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“You are demanding.”
He shrugged and pulled her into his arms, not surprised when she didn’t object and not even a little shocked when her body unhesitatingly molded to his. They reacted to each other in a physical way that was almost mystical.
If he believed in that sort of thing.
The music was slow and he pulled her body close into the shelter of his own so they could move together in a special kind of intimacy.
“Did you enjoy the wedding?” she asked in the soft tone that haunted his dreams.
“How did you know I was in attendance?” The invitation to the reception had not surprised Maxwell, but the invite to the wedding had.
He knew it was Viktor’s doing. Or perhaps the older Becks. They considered Maxwell family by dint of their shared heritage and years spent as friendly neighbors.
“I seem to have some kind of homing device where you are concerned,” Romi admitted in a voice that didn’t sound either particularly happy or bothered by that reality. “I’m pretty sure Maddie didn’t know you were there.”
“It was predominately family.” The other heiress wouldn’t have been looking for his face among her other guests.
“Yes.” It was a statement, but with a question underlying the agreement.
“I grew up with Viktor.”
“I didn’t know that.” Romi looked up, her blue eyes searching his face. “It should be hard to imagine you as a child, but it isn’t.”
“I do not know why. Everyone is a child at some point.”
“Are you sure?” she teased.
He frowned, but he wasn’t actually even a little annoyed. “I spent time in diapers and playing in sandboxes just like anyone else. I promise.”
“No popping fully formed into existence as a corporate tycoon?” she taunted.
“You are feeling feisty, aren’t you?”
She shrugged. “I just like teasing you.”
“I noticed.” No one else but his mother ever had.
And Natalya Black was too practical to be playful all that often, even with her only child.
“I was a child like everyone else,” he assured her. “You said yourself you could picture it.”
Her smile was nothing short of wicked. “A child surely, but not like everyone else. Not you.”
“I was. I even wanted to be a fireman when I was a little boy.” A common aspiration among his classmates.
Romi grinned. “I wanted to be a princess.”
He was charmed. “Right now, you look like you got your wish.”
She laughed, the sound joyous and instantly addictive. He couldn’t help but join her.
“Did you really say something so naff?”
“What is naff about it?” But he knew. In any other instance, he’d think another man telling a woman she looked like a princess was completely cheesy.
The truth made it something else.
“You said I look like a princess,” she pointed out with patent disbelief and a lot of leftover humor.
“I did.”
Her eyes widened innocently, and she asked, “Aren’t you even a little embarrassed?”
“Corporate kings don’t get embarrassed, didn’t you know that? Especially when we speak the truth.”
She gasped and went silent for several seconds before asking, “When did you realize you’d rather be king than a firefighter?”
Oh, she did like avoiding things that made her uncomfortable. He only let her get away with it sometimes. This would be one of them.
It should be an easy question to answer, but Maxwell realized he wasn’t sure when he’d given up his aspirations of saving lives and instead decided he wanted a different kind of power. “Somewhere between wanting to be a super hero and realizing Batman had to be as rich as the royal family to do the things he did.”
“Did you ever stop wanting to be a superhero?”
“Corporate kings don’t save the world.”
“Don’t they?” She was very serious all of a sudden. “Black Information Technologies is one of the most sustainable of the Fortune 500 companies.”
“It’s a matter of practicality.”
“Why did I know you’d say something like that?”
“Because I grew out of my desire to be Batman.”
“Good. His backstory is too dark anyway.”
He laughed, once again delighted by her outlook.
Romi grew serious. “I can’t imagine a company like BIT springing up out of a half-baked idea and a lot of ingenuity.”
“No. I planned the start of the company and its trajectory very carefully from the very beginning.” He’d begun the plans the day he learned of the final concession his mother had negotiated from his father.
A multimillion-dollar settlement for Maxwell on his eighteenth birthday.
Maxwell wasn’t supposed to know who his father was. Growing up, all he’d been able to guess was the man had been rich and powerful enough to facilitate his former mistress’s immigration to America.
Maxwell had assumed his father had been American as well, though his mother’s plans to move to this country could well have had nothing to do with the homeland of her son’s father. Maxwell had learned he was right when he’d hired Sebastian Hawk’s international security and detective agency to find out who the man was.
Hawk’s agency was the organization to go to for security and information. Maxwell had gone to them when he’d first opened his company and had met the owner a year later. Sebastian Hawk was a self-made millionaire who still took an interest in how his company was run.
Maxwell had more than doubled his initial capital and wanted to return the settlement to the father who had never had an interest in meeting, much less recognizing, his son.
Maxwell had discovered his father was a high-ranking diplomat from a very powerful and obscenely wealthy American family with public servant ties back to the revolutionary era. Married, with children older than his illegitimate son, the man had had a great deal to lose if Maxwell’s existence came to light.
Pointedly changing the direction of his own thoughts, Maxwell said, “I stopped wanting to be a fireman after visiting the fire station on a school field trip.”
“That’s funny.” Romi tilted her head to the side and observed him with interest even as her body moved against his to the rhythm of the music. “That’s when kids usually decide they want to be one.”
“Most of the other children in my class did. I’ve never wanted to be part of a crowd.”
“So you decided you couldn’t be a fireman because everyone else wanted to be one?” she asked, humor lacing her lovely voice.
“Exactly.”
She grinned. “You wanted to be special.”
“Are you saying I am not?”
“Oh, no, Your Majesty,” she said facetiously. “You are definitely in a class all by yourself.”
“Not alone maybe, but not like everyone else.”
“Firefighters are actually a very small percentage of our population.” She pointed out that fact like maybe he didn’t know.
“Yes, they are a rarified breed as well, and definitely to be admired and respected. However, I like control far too much to have a job dealing with either nature’s vagaries or that of human error, which I have no power to prevent.”
“There is that.” Romi shook her head. “Have you always been such a control freak?”
“My mother would say yes.”
Romi didn’t appear bothered by that admission. “I kind of like you this way.”
He wondered if she would say that after he laid out his latest plan for her.
“I am glad,” he said.
“Although I think the more appropriate term would be Corporate Tsar rather t
han King.”
“You think so? Because I was born in Russia?”
“Because you have the heart of a tsar, I think.”
He could not deny it.
He kept her in his arms by the simple expedient of continuing to dance for another thirty minutes. Even during the faster music and she never complained.
A couple of men tried to cut in, but Maxwell refused to offer the polite retreat and simply danced her away. When a woman tried the same, wanting to dance with him, he turned her down as well.
“You really aren’t controlled by social niceties, are you?” Romi asked after the last one.
“You knew this about me.”
She nodded with something like satisfaction. “I’ll admit, I don’t mind in this instance.”
“I’m glad to hear that, but admit to being curious as to why.” Just something about the way she’d spoken, he thought there was a story behind her words.
“Have you ever danced with JD?” she asked, referring to the last man Maxwell had simply ignored in his attempt to partner Romi.
Maxwell gave a short bark of laughter. “No.”
“He’s grabby. Though I suppose if he danced with you he wouldn’t be.” Her giggle was very smug.
“You think you are funny, don’t you?”
