Chapter 7 #2
“Where are you going?” Alexei called after her. “Amber, come back here!”
She had started to run. When was she going to get it through her thick skull, that she would never mean more to Alexei than good sex? And she didn’t run back to her luxurious apartment on the upper deck of his superyacht but to her staff cabin in the bowels of the ship.
Would he ever understand women? He could guarantee a man would take the money, thank him, and that would be the end of it.
But a woman? Oh no. A woman had to analyze and emote and suspect, and do all those things while looking as if he’d just insulted her.
He had only wanted to pay Amber the money he owed her—a fair wage in his world—for putting up with him, if nothing else.
He guessed the salary for a cub reporter at Hard News would be derisory, if they paid her at all.
Maybe that had something to do with her outrage.
But was it enough to make her run from him?
Amber had never run from anything in her life, as far as he could tell, so what was she running from now?
Descending to the lower deck, he noticed the lack of natural lighting and lousy air-con. There was no excuse. Cruise ships had virtual vistas on the inside cabins and air-con that worked. When was the last time he’d been down here?
He hammered on the door of her cabin. “Amber, let me in.”
“Go away.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he assured her.
“Then, you can settle in for the night.”
He rested his brow against the door. “You don’t mean that.”
“Try me.”
He could kick the door in—
And piss her off even more?
He slid down the door and sat with his back resting against the smooth, cool wood, in a narrow corridor he must have been in once, if only when he inspected the ship when he first bought it.
Now it could do with a refit. “Amber! I need you to open that door.” She’d be the one to organize a refit.
Fuck it, she was probably the only one who could organize his life. “Amber!”
“Go away,” she repeated angrily.
“Let me in, or I’ll take the door from its hinges.”
“You’d use violence?” she exclaimed.
“I was thinking a screwdriver?”
There was a long silence, and then she opened the door. He felt wretched to see she’d been crying. Her hair was a mess, and her dress was rumpled. She looked adorable. “Can I come in?”
“Better if I come out,” she snapped tensely. “There isn’t room in here for two of us.”
“So I see,” he agreed, peering inside. “Looks as if we’ve got a major refit due down here. Maybe you could handle that for me?”
“Me?” She looked at him suspiciously. “If that’s your way of saying sorry—”
“That’s my way of saying if you feel you haven’t done enough to earn that money, I’m sure we can sort that out. I didn’t mean to offend you.” Somehow, he was inside the cabin, and there were only inches to spare between him, the bed, and the door, and with Amber in the mix, that was really tight.
“Alexei! No.” She glared at him when he slipped the dress straps from her shoulders.
“Positively no?”
She narrowed her eyes, but she didn’t move, and her eyes were darkening a little more with every passing second. “You know I can’t,” she said.
“Can’t what?” he asked, backing away.
“Can’t resist you—fuck it!” she hissed on a thwarted breath.
He laughed with relief. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“For you, maybe,” she said as she stepped out of the dress.
“This…thing we have is inconvenient for both of us, I know. Unfortunately, I feel the same way about you,” he admitted, “so why fight it?” His mouth tugged in a faint smile as he kissed her, and within moments, her fingers were laced through his hair.
“Perhaps if I knew the first thing about you,” Amber said later when they were lying entwined on her far too narrow bunk, “I could understand you better, and be more sympathetic.”
“More sympathetic? I’d like to experience that.”
“I don’t just mean sex,” she said.
“What do you want to know?”
She looked at him with surprise. “Seriously?”
He kissed her again, tasting her lips, lingering, and loving being close to her.
It felt like the most natural thing in the world to let her a little way in.
She was in the space-saver position, lying on top of him, with her chin resting on her folded arms. Her gaze was serious as it steadied on his face. “Tell me everything,” she said.
He laughed softly. “That’s a lot of talking.”
“Okay, so start with your first memory.”
He didn’t have to think hard to recall that, because it was still so vivid. “Sitting in a basket saddle on the back of a horse with nothing around me but space. I was alarmed to start with, but my grandfather was riding next to me, talking to me all the time, so it was okay.”
“On the steppes of Russia,” she said. Inhaling deeply, she closed her eyes as if trying to picture the scene. “Where were your parents?”
“Dead,” he said flatly.
“How?”
Amber met his warning stare steadily and with determination. “Yes, how?” she repeated.
“Rival gangs. My father was a petty criminal.” He paused and exhaled heavily. “When things heated up, my mother smuggled me out of the city and took me to my grandfather’s in the country. But then she went back to my father and paid with her life.”
“She must have loved your father very much, and you,” she said.
“Much good it did her,” he remembered bitterly.
“So that’s why your life of horses and justice is all intertwined?” Her eyes sparked as she fit another piece of the jigsaw into place.
“Maybe,” he agreed. He didn’t want to say any more, but she was still curious.
“And your grandfather?” she pressed.
“Was the most wonderful man—he shaped my life. He was a good man, a widower, but an old man when I was orphaned. That didn’t stop him taking me in and raising me like a son.
He worked on my homework each night with me after a long day’s work in the fields, and he lived long enough to see me join the forces.
I only wish he’d lived long enough to see the multinational corporation that grew from the oil that was discovered on his land. ”
“You must have loved him very much.”
His face softened briefly, remembering. “I went back when he needed me when oil was discovered. He needed my strength then, not my love.”
“Everyone needs love, Alexei.”
“Not me, evidently.”
“Or perhaps you’re frightened to love, because everyone you loved as a child was taken from you—”
“Spare me the amateur psychology.” He moved abruptly, startling her. “I’m a hard man in a hard world, Amber. Don’t try to make me out to be something I’m not.”
He should have known she wouldn’t be in the least put off. Rolling over to face him, she rested her chin on the heel of her hand. “Do you still have a home on the steppes?”
“I have homes everywhere.” And stayed nowhere for long.
“I’d love to see your home on the steppes one day. I know that’s not possible—”
A tense silence fell between them, which she broke.
“So you live here on Russian Thunder.”
“As restless as a Cossack on the plains.” He huffed a humorless laugh.
He was always moving. It was the only way he could find peace. The only home he could remember was with his grandfather, and he would never recreate that.
“So, these other homes?” she said, perhaps in an attempt to lighten his mood.
“Covered in dustsheets, for all I know.” All of them were fully staffed, and all of them neglected by him, though they could be made ready for him at a moment’s notice.
“So with all those properties, you’ve got nowhere to call home,” Amber observed, frowning.
“I’m not exactly suffering,” he said dryly.
“No,” she agreed, and with her keenest observation yet, she said, “You’ve got everything and nothing.”
He hummed as he swung into a sitting position on the edge of the bed.
“Tell me more about your grandfather,” she begged, coming to sit at his side. “He sounds like a wonderful man.”
The pain of loss came flooding back. He shrugged it off and replaced it with anger—anger was always easier to handle than the pain of knowing he couldn’t bring his grandfather back to enjoy what should have been his.
“The stress of the growing business killed him—that, and the vultures circling. My grandfather wasn’t equipped for the cutthroat, big-city world of high finance. People thought I was young and no threat, and they could walk over me and take his money.”
“I imagine they learned their mistake.”
“My grandfather’s training made me strong,” he agreed.
“His love saved you. Your mother’s love saved you.”
“You don’t know anything about it,” he flared.
“You feel you’ve let them down, when nothing could be further from the truth. They’d be so proud of you, Alexei, and what you’re doing with your money—with your life. You do so much good. You just don’t see it.”
“I damage people,” he said coldly.
She made an impatient gesture. “Wallow in self-pity if you must—never settle down, because, yes, you might fail. Never love again, because you might lose that love. Never risk your heart. Yes. That’s the safest route for you to take.”
“You know nothing about me.”
“I know this. You’re a good man, but if you can’t see that, there’s no hope for me.”
“For you?”
“Exactly,” she said. “You can’t even see how I feel about you—because you won’t allow yourself to see.”
She had exposed his Achilles’ heel, and she had been merciless about it. It was time for Amber to understand that he wouldn’t change, and that he let no one in. He stood up, and so did she, and she was dressed before him. “Where are you going?” he demanded.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, opening the door. “You are.” She stood back. “Good night, Alexei.”