The hard edge to his voice emphasized the brittle gleam in his eyes. But through his anger, she heard something else. Something that twisted her heart so fiercely she wanted to cry. Pain. His pain. So deep and unexpected it dissolved her initial shock. She cupped her hand against his rough cheek and gently dusted her mouth across his. Her answer was the truth. “Since Moscow, I’ve only ever wanted you.”
He let go of her hand like she was diseased and turned to stare out at the rolling fields of grapes outside.
What was she supposed to say? That she suspected, if things were different, she could fall in love with him? That she suspected a small
part of her had in Moscow? Worse, should she confide that what she read in his expression that night on the truck told her on so many levels that Alexei, deep down where it mattered, cared for her too?
Hardly. He kept himself at a distance. Pulled away any time she said anything remotely revealing. She already understood he didn’t believe the truths she told; he’d never believe anything deeper.
As Grigoriy steered the car onto an exit ramp, Sasha sat back in her seat. Alexei willingly let her leg slide away, the action telling her even more; he had retreated to an unreachable place.
She told herself it was better this way. They were two different people who stood on two opposite sides of the law. A combination that held the power to destroy them both.
Grigoriy parked in front of a small bistro with welcoming tables, shaded by green and yellow umbrellas, contained inside a wrought-iron railing. Alexei was out of the car before the engine shut off, his door slamming behind him. Sasha reached for her handle, only to have Grigoriy swing the door wide. He flashed her a grin as she stepped out of the backseat.
“Getting cozy in the backseat?” he murmured near her shoulder.
Flushing with embarrassment, she chose not to answer and stalked to the door that Alexei had already vanished through. Grigoriy’s soft laughter at her back spurred her into the pavestone front entry. There was something about the man, handsome and likeable as he was, that made her nervous. Where Alexei’s unshaven face held a touch of danger, Grigoriy’s was somehow darker, more intimidating. Nothing like the soft lines that occasionally fringed Alexei’s eyes and revealed he had once possessed a gentler spirit. She certainly didn’t want to be caught alone with Grigoriy. Not for more than a second or two.
She spied Alexei at a round table centered beneath a brick arch just inside the café. Sasha hurried to join him and dropped into the seat at his side. He didn’t glance away from the laminated menu in his hands.
Grigoriy levered his long, rangy body into the seat at her left, still evidently amused with his remark. His mouth curved in a permanent
smirk. But that jovial grin vanished the second a silver sedan cruised down the street. Both he and Alexei jerked their heads toward the vehicle, caution tightening their expressions.
Her hand extended for her water glass, she froze as the swift reminder of the danger surrounding them hit her full on. They weren’t safe. They wouldn’t
be
safe as long as she was with them. Her father wouldn’t give up. Hadn’t in almost three years. Now Kadir was also after her, shooting at the one man she shouldn’t care for but couldn’t keep out of her heart.
Lowering her hand into her lap, Sasha swallowed hard and surveyed the café, searching for a means of escape.
S
ince Moscow, I’ve only ever wanted you.
Alexei wanted to believe Sasha’s pretty words more than he had ever wanted anything. That fierce desire scared the shit out of him too. Because he knew she was telling him lies, and if he let them take root, she’d steal a part of his soul he couldn’t ever reclaim. A part no woman had ever touched before. He’d made sure they couldn’t.
He had never gotten close enough to anyone to let them all the way inside. If he did, that meant facing what he was, allowing someone else to see the darkness that haunted him. And he damn sure wasn’t ready to confront those demons, much less open himself to rejection by sharing them with someone else. Sasha would walk away. He wouldn’t blame her for it either.
He didn’t deserve acceptance, no matter how the need ate at him.
It was that need, however, that rose up to swallow him whole each time he found himself deep inside Sasha. That need that grabbed at Sasha’s pretty words and told Alexei lies didn’t matter.
That same need he couldn’t begin to embrace if he wanted to get the hell out of Italy alive, or if he intended to succeed in his mission. For if he had Sasha, if she truly belonged to him, he would never let her go. Not to her father, not to Kadir. Hell, he’d fight God Himself.
“Excuse me. I need to use the restroom.” She eased out of her chair, her panini hardly touched.
Alexei nodded, glad to have a few moments free from her compelling presence. Just simply sitting next to her stirred the dark need, taunted him with the bittersweetness he found when he was pounding his way to life inside her.
But as she walked away, her lightweight linen pants hugging her tight little ass, he became aware of someone else watching her too. Grigoriy’s gaze locked onto the sway of her hips as certainly as Alexei’s. And to Alexei’s surprise, the swift urge to knock his partner, the man he had shared women with willingly, out of his chair burned through his veins once again. He choked on the ice cube he’d been rolling around his mouth.
He recovered quickly enough to witness a flash of possessiveness glint behind Grigoriy’s dark eyes—the same possessiveness that struggled for dominance inside Alexei.
“Something about her…” Grigoriy mumbled as he slowly restored his focus to his pasta bowl and took another bite. Chewing, he continued to speak around his food. “Makes you want to throw everything aside and protect her.”
No shit. Those big blue eyes knew the secrets of the world—and the unspoken horrors. They dragged a man in, sucked him down, and held him hostage.
“Does she taste as sweet as she looks?”
There it was again, the subtle hint for an invitation to sample Sasha. Alexei now understood why he couldn’t begin to share her with Grigoriy. That flash of eager greed he’d witnessed held him back. It spelled disaster for their mission, as well as their friendship. He didn’t need a pissing match, and he knew, no matter how illogical, he wouldn’t back down. Not this time.
“Back off, Grigoriy.” He issued the warning quietly, his voice level, without an edge. Nevertheless, it was, indeed, a warning.
Smirking, Grigoriy tipped the chair back on its hind legs and spread
his hands before him in a gesture of innocence. “Can’t blame me for being curious.”
As Alexei opened his mouth to utter a half-assed apology, movement in his peripheral vision snagged his attention. Surely, he hadn’t just seen long blonde hair and a light blue blouse near the back corner of the building, had he? He swiveled to look, his eyes widening in disbelief. Son of a bitch. She was running.
It took two seconds for the thought to connect with his feet. When it did, Alexei bolted out of his chair. Metal clattered against the stone tiles on the patio as the chair toppled backward. Grabbing the iron railing in both hands, he vaulted over the side and hit the sidewalk running. “Sasha!”
She spun, took one look at him, and ducked into the alley. Though she favored her bad ankle, she still managed to stay a good ten feet ahead.
Damn it. A foot chase hadn’t been on his list of top ten desires for the day. Particularly not still dressed in the formal get-up from the excursion in Dubai. When he got his hands on her, he was going to wring her neck.
Alexei bent his shoulders forward and kicked up the speed. The leather soles of his Italian dress boots made traction difficult, but years of conditioning and taking care of his body gave him the advantage. He wheeled around the corner of a tall apartment building, shouldered through a cluster of tourists on the sidewalk, and bore down on Sasha, barely winded.
The glance she stole over her shoulder was her final mistake. She stumbled over a glass bottle strewn onto the sidewalk, giving Alexei the last two feet he needed. He snaked out one hand and caught her by the hair.
She came to an immediate halt with a sharp cry.
Fisting his fingers deeper into the thick locks of silk, Alexei turned her around. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Her eyes widened beneath his murderous glare. Wincing, she
cocked her head in an attempt to escape his painful hold on her hair. Instead, Alexei tightened his grip more, tipping her head back as he arced her body forward, bending her into submission. She stilled, one hand lifting to cover his and pry at his fingers.
“Let go, you’re hurting me.”
That little confession of pain was all it took to snap his will. His fingers relaxed, but he compressed his palm against her scalp. Steady pressure urged her close enough that he could wind an arm around her waist and disguise the situation with a false scene of intimacy. “Put your arms around me,” he ordered through clenched teeth.
Sasha complied, but her back remained stiff as a board.
In decades of associating with criminals whose souls were blacker than Sasha’s could ever be, Alexei had never known the anger that boiled beneath his carefully controlled actions. His muscles strained with it, his blood surged through his veins. She had run. Compromised the mission, subjected him to failure…and worse, scared the fucking shit out of him with visions of Kadir catching her before he could.
“We’re going to turn around with smiles on our faces, got it?” he murmured into her hair. “Before someone gets the wise idea to call the authorities.”
She agreed with a curt nod.
“Then, princess, we’re going to have a little chat.”
He steered her around just as the Volkswagen nosed into the curb. Never before had he been more glad to see Grigoriy. Right now, he didn’t trust himself not to physically harm Sasha. The thought of what might have happened to her if Kadir’s men were nearby, if they managed to snatch her out of his hands, made him feel like a caged lion. That she had tried to run away from
him
cut open scars he thought had permanently sealed. He had known she was telling stories, telling him what she thought he wanted to hear in the car. He just hadn’t realized that when he confronted the inevitable truth, it would hurt so goddamn bad.
Alexei guided her to the car, jerked open the back door, and urged
her inside with a none-too-gentle push. She scrambled across the backseat to the other side, as far out of his reach as she could get. He slammed the door and climbed into the passenger’s seat, barking out the directive, “Take us to the hotel Hughes mentioned. Now.”
Wisely, Grigoriy kept his stare on the road and his faithful smirk hidden.
F
ury radiated off Alexei’s body in hot waves as he forcibly ushered Sasha through a white painted door and into a spacious suite at the Palazzo Vecchietti. He kept going through the living area, past the rich plum-colored furniture, and into the bedroom. His heel connected with the door, sending it slamming shut so forcefully a painting on the wall rattled. Sasha didn’t know whether Grigoriy followed or not; her head spun with a chaotic mixture of defiance, rage, and a smidgeon of fear.
He spun on her, startling her back a step. She braced for the inevitable storm that came next. She didn’t fear he would actually hurt her. But she knew his words would wound.
For several seconds he merely stared, his angry eyes searching hers, seeking answers to questions he had yet to ask. She swallowed. Waiting. Anticipating.
Creating answers in her head faster than she’d ever thought possible.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” He flung a thick arm sideways, indicating the wide window. “Kadir’s still out there. If I hadn’t seen you, hadn’t caught up to you, he could damn well have you stuffed in the back of some car, heading to God knows where! Dead maybe!”
She bit down on her tongue, biting back her own angry retort. Alexei took another step forward, forcing her backward in order to maintain eye contact. Quietly,
logically
, she answered, “Kadir doesn’t want to kill me.”
“No?” Alexei invaded her personal space again, standing so close his chest brushed against her breasts. “Just why has he been shooting at us then?”
Meeting his challenging stare, she gave into the defiance working through her bloodstream. “He’s been trying to
buy
me. If he wants me, he’ll take me, but he won’t kill me.”
Alexei’s eyes darkened with a deeper emotion, turning his light green gaze the color of rich jade. His jaw worked furiously, his temper barely restrained. At his thigh, one hand curled into a tight fist. “Is that what you want? To go back to silk sheets and the lustful desires of power? Did you like it there, Sasha, a slave to whatever Saeed wanted to do to you?”
She would have struck him if she’d had room to gain enough power to make an impact on his poisonous mouth. Instead, she flattened both hands against his chest and pushed. Hard. “Go to hell!”
Alexei threw off her hands by wedging his forearms between them. With lightning fast reflexes, he grabbed her wrists and thrust her backward, imprisoning her against the wall. The air sped from her lungs in a wild rush.
His body pinned her in place from chest to toes. “You almost compromised my assignment, Sasha. I don’t take that fucking lightly.”
Writhing to escape his viselike hold, Sasha glared at him. “Is that what I am, Alexei? A mission? Is that what I was in Moscow? Something to be completed? Forgotten the minute you kicked me off that truck?”
The pain that flashed through his expression almost made her regret the accusation she knew was off the mark. But the need to unravel the layers he hid behind and expose the feeling he sought to keep disguised drove her onward. She held his stare, unwilling,
unable
to back down. “When you handed me to Amir, your job was done. Just one more girl in a chain of nameless, faceless others.”
He heaved in a deep breath, and his lips pursed so tight they turned white. For a moment, she doubted her sanity in pushing him so far. He looked ready to kill.