Page 65 of Lord of Passion

She grins, laughing at me. "I win."

"That wasn't winning," I say, "that was a safe zone. I won because I caught you first."

"Too late," she taunts me, as the car pulls up to us. "You're just being a sore loser."

I don't care who sees us. Putting my hand on her ass, I pull her up against me. "Oh, I think tomorrow, you're going to be the sore one,Plokhoy kot."Her sly smile makes me want to drag her back into the alley.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

In which there is no bigger buzzkill than a deeply unwelcome visitor.

Caroline…

I really love my office at The Lyric.

It might be a little selfish. I suspect Alexsey and Liria had it remodeled to make me fall in love with it, and it has one of the best views in the hotel of the Seaport District and the East River. I love watching tourists walk along the boardwalk, fisherman coming in from a long day, or sightseeing boats chugging up the river.

It's selfish because it's such a gorgeous view that I really should have made it into some sort of specialty suite. Idomeet with a lot of clients here so I soothe my guilt with that reminder. There's a comfortable scatter of furniture by the windows. I selected them for the furniture maker's gift of carving curved backs that flow like music.

The man in my office isn't sitting in one of the guest seats, or on the couch admiring the view. He's sitting inmychair behind the desk. He has my computer open and he's browsing casually through my two monitors. I keep dozens of windows open, and he seems to be examining each one of them. The man looks up and smiles, as ifIhad set a time for an appointment withhim.

"Hello Caroline, how are you?"

Johann.

It's Johann, the crazy son of a bitch who lured me up to his suite in Boston to propose that bizarre union and thrust a wedding ring at me. He was sort of the last straw in my decision to resign from the Four Seasons. However, I thought he was just a standard crazy and I would never see him again, especially since I'd moved. In retrospect, I guess that was naive.

"Why are you here?" I say, walking slowly across the hardwood floor, my heels clicking. More importantly, how the fuck did he get past Isaak? I'm not going to press the panic button in my pocket, not yet, anyway.

"Have a seat," he says, gesturing towards one of the chairs in front of my desk.

"I think not." I fold my arms. "This won't be a long meeting."

He chuckles, and it's incongruously deep and rich. It's warm. This man has icy blue eyes, but he's uncomfortably attractive, with high cheekbones, dark winged brows and thick black hair that he pulls into a ponytail. He's obviously stupidly rich, first, to afford the Presidential Suite at The Four Seasons, and that ridiculous wedding ring. It shows in his suit, too, a black one and hand-tailored.

"Uncultured for a gentleman to sit well if the lady stands," he says, clicking his tongue disapprovingly. He rises slowly, circling the desk and perches his thigh on the corner, getting comfortable. I don't know why that feels more violating than him sitting in my chair, but I stare at his position for a moment as my face turns pink with fury. Howdarethis bastard makehimself comfortable in my office? I earned this office. People don't get to just walk in here.

If you work in hospitality long enough, in housekeeping, in nightclubs, or at the front desk, you learn to read people pretty quickly. I've forbidden more than one maid to clean a certain room when I found out the guest was a grabby asshole. My favorite trick was to send in our surly and puzzled maintenance guys to offer fresh linens and take out the trash. The guest always behaved himself after that, several even returned, which I always found strange as hell. It's why I ordered portable panic buttons that every employee wore while on duty.

This guy, though. I can't understand him. His smile is warm, but his eyes are still icy, absent, like he's floating on an iceberg somewhere in the Antarctic.

"I wanted to see you again," he says. "I was disappointed to find out that theSovietnikof the Morozov Bratva had gotten to you first." I glance down at my left hand, almost surprised at seeing the diamond there.

"Yes well, I am married," I say. It makes me oddly and deeply relieved to be able to say this. "So, there's no reason for you to be here. I need to ask you to leave."

“While it is well known that the Morozov men never marry for love," he drawls, "according to Bratva lore and legend, they do claim to, over time, share a passionate love for their women." He gives a sudden, boyish grin. "You can see why I'm pressing my suit now, before the inevitable slide into love or, more likely, Stockholm Syndrome hits."

He's still keeping a respectful distance. There was something that flashed in his eyes, though, some strange blink when he talked about Nikandr. "Johann, I'm sorry that you –"

"You said my name," he says happily. There's that boyish grin again. "It sounds beautiful on your lips." There is something about his accent. It's light, but there is a particular emphasis on the 'a' and 'n' sounds that makes him sound… maybe Eastern European? I can't place it exactly.

"I'm sure you know that showing up in my office was an unwelcome act, and yet, a man of your intelligence and obvious culture…" I don't say it like it's a compliment, "stillchose to do it anyway. So you can't be surprised when I say that I want you to leave and I don't want to see you again. I'm married."

I hold up my ring again as if this rock solid, incontrovertible truth will make him crumble. He doesn't even look at it. "I'm very happy to be married to Nikandr. I have no interest in you." I'm not going to resort to a more specific threat, which would be the Morozovs doing something utterly horrifying to him. He should be smart enough to know that for himself.

"You know, what does surprise me a little," he says, folding his arms and mirroring my posture, "is that you don't seem interested at all in how I know so much about you."

I shake my head disapprovingly. "I have nothing to hide. It wasn't even particularly sinister information."