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I can’t help but smile. “I’ll fucking bet they do.”

I must have imagined his tension. Not surprising, given how on edge I am.

Volkov returns my smile. “If you’ll allow me to make a suggestion?”

I shrug for him to continue.

“Get your head down for a few hours. I’ll put out some discreet feelers, see what I can do. When you wake up, I’ll have a clearer picture of what is possible.” He stands up, touching my shoulder briefly. “In the meantime, please don’t fear for your safety. Zinaida understands her guests’ need for privacy. There’s a permanent security detail on the perimeter of the building, but I’ve turned the cameras to closed circuit, so nobody is watching us. Including our hostess.”

Thank fuck for that.

“Thank you, Leon.” I put out my hand, meaning it. “I owe you. Big time.”

“Not at all.” He waves me away, walking toward the kitchen. “I shall look forward to meeting your Abby, Dimitry. She seems like an extraordinary girl.”

Abby is toweling her hair when I come into the bedroom. I hit the shower, and she calls out that she’s going to bring some food back to the room.

I never hear her return, though, because the moment I lie down on the bed, I go out like a light.

26

Abby

Ileave Dimitry sleeping and venture out onto the patio. Through a window I can see Leon out on the patio speaking on the phone. He waves and holds up a hand to indicate he’ll be five minutes.

“What would you like to eat?” I spin around, startled, to find a neatly dressed middle-aged Thai woman smiling at me.

Oh, fuck.I glance around nervously.Nobody mentioned staff.I can’t afford to have eyes on me, not anywhere in this region.

“Please.” The woman holds out a placating hand. “I work for Miss Melikov. I understand privacy.” She nods out into the yard. All of the staff are my family. Security, garden, pool—everything.” She smiles gently. “You are safe here.”

I’m still feeling unconvinced when Leon comes out the glass door and addresses the woman in fluent Thai. “Thank you, Dao,” he finishes, after rattling off a request for a series of dishes. The woman smiles at me and leaves.

“Zinaida rescued two of Dao’s daughters from a trafficker several years ago,” he explains when she’s gone. “Dao’s family would literally die before they betray anyone in this house. You’re safe here. Gin?” He holds up a bottle.

Oh, hell yes.I’m sure I will get over the luxury of enjoying a drink at some point, but I’m definitely not there yet, any more than I’m over enjoying a long everything shower or sleeping when I’m tired.

Especially next to Dimitry.

Or rather, not sleeping.

I smile to myself. It’s astonishing that after all that’s happened, and is still happening, I can feel consumed by sheer lust. The fact is that even after our sybaritic interval at the waterside bungalow, I still can’t so much as look at Dimitry’s half-naked body sprawled across the four-poster bed without wanting to press my lips to every part of it. It isn’t just the sexual thrill, either, although it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than a couple days to satiate that particular appetite.

It’s the intimacy.

The delicious familiarity of every scar, every ridge and rope of corded muscle. The way he reaches for me when he’s still asleep, pulling me hard against him. The smoky, dusky scent of him, something I could recall the feeling of but never quite capture. It’s something between a gun fight and cognac, and it makes me feel more alive than any drug ever could.

“Dimitry has crashed.” I accept the glass Leon offers and sit down on a carved teak daybed covered in thick cushions. “I think he’s barely slept since he burst through my hotel door in Bangkok, and he steered the boat all night.”

“I’m sure it’s the best thing for him.” Leon touches his glass to mine. “I’m very glad he found you, Abby. It was clear how unhappy he was when I met him in London.” He meets my eyes and his lips quirk, again in a way I find oddly familiar, though I can’t quite place why. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone move quite so fast as he did when he received Luke’s call saying you’d been kidnapped.”

“He was with you when that happened?” I don’t try to hide my surprise. “How did that come about?”

“Dimitry was in London to return something that belonged to me. Or rather, to my grandmother.”

“One of the Naryshkin treasures from the vault?” Dimitry mentioned that was how they’d met. He left out the part about the delivery being theonlytime they’d met.

Leon nods, and I look at him curiously. “If you don’t mind me saying, you’re doing a lot for people you barely know.”