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‘The same.’
‘What was it you said about rehab?’
‘Alcohol. She’d run out of money and options, and Sasha was fifteen and I imagine every time she looked at him she saw how much he hated her. So Sasha came home to my grandparents. He was already six feet tall and carrying a mountain of resentment on those kid shoulders of his.’
Sybella weirdly felt a little sorry for Galina Voronov. From what Nik had said she was clearly a troubled woman, but to have your child look at you and hate you?
‘How did your grandparents cope?’
‘They got him a psychologist and did everything they could, but it was a rough first year. I was just out of national service and doing a science degree, living at the campus. I came home weekends but he resented me from the start, and we argued a lot. I can’t blame him. I got everything that by rights should have been his.’
‘What does that mean?’
She had linked her hand with his across the table top, but now that hand closed over hers and he smoothed his broad thumb against the pulse point at her wrist. How that had happened Sybella wasn’t sure. It was like when they were in bed and one minute he’d be letting her have her way and the next she was exactly where he wanted her and happy to be there.
Yes, Nik was telling her a painful personal story and she was thinking about how sexually dominant he was.
‘Nik? What do you mean everything that by rights should have been his?’
‘He is their grandson, I’m the ring-in.’
‘Nik, that’s a terrible thing to say. I know you don’t believe that.’
‘Net, but I suspect Sasha did.’
He must have seen the look on her face because he squeezed her hand. ‘When he was sixteen I took him with me on a geological survey in the Urals. I put him to work helping me out and we started to interact as brothers for the first time in over a decade. He was with me when I first saw the abandoned Vizhny mine and talked about putting some shareholders together and buying it up. Sasha said he wanted in, so when I finally made a bid three years later he fronted up with his life savings. It was a risk, our relationship would have imploded at that point if something had gone wrong but it didn’t and it’s made both of us rich men.’
Sybella got up and came around and climbed onto his lap and pressed her cheek to his rough one.
‘I’m so glad you told me this.’
‘It’s over now,’ he said, appearing more interested in how affectionate she was being than seeking comfort. He was stroking the side of her breast so she was distracted when he added quietly, ‘Almost over.’
‘Almost over?’ She drew back and looked into his eyes quizzically.
‘Nichevo.’ He shook his head and gave her a rueful smile, the fingers of his other hand engaging with the ties holding her bikini top together.
‘Stop it.’ She fidgeted and began to laugh. ‘I told you, I am not walking around topless on this yacht, Nikolai Voronov.’
By the time she’d restored her modesty and been kissed the blinis were cold and the coffee was tepid and Nik had effectively changed the subject.
It was only when she took some of the plates inside that she saw him binning the magazine.
‘Can I ask what the legal matter was about with your stepmother?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s not a secret, dushka. Galina was the daughter of a high-ranking Kremlin apparatchik. He pulled strings. She got control of our father’s archive of work, films, documentaries. She owned all the rights for twenty years and, if that wasn’t bad enough, she effectively locked it away so nobody could see it. He’s virtually forgotten now in my country.’
‘That’s wicked.’
Nik stretched his arms and gave his shoulders a roll, showing off that honed physique she already knew very well. But she also got the impression he was shucking off all the tension that had gathered as their conversation had progressed.
‘That’s my stepmother,’ he observed dryly. ‘She’s a classic fairy tale villain.’
‘Will you ever get it back?’
He scrutinised her through those thick lashes. ‘You underestimate me, Sybella. I purchased it for several million US dollars two years ago. We settled out of court. It paid for that very nice villa on Lake Geneva you were admiring.’
