Emma
By the second day, I’m officially losing my mind. The problem isn’t that Ruslan’s hovering; it’s that he isn’t.
True to his word, he disappears almost entirely after our meeting in the cottage. Meals appear like magic. Staff politely avoid answering my questions. Kate spends exactly forty-five minutes trying to teach me some horrifying mobile game before getting distracted by friends again.
But Russ?
Gone.
Which should be a relief. Instead, it feels strangely like punishment. Or maybe this is just a business deal?
Maybe you shouldn’t have made a deal with a mafia boss you slept with.
Okay, that traitorous voice in my head isn’t exactly right, because Ruslan didn’t admit to being a crime boss. Even if everything, and I mean everything, points in that direction. And I haven’t agreed yet.
The last thing I should want is for him to come looking for me in his own house. I’m just a guest until we leave for Colorado. Or until I try to run again.
The contract arrives just after lunch, carried by a man in an immaculate gray suit who looks vaguely terrified of breathing too loudly near me.
“Mr. Smirnov asked that you review this.” Smirnov. So, at least some people know his secret.
By page three, I’m ready to commit murder.
“This is insane,” I mutter aloud, flipping another page aggressively. Non-disclosure clauses, security agreements, an outline of obligatory public appearances. The man, who I can only assume is a lawyer, shifts restlessly from one foot to the other, not exactly disagreeing.
Client agrees to submit to a complete background and security investigation prior to travel.
“Absolutely fucking not.”
Startled, the lawyer looks directly at me. Then his eyes drop to the contract, and apparently, he knows exactly what page I’m on. He clears his throat.
I read the line again, pulse quickening. The room suddenly feels too warm, too close. Every terrible possibility flashes through my head at once.
I can’t let him find out that I’m former FBI. It will, to some extent, be harder to find—be something he won’t have found yet, if he did a cursory search. Which he must have, since he gained access to my accounts and shut them down.
But whatever is going on between Ruslan and Andrei must truly have the former shaken because he hasn’t dug deep enough.
Yet.
If I sign this contract as-is, he will.
Panic crawls fast and ugly up my spine. Before I can lose my nerve, I shove the papers together and storm out of the guest wing barefoot and furious, followed by the lawyer.
“Um, Miss—” he calls, but I ignore him.
A maid points me toward the primary bedroom after one look at my face. Apparently, everyone in this house recognizes an impending argument. Good.
Storming into the room, I turn with one hand on the door and demand, “Stay out.”
The lawyer practically falls backward when I slam the door in his face. Turning around, I unleash all the pent-up frustration from the last few days—no, the last week of being trapped, lied to, and used as some kind of bait.
“Are you out of your mi—”
The words die instantly in my throat.
Ruslan looks up from fastening his watch. Shirtless.
Oh.
Oh, that’s unfortunate.
Warm lamplight spills across broad shoulders and hard muscle dusted with black ink, disappearing beneath the waistband of beige slacks. A thin scar cuts across one side of his ribs. Another marks his shoulder.
Real scars; not from football played in childhood or an appendectomy. Scars belonging to someone who has seen blood and shed it.
My brain fully stops functioning for one humiliating second.
Ruslan notices immediately.
One pale eyebrow lifts. “You appear distracted.”
Heat floods straight into my face. “I’m not distracted. I’m angry.” The papers are in a limp bundle at my side.
“Mm.” The bastard actually looks amused.
I clutch the contract tighter instead, holding it up. “This is insane. No way am I agreeing to this.”
Ruslan reaches calmly for a cream-colored linen shirt draped across the bed. He pulls it on over his shoulders, buttoning it slowly. It’s embroidered in gorgeous, muted floral designs in red, gold, and green across the chest and cuffs. Damn. This man looks too good.
“You will need to be more specific.”
“These stipulations. The background check!”
His expression shifts momentarily, interest lighting up his eyes. Shit. I shouldn’t have mentioned that first.
“You object?”
“Yes, I object!”
He slowly finishes the last button without looking remotely concerned by my outrage. “That generally happens during negotiations. Or, at least, the sort that I’m involved in.” A wicked smirk, like the one he gave me before he hoisted me onto the dining room table.
“You don’t need a background check on me.”
“I disagree. Especially considering your reaction right now.”
My pulse spikes harder. “You already know who I am.”
“No,” Ruslan says evenly, adjusting his watch with infuriating calmness. “I know what you allowed me to know.”
I hate that my silence probably confirms his suspicion immediately.
His eyes narrow slightly as he studies me across the room. “What exactly are you afraid I will find, Emma?”
“Nothing.” A lie. An obvious one.
I cross my arms defensively. “You don’t get to investigate my life like I’m applying for the CIA.” An acronym that’s a little too close to the one I want him to avoid. What the hell am I doing?
A dark smile curves his mouth slightly. “If you were applying to the CIA, the process would be considerably more invasive.”
“That isn’t comforting.”
“It was not intended to be.”
He reaches for his cufflinks while I stand there trying not to look at his hands. Or his chest beneath the partially open shirt. Or literally anything about him.
This house is becoming psychologically damaging.
“You’re unbelievable,” I mutter.
“So I’ve heard.”
Something else finally catches my attention then.
The watch.
The cologne.
The fact that he’s clearly getting ready to leave, to go out...
Suspicion twists unexpectedly low in my stomach. “Where are you going?”
Ruslan glances toward me briefly. “Dinner.”
“With?”
“A friend.”
Kate’s comment the day she walked into the guest bedroom comes back to me. A friend—a female friend? A model friend?
Why do I care? I absolutely should not care.
Unfortunately, my body did not receive that memo.
“Oh,” I say too quickly. “Cool.”
His eyes flick back toward me with a slow smirk playing on his lips. Goddamnit.
“You are jealous again.”
“I am not jealous.”
“Mm.”
I hate that sound now.
“You disappeared for two days,” I snap instead. “Excuse me for not realizing I’m apparently one stop on your social calendar. You made it sound like whatever you were planning on using me for,” I hate the way my body pulls at that choice of word, “was important in some way.”
The second the words leave my mouth, I want to die. Because they sound jealous.
Ruslan stills completely. His eyes narrow, and I see that calculating assessment. The same one I used to use when trying to suss out someone’s emotions. “You missed me.”
I scoff. “Miss you? I barely know you. I was enjoying the peace and quiet until your lawyer expected me to sign this ridiculous contract.”
“Liar.”
My stomach flips traitorously. I throw the contract onto the bed instead before I can say something even more humiliating. “I’m not signing this if you run a full background investigation.”
Ruslan’s amusement fades instantly. His pale eyes settle fully on me now, observant and cold enough to make my pulse stumble.
“Why?” he asks quietly.
Every instinct in my body screams. But I can’t run, and I can’t fight anymore; I burned that bridge with the government two years ago.
Why?
Because if Ruslan digs deeply enough into my past, he’s going to find pieces of me I barely survived the first time. FBI reports. Missing evidence. Corruption investigations that spiraled so badly that I still wake up sweating some nights.
And the terrifying thing?
Part of me thinks he already suspects more than he’s saying.
“I just don’t like being investigated,” I say finally.
Ruslan watches me for a long moment. Then he moves slowly. Circling me. Herding me, I realize too late, further into the room that smells like him. The room I’ve been relieved not to be anywhere near, since my body is responding all too enthusiastically to these very memorable surroundings.
“You are lying again.”
The low certainty in his voice sends a sharp pulse of adrenaline through me. He stops directly in front of me now, close enough that I catch the clean scent of his cologne mixed with something darker underneath.
“You freeze my cards, hunt me across Santa Barbara, hold me hostage in your mansion, and now you want access to my entire life?” I snap. “Forgive me for being a little suspicious of your intentions.”
One pale eyebrow lifts. “There’s that word—hostage again.”
“If the designer loafer fits.”
A dark laugh slips out of him. God, I hate how attractive that sound is. It makes something sultry and slow curl at my core, makes my nipples go hard without even the hint of a touch.
“I told you already what I am,” he says quietly.
“You told me you’re a criminal. But it seems worse than that.”
“Yes.”
Deep down, I knew. I knew from the second he appeared in that fitting room and every person around him shifted automatically. I knew from the men at the bus station. From the way people obey him instantly.
But hearing him admit it so calmly still rattles me.
“You should probably be more alarmed right now,” Ruslan murmurs, stepping closer.
Closing the gap between us until his fingers are brushing stray curls from my neck.
When did they fall from the messy bun I put them up in?
This man infuriates me, pushes my boundaries, scares me, and thrills me all at once.
“I am alarmed.”
“No,” he says softly, eyes dragging over my face, “you are angry. And turned on.”
Unfortunately, he’s right.
I’m angry at myself for ending up here in the first place. Angry that despite every horrifying thing about this situation, my body still reacts to him instantly.
I should back up.
I don’t.