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‘Keep going. You’re doing a good job. Got me riveted. Rose, a matchmaker from Texas, and it’s hard to explain. You know, I’m picturing a short, fat woman in a flowery hat.’
‘You keep picturing that, bratan.’
‘You bringing Flower Girl to the party tonight?’
‘Rose,’ Plato growled.
Nik lifted his hands in a mock gesture of surrender. ‘Rose,’ he amended.
Plato didn’t answer.
‘Where have you got her stashed?’
* * *
A vivid image of Rose in his bath bubbled to mind, of her spreading soapy water over her… What had she called them? Da, her ‘girly bits and bobs…’
Plato’s involuntary smile made Nik give a knowing grin. ‘She’s in the apartment, isn’t she?’
Rage blindsided him. One moment he was standing there, his mind full of naked Rose, the next she was respectably dressed and he had shirt-fronted Nik up against the wall before the other man even saw it coming. He found himself pressing the heel of his hand into his best friend’s sternum before he realised what he was doing and even then he didn’t let go. Not straight away.
Nik swore, shoving at him. Plato let him go, shifted restlessly backwards a few steps, shocked, still angry. What was he doing? A better question was what was he doing with Rose?
‘I apologise,’ he said roughly.
Nik was steamed. Plato didn’t blame him. But
he still wanted to plant his fist in his face for that suggestive crack about Rose and the apartment.
‘Did you get the figures I sent through?’ asked Nik, his tone devoid of emotion, all business.
Plato grunted. ‘Yeah, I’ve been over them. Talk to Oleg. He’s got the details.’
They talked about business for a few more minutes. Nik calmed down. Plato experienced an ever-growing tightening in his gut.
‘This girl—Rose,’ said Nik as Plato reached for his coat. ‘Come tonight. I want to meet her.’
‘Maybe,’ he said, easing his shoulders into the wool and fur. But maybe not. Rose in his nightclub. Rose in his world. Rose finally seeing who he really was and walking away.
Women always did. A little withholding of attention, lapsed phone calls, long periods apart. Plato, do you actually see this going anywhere? He’d heard that line so many times he’d perfected the regretful shrug, the formal embrace, the delivery of a piece of jewellery—the pricey goodbye they all expected from him.
But his last break-up had been different, and maybe that was why she’d gone viral on the internet. He’d come back to a hotel—had it been in Berlin? He’d just had the news that his old coach Pavel Ignatieff, the closest thing he’d ever had to a father, had succumbed to cancer. All he’d wanted was a human voice, a touch—something to ease the shock and sadness. Instead he’d got what he’d paid for: a high-maintenance girl who was angry because her agent hadn’t got her some photo shoot.
He hadn’t been in the mood to take her out. So he’d ended it. And now he was paying the price with some notoriety he didn’t want and probably didn’t deserve. He wasn’t promiscuous. He was twenty-eight, male, successful in an industry that attracted sexy women.
Yet it had been months since he’d been with one of them. Ignatieff’s death had hit him hard, and it had thrown everything into sharp relief. The women, the lifestyle, the relentless search for something to blunt the essential truth that he didn’t feel as if he deserved more.
It was lightly snowing as he emerged into the street. A car was waiting for him. Another car would follow at a short distance. Toronto had been a nice release from the sort of measures he needed to take on his home turf—especially in Moscow, where he didn’t go anywhere without armed guards.
He pulled out his phone. Cold invaded every cell of his body as he read the security report in growing disbelief. Who had delayed sending this to him?
He’d put a guy on Rose to ensure her safety, and apparently he’d been right to. She had stayed approximately half an hour at the apartment before appearing in the street and taking off on foot. She’d walked a few blocks before rounding back and entering the gallery down the road, where she had been for the past few hours.
Alone.
He swore and gestured to the car.
CHAPTER TWELVE
