The Russians. The goddamn contract!
So they sent the biggest, most terrifying, hottest man I have ever seen in my life to my front porch, in a three-piece suit, on a Tuesday afternoon, while I’m in a sundress, no bra and bare feet, to fuckingcollect.
Lord, please. Not now. Not like this. Not when I look like a housewife who lost a fight with the dishes.
I tilt my chin up, gathering the few remaining shreds of my dignity.
“Mr. Maksimov.” My voice comes out lower than I meant it to. A little raspy. I haven’t talked out loud all day.
His pupils widen. Just a little. I would never have seen it if I hadn’t been staring straight into his face like a star-struck fool. Was he… reacting to my voice?
A beat of silence stretches between us. He’s waiting for me to say something, or invite him in, probably, like a normal person. But I don’t. I keep my arms crossed, my chin up, and I don’t move from the doorway, because if I move he’ll be inside my house, and once he’s inside, I have absolutely no fucking plan.
Adam Maksimov inclines his head. Just a fraction. Like he’s a fuckinggentleman.
“May I come in?”
It’s not a request. His words make it sound like one. But the rest of him does not.
I should say no, slam the door, call…and who the fuck would I call?The cops, who Ray paid off for ten years? Jasmine, who’s twenty? My fucking dead father who sold me to Ray in the first place? The friends with whom I haven’t spoken in ten years, since I became Mrs. Mob Boss?
There is no one to ask for help.
I tighten my arms across my chest. The movement briefly catches his eyes, then they’re back on my face, and I feel that look in places I have no business feeling anything from this man.
So I step aside and he walks past me into my house and,Lord, he is so close. Close enough that I can smell him. His expensive cologne. Something cool and dark and a little smoky; under it, warm skin and clean cotton, and under that, just him. Man, strong, dizzying… giving me the feeling I’m going to besmelling that for the rest of my life, and I have known the man for all of thirty seconds.
Good God.
Three
Lisa
His sleeve brushes my bare arm, and my skin prickles where the air moves between us. I don’t flinch, don’t move. I keep my chin up, my arms crossed, and let him pass.
He’s tall. Lord, he’s tall. Standing inside my foyer, he makes the space feel tiny. The hat rack by the door looks like a child’s toy next to him. Maksimov turns slowly, taking in the entryway. The peeling wallpaper, chipped tile, the dust on the chandelier I cannot reach to clean… and I watch himseeit. The truth about this house. Of me. Of what’s left of the Venn empire. A fucking joke. But he doesn’t react, just turns back to me. His eyes meet mine, his sexy mouth pulled up at one corner, just a hint.
Fuck.I am alone in my house with Adam fucking Maksimov.
“The living room’s this way.”
I don’t wait for him to answer. I turn my back on six feet of Bratva problem and walk down the hall on my bare feet, because I am not about to stand in my foyer with this man another second. Moving is better than staying put. Movement soundslike a plan. A plan that hopefully distracts me from whatever the fuck my nipples are doing under this dress.
I hear his footsteps behind me, slow and deliberate. Like he’s got all the time in the world. The wooden floor doesn’t creak under him the way it should for a man his size. He moves like a feline. A goddamn predator.
The living room is the least embarrassing room in the house. Our good couch…goodbeing relative…sits in front of a once-grand fireplace. The rug is older than Jasmine. And the portrait of Ray’s grandfather still hangs over the mantel because I haven’t worked up the energy to take it down and trash it.
I gesture at the armchair by the window. But of course, Maksimov doesn’t sit there. He settles on the couch and takes up about half of it, his jacket falling open, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, one long, muscular arm draped along the back of the cushion like he’s posing for the cover of GQ, watching me.
I sit in the armchair because the alternative is the other side of the couch, and I am not getting anywhere near this man if I can avoid it. I cross my legs, uncross them, and cross them again. Then I cross my arms over my chest for the billionth time since I opened that damn door, chin up.
“Mr. Maksimov.”
“Adam, please.” His voice does that gravelly thing again, combined with his accent… and I feel warmth spread between my thighs. Fuck me…
“Mr. Maksimov.” I repeat. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, but the contract my husband signed with your family was never finalized. So there’s no agreement. I’m afraid whatever you came here for, you wasted the trip.”
I deliver the speech the way I’ve been practicing since my asshole husband’s passing. Calm, civil, immovable. The voice of a woman who has options. Ha.
