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Eager to share Joanne’s exciting news with my mom, I let myself in with my key without knocking and hurry to the kitchen, where the only light in the apartment is burning. My mom’s voice reaches me with the aroma of my favorite split-pea soup. She’s chatting amiably, probably to her neighbor, Mrs. Davis, who drops in from time to time.
I round the corner with a grin on my face, only to stop dead in the doorway.
The picture in front of me burns into my brain, but my mind has difficulty processing it. My mom is stirring something in a pot on the stove, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining, and in a chair by the table sits none other than Alex Volkov.
18
“Hello, Katyusha,” Alex says in a deep, level voice.
The bulk of his frame looks ridiculous in the small chair. He reminds me of the big, bad wolf in one of the three pigs’ little houses. His size makes the room look smaller, and the walls close in around me as he pins me with a stare that dissects like a blade. His dark hair is perfectly trimmed, and the black rollneck jersey he wears with faded blue jeans shows off the width of his shoulders and the impressive size of his biceps. Despite the casual attire and relaxed pose, he looks no less dangerous or intimidating than he did in a power suit, rescuing me from an attacker in a dark alley.
“What are you doing here?” I ask when I finally manage to find my voice.
He waves a big hand toward my mom. “Laura invited me to stay for dinner. Your mother is very nice.”
They’re on a first-name basis? Already?
“How long have you been here?” I ask, suspicion coiling in my gut.
He holds my gaze without faltering. “I just came over for a cup of coffee and a slice of Laura’s delicious chocolate cake, but she invited me to stay for dinner.” He narrows his strikingly blue eyes so fractionally I doubt my mom notices, but I do. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course she doesn’t,” Mom says, waving away the comment as she finishes stirring the soup before coming over to kiss my cheek. “Why would she?” She points the wooden spoon at me. “Shame on you for not telling me about your handsome date.”
“Hopefully,” Alex says, his voice laden with nuance, “soon to be boyfriend.”
“Oh, how wonderful.” My mom beams. “It’s about time you had a man in your life again, Katie.”
I stare daggers at him. How dare he use my mom against me?
“Dinner is ready.” She flits around to collect bowls and cutlery, flustered like she usually is when she’s trying to impress someone. Pushing a tray with the crockery and soup spoons into my hands, she says, “Why don’t you set the table, Katie?”
Alex gets up. “I’ll help.”
When he takes the tray from my hands, our fingers brush. Tingles ignite under my skin, traveling up my arm. The corner of his mouth lifts as he looks down at me, knowing very well the reaction he elicits.
Turning my back on him, I set the table in the kitchen. I’m bristling inside, but I can’t bring myself to say something in front of my mom and shatter her obvious delight at having my date over for dinner.
From the way she fusses over him, dishing up a double portion and asking if he’d like more salt, pepper, bread, or anything at all, she approves of my choice of a so-called date. She’d be horrified if she found out I don’t have a choice in the matter right now.
She turns to Alex when we’re seated at the table. “We chatted the whole afternoon away, but you never told me what you do for a living.”
Like me at first, my mom doesn’t know he’s one of the wealthiest—and most persistent—men in the world. She doesn’t read the financial news, so the Russian oligarch’s name has never blipped on her radar.
Her ignorance doesn’t faze him. He smiles warmly at her. “I’m in the oil industry, but I dabble in real estate, clean energy, information technology, pharmaceuticals, and many other investments.”
Mom blinks. I think it’s starting to dawn on her that he’s wealthier than she suspected. Undaunted, she dips her spoon into the soup and continues her interrogation. “What brought you here from Russia?”
“Business opportunities,” he says evasively.
My mom’s face brightens as she asks hopefully, “Then you live here permanently?”
Could she be any more transparent? She may as well tell him straight to his face that she hopes he’s not going to whisk me away to a foreign country. I wish I could disappear inside my bowl of soup.
“I split my time between my various business holdings,” he says. “But I plan to be in New York for the foreseeable future.”
