Chapter 1 Natasha
NATASHA
Pop would break Lachlan MacKenzie’s money-making Dodger legs, and every one of those perfect, million-dollar batter fingers if he knew Lach stood me up tonight.
Good thing Pop didn’t know.
I’d given Pop and Momma Christmas Day in Rublyovka—Russian Hollywood—and would fly out before midnight. Tomorrow belonged to family.
Christmas Eve night? Well, it didn’t belong to Santa.
I stood at the center of a grand hotel lobby in Manhattan. One hand rested on the camera bag at my side, the other gripping my phone like it owed me answers. “Where are you?” I murmured under my breath.
This wasn’t just another trip. I flew to New York to give him one last chance. And then when promotions required it … and I hadn’t seen him, I agreed to meet him here at this hotel. Okay, if all else fails … I’ve taken photos of Christmas Eve in Times Square.
All else fails?
No. It would be Lach.
Again.
He was the only disappointment that mattered to me.
The screen lit up.
My thumb hovered over the Accept button. His face smiled back at me—those intense, tropical green-blue eyes. That confident smirk, powerful jaw. A lethal combination of all-American athlete and Scottish mischief. It wrecked me.
The call went to voicemail.
Stupid. I know. I’d spent Christmas Eve day alone, then I didn’t answer?
Ugh. I always answered. Always available since we started seeing each other two summers ago, after we'd met during the Christmas holiday season prior. While part of me had loved him too much before he even said hello, another part of me craved this. The waiting. To always run to him when he called.
His call dropped.
A text popped up.
LACH: Don’t do me like that, love. Answer your phone.
A reluctant smile cracked across my face, warming something deep in me that had no business burning hot.
ME: No.
For once, I’d be that girl. Untouchable. Chased by men instead of the girl who rearranged her world for a maybe. It was easier to be bold from behind a screen—where he couldn’t hear the lilt of anticipation in my voice or see me breathless.
LACH: Okay. Room 1512. Merry Christmas.
ME: Not happening.
Okay. That was a lie. Because I was absolutely going, even though I told him I’d meet him at the hotel, and we’d exit said hotel for the evening.
LACH: Trust me?
Those two words. I inhaled slowly, my chest expanding against the cashmere dress.
Truth? I knew everything about this man.
His stats. That nasty video of him from his early days with the Dodgers.
Super scandalous. Excessive camera angles.
I hadn’t watched it with the rest of the female population. But it existed. That … very long video.
Still, the question lingered. I groaned, “Do I trust me?”
LACH: Don’t talk to yourself.
My head snapped up. I glanced around. Marble walls. Christmas trees with humongous ornaments every step of the way.
LACH: Don’t look around either. Just come to my room. Because if you leave looking that good, I will find you.
ME: First of all. Super incriminating text messages.
I pressed send. Chewed my lip and fished for more snark.
LACH: Second? Cmon Tasha. When you say first of all with that cute attitude you gotta follow it up.
Every time I read the words my room I got anxious. Hot. Bothered.
ME: Don’t bait me. You don’t get a second.
LACH: Stop playing thumb wars. Get up here.
ME: If you shuddup, I’ll meet you.
LACH:
I shook my head, smoothing the curve-hugging dress draped off one shoulder and pooled at my ankles. My three-inch heels clicked across the marble floor. Three inches was all I could handle. Barely. I’d worn them for him.
Each step toward the elevator tightened the knot in my stomach.
As the doors closed behind me, I distracted myself by replaying Lachlan’s stats—his batting average, his spring training numbers.
World Series plays. I knew them all. Most girls didn’t like baseball.
I did. It was the one safe place I could retreat to when things got hot.
Literally.
Because every time I thought of Lach, my body betrayed me.
The elevator swooshed open and added to how I ached, all over. On the top floor were two doors. Classy. Private.
I took a steadying breath.
The door opened. And there he stood.
Lachlan MacKenzie. All six-foot-three of sun-kissed muscle and low-key swagger.
Shirt sleeves rolled up. Forearms inked.
Blond fauxhawk tousled, like he’d just walked off a magazine cover.
Tall. Built like a dream. It wasn’t the way he watched me like art and an answer to everything in between that brought me to my knees.
It was the grin for me. Yep. Made me want to sin.
But I could not.
Still … I melted. Physically. Emotionally, spiritually.
He stepped behind me, tall and warm. Because of the short length of my wavy hair, his breath brushed my neck the way I loved. Tingles danced down my spine.
“You said you’d trust me, Cutie Pie.”
That’s not my name. It reminded me of a pudgy baby doll, and I already had the high, full cheeks and skin tone of Jurnee Smollett.
“I trust you,” I murmured. He pulled the camera bag off my shoulder, placing it on an entry table, and slipped his calloused hands—rough from batting practice and warm from the man he was—over my eyes. “No peeking.”
“Oh, no. I’m wearing heels.”
“I’ll catch you if you fall.”
Swoon. I did my best to sashay my other cheeks, while he guided me forward a few steps.
When his hands dropped away, I blinked. And forgot how to breathe.
Instead of a forty-thousand-dollar-a-night hookup spot, someone transformed the suite’s living room into a gallery. My gallery.
Large-scale photos on easels. Mounted prints on walls.
Familiar, candid shots—the kind I thought I’d taken just for myself.
My favorite image of him. One of us wrapped in shadows and laughter.
Fewer images from the start, when I avoided his busy life, right after his brother and my friend married around Christmas two years ago.
“What do you think?”
My eyes rested on a photo pulled straight from Instagram. I gasped. “This, paired with the text messages? Simple. You’re a stalker.”
“Maybe a little.”
The chuckle on my lips slowed when I glimpsed an image of me from nearly two summers ago. The night of …
“Social media enthusiast,” he corrected, pulling me out of that nightmare.
No one ever knew.
“I wanted you to see what I see.” His voice wrapped around me. “I craved the sight of you. Framed. Lit. Unforgettable.”
My throat tightened. My vision blurred. Not because of what transpired eighteen months ago. Because of Lachlan. He always turned my mood around.
There was just one photo I wanted to rip out of this beautiful place—my gallery. Instead of giving the image any more headspace, I turned toward Lachlan.
“Stunning,” I began, voice breathless, “I must thank … your assistant and anyone in hotel management that made this possible.”
Lachlan’s eyes lingered on me. “Just them?”
“Yep.”
The laugh he offered rumbled from him and turned my heartbeat into a frenzy. “Natasha, every part of you wants to thank me.”
My cheeks flushed. After a couple of beats, Lachlan stopped pinning me beneath his intense gaze.
“I wanted to show you,” he said, voice low, “that I see you, Tasha. I don’t always say it. But I pay attention.”
“I know …”
“It won’t always be like this,” Lachlan said. “The distance. The craziness.”
“I know …” I murmured, but he didn’t know the half of my reluctance to fall into that hollow my heart created when we met.
“Just renewed my contract with Nike.”
Although I nodded, part of me anticipated the next excuse. Because he could give them, and I would take them.
Only—it didn’t come.
He stood beside me. I returned my attention to the images, keeping clear of the one from the night of my leukemia nonprofit fundraising event two summers ago.
I had started Whispers of Hope after high school and worked closely with my doctor and a research team to help other kids with cancer.
Kids like me. I’d turned my twenty-first birthday celebration into a fundraiser.
Should’ve been an amazing night. And honestly?
That was how it started. There were generous quantities of king crab legs and celebrity shoutouts.
Even more generous donors, helping a cause that touched hearts. Then it wasn’t.
I glanced at another photo of me and smiled.
I had never seen myself as beautiful. Not that I had bad self-esteem or anything.
When raised on death’s bed, other things became more important.
Books. Too many cheesy rom-coms, some adventure.
I valued what other youths neglected, like not ditching classes, though Momma homeschooled me from freshman through junior year.
Plus, I already had an AA degree before senior year, so there was that.
There was also the lens of my camera to hide behind. Stalkerish photos to take. Not to toot my own horn, but my stalkerish photos were amazing—courtesy of the fine instructors at UCLA.
However, Lachlan had found every single photo of me and placed it in this room. He was the curator. And me? I now experienced the opposite side of the lens. Became art. Seen. Celebrated. Loved. Even if he hadn’t spoken it yet.
Lachlan’s arm slipped around my waist, his hand resting on my opposite hip. The tension in the muscular wall of his chest pressed against my shoulder. His breath brushed the shell of my ear.
“I’d build galleries in every city if it made you feel this seen.”
“I don’t want that,” I whispered. “I just want one man who sees me. Every version.” Maybe the broken version from that summer night. “And still wants to stay.”
“I’m trying, Natasha.” His voice cracked slightly.
I peered at the man who should’ve been my enemy.
His entire family should’ve been my family’s enemy.
But they weren’t. MacKenzie Boy Four—the son right before Lachlan—married a girl I knew who had been trafficked by the Chelomey Bratva.
Of course, that name … Chelomey had gone extinct since the girl Jamie loved, Jordyn, had saved me during my senior year in high school.
Thus, the alliance between my family and his.
Even so, an alliance wasn’t enough. I craved him. Wanted him more each day.
The Russian in me should’ve remained poised. And the Black girl in me should’ve appeared composed. A front. Nope. Ever since I took the plunge, I flocked behind Lachlan MacKenzie, and even when I felt like the only woman in Lachlan’s world, one thought scared the daylights out of me.
Would Lach ever truly be mine? Could he love me more than baseball?