Page 127 of Ruthless Rustanovs

IT was like inviting an actual Siberian tiger into her home.

Bair wasn’t exactly the kind of guy to throw on a pair of sunglasses and go see about all the turquoise jewelry at one of the seemingly daily arts festivals in Santa Fe’s Historic Downtown plaza.

A guard was now permanently stationed outside her door, and the entire condo had been turned into his office, complete with several laptops and takeout containers.

A state of the art coffeemaker had appeared out of nowhere.

Also a maid, who she had absolutely no hand in hiring, suddenly started arriving daily to tidy up after them.

Within a day of getting there, Bair had completely taken over her space. To the point where four weeks later, Thel could barely remember a time when she’d lived in the condo alone, drinking mostly tea and washing her own clothes once a week.

Now her clothes reappeared in her drawer less than twenty-four hours after she put them in the hamper.

And she was quickly regaining all the weight she’d lost during her years of dealing with cancer because she found delicious takeout meals waiting for her when she got home from long days of rehearsal.

The truth was, she loved it. Loved sharing her space with someone who wasn’t her sister.

Loved being in the same bedroom with him again, not because she had to, but because she wanted to.

Loved that this Russian billionaire had actually taken her up on her invitation to stay at her relatively humble condo in New Mexico.

Loved that their lives fit so well together.

They both had a strong work ethic and did so tirelessly until she got home.

Then, if there wasn’t an opera for them attend together, Bair powered down his laptop and she set her smartphone to silent and for the rest of the night, they were all about each other.

Pleasuring each other. Remembering each other.

Getting used to the thirty-something versions of the people they used to know.

It felt like that well-known Goyte song in reverse. A newer, happier arrangement, even better than the first.

Thel was rehearsing the role of a lifetime, and she came home to a man who dropped everything and fucked her silly as soon as she walked in the door. She’d never been as happy as the weeks Bair spent with her.

She even went so far as to make them a dinner reservation at The Georgia Santa Fe the day of their seventh anniversary.

Silly, she knew, and she doubted Bair had even kept track of the date like she had, but still, she’d spent her lunch hour scouring little knick-knack shops, until she found a small copper Buddha to give him as an anniversary gift.

Which was why her heart sank when she walked through the door with her small gift bag to find Alexei paying Bair a visit.

She’d seen Alexei around the opera house’s complex that Friday.

Seen and avoided him, which made finding him here, talking to Bair in Russian with his head dipped low, even more disappointing.

Alexei wore a suit, but Bair seemed just as much the businessman in his fighting shorts. The look on his face was very serious, and both men were so wrapped up in their tense conversation, they didn’t even notice her arrival.

“Hi,” she said, feeling like she was intruding on something even though this was technically her condo.

Bair glanced at her, then his black eyes swung back to his brother. “I need to explain things to her. Then I will do as I’ve promised.”

Alexei gave him a terse nod. And with that, he walked out, simply saying, “I will see you tomorrow at the first dress rehearsal, Sirena.”

“Yeah, see you then,” she muttered, more than happy to see Alexei the Awful let himself out of the little piece of paradise she’d created here with Bair.

When the door closed behind him, she turned and found Bair at the stove in the open plan kitchen. Shoulders hunched as he set a teakettle to boil.

“I can do that,” she said, setting the small bag with the statue on the dining room table and coming into the kitchen. The tea had to be for her, since he only drank coffee out of the oversized chrome contraption that now took up most of her counter space.

“Nyet, this job I like doing for you.”

So she settled for coming to stand behind him, resting her head on his Siberian tiger tattoo, and running her fingers over the scar at the top of his heavily yoked waist. Alexis must have arrived while Bair was still doing his usual mid-afternoon workout, because his body was clammy with recently dried sweat.

They stood like that until he broke the silence with, “I must go back to Russia tomorrow morning.”

She stilled, knowing she should have been expecting this moment, but hating it had finally come. “How long until you come back?”

“I do not know exactly. Month. Maybe two. Something bad has happened back in Moscow and I must go on plane tomorrow and fix it.”

“Fix it like Olivia Pope?”

He grunted. As close as Bair ever got to laughing. But he must have been paying attention to all the episodes of Scandal she’d been binge-watching while he handled early morning business in Russia on his laptop. Because he replied, “Fix it more like her associate, Huck.”

“But I thought your family was done with that life?”

She hadn’t been told, so much as gleaned during her time with Bair, that the Rustanovs used to be more of a crime family than a business empire.

In fact, during a few of his Germany visits, she’d overheard Alexei lamenting that a particularly aggressive competitor could not be handled in the old way.

“We are done with that, as you say. But sometimes people forget and must be reminded. It is Alexei’s job to remind our family. It is mine to remind everyone else—and for that we must sometimes use the old ways.”

Thel found herself squeezing him tighter, unconsciously trying to hold on to him, to the paradise they’d made of this apartment over the last few weeks.

“I will try my best to be back for your last performance,” he said, rubbing her arm.

“No, it’s not that. That doesn’t matter.”

He took her arms from around his waist then, but only so he could turn and face her.

“It matters to me,” he insisted, taking her chin between his thumb and bent index finger. “It is very important to me to see you sing in this role, Siren.”

Really? Her heart melted, thinking about how he used to go out of his way to see her performances when she’d been in school.

Skipping classes, and sometimes rearranging presentations.

Partly to let her and everyone else know he was always watching her.

He never quite trusted any of the men in her program not to try to make a pass.

But also to watch her in a way that had felt to Thel’s twisted heart a lot like support.

“I want you to be there, too,” she told him truthfully. “But that’s not why I’m so upset. It just that…I’ve liked this. Liked us over the past month, and I only get to be Sirena until the end of August. What if you…?”

She peeped up at him with sorrowful eyes. “What if you don’t handle all your Huck business before I go back to being Thel?”

His brow bunched, mouth twisting into a displeased sneer at the mention of her other name. “You do not have to go back.”

“Yeah…yeah I do,” she answered just as seriously. “I’ve got another round of tests coming up soon to make sure I’m still cancer-free. Plus, some other stuff…”

Her mind turned to the one thing she wanted more than her opera career. The desire that had been chewing a new kind of hole in her chest since spring.

He opened his mouth to argue some more, but was interrupted by the sound of the kettle going off behind him.

“Seriously, I can make my own tea,” she insisted, reaching around him to turn off the flame. “You go take a shower. I made us dinner reservations for tonight.”

Approval lit up his eyes, softening his face. “I had same idea. For our wedding anniversary.”

And she couldn’t help but smile up at him. “I didn’t think you’d remember.”

He gave her a very solemn look. “Of course I remembered. I always remember.”

“Me too,” she said in a whisper.

And they stood there like that, tea getting cold. Probably both wondering why this moment was making them so sad.

Somehow they managed to make the dinner not feel like a good-bye. When they got home, she gave him the little Buddha statue.

“You said your grandma was a Buddhist, and it’s copper…” she said by way of explanation.

He tucked the small Buddha in his inside suit pocket, “Thank you, Siren. I will keep it with me right here, close to heart, until I return from Russia.”

She gave him a wry smile, thinking this was as close as he’d ever come to saying he loved her.

“I also have gift for you.” He took her by the hand and guided her toward the doorway.

“No, you didn’t!” she yelled when she saw the Audi A5 convertible sitting in the designated parking space she never used. “Oh my God, Beast. Oh my God…!”

“It is copper colored,” he pointed out quite seriously. “So perfect for our seven-year anniversary gift.”

She was still laughing over the ridiculously uneven gift exchange the next morning as she drove to work in her new car. Of course Dexter was trailing behind her in his black car, but she still couldn’t help but feel optimistic.

Maybe they could make it work after the production was over, she thought to herself, thinking of how they’d made love the night before. Gentle and grateful. Like two grown-ups who weren’t completely toxic.

But then as if on cue, her phone rang. “Hello?” she said breathlessly when she finally managed to route the call through the car’s Bluetooth system.

“Hello, is this Thel-shee-ope Oki…” the woman on the other end of the line trailed off. “Oh my, I am just massacring your name.”

“That’s totally fine,” Thel answered, letting the poor woman off with a chuckle. “Most people call me Thel.”

“Okay, Thel, this is Anna calling from Dr. Rosenthal’s office. He’s had something come up on the afternoon of your appointment, and we were hoping to reschedule you for that morning.”

Thel had very nearly forgotten she’d even made the appointment. But just like that, she was easily reminded of the myriad reasons Bair and Thel couldn’t keep this Bair and Sirena 2.0. act going on after the opera ended.

“Yeah, that’s cool,” she said to the receptionist on the other side of the phone. She glanced over her shoulder. Glad Dexter hadn’t been in the car when she received this call. “I can do that morning.”

So they rescheduled the appointment for Monday morning—the day after her last show. Or as Thel thought of it, the performance she’d use to put Sirena Gale to rest and let Thelxiope Okeanos start living.