Chapter 9 Cartier
CARTIER
The song penetrates my dream, the images that were making me feel warm and fuzzy inside evaporating instantly, lost forever to that invisible hole in which all beautiful dreams end up eventually.
It’s my cell phone.
I reach for the nightstand, cracking open one eye, and allowing my surroundings to battle with the ring tone that isn’t going to stop until I answer the call.
Mika’s name is on the screen.
“Where the hell are you?” she screeches before the phone even reaches my ear. “We have a new resident, and I’m flat out here, Car.”
Shit!
I check the time on the screen.
Double shit!
“I’m on my way.” I swallow, my mouth dry, and my head thumping from last night’s tequila shots. “I’m sorry, Mika. I’ll make it up to you.”
“You owe me, big style. And you’d better have some juicy gossip for me, my girl.”
Mika ends the call with a click.
Andrej’s side of the bed is empty. I didn’t hear him leave. I didn’t even sense the loss of his presence beside me until now, and I wonder how it’s even possible to know someone so intimately, to allow them to claim every part of you, inside and out, and then sleep through them leaving you.
I check my phone: no messages from him either.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and sit up too quickly, the room spinning before it settles into place.
I don’t know how my phone got on the nightstand. I don’t even know where my clothes are, because the memory of stripping them off in the back of Andrej’s car comes flooding back filling me with heat.
Standing, my legs feel shaky, and my clit is sore and swollen.
But I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
In fact, I’m already panicking at the thought of never seeing Andrej again. Sure, it’s irrational. How many times did he tell me that I’m his? But he has entered my life like a destructive whirlwind, and nothing will ever be the same again.
I’ll never be the same again.
I’m not the Cartier Black who walked into Gianna’s hospital room to visit my best friend and her twins. I’m the heroine of my own romance novel, the one who falls for the bad boy with the scar on his top lip and realizes that he has a heart of gold when it comes to his woman.
Happy ever after?
I can’t even think about it. I don’t know anything about Andrej Ivanov. Not really. All I do know is that he makes me feel how I’ve never felt before. He makes me feel things that I never knew were missing from my life.
He’s a drug, and I’m already addicted.
I can’t see my clothes.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
What am I supposed to do now?
But then I spot the open door leading to what appears to be a walk-in closet. Perhaps I could borrow some sweatpants and a hoodie to get me to the shelter. It’ll give Mika something to snicker about at the very least.
I cross the room and pause in the doorway. I was expecting to see rows of immaculate designer suits, expensive shirts, and shelves filled with polished shoes. But instead, one half of the closet is filled with women’s clothes.
Did Andrej buy them for me?
I quash the thought before I get any ideas of this being a permanent thing. He probably keeps a selection of women’s attire for occasions just like this one.
I don’t like this thought either, but whatever the reason, it’ll beat sweatpants and a hoodie that smells of Andrej Ivanov. I’m late, and Mika sounded desperate.
The bad boy has thought of every eventuality.
There are Lycra tights for jogging around the park, silky floor-length gowns for evening events, pant suits worthy of an interview with the editor of Vogue magazine, and sundresses for jaunts to the beach.
I settle for a pair of white pants and a floral blouse. Simple but oh-so-obviously expensive from the feel of the fabric against my skin. And a perfect fit.
Pulling on the cowboy boots—I’m not ditching those babies—I check out my reflection in the full-length mirror one last time, grab my phone, and head through the apartment toward the elevator.
Stopping when I spot the dark-haired woman watching me from behind the breakfast bar, where coffee is brewing in the machine.
“Who are you?” My voice sounds fake for some reason, like I’m the intruder invading her space, and I wish I could take it back because now I sound guilty, when I haven’t done anything wrong.
I sense my eyes narrowing as they dart around the living room for a glimpse of jet-black hair and a scarred lip curled into a lazy smile. Andrej isn’t there. The relief that he and this woman were not getting cozy together while I slept in his bed leaves me feeling breathless and dizzy.
“Ivana.” She answers the question bluntly. Her expression is neutral as she fills two mugs with steaming black liquid and slides one across the counter towards me.
I instinctively take it, cupping it in both hands, my body moving from muscle memory. Sipping the black liquid gives me a moment to study the woman in Andrej’s kitchen.
She’s around my age or maybe a little older, mid-twenties perhaps.
Her black hair is cut into a choppy bob with lurid green streaks.
She has olive skin, her dark eyes elongated by the Wicked-green flicks on her upper lids, and a dark mark beneath her left eye that looks like a tattoo.
She wears a beaten-up black leather jacket over a black sweater.
I don’t need to see her feet to picture the Doc Martens.
She’s giving off serious Hocus Pocus vibes.
Not in a good way.
I realize then that she didn’t ask my name.
“Where is Andrej?”
“Working.” She doesn’t elaborate.
“Did he ask you to stay here with me?”
The coffee is so hot that it scalds my tongue and makes my eyes water, but I’m grateful for the distraction. I don’t know how I feel about Andrej having me guarded by this woman. It feels as if he trusts her more than he trusts me.
“No.”
Her one-word answers are already grating on my nerves. “So, why are you here?”
Does she live here? Is she related to Andrej and Leonid? He mentioned a sister, Victoria, but I don’t recall him speaking about Ivana before.
“I wanted to speak to you.”
“Me?” My hand trembles, and it isn’t entirely down to last night’s liquor consumption or the multiple orgasms that I could reactivate with a single touch.
Something about Ivana is making me feel uneasy. The way she watches me without blinking like we’re in a Tim Burton movie. Her sparse responses to my questions. The way she is deliberately withholding information for maximum effect.
“What about? How did you even know that I was here?”
She shrugs. “I know everything about the Ivanov family. It’s my job.”
“You work for Andrej?”
“His brother.” Her eyes flash, and I swear I catch a spark of green from them.
“Okay, so you knew that I was here.” I pause, choosing my words carefully. “I don’t see what business it is of yours.”
“Keeping them safe is my business.”
“You’re a bodyguard?” I fail to smother the shock in my voice, and she knows it.
Her free hand instinctively travels down to her waist, and I fully expect her to pull out a gun and aim it at my head.
“What do you know about them?” she asks. No gun.
Yet.
I don’t want to admit that I know very little. That I don’t even know what line of business they’re in, or how they came to be so wealthy. It wasn’t high on my list of priorities when Andrej entered the hospital room and knocked me out with the weight of his pheromones.
“Precisely,” she says before I can speak. “You have no idea what you’re getting involved in. You have no idea who Andrej Ivanov really is.”
“What I’m getting involved in?” I don’t like where this is going. What has he told her? “I only met him two days ago.”
Less than forty-eight hours of knowing Andrej Ivanov, and it feels like a lifetime.
“Don’t let him worm his way into your life, Cartier.” She knows my name. “Andrej is a dangerous man.”
I’ve heard enough.
I slam my mug of coffee onto the counter, splashing brown liquid across my wrist and the surface.
“I don’t see what any of this has to do with you. I’m not interested in his business affairs or his bodyguards or whatever he does when I’m not with him.”
It’s a blatant lie, and the tremor in my voice is a dead giveaway, but I won’t accept relationship advice from this stranger with green hair and all the warmth of the White Witch from The Chronicles of Narnia.
Want an iced coffee? Spend some time in Ivana’s company.
I don’t even know her last name, and she’s warning me away from the man who has spent the last thirty-six hours mapping my body with his tongue.
I met plenty of abused women when I worked in the shelter in Montenegro.
Women who’d experienced, at the hands of men, the kind of abuse that belongs in horror movies.
Women from all backgrounds and walks of life.
But the one thing that bound them all was their unflinching support for one another.
None of those women would’ve torn down another female, regardless of whether they agreed with their actions or not.
And here’s this woman issuing her warning about Andrej and disguising it as advice.
“He will hurt you.” She’s still fucking talking. “He’s a womanizer. A playboy.”
I throw my hands up in the air and pray that she can’t hear my frantic heartbeat. I refuse to let her know that she’s getting to me.
“I don’t care.” Another lie. My heart already feels like someone is squeezing it until it bursts. “And neither should you. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
Her narrow lips quirk into a twisted half-smile. “If you say so.”
I walk towards the elevator. My knees are shaking, and my palms are clammy with sweat. Not because she told me things that I didn’t know about Andrej, but because she confirmed what I already suspected.
The doors open, and I step inside.
Of course he’s a playboy. I knew it the first moment I saw him, but I wanted him anyway. And what about all the things he said to me? You’re mine now, Cartier. I’m never letting you go.
The elevator panel dings when it reaches the bottom, and I’ve barely registered the smooth descent.
I step out into the basement parking lot without thinking because I left my head back in Andrej’s apartment with Ivana the witch. So, when my head almost collides with the chauffeur’s chest, my hands instinctively flutter over my heart.
“Mr. Ivanov left the car at your disposal, ma’am.”
He’s tall. I mean, I’ve only seen the back of his head through a glass partition, and it’s impossible to determine anything from the back of someone’s head, especially when you’re on all fours and being fucked from behind. But the top of my head barely reaches his shoulders.
He takes my silence for acquiescence and gestures to the waiting vehicle.
I follow him. My brain is finding it difficult to multi-task right now, and I’m running even later after my conversation with Andrej’s apparent bodyguard. I climb into the back seat and ask the driver to take me to the women’s shelter.
My clothes are no longer in the back of the vehicle. Thank heavens for the little things. Did the driver pick them up? Or was it Andrej? I have a moment of panic that it might’ve been Ivana, but then I can’t imagine her picking up anyone’s dirty laundry, and especially not mine.
I’m disappointed when there isn’t a trace of Andrej’s cologne in the car. We had sex right here on the seat, but any evidence we might’ve left behind has been erased as if it never happened.
I stare out of the passenger window and pretend that the driver knows nothing. Besides, there are more important things to focus on. Like, why did Andrej leave without waking me up? Why was Ivana really there? I’m still no closer to a resolution when the car pulls up outside the refuge.
I get out and thank the driver.
It feels surreal being driven around the city, and despite my frazzled brain, I know that there’s no point allowing myself to get used to it. This is Andrej’s reality. Not mine.
Mika is waiting for me in the office.
She peers at my clothes and ponders whether she has seen them before, or if I’ve been on a way-out-of-our-price-range shopping spree while she’s been working her ass off alone.
“I’m so sorry,” I blurt out before she can speak. “I’ll take all the night shifts for the rest of the week. For the next two weeks.”
One eyebrow slants upward as her smile spreads. “Let me guess. He ripped your clothes off you in a moment of violent passion and rewarded you with a whole new wardrobe.”
I finally allow my shoulders to relax a little. “Close. It’s a long story.”
“Oh, I’m counting on it. It’ll keep me going through the long, lonely nights of me and my hot new date, the extra-supple, battery-operated, black beauty.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “What am I supposed to do with that vision now?”
“Do whatever you want, Car. Now you know how I felt last night thinking about you and Mr. Bad Boy.”
I lower my gaze. When we got back to Andrej’s apartment last night, it was perfect. Romantic. Sexy. Passionate. But it has been tainted by Ivana’s unprompted arrival.
I feel as if I’ve been dropped from the dizzying heights of euphoria to the dismal lows of anxiety and self-doubt.
What if Ivana was right?
What if everything Andrej said to me was nothing more than an elaborate chat-up line?
“What’s happened?” Mika walks around the desk, leans back against it with her arms folded, and narrows her eyes. “I need you focused, Car, so come on, out with it.”
I tell her about the nightclub and Ivana, omitting everything that took place inside the back of the car and Andrej’s gigantic bed. She can fill in the blanks later from her well-stocked imagination.
When I’m finished, she wrinkles her nose. “Sounds to me like the green-eyed witch is suffering from the green-eyed monster. Didn’t you wonder why he’s single? I bet she warns off any woman who gets close to him because she wants him for herself.”
I shake my head. “No, that isn’t it.”
I don’t know why she was trying to get rid of me, but I don’t think it was down to jealousy. That would require passion, and the woman with the green flicks on her eyelids didn’t strike me as the passionate kind.
Mika propels herself off the desk and straightens. “Well, if you want my advice, don’t let her get to you. I’ve never seen you so … sexually aroused before.” Her eyebrows dance.
My cheeks grow hot. Mika, Gianna, and I have been through a lot together.
We’ve held each other’s hair back while we’ve been sick.
We’ve been out for greasy breakfasts when we’re hungover.
We’ve even discussed the physical attributes of the Hemsworth brothers in extremely sordid detail while utterly sober.
But it doesn’t stop me from blushing.
“Oh my god, does it show?” I peer down at my pants, praying that they’re dry between my legs. They are.
But the reaction isn’t lost on Mika, who dissolves into raucous giggles.
“Lucky bitch,” she mutters as I follow her out of the room.