Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Genevieve
“He got the same room for us,” I said into the phone, pacing the luxurious suite.
“You did say it was just you two, Lev and Nico. He probably figured it was no use pretending.”
I massaged my forehead with the pads of my fingers. “They may be close to him, but that doesn’t mean I want them to know I’m hooking up with him.”
“You’re even more foolish than I thought if you think they’re not aware.”
I slumped onto the bed, loving the bounce that came with it. “What do I do now? How do I look Nico in the face after this?”
Anna chuckled. “You seem to be more concerned about Nico than anyone.”
“Lev is almost a stone statue, barely moves or says a word, but Nico had been giving me looks and eyebrow wriggles like he was onto me since I started working, and now he has his confirmation.”
“Darling, I promise he probably had his confirmation from the first night.”
My shoulders sagged and I looked at the time. It was almost six in the evening and I had yet to hear from any of them.
Kazimir barely entered the suite and had taken off to see a few family members over a family feud.
I knew I couldn’t follow him to that, but I desperately wanted to know what it was about. Anything to catch a glimpse of the man that lay beneath pressed suits and calm expressions.
“You should take the spa appointment to your advantage.” Anna’s voice brought me back to the present. “Get a nice massage and beauty treatment; I’ve heard they work better at night.”
“Yeah.” I stretched, feeling tension deep inside my muscles. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”
I ended the call, picking up the brochure the attendant brought shortly after we arrived. She said I was free to pick anything from the list or even everything if I wanted.
After much-needed deliberation, I called her when I decided on the deep-tissue massage, a body detox and scrub.
We had three days to spend and I knew I wasn’t going to exhaust everything on the list, but I could see myself checking off an item or two every evening after work.
The hotel was more of a resort and had multiple activity centres, from ancient Scandinavian rituals to clubs and hot yoga.
I was particularly giddy about this trip after all the tension in the office, and I figured some alone time was probably what I needed to talk to Kazimir and figure out exactly what I wanted with this.
The doorbell rang, signalling the arrival of the attendant. I quickly changed into a free dress as she had instructed and left with her.
When I opened my eyes, tiny rays of sun had begun to peek through the white curtains, illuminating the suite.
The first thing I noticed was that Kazimir’s bags were exactly where they’d been and the other side of the bed was untouched.
I peeled off the masks I was instructed to sleep with, stretching and loving how weightless my body felt.
I reached for my phone but withdrew when I realized I did not have his number. All our communication had been through emails.
Family feuds were strange and could last days, I’ve had a few of my own to know, but I expected some form of communication. It was a new day and according to his calendar, we were due for the first meeting and site inspection in four hours.
My phone vibrated on the table and I hurriedly reached for it, a mild pang of disappointment piercing my chest when I saw a text from Rose asking how I was enjoying Russia.
I shot her a quick reply and decided to send Kazimir an email before I began preparing for the day.
A warm bath was exactly what I needed after an evening of deep massage, a hammam, and my body being infused with different herbs.
The experience was heavenly and I already felt the effects on my skin, but I knew a nice soak would loosen up the rest of the tension.
I wonder what Kazimir would do if he saw how smooth and silky I felt right now.
Nope. I shook my head, shattering the thought into multiple fragments. This was hardly the time to be fantasizing about the man.
I explored the city through my phone, feeling a wave of excitement roar to life within me. I’d never been this far from home and I’ve certainly never been to Europe before. I couldn’t wait to attend meetings and meet the who’s who of the business world in Russia.
Younger me would be stunned to death, but she’d be proud of how far we’ve come too.
Breakfast arrived shortly and I opted to eat on the balcony to get a nice view of the city at dawn.
Kazimir was yet to text and it was about an hour to the first appointment. I sent him a second email, one to him and one to Nikolai, and proceeded to lay out my outfit for the day.
Rose, Anna and I had pulled all our arsenals to find the perfect Euro-style outfits for the trip and I was beyond excited to try it out.
An hour turned to two, and two became three, and still, nothing from the two, and in the most gut-wrenching manner, I’d realized this was a replay of Texas.
They’d gone to take care of stuff and never returned till the meeting was done. Fury engulfed every inch of me.
If he thought I was that incompetent, why bother employing me and bringing me to these things to humiliate me when he could’ve left me at home to waste my time on whatever I wanted.
I grabbed my phone, my fingers moving faster than my brain as I typed the most obscene message known to man, cursing him out and telling him how he was a pompous bastard who deserved to be grilled and served to cannibals.
When I was done, my chest felt light, but the thrum in my veins was nowhere near gone.
I checked my phone again, just to confirm the absence of a notification, then tossed it onto the duvet with more force than necessary.
“Fine,” I said to the empty room. “Fine.”
It wasn’t fine by any metric. I’d flown hours across an ocean to sit in a hotel room and water the single orchid on the windowsill, which, I was almost certain, was fake, because nothing this perfect grew without someone forcing it to be that way.
By the time the fifth hour rolled by, boredom had curdled into something sharper.
And in my fury, Svetlana’s voice in the changing room whispered into my mind's ears, soft and venomous, telling me to save my coins for when he got bored.
I thought about the parade of women plastered all over the magazine with him.
I thought about how I was apparently good enough to fly to Moscow but not good enough to sit in on a single meeting.
She was right. I was nothing more than a decorative doll standing beside Kazimir.
So when I found his black card sitting innocently on the entryway table, the one he’d given me for “incidentals,” I decided incidentals could mean whatever I wanted them to mean. Maybe I should do what arm candy was meant to do.
I grabbed my coat, told the security detail at the door I was going shopping, and watched their faces do the careful blank thing men did when they weren’t sure if they were allowed to stop me.
The boutiques on Tverskaya Street did not care that I was furious.
They welcomed me with champagne and soft lighting and racks of clothing so beautiful it almost made me feel guilty for hating the man who’d unknowingly funded the spree.
Almost. I tried on a coat that cost more than three months of my old rent and bought it without checking the price tag twice.
I bought shoes I would probably never wear.
I bought a set of crystal earrings for Anna, a pair of shoes for Rose and a coat for Caroline to compensate for the time they spent helping me pack up for this mistake of a trip and also because they deserved nice things and I was, apparently, in the business of spending Kazimir's money out of spite.
It felt childish and petty and good, the way eating an entire pint of ice cream felt good even as you knew you’d regret it later.
I spotted one of the men at the hotel door behind me; he was doing a terrible job of shadowing me, but his presence only encouraged me.
Knowing I was not alone and safe in a foreign land, I became emboldened to widen my horizons and explore options.
By the time I dragged myself and four overstuffed bags back into the suite, the sun had gone down, my feet ached and the satisfaction had mostly worn off, replaced by the low hum of exhaustion.
I kicked off my shoes by the door, left the bags in a haphazard pile, and went to find something to eat from the absurdly stocked minibar.
The suite was dark and silent. I assumed he was still out, locked in whatever ruthless negotiation he was in, or even worse, in the arms of some Russian model.
I swallowed the bitterness on my tongue with a shot of whiskey. I wouldn’t let him make me feel sorry for myself. I would turn this suite into a disco ball if that was what I needed to stay sane.
And if he was going to let me spend the night alone while he rotted in the arms of God-knows-who, then I'd create my own fun.
I was wrong. The sound of running water hit me as I entered the room, coming from the bathroom on the right.
My first instinct was to ignore it. Whatever he was doing in there was his business, and I’d spent the entire day reminding myself that his business was none of mine.
But curiosity had never been my strong suit when it came to him, and my feet were already moving before my better judgement caught up.
The bathroom door was half open. I pushed it the rest of the way and the sight that greeted me stopped me cold.
Kazimir stood hunched over the sink, his jacket gone, his white shirt sleeves shoved up past his elbows.
His knuckles were split open and the water running over them turned pink as it swirled down the drain.
A gun sat on the marble counter beside the sink, dark and entirely too at home there, like it belonged among the toiletries as much as his razor did.
He didn’t flinch when I stepped inside. He didn’t have to. We’d been down this road before; the only difference was, the last time, the blood wasn’t his.
The gun, however, pushed forward memories I’d tried to bury for the longest time.
“You should be asleep,” he said. His voice was low, rough at the edges.
“And you should not turn up to shared spaces bloodied and with a gun.”
My fury had dulled into a hint of worry and before I knew it, I walked to him, positioning myself between the sink and his hard body.
“I don’t need help,” he grumbled when I took his hand but didn’t retract.
“I didn’t ask,” I said, retrieving the small first aid kit on the counter close to the sink and began unwrapping the gauze.
I should turn the other way and run. I can no longer feign ignorance. Kazimir might not have offered explanations, but he also never hid a thing from me.
Three of his knuckles were split. I poured antiseptic over a cotton pad and pressed it gently to the wound, watching his jaw tighten in response.
“Sensitive for a man who runs a security empire,” I said, mostly to fill the silence.
“It stings.”
“Pain usually does that.”
A faint huff of air left him, not quite a laugh, but close enough that I counted it as a small victory.
I worked in silence for a while, cleaning each cut and wrapping his knuckles in gauze with hands that were steadier than I expected, given that my heart was doing something erratic and embarrassing in my chest.
“You’re not going to ask,” he said eventually.
I glanced up at him. “Would you tell me if I did?”
“Maybe.”
“Then ask me what I think happened, and I’ll tell you, and you can correct me if I’m wrong.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, the closest thing to amusement I’d seen from him all day. “Go on, then.”
The shady meetings began to make sense, but what I couldn’t understand was why he felt the need to bring me along.
“I think you went somewhere you didn’t tell me about, because telling me would mean admitting it wasn’t just a meeting.
I think someone said something you didn’t like, or did something you liked even less, and you handled it the way you handle everything.
With your fists, because words are too slow for whatever you’re feeling. ”
He was quiet for a long moment. “That’s fairly close.”
“How close?”
“Close enough for me to be convinced you’ve been taking notes.” Another moment passed and I was almost certain the conversation was done when he spoke, completely surprising me.
“A man in my organization felt he could play behind my back.”
Only one word caught my attention. “Organization?”
His lips twitched and he took his hand from me, examining my work. “Nice work. Sure you’ve never done this before?”
When I didn’t answer, he let out a sigh. “Let’s call it a different branch of the office, the unorthodox, less diplomatic version.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I nodded. So long as it kept him talking.
“I don’t tolerate men who think my absence means my attention has wavered.”
He didn’t soften the word or dress it up for me. “Other times I have to be more creative. Tonight didn’t require creativity.”
“And the gun?”
His gaze flicked to the counter, to the weapon resting there like an afterthought. “Insurance. In case creativity failed.”
I should have felt sick. Some distant, sensible part of my brain told me I should be backing away right now, putting distance between myself and the man who’d just confirmed, in plain words, that the things I’d suspected about him were not exaggerations.
“You went shopping.” He changed the topic before I could come up with a response.
I followed his gaze to the line of bags visible through the open bathroom door. Heat crawled up my neck.
“You left me in a hotel room for over twenty-four hours.”
“I curated some activities for you to enjoy within hotel grounds.”
I squared up to him. “I curate my own fun.”
His lips did the thing where they slanted upwards and shot straight to my core. “How much did that cost me?”
He didn’t notice the debits?
“I don’t know,” I shrugged, feigning nonchalance even though I knew I could never afford it if he asked for a refund.
“Of course you don’t,” he chuckled, walking into the room.
He eyed the bags, his gaze lingering on a piece of lace peeking through. “Model them for me?”
“No. You’re still under probation.” I walked past him and for the first time, I’d witnessed something close to a miracle.
Kazimir Ivanovich laughed.