Page 18

18

ROMAN

S omewhat uncharacteristically, I work through siesta. Given the late hours I keep, I usually embrace the Spanish rhythm of a long lunch and some downtime, followed by a workout and the second part of my business day.

But the thought of spending siesta in my penthouse, all the while knowing that Lucia is probably sprawled out naked on a bed one floor below me, isn’t a temptation I need right now.

Fuck. I rub my temples and try to focus on the figures in front of me. Part of me is desperate to fuck her again. And after all, I’ve decided that seducing her is the best strategy to get the answers I need from her. But another part of me is already questioning the entire arrangement.

I get hard the second I think of her writhing underneath me. During strategy meetings all I can think of is her naked body, and the way the rose silk slipped to the floor. I keep envisaging the lingerie options I chose and wondering which set I should tell her to wear next—and then, the myriad of ways I might remove said underwear from her body.

I need to get myself under control. And seduction or not, I need to make sure there’s no confusion about boundaries. Which means I need to go home early today and spend time with the children while she is there. Make sure everyone knows their place.

Even if the only place I want Lucia to be right now is on my bed with her legs spread wide and my cock deep inside her.

I reach for my phone, smiling darkly. I might be all about boundaries, but nothing in the contract says I can’t torment her a little. Unfortunately, my phone rings before I’ve even started typing. The number on it kills my hard-on more effectively than any ice bath ever could.

“Inger.” I attempt to maintain a courteous tone.

“Why is Nicky telling me about a new nanny I haven’t heard of?” Her tone is so shrill I hold the phone away from my ear, wincing.

How did I ever find her attractive?

“I sent you the same email Nicky got, Inger.”

Maybe you should take enough interest in your own children to read it.

“I’m on a modeling job, Roman. I don’t have time to check emails.”

I roll my eyes. But you have no problem making time to be seen at every nightclub in Miami and be photographed daily for the tabloids. “Would you prefer me to call you next time?”

I know perfectly well she won’t prefer that at all.

Inger’s idea of parenting involves complete detachment, followed by a brief flurry of temper, like now, when she feigns concern and indignation, followed by an even briefer stage of wounded victimhood, during which the children are bombarded with sickeningly sweet declarations of love.

Then comes the detachment again.

And with it, inevitably, Ofelia’s expulsion from another boarding house and Mickey’s withdrawal into his computer den.

“No,” she says, after a long pause in which she’s clearly weighed up the burden of having to take calls from the children against her desire to pursue an active night life. “But at the very least, tell me about this girl, Roman. I don’t have time to read the background brief.”

Which, for once, is a good thing.

“Not much to tell,” I lie. “Miss Lopez is Argentinian. Came with excellent recommendations.” I’d cross my fingers, if I believed in that shit. “She speaks several languages fluently, including English and French. She picked the children up from the airport today, and as far as I can tell, it’s gone smoothly so far.”

“Ha.” Inger gives a smug laugh. “I give her a week.”

I swallow a very sharp response. Despite ignoring her children almost entirely, Inger is insecure enough to be extremely threatened by anyone she suspects of gaining their affection. As a result, she has actively encouraged the worst of Ofelia’s behavior toward the au pairs I’ve hired. “You’re probably right,” I say dismissively. “It doesn’t really matter anyway. The Lopez girl is just a temporary solution until I find another agency.”

Inger is also pathologically jealous. And despite the fact that our brief affair took place back when I was sixteen, just before I took a bullet for Mikhail, she still considers me her property.

“Well that’s a relief,” she sniffs now. “We can’t have you sleeping with the help, Romie. It sets a bad example for the children. And besides.” Her voice drops to a husky note I’m sure she thinks is seductive but which for me grates like nails on a chalkboard. “I might be in Malaga for a short visit soon. The Russian Cultural Society want me to attend their annual benefit. Which means we can get together, Romie.”

Oh, fuck no. Then again, thankfully, Inger’s promises are notoriously fickle. “We’ll see,” I lie again. I listen to her rabbit on about her modeling career, which, despite her boasts, is very much on the downturn, and hang up as soon as I can.

The truth is that the minute Inger met Mikhail and realized it was he, not I, who was heir to Yuri’s fortune, she dropped me like a hot pan and never looked back. Which, even at seventeen, I didn’t see as any loss at all. Mikhail enjoyed a brief fling with Inger that should never have become any more, except that Yuri had taken a liking to her. First because she looked and spoke like a perfect Russian princess, and later because Inger knew exactly how to flatter him. Mikhail then found himself coerced into meeting her parents, who were not only first-generation Ukrainian immigrants, but quite poor. They thought all their Rozhdestvas had come at once when Mikhail, with his college education and Yuri’s inheritance behind him, walked through their door. When Inger managed to fall pregnant, Yuri wouldn’t hear of Mikhail doing anything but putting a ring on it. And Mikhail, with his happy-go-lucky nature, just shrugged and said cheerfully that he figured he’d have to get married some time or other. My affair with Inger was diplomatically not referred to by either of us again.

Inger handed Ofelia off to a series of nannies weeks after the child’s birth. When little Mickey was born, she considered her wifely duties entirely done and turned her full attention to her always middling career. She and Mikhail had long been living separate lives when Masha came along, the result of a final drunken night when Inger attempted to seduce Mikhail in exchange for a better divorce settlement.

In the years since I rose to take Mikhail’s place, Inger has renewed her efforts to seduce me. I take her out exactly as often as it takes to keep the peace. I’ve become extremely adept at dodging her advances without offending her. If it weren’t for the children, I would have cut her loose entirely years ago. But she’s their mother, and the only parent they have left. Cutting her off isn’t, sadly, an option.

And at least her lack of interest means she won’t inspect Lucia too closely.

I, on the other hand, want to inspect Lucia extremely closely, as soon as possible. Fortunately, the phone call with Inger has dampened my libido enough to make me hold off from contacting Miss Lopez until after I see her at home this evening.

Anyway, I tell myself, keeping Lucia guessing is a good seduction tactic. By the way her body reacted when I touched her before Dimitry called, she was more than ready for another round. And that means the longer I string her out, the more she’ll be thinking about it.

I imagine her in bed now, thinking about our last encounter, and swear softly. The torture is supposed to be on her end, not mine. She’s here to take care of the children, and for me to fuck her out of my system. Not necessarily in that order. She’s here to make my life easier, not send my head into a goddamn tailspin and my body into chaos.

I refocus on the screen, counting the hours until I can go home and set my plan in motion.

I am not remotely prepared for the scene that greets me.

It starts with heady scents that hit me right out of the elevator: sweet, buttery, and almost unbearably familiar. The door to the children’s apartment is open. Both security guards are leaning around it, laughing. They straighten up smartly enough when they see me, but they clearly didn’t hear me, since the music coming from inside is only mildly quieter than the squeals of laughter.

“Boss,” says Bryce, composing himself. Dimitry, however, doesn’t even bother acknowledging me.

“I could have been anyone,” I snap. “Do better.” It’s not entirely true; there’s good security downstairs, and nobody rides the elevator without a personal code, but still. Dimitry should know better. The fact that he doesn’t actually need to be here at all, and has clearly just stuck around purely for entertainment value, annoys me more than it should.

“Boss.” He nods politely, but he’s still grinning more than he should be.

I walk in to absolute chaos.

The apartment itself is clean enough. It’s the kitchen where the action is clearly happening. From the doorway, I can see Mickey perched at the counter, laughing at something. It’s been so long since I’ve seen him laugh that I pause for a moment, just taking that little miracle in by itself. He’s drumming two wooden spoons on the counter in time with the fast Argentinian salsa playing, and as I watch, he points the spoon at someone I can’t see. “No, Masha, it’s Luce’s pick next,” he says, then reaches forward and dips his spoon into something. When it comes back it’s covered in caramel, which he promptly licks off.

Masha, out of eyesight, is squealing something that sounds like “Poppins” over and over.

“No way,” I hear Ofelia say, and to my shock, it sounds like she’s laughing too. “I will not listen to ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’ one more time, Masha. Put another one on, Luce.”

“Fine. But you have to dance too, then.”

“I can’t!” Ofelia protests, laughing helplessly. “I don’t know how.”

“It’s easy.” I hear Lucia’s voice. “And you can’t make alfajores without dancing. It’s illegal in Argentina.”

Alfajores. No wonder the scent is so familiar. Two melt-in-your-mouth cookies stuffed with a luscious dollop of creamy dulce de leche caramel. My mother made them every Friday, when the school week was ended. We used to call them Mary cookies, though I can’t remember why. I don’t think I’ve eaten them since the day she left. I shrink back against the wall, sliding just beyond eyesight, until the kitchen comes into view.

The benches are all covered with flour, caramel, and trays of the butter cookies ready to be made into caramel sandwiches. Most of the caramel, however, seems to be either on the counter or on the children themselves. Masha, her face absolutely covered in a sticky mass of caramel and baking goods, spoon in hand, is propped up on a stool, jiggling her little body in wild movements that would topple her if Ofelia didn’t keep hauling her upright. Ofelia, flour all over her tank top, is mixing more caramel in a bowl, hauling Masha up with the other hand, and watching Lucia with shining eyes and a smile. An actual smile .

Lucia is dancing. Only dancing doesn’t begin to describe the bewitching sight before me.

Her hair is up in a messy bun, stray curls dripping down the nape of her neck. Her hips are fluid as any professional dancer’s, rotating in a way that makes her dress flip enticingly high up her thighs, while her feet move so rapidly they’re almost a blur. She’s wearing some cute little floral number that skims her hips and flares out to just above her knees. Under normal circumstances, the dress would probably be perfectly innocent.

Except that Lucia’s curves make it a sultry invitation. Especially dancing salsa, solo, in the middle of the kitchen.

I pull back behind the dividing wall and stare shamelessly at the vision in front of me. She’s laughing aloud, one hand extended in invitation to Ofelia, a half-mixed bowl on the counter in front of her.

I’ve never come home to such chaos. And I’ve never felt a bigger gut punch of desire, along with something else that aches deep inside, in a part of my soul I thought long forgotten to me in this life.

Lucia takes Ofelia’s hand and spins her around, then spins herself beneath Ofelia’s arm. They both emerge breathless and laughing, caramel streaked down the swell of Lucia’s cleavage and smudges of flour on her face.

Then she catches sight of me and comes to a dead halt, mouth open in a perfect O of surprise.

“I gather you weren’t expecting me,” I say dryly.

The children freeze. Mickey’s smile fades. He puts down his wooden spoons, placing them carefully to one side. Ofelia taps her phone, and the music stops. Her face falls back into its customary haughty lines. Only Masha keeps jiggling on her stool, pleading aloud for Ofelia to “play Poppins again.”

“Well, no. Clearly we weren’t expecting you.” Lucia gathers herself with admirable alacrity, but I can see the glitter in her eyes, the nervous tension in her body. “But since you’re here, you can test our second batch of alfajores .” She picks up a tray sitting on the stovetop and carries it over to the counter. “Masha was just about to dust them with icing sugar for me.”

“It’s my job,” Masha tells me solemnly.

“Shhh, Masha,” Ofelia hisses, casting me a wary look that makes me feel oddly ashamed.

When did I change from being “Uncle Roman” to someone the children fear?

Fair enough, I was never exactly the superfun uncle. But I threw a ball with Mickey. Tossed Ofelia in the air. Turned up with presents on birthdays.

I don’t remember the last time, though, that I saw any of them laugh. And that suddenly strikes me as a profound failing on my part.

“Don’t stop for me.” Taking off my jacket and tie, I throw both over the back of the couch and walk into the kitchen, rolling my sleeves up. “Show me how to dust those cookies, Masha.” I remember just in time that the apartment door is still open and turn around, glaring at the grinning guards, both of whom immediately exit and close it behind them.

“We promised Dimitry he could try the second batch,” says Mickey quietly, staring at the counter.

“Dimitry has been our official tester,” Lucia explains.

I feel a stab of something uncomfortably like jealousy. Which makes no fucking sense. Why the hell would I feel jealous of Dimitry, taste-testing cookies for a six-year-old? Except that they all looked so damn happy— before they caught sight of me. Not to mention that he also got to watch Lucia dancing, which is close to the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. I don’t like the thought of him, or anyone else for that matter, watching her.

I don’t like the idea of Dimitry replacing me in my own household. Even if it is just as professional cookie taster.

“Well, I used to eat a lot of alfajores .” I look at the three little faces staring warily back at me and feel another unwelcome pang of something like guilt. “Can I try one first?”

Mickey glances at Ofelia, who gives a faint shrug of one shoulder. Masha looks between her elder siblings, then breaks into a gap-toothed grin. “Here,” she says, holding out a rather misshapen cookie. “Ofelia done them.”

“Did them,” Lucia corrects mildly.

“You put caramel in ’tween two,” Masha says importantly, pushing so hard on her example that she completely crushes the soft cookie and sends caramel oozing out the sides. “Oops,” she says, not looking remotely sorry.

“I think I understand how the kitchen wound up looking so... colorful,” I say.

Lucia grimaces. “Yup. Sorry about that.”

I bite into the cookie and close my eyes briefly. It tastes exactly like those of my childhood: meltingly soft, intoxicatingly sweet, and immeasurably comforting. It’s like biting into the happiest time of my life.

“Well?” Ofelia demands. Three expectant faces turn to me.

I swallow. “The last time I ate alfajores ,” I say musingly, “was in a world-famous restaurant.” Their faces begin to fall. “And do you know,” I go on, “I think these are actually better?”

Mickey frowns. “Yeah, right ,” he says heavily.

“Um, excuse me!” Lucia raps his arm with a caramel-covered wooden spoon that leaves a significant smear. “Oops,” she says, making Masha giggle. “But I did tell you I make the best alfajores you will ever taste.” She shakes her spoon at them in a way that makes even me smile. “Don’t you be doubting me, or you’ll hurt my feelings.”

“God forbid.” I roll my eyes theatrically, which seems to mildly thaw the children’s faces. I put a handful of cookies onto a plate and hold it out to Masha to dust, which she solemnly does, before handing them to Mickey. “You should probably put Dimitry out of his misery,” I say, grinning.

Mickey actually meets my eyes. They’re the same deep cobalt as his father’s, I realize with a pang. I wonder why I never really saw that before. But where Mikhail’s were always sparkling with laughter, Mickey’s are usually shadowed and wary. Right now, though, there’s a faint hint of his father’s fun in them, and it makes me want to see more of it. “Dimitry ate the entire last batch almost by himself,” he says, with something akin to awe.

“Good. That should slow him down in the boxing ring,” I say with a slightly vicious smile.

“Wow.” Ofelia gives me a look that’s almost admiring. “You’re seriously mean.”

“I do my best,” I say cheerfully. “So.” I look around at the disaster that is the kitchen. “Are you guys going to help me clean this up?”

“You?” Ofelia looks at me incredulously. “ You’re going to help clean up?”

“Well, Lucia spent all afternoon teaching you to make cookies, which I now plan to enjoy eating. I think it’s the least we can do to say thank you, don’t you? And just for your information”—I wag a spoon in her direction—“I’ll have you know I was once a professional dishwasher.”

Ofelia’s mouth drops open. “Shut the front door,” she says flatly.

“Ofelia!” Lucia reprimands her. I have to turn away to stop myself bursting out laughing.

“It’s true,” I say, gathering up plates. “I spent more than two years elbow-deep in a restaurant kitchen when I was the age you are now.”

“No way.” Ofelia is staring at me as if she’s never quite seen me before. “Why weren’t you in school?”

“Oh, that’s a story for another day.” Suddenly rather uncomfortable, I look around for the dishwasher. I catch Lucia watching me with an expression not unlike Ofelia’s and get even more rattled.

“Oh my goodness.” Ofelia impatiently pushes me aside. “You seriously don’t even know where to start.”

Mickey comes back in, waving the plate triumphantly. “Dimitry says they’re perfect!”

“Well,” I mutter. “If Dimitry says so . . .”

Lucia elbows me. “We told you so,” she says sweetly to Mickey. “Now, never let me hear you question my cookie-making skills again, or we just won’t be friends.”

“I’m your friend,” says Masha solemnly, taking one of Lucia’s hands.

“Me, too,” says Mickey, taking the other.

I drop a pot, and Ofelia cocks an eyebrow at me. “I thought you were a professional?”

I should never have told them about my past. “It’s been a while.” I’m unsettled enough that my voice sounds rather curt. This is all way too cozy.

“Luce!” Masha waves a wooden spoon covered in caramel under her nose. “Is your turn to make it clean!”

“No!” Lucia protests, laughing. “I can’t eat any more caramel.”

“Your turn!” Masha shouts, clapping her hands. Ofelia and Mickey join in the chorus. Shaking her head, Lucia brings the wooden spoon up to her mouth, and just like that, I’m glued to the spot.

The sticky mess slides through those bee-stung lips, and I catch a glimpse of pink tongue swirling around it. She closes her eyes briefly. “Mm.”

Oh. Holy. Fuck.

Her eyes open, widening when they meet mine. For a moment we stare at each other as the children cavort around the kitchen, and the heat in hers is enough to bake a thousand fucking cookies.

“Well, you’ve clearly got the cleaning up under control.” Even I can hear the hoarse note in my voice. “I’ll leave you to it. Goodnight, everyone.”

Ofelia whispers something that sounds like swizzle sticks , and all three children burst into a fit of giggles.

Feeling severely jolted by the entire thing, I beat a hasty retreat, ignoring Dimitry’s sly fucking smirk at the door.

I don’t call Lucia upstairs, despite an almost desperate desire to do so. I almost wish I hadn’t soundproofed the penthouse during the renovations. I have an intrusive desire to know where she is. Whether she’s returned to her own apartment yet or not. Whether she’s showering all that caramel off her body...

That leads to very dangerous images of licking the caramel off, inch by luscious inch. I’m terrified of how much I want to.

All this, and you’ve only fucked her once? I’m more thoroughly unsettled than I can ever remember being. Worse, it isn’t just the mind-blowing sex. It’s seeing the children smile again. Feeling, even just for a short time, as if that apartment was actually some kind of home, instead of a beige fucking hotel suite, which, no matter what I do, it has always seemed to be.

Except it isn’t your home. Or the children’s. And it definitely isn’t Lucia Lopez’s.

I need to shut this train of thought down.

Right now.

Yes, it’s great that I’ve finally found an au pair that the kids seem, miraculously, to like. The fact that Lucia also happens to be mind-blowing in bed is a definite bonus. But it’s barely been a day. All this could come to an end at any minute. Not to mention the small issue of Miss Lopez’s fake identity.

That pulls me up short.

Pulling on sweats, I head for the basement gym. I need to punch the hell out of something, and I’m fairly sure Dimitry, damn him, has already left.

I set about methodically pummeling the bag.

I keep thinking about the way Lucia looked, salsa dancing in the kitchen. I want to take her to my holiday villa in the mountains outside Malaga and watch her dance just like that on the terracotta terrace as the sun sinks over the Mediterranean Sea in the distance. I want to walk into a house filled with the scents that make it a home. I never knew how much I’d missed that until I stepped out of the elevator tonight. I want to sit on stools at a kitchen counter, instead of at a formal table with silver cutlery and chef-made food.

I want to see Lucia’s belly swollen with my child.

I freeze with my fist in midair.

What the fuck?

Where the hell did that thought come from?

Children aren’t on the agenda for me. I’m a criminal, raised and honed on hard streets. No matter the perfect facade of Hale, or the hidden machine of Mercura, my life will always be one of danger and violence. It’s a world that destroyed my life once, but which I could never quite escape. It’s the world that has taken everyone from me, including the adopted brother I loved more than anyone. I’m doing everything I can to raise Mikhail’s children far from that world. Shielded from it. I want them at college, doing degrees. Choosing careers that don’t involve nightclubs or guns or running from home in the middle of the night. By the time Mickey inherits Hale, it will be clean as any normal company.

I can run Mercura in the background. Keep the darkness well away from him.

It’s too late for me to choose a different life. I’m bratva, in the mud as deep as anyone could possibly be. That’s why I can’t get attached to my godchildren. It’s better that they look at me with the fear-edged wariness I’m accustomed to, rather than the spark of warmth I saw tonight. I can’t be what they need from a parent. It’s why I put up with Inger, encourage her to spend time with them. They need a mother. Not a godfather who has no idea where to start parenting and an au pair who could run off at any moment, without warning.

And yet.

I can’t rid my mind of the image of Lucia as she was in the kitchen tonight. Only in my fantasies, her belly is swelling softly under the dress. The vision is like a seed that has taken root somewhere in my chest and simply refuses to leave.

I’m going fucking mad.

This is a business arrangement, I tell myself sternly as I punch my way around the bag. It isn’t a goddamn future. Besides, she checked the box on the contract saying she takes the pill, and she has no reason to lie.

But for some reason, that doesn’t shift the image out of my head.

Alongside the jarring thoughts of Lucia carrying my child comes the infinitely more terrifying thought of her alone somewhere, running for her life, in that state. Deep down, I know she’s going to flee again. If I’m honest, that fact is maybe part of the reason I suggested the contract in the first place. It’s safe. Has a finite end date. I use her for what I want, with the knowledge that she doesn’t want to stick around any more than I want her to.

Has it really taken only one night inside her body for those plans to go so profoundly out the window? It makes no sense. I’ve had countless women, in more ways than I can even remember. And never once have I wanted any of them to stay in my bed beyond the moment I’ve taken what I wanted from them.

Now I can barely think straight for planning when I’m going to have Lucia right back there again.

I think back to my earlier resolution of seducing her in order to get answers. It’s a good plan, a logical one. I noticed the way her eyes softened tonight when she saw me with the children. But seducing her was supposed to be an entirely physical exercise. The slow, deliberate breaking down of Lucia’s defenses as I make her body mine in every way a man can. A strictly compartmentalized seduction that belongs on my king-sized bed.

Not in the kitchen of the children’s apartment.

Never, in all my thoughts, have I imagined domesticity as part of that seduction. And I’m wholly unprepared for how it makes me feel now.

I think of the shadows lurking in Mickey’s eyes that, for just a moment tonight, cleared. I don’t know if I’ve ever looked behind the thick glasses and seen the quiet intelligence and gentle strength in the cobalt depths. Just as I’m not sure I’ve ever realized that Ofelia’s arctic glare is just a mask, or that Masha looks at her siblings as if they’re her entire world.

I’m not sure that I ever wanted to see any of that. Maybe I knew that the moment I did, I’d feel exactly this disquieting sense of guilt. But now that Pandora’s box is open, I can’t suddenly put the knowledge away again. I can’t just walk away from my brother’s children knowing that I’ve failed them, and him, so profoundly.

And no matter how close I am to Dimitry, I cannot stand the thought of him being the one the children take their cookies to, the one lounging in my kitchen, lazily watching Lucia dance.

Fuck, no. My fist thuds viciously into the bag.

I might not have asked for this family. I may not even want it. But it’s mine , goddammit. And I take care of what’s mine.

It looks like my seduction of Lucia Lopez just became a full-time fucking job.

Given how overburdened my current work life is, that should annoy the hell out of me. Instead, it gives me a caveman-like sense of deep satisfaction that is as unfamiliar as it is fucking disturbing.

But it doesn’t mean I can’t reestablish some control. In fact, the thought of exerting control over Miss Lopez has a definite appeal.

I settle in to the punching bag with renewed vigor, trying not to think of how that spoon looked sliding between her bee-stung lips.