because women are too busy drooling, and men are too scared of you."

"True, you know you're the first person in at least ten years to call me a tosser."

"A richly deserved moniker, certainly in this case." I paused. "So does that mean that you never behave like a tosser to anyone else? Or that nobody else dares to tell you when you're being one?"

He looked thoughtful, "I think it's a bit of one, and a bit of the other. I tend to keep people at arm’s length, so nothing is ever that personal. I'm closer to you than I've ever been with any woman."

"Even Dascha? You were with her a long time, surely you knew each other well?"

"Not really. I worked seven days a week, extremely long hours, so I didn't actually have to spend much time with her. She had her shopping, her lovers and her hobbies, so as long as she had access to my money, she didn't bother me."

"Did you just say she had lovers?"

"Yeah." He pulled a face. "She was into the BDSM scene, which I'm not, and I wouldn't let her tie me up or inflict pain, which she enjoyed. We were sexually incompatible, so she took lovers for all that stuff. It suited me."

"No wonder you think I'm boring in bed." I was reeling from his revelation. It was a world away from my own sexual experiences, and not a world I had the remotest interest in.

"No, quite the opposite. She just wanted to tie men up and whip them. That's not sex. I hated it, let her try it once, and said never again. I just couldn't see where the enjoyment was. I know you and I were a little kinky and adventurous, but it was always sex, you know, with an orgasm at the end of it." 

"I thought BDSM was a sex thing, shows how much I know..."

"Dascha used to say that giving pain
was
sex to her. I told you before, she was a psycho." I shuddered, not wanting to visualise Ivan being whipped, he was way too alpha and too sensual a lover for all that. "At some point, I need to go over to Windsor and sort out their house. I dread to think what we'll find there. Would you mind coming with me? I don't really fancy going on my own."

"Sure, whenever you like. I don't mind at all." I finished eating, and pushed my plate away. Ivan checked that the girl's helpings had cooled enough, and set the plates down on the floor for them. They practically inhaled the roast lamb dinner, which made us both laugh. "Tania's got her appetite back then?"

"Looks like it. They've both been little ratbags all afternoon since you left. Bella's been driving me nuts, barking every five minutes to go out, then barking to come back in. When I said no to her after the fifth time, she slunk off and wouldn't speak to me."

I shared out the leftovers on my plate between the two of them, and cleared our dinner things away into the dishwasher, before we went into the lounge, and flopped onto the sofas. Ivan put the telly on, but the combination of my late night the night before, and three glasses of wine, made my eyelids start drooping. I was vaguely aware of Ivan carrying me upstairs, but didn't fully wake up.

I woke up the next morning still wearing my T-shirt and shorts, in the spare room, with Ivan fast asleep beside me. I tried to slip out of bed without disturbing him, but the moment my foot touched the floor, he opened his eyes. "Morning. I'm sorry, I meant to go back to my own bed before you woke up. I must have fallen asleep."

"I'll go and make us some drinks. What were you doing in here anyway?"

"I just wanted a cuddle before I went to bed, so I lay down beside you, and must have nodded off. I'm sorry, are you upset with me?" I shook my head, amused that this supremely confident, alpha male could admit to needing a snuggle.

I made our drinks, and took them back upstairs, purposely sitting on the sofa in the room, rather than perch on the side of the bed while Ivan was in it. "So what's the plan for the day?"

"Well, it looks a bit cloudy, so I think breakfast, a walk, and after that, we could go over to Windsor and check out Vlad's house, if you want, that is."

"I don't mind coming along for a good nose. Have you got the keys?"

"Yes, the police had them, sent everything over to Lucy, who sent them to me. I've not been there for a few years, so I'm quite eager to see it again. Dascha moved back there last year when we split, so it's only the one house to deal with."

"Can I use your gym this morning? I need a run and a workout. I didn't do one yesterday."

"Sure. I can be making breakfast while you're doing that. It'll be ready by the time you're finished." We drank our coffees, and I headed downstairs to the gym. I didn't even bother to change, knowing I'd be showering afterwards. I plugged my headphones into my iPhone, and ran for a full, fast paced, twenty minutes, before working my way methodically around the weights machines.

After finishing, I pulled out my earbuds, and could hear the radio blasting out in the kitchen. I could also hear Russian accented singing. Curious, I padded down the corridor, to see Ivan holding up bits of sausage, singing to the dogs, and the three of them dancing around.

"I know you want it, I know you want it, I know you want it, but you're a good girrrl." He sang, holding the sausage just out of their reach. He didn't see me, as he howled along to 'blurred lines'.  I stood and watched, amused, as the dogs bounced up on their hind legs, as if they were dancing to his singing. As the song came to an end, he noticed me standing there. "Breakfast's ready. How long have you been there?"

"Most of the song." I smirked, as he blushed slightly.

"It's their favourite record at the moment."

"I could tell, the way they were dancing to it...." I bent down to pet Bella, "and have you got a crush on Robin Thicke, naughty girl?" She did that doggy smile thing, and hung her tongue out, which made us both laugh.

After breakfast, I showered and dressed, before we took the dogs out. This time, I observed Ivan closely, and saw what he meant about tension lifting in the woods. His shoulders dropped, and his hands relaxed. I wondered just how stressed he actually got, working as much as he did, with the responsibilities that he shouldered. "What stresses you out the most?" I asked.

"Other people," he replied immediately, "I'm not good at being around people a lot. I have to put up with it at work, but I'm quite solitary. It's why I'm not overly friendly with my security." I had noticed that he didn't seem to talk to them much, considering they trailed around with him most of the time. "I learnt the hard way to take a full day off every week, turn my phone off, and concentrate on the two girls." He paused, "my body began to object to lack of sleep, stress, and constant pressure. I suffered insomnia, palpitations, and passed out in my office once. I made changes after that."

"You have to look after yourself first. That's what my mum used to say, not that she was a great advert for it. You seem quite laid back now though, well, for someone who runs as many companies as you do."

"I internalise the stress, at least that's what I think I do. I hate anyone seeing me as weak, as it leaves an opening to exploit, like Dascha did."

"Loving someone isn't being weak, it's being a normal human being."

"True, it goes back to my bravado with Paul, admitting I was madly in love seemed like admitting I was weak." He looked down at the floor as he spoke, as if he didn't want to see my reaction.

"Do you think Oscar's weak then? He admitted being in love when we were together."

"Yeah, a bit. I thought it was amusing at the time how he trailed around after you, and behaved as though you were some sort of goddess. Thought he was being adolescent, until I spent that first Sunday with you. Then I understood."

"I think the pair of you are emotionally stunted to be honest. You with your 'I'm a poor immigrant' spiel, and Oscar with his 'I have to put up with being a bank chairman' crap. Both of you need to count your blessings a bit more."

Ivan laughed, "trust you to say it like it is. Yes, I'm probably a bit undeveloped in the relationship area. I never really had to try to get a woman before, they usually flung themselves at me, and were devastated when I got bored with them."

"Maybe they should have called you out for being a tosser more often."

"Possibly." He smiled his movie star smile.

We made our way back to the house, and once the girls were delivered into the care of their team, we set off for Windsor. It didn't take long from Sussex, and within an hour, we were pulling up outside a pair of enormous iron gates. "I hope Nico changed the codes," muttered Ivan, as our driver tapped away at the keypad.

The gates opened, and we continued down a long driveway, towards a large, faux Georgian house. "Wow. This place is enormous!" I exclaimed. It was way bigger than Ivan's Sussex home, which was huge by most people's standards.

"I'm hoping all my codes for the internal security work, otherwise we'll have alarms going off, and god knows what else." He pulled out a set of keys, and opened the front door. As soon as we stepped inside, a beeping noise began, and Ivan tapped some numbers into an alarm pad near the door. We both breathed a sigh of relief when the beeping stopped.

"What happened to all his household staff, and security detail?" I was curious.

"I let them go immediately. I didn't want anyone in here. Nico came over to secure everything external, set up our own security system, and make sure it was safe."

"So you knew your codes would work then?"

"Oh yes, the external ones, not the internal ones. Sorry, I was having a dumb moment."

We explored the downstairs. It was opulent in a rather overdone sort of way, with lots of gilding, and ornate furnishings. "Very typical oligarch taste," Ivan said, wrinkling his nose a little. The kitchen was vast, and beautifully fitted. It also contained every gadget a cook could ever want.

"What are you going to do with all this stuff? And the house?" I asked.

"Sell the house I suppose, I don't want it for anything. I know it's bigger than Sussex, and worth a lot more, but Windsor is more built up, and less private, although the security here is very good, and it has got woodland. I'm not sure what to do with the contents. They're way too good to just throw out, but are not my taste."

"Donate to charity maybe? Or rent the whole thing out?"

"Could do. It does seem a shame to just sell it, and I don't need the money."
How the other half live.

We went upstairs to check out the bedrooms. The master bedroom was strangely traditional, a bit like the bedrooms at Conniscliffe, with heavy drapes, and old paintings hung round the walls. "I'd put a bet on that these are black market paintings. If they were kosher, he'd have hung them downstairs, and shown off about them."

I looked closely at the signatures, trying to decipher who they were by. I made out Degas, and one by Van Gogh. "I'd suggest these be returned to their rightful owners if they really are stolen. This is the ideal opportunity."

"True. I'll speak to Oscar, see if he knows anything about them." He pulled out his phone, switched it on, and snapped some photos. "Dascha's apartment is the other side of the house, so shall we check out the rest of these rooms first?" He nosed around the walk in wardrobe, before checking behind each of the paintings. I looked quizzically at him. "Looking for the safe," he said.

"Study, I would have thought." I replied.

We worked our way through the rooms, until we came across Vlad's study. Ivan searched through cupboards, and behind pictures, until he found the safe hidden behind an abstract painting. He tried all the keys on the ring, finally managing to open it with the second to last one. I peered in, over Ivan's shoulder. The safe appeared to be full of cash, stacks of it, in fifty pound notes, banded in£1000 packs. Ivan pulled it out of the safe, and piled it onto the desk. I counted it up. There were 600 packs, so£600000. "My god, why did he have so much cash here?"

"That would have been his day to day petty cash. It's not much considering what he was worth. Six hundred grand wouldn't last him long with Dascha around. There must be another, larger safe somewhere." Ivan carried on ferreting around in the safe, slipping a couple of flash drives in his pocket, and reading some papers. "There's a letter here for Dascha, in the event of his death. The main safe is in his bedroom, and he gives the code. Come, let's look." He piled the cash back in the safe and locked it, replacing the picture across it. We went back to the bedroom, and pushed the bed across, revealing a trapdoor.

Ivan lifted it up, to reveal a safe door, set into the floor. He tapped in the code, and we heard a click. He heaved the heavy door open, and we both leaned forward, although I had a peculiar sense that we were intruding into something private.