Page 93 of Taken By My Grumpy Pakhan

‘Quit chewing your pen, it’s distracting.’

I glanced up immediately. Kazimir was mid-sentence, still addressing Voss, not even looking in my direction, and yet somehow he’d noticed exactly what I was doing without breaking the rhythm of his presentation.

I set the pen down, feeling heat climb up my neck, and tried to focus on the conversation instead of the phone sitting innocently on the table in front of me.

It buzzed again two minutes later.

‘Also, you’re frowning. Are you bored or just unimpressed with Voss’s tie?’

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.”