Chapter 22 #2
I bit back a laugh and kept my eyes fixed on my notebook, writing nothing of consequence, just trying to look occupied enough that nobody would notice the way my mouth kept threatening to curve upward at entirely the wrong moments.
Across the table, Nikolai caught my eye and gave me a look that suggested he knew exactly what was happening, even without seeing the texts, and was finding the entire situation far more entertaining than the actual business discussion warranted.
‘Focus on your client,’ I typed back under the table, angling my phone away from view. ‘Some of us are trying to look professional.’
‘I am focused. I’m extremely good at multitasking.’
‘You’re texting me in the middle of a business meeting.’
‘And listening to every word Voss says. Ask me anything he’s said in the last five minutes.’
I looked up despite myself, and Voss was indeed still talking, something about shipping routes and tariffs, and I had no doubt Kazimir could recite the entire thing back verbatim if pressed.
That was the maddening part of him. He never actually lost his grip on anything, not even when he was apparently determined to fluster me from across a conference table in front of his business partner and his second.
‘Impressive,’ I typed. ‘Truly a marvel of modern business.’
‘Focusing on work whilst trying to guess the colour of your bra? Small feat for a determined man.’
Despite the heat pooling inside me and an awareness of parts that had no business coming alive in a setting like this, I found myself playing along.
‘And what did you come up with? Pro tip: you win a bonus if you get it right.’
I glanced up in time to see Kazimir freeze, his finger hovering over his phone for a moment before he typed back.
‘Black, lacy with trimmings. You better have my reward ready.’
Nikolai cleared his throat loudly enough to drown out my soft gasp, and I realized I’d been staring at my phone with an expression that probably gave away far more than I intended.
Voss, to his credit, hadn’t noticed anything, too absorbed in his own pitch to register the silent exchange happening at the other end of the table, but Nikolai had clearly clocked every second of it.
“Perhaps,” Nikolai said dryly, his polished British accent thickening with what I’d come to recognize as suppressed amusement, “we could finish discussing the actual contract before Mr. Ivanovich's attention wanders any further.”
Kazimir didn’t even have the decency to look chastened. “My attention hasn’t wandered anywhere, Nico. I’m simply efficient enough to handle more than one thing at a time.”
“Mm. Your efficiency has a particular look to it lately.” Nikolai’s gaze flicked briefly to me before returning to Kazimir, something knowing and faintly exasperated in his expression.
Kazimir finally met my eyes across the table, something warm and deliberate in his look that made my pulse stumble.
The meeting wrapped twenty minutes later, Voss apparently satisfied enough with whatever terms they’d settled on, and as he gathered his things and shook Kazimir’s hand, I busied myself collecting papers and avoiding eye contact with anyone in the room.
It didn’t work. Kazimir caught my arm gently as I passed him on my way out.
“I don’t take lightly to people owing me, Miss Sinclair.” His voice was smoky.
“Aren’t you too confident for someone who isn’t sure he got the answer right?” I replied despite the staccato building in my chest.
His lips curved. “We can always check.”
My heart screeched to a halt as flashbacks of the time he'd bent me over this very table returned to mind.
Kazimir’s eyes darkened and I could tell we were both thinking the same thing. “So…?”
“You were right,” I admitted mostly because I needed to get away from him before things escalated. After the way Nikolai looked at me during the meeting, the last thing I needed was for him to see me exiting the conference room flustered and freshly fucked.
“That was too easy,” Kazimir said, his grip loosening without letting go of my arm.
“I have things I’m trying to convince myself you’re not capable of,” I said before I could stop myself.
Something in his expression shifted, the warmth cooling slightly into something more guarded. His hand fell off my arm. “So this is about Moscow.”
“No, not entirely, but I can’t pretend you didn’t disappear and turn up with injured fingers and a gun. Need I mention it was the second time I was seeing you with a gun? I don’t think I can just file it away because you’ve started texting me jokes in the middle of business meetings.”
His lips curled. “So the first time wasn’t the problem?”
Heat climbed up my neck as a visual of him trailing a gun up my thigh came to mind. I was yet to reconcile my actions that night, but I wasn’t going to give him the out he was looking for.
“That’s not what it is.”
“Really?” His voice was laced with amusement. “You didn’t say a word when I had my gun pressed to your pussy, but you have a lot to say when you saw it on a bathroom sink?”
“You were bleeding.”
“So you’re saying if I had slipped it into that hungry pussy of yours, you would have the same questions?”
I struggled to maintain a passive front despite my walls clenching painfully at the image he just painted.
I was mostly a logical and careful person, but when it came to him, that side of me completely shut down and a feral, wanton side I never knew existed took over.
Nothing scared me more than how easily he could make me break my own rules and feel safe even in the midst of danger. While I might be a stranger to relationships of this sort, I was no stranger to danger and power imbalances.
Kazimir was an obvious predator and I was as helpless as any prey. Even worse, I couldn’t tell if he simply liked to play with his food or if this was something else, and I was yet to figure out how to ask without seeming like an idiot.
“Kazimir, this is not a joke,” I finally breathed through the tumultuous, rebellious emotions brewing inside.
Kazimir's expression sobered. “I’m not asking you to file it away.” His voice was quiet.
“I’m not going to pretend to be something softer than I am just because it would be easier for you to swallow.
You saw me at the lounge and you knew I wasn’t the most upright man.
I never hid any details from you, Genevieve. ”
“But you didn’t tell me the whole truth either. Still haven’t.”
His jaw clenched and unclenched and I could see him struggling with the details.
After what seemed like hours, he finally spoke. “Voss wants to meet outside the office for the next meeting. It might take long, will you be up for it?”
My chest caved, dropping my heart to the pit of my stomach with a sting, and when I looked at him, his eyes were glued to the blank screen.
I swallowed the lump that had formed in my chest. “I’ll be on time.”
His arm fell away from mine before I could pull it away. Even the heat I’d grown accustomed to was absent on my way out.