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“Don’t you want to know where I’ll take you?”
“It doesn’t matter if I’m with you. If you want me...”
He gathered her to him, and she felt a tremor in those hands that were powerful enough to crush monsters. “I don’t even have words for how much I do.”
She fitted into his burning body, felt hers ignite. “Then I’ll be with you, for as long as you do.”
Five
A frisson of unease slithered down Anastasia’s spine.
With a last look at her phone after she ended her latest call with her parents, who called almost every day, she exhaled.
It had been ten weeks to the day since she’d come with Ivan to Russia. And the ten-week mark didn’t have a fond correlation in her mind. Not when it came to Ivan. It had been exactly ten weeks into their first relationship that he’d suddenly ended things. Just days before Alex and Cathy’s wedding.
Not that she thought he was about to end it now. This time Ivan seemed bent on being with her, being there for her, for as long as she needed him. His constant dedication to her well-being seemed to be unlimited and unending. She had to continuously try to dial down his indulgence, pull him back from extravagant gestures. To generally convince him she no longer needed any special care.
And though he now let her do things for herself, and for both of them—cooking dinner had become her enthusiastic responsibility almost nightly—she kept learning what it meant to be with one of Russia’s, and the world’s, premier oligarchs.
Sure, she’d known he was a billionaire, had seen evidence of his wealth and power in so many ways, but the more she saw, the more it shocked her all over again.
Entering his mansion had been like stumbling into a level of existence she’d only dreamed of. She made—or had made—what she’d considered a very good living being a top researcher for an elite private conglomerate, had lived her life in her parents’ million-dollar house, but this... This was just mind-boggling. His wealth had multiplied a hundredfold since she’d been with him in the past. And it made her...uncomfortable, feeling this unbridgeable gap between them.
This place alone cost forty million. When she’d said she’d never thought he would go for such extravagance, he’d confirmed that. He’d bought this baronial castle with its own lake, sweeping grounds replete with pine trees and a staggering forty thousand square feet of living space only after she’d agreed to come to Russia with him. So she’d have all the space and facilities to be entertained without leaving home.
He’d dropped forty million just so she didn’t have to go out!
But she’d realized he’d been right. For weeks she’d been unable to contemplate being out in public, to see even strangers on the streets. The idea of meeting any of his acquaintances and interacting with them made her break out in cold sweat.
She had, however, insisted he go out alone. He’d refused. He’d locked himself up with her, so that he even worked across from her in the same room, or in the room he’d made into the nerve center of his cyber tech empire, running one of the major tentacles of Black Castle Enterprises right next to her favorite living room. Apart from the fleeting presence of Fyodor and his team of guards and hired help, Ivan had had no one for company but her.
He assured her he was a loner, with the only company he’d ever had in his life Dr. Balducci and his other partners. Even them he saw only sporadically since they were all so busy with their businesses and now with their families. And he insisted he didn’t want anyone else’s company but hers anyway.
But even if none of his assurances were to make her feel better, he couldn’t enjoy being cooped up in the same place for that long, not even if it was acres wide. But her efforts to get him to go out met with dismal failure. He wouldn’t budge from her side.
But for the past couple of weeks, she’d been feeling much better, regaining the desire to actually walk the streets and see people, and yesterday she had actually done it. He’d taken her on a tour of Moscow. She’d been predictable and chosen to start with the famous attractions.
The whole morning yesterday had been spent visiting the Krasnaya Ploshchad, or Red Square, followed by the nearby and stunningly beautiful St. Basil’s Cathedral, which exemplified Russian architecture. The two landmarks, now starting to get covered in snow, seemed to embody everything she’d ever imagined as Russian. The land she was born in but had never returned to, until now.
Today, it was the Kremlin’s turn, where he’d made them jump queues and enter places no tourist was allowed, all through the five palaces, four cathedrals and the enclosing Kremlin Wall and Towers.
“Having a man of your influence for a guide obviously has its perks,” she’d told him.
A teasing look had lit up his face as he’d winked at her. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
She’d wondered what more there could possibly be as he’d taken them through a heavily guarded wing and into a massive, imposingly ornate office. It had only been when she’d found a man surrounded by half a dozen hulking bodyguards advancing eagerly to greet them that she’d realized what he’d meant, how accurate his words had been.
She really didn’t remember everything that had happened in the time they’d spent in that man’s company. A normal side effect, she was sure, of finding herself face-to-face with the President of the Russian Federation!
The meeting, an impromptu one that could only have been planned at most the day before, lasted for half an hour. During the surreal time, both men had made her the focus of attention and conversation, with the president himself pouring her tea and asking her all kinds of courteous questions.
Then Ivan had said he was taking her to dinner and the president had stood up at once, asking Ivan for an extended one-on-one meeting. Instead of jumping to ask when, Ivan had actually given him an inconclusive answer.
Still stunned from that, and from the whole momentous event, she’d let Ivan sweep her out of the palace complex. Only now, when they’d been in his car for at least ten minutes, did she finally get over her shock enough to speak. She turned to him.
“Seriously? ‘I’ll see when I can clear a morning for you’? That’s what you say when the second-most powerful man on earth asks you for a personal meeting?”
Keeping his eyes on the road as he negotiated Moscow’s downtown traffic, he gave that lopsided smile that had been coming easier to him and that twisted everything inside her. “It’s the only answer I had to give him.”
