Chapter 088
She stared at him, then shook her head. “I can see how you twist women’s hearts around your little finger.”
“There’s only one woman I want.” He looked at her beautiful, stricken face over the flickering candle. “I’ve never forgotten you, Illyra. Or stopped wanting you.”
He felt her hand tremble before she wrenched it from his grasp. She reached wildly for her untouched glass of vodka and, tilting back her head, drank the whole thing down in a single gulp.
That gulp ended with a coughing fit. Reaching around her, he patted her on the back. Her face was red when she finally managed a deep breath, wheezing as she quipped, “See? I know how to handle vodka. No problem.”
Somewhat relieved by her deliberate change of subject, Andrei laughed, his eyes lingering on her beautiful face. He’d said too much. And yet it was oddly exhilarating. The adrenaline rush of emotional honesty put skydiving to shame, he thought. About time he tried it.
The waiter returned to take their order, and Andrei requested a dinner that included Astrakhan beluga caviar and oysters, vodka-marinated salmon and black risotto, steak in a cream sauce and a selection of salads, breads and cheeses. Illyra shook her head in disbelief when the exotic food started arriving at the table, but ninety minutes later, as she gracefully dropped the linen napkin across her mostly empty plate, she was sighing with satisfied pleasure.
“You,” she proclaimed, “are a genius.”
He gave her a crooked grin, ridiculously pleased by her praise. “I’ve come here a few times, so I knew what to order.”
“That was perfect.” She rose to her feet. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“Of course.” Andrei watched her disappear down the hall toward the ladies’ room, and realized he was sitting alone at the best table in the most famous restaurant in St. Petersburg, grinning to himself like a fool. Feeling sheepish, he looked around him.
His gaze fell on a face he recognized, of a man sitting alone in a booth on the other side of the restaurant. This particular man in this particular place was so unexpected that it took him thirty seconds to even place him, though they’d spent many hours across the same poker table over the past two months. The Hale Ka’nani hotel manager, Aldric. What was he doing in St. Petersburg?
Perhaps the man was on vacation. In Russia. In winter. Telling himself he didn’t care, Andrei turned his chair away, so the man was out of his sight.
Today was the best day Andrei had had in a long time. Even though leaving subordinates to handle the merger so he could spend time with his mistress was reckless, irresponsible, foolish. Even though he’d likely lose a fortune retaining all the employees of Arctic Oil. Even so.
Instead of feeling guilty, he kept smiling to himself as he recalled how Lyra ’s eyes sparkled when she was angry at him. The way her body had felt, pressed against his in the mirrored dressing room of the boutique. She was fire and ice. She was life itself.
“Hawaii has changed you completely.” His doctor had been shocked by the test results that morning, when Andrei stopped on the way to the office. “You’ve recuperated from your injury better than I ever dreamed. Even your blood pressure is improved. What have you been doing? Yoga? Eating bean sprouts? Whatever it is, clean living is making you healthy. Keep it up!”
With a laugh, Andrei glanced down at his empty vodka glass and half-eaten plate of beef rib eye drenched in sauce. Clean living? No. Good living. It wasn’t yoga and bean sprouts. It was laughter, good company and lots of sex.
It was Illyra.
Andrei shifted impatiently in his chair, craning his head to look past the waiters and candlelit tables toward the wood-paneled hallway. His lips rose in unconscious pleasure when he saw Illyra coming back down the hall.
Then a dark figure came out of the shadows to accost her. Seeing Aldric, Andrei rose to his feet. Illyra looked surprised, then angry, as the man spoke to her. Andrei clenched his jaw as he strode rapidly toward them. Aldric’s eyes went wide when he saw him coming. Turning, he ran out of the restaurant.
“What did he say to you?” Andrei demanded.
Lyra turned with a carefully blank look on her face. Her poker face, he thought, but he could see her lips trembling. Her gaze dropped. “Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“He...” She licked her lips. “He told me he’s in St. Petersburg to collect a debt, and happened to see me.” Her eyes carefully remained on the gleaming parquet floor. “He said he’s going to be very rich in a few days, and he would pay a lot of money to be my next lover. He wondered if there was some kind of waiting list.”
Anger made Andrei’s vision red. He started to turn, his hands clenched. “I will kill him.”
“No. Please,” Lyra whispered. She put her hand on his arm. “Just take me home.”
People in the restaurant were staring at them, whispering behind their hands. “But we already ordered dessert,” he said tightly. “Chocolate cake. Your favorite.”
“I just want to go.” Her cheeks were red. “And forget this day ever happened.”
Forget this day ever happened? The wonderful day he’d spent with her—the hours he’d spent watching her laugh, telling her the truth, buying her things, trying so hard to please her—as he’d never tried to please any woman? “I don’t want to forget.”
She looked away. “I do.”
Shoulders stiff, Andrei went across the restaurant and tossed thirty thousand rubles on their table. Getting her leather coat, he wrapped it around her shivering shoulders and led her out into the cold, dark night. As his chauffeur drove their limousine home, Andrei looked out at the snowy streets of St. Petersburg. It had been the best day of his life, but it had ended with Illyra in tears.
He wanted to blame the fat little hotel manager. But he knew there was one person at fault for the way she’d been so crudely insulted as a woman who could be bought and sold at any man’s will.
Andrei himself.